Oath Day

First of all, I’m just going to warn you that I’m not too sure how exciting any of this will be to anyone but our closest relatives who are hanging on every word I post. But, I’m doing this blog as a kind of diary/travelog so one day we can share this with Tyson. You can always skip to the next post if this stuff bores you!

Highlights for today include:

The Weather - Another smoggy, foggy, rainy, humid day here in Chongqing. Visibility was even less than yesterday. Could hardly see our neighboring skyscrapers this am – no kidding.

1st Breakfast Together at the Executive Lounge on the 36th floor. Omelets made to order, bacon, yogurt, and plenty of congee avail for the Chinese kid in all of us. Can’t even tell you what congee is but it looks and tastes like it sounds, congealed paste. Asian kids love it –except ours. He likes eggs and yogurt –at least today he did.

Visited Local Stores - After breakfast, we did some adoption paperwork in our room and then we separated – me to the bank with a wad of $100 bills on my person to convert them over to Chinese currency. Let me tell you it doesn’t feel any safer to walk around with tens of thousands of Yuen then it does to just walk around with those same thousands of dollars in US. Either way you are walking the streets of a foreign city with your life savings in your hip pocket – even when that life savings is now all in bills with Chairman Mao on them. Melis, mom and Ty all went to the local convenience store and stepped in NYC mush (as Melissa called it). Ty tried to grab two of everything on the shelves and then had an emergency pee pee (he is excellent at communicating this particular need and does so at least twice an hour) . Let me tell you, the worst 7-11 bathroom back home doesn’t hold a candle to the old hole in the floor routine at this convenience store. BTW, it’s convenient because you don’t even have to aim, just drop your drawers and let gravity do the rest. And all that TP and hand soap is overrated. Who really uses that stuff anyway?

Walked to McDonalds and ate lunch. Unadventurous I know but we’re all full-up on adventure right now. McD’s here tastes mostly like McD’s back home but not quite – can’t say what the difference is but it just isn’t quite right. However, it was fast, convenient and the least expensive meal we’ve had in a week – fed the whole family on 59 Yuen. I mean when was the last time you’ve heard of that?

Stalked in the plaza – by curious onlookers and crazy men with bamboo rods in their hands. I mean we were getting crazy looks in the plaza two days ago when we were the only Caucasians in all of Chongqing – they didn’t hesitate to stop what they were doing and stare at us like we were running down the streets naked (we were fully clothed BTW). But now we are the only Caucasians in Chongqing and we are carrying around a small Chinese boy who snuffles out his nose when he talks – forgetaboudit! People were downright rude to us, followed us for blocks, shot us dirty and disgusted looks, yelled at us in Chinese – in her defense the woman who did this might have been simply trying to sell us something, but a woman shouting at you in Chinese while shaking her fist just doesn’t come off as the salesperson type. The trip was such an ordeal that we may forgo doing it again – except that’s where all the restaurants are. Maybe we can buy body armor or better yet wear leper cowbells to clear a path.

Happy Rooms – those are the English words that the Chinese use to describe – you guessed it - the bathroom. And it makes sense really. Why do we call it a bathroom or even a rest room? Most of them don’t even have baths in them. But happy room makes sense. I mean you’re never quite as happy as when you pull off one of those just-in-the-nick-of-time, emergency, almost didn’t make it poops, right? Well, Ty’s had about 8 of those today. No kidding, we’ve seen the inside of every Happy Room in every building we visited today. Twice. He is a very happy kid.

Oath Ceremony – This was the Main Event today. We were officially sworn in as adoptive parents by the government of China today. We swore the oath, signed the papers, gave our thumbprints, paid our bills and badabing, badaboom – we’re parents! Officially! It was pretty cool and the highlight of our day. Ty got to see his friend from the orphanage that he got separated from yesterday when we left the Children’s Welfare Office. She screamed his name and waved her sippy cup and did a little dance when she saw him. They screamed and ran around for 20 minutes and screamed some more while we filled out paperwork. And then we all visited the happy room. Again.

Silk Museum and Store – we got to see how silk is made, Dianne bought herself some silk stuff, Ty discovered a new happy room and daddy continued to sweat and sweat and sweat. I never thought it was possible to have over 100% humidity – but Chongqing defies the natural laws with it’s supersaturated air. All I can think of is when Eric Sanzone said that weather like this just had to be the result of “the fall”. Amen.

Dinner at Manhattan Steakhouse – mom treated us to an amazing celebratory meal on the 39th floor of the hotel, the nicest place we’ve ever eaten and quite a view (when the fog parted). It was a very nice ending to a great day. Tyson visited the happy room three times – man that kid loves his water!

Bath Time Bonding – But the best time for me all day was bath time. All day long Ty had been getting more and more distant from me. To the point where he refused to come near me and would grab his toys and scoot away every time I got close to him. It was heartbreaking but was something I expected would happen from the start. He is totally taken with Melissa but I am going to have to earn this kid’s affection. So, Melis and I orchestrated it so I was the only one in there when he took his bath and we had a real breakthrough. We played with his bath toys and sprayed water everywhere for at least 30 minutes. Melissa said she could hear him laughing and squealing from her mom’s room next door. I’ve never seen him laugh so hard. And then we watched Bob the Builder. It was the perfect conclusion to an awesome but exhausting day.

Tomorrow we get to visit the orphanage that Tyson grew up in (and go to Wal Mart)! We will also get to see that friend of his we keep running into at the Children’s Welfare Office. It should be quite a day.