Meeting Beatrix Nan Yu

Sweet Fancy Moses, I forgot what it was like to parent a two-year-old. It's exhausting. That child -- like Miss O -- is pure energy. A whirlwind of destruction and quite possibly an imminent career in hacking iPhones.

It's been a long, scary, wonderful day. I spent most of the morning feeling as if I needed to hurl (Trina aptly coined it morning sickness), and time both flew and crawled as we waited for our 2:00 ride to the provincial office building.

When we got there, Jason (our rep) checked the playroom and said "She's back there! And she's so cute! She waved bye-bye and blew me a kiss!" I think that might have been what tipped me over the edge - knowing she was there, and was happy. Cue the tears...

They walked her out to us and she looked exactly like her pictures - I'd know that little face anywhere after staring at it for almost four months. As soon as she got to us and her nannies explained who we were, she had such a look of horror on her little face. Poor baby - I can't imagine what must have been running through her mind. All I wanted to do was hold her, but I didn't want to take her and make her cry. The nannies were wonderful - they led us to a corner and pointed to us and say "mama, baba, jiejie" and tried to cajole her into looking at us. They had packed a bag of her favorite food (raisins) and drinks so we could try to, uh, win her love (or at least like) with some food.

Finally John pulled her backward onto his lap and she sat there as we read a book - she still wouldn't really look at us, but at least we could hold her and she wasn't crying. Of course, she DID pee on him, so...

When it was time to go talk to the nannies and orphanage staff about Nan Yu's habits, likes, dislikes, John went and I shifted her onto my lap. That's when I noticed the pee, and we went to change her. Cue the hysterical sobs. :-(

I held her and kept repeating (in my horrible Mandarin) that I loved her, and to not be afraid, and don't cry. At some point, one of us remembered the ridiculous sheep cell phone that I made John buy this morning and it was MAGIC. She stopped crying and started playing. (Aside: Apologies to all of the other families in the room because that thing was LOUD. And annoying.) As toddlers are wont to do, she dropped it and the back popped off - what could have been a tragedy became the best thing, ever. She spent 20 minutes taking out the batteries, putting them back in, and then taking them out and hurling them across the room for Olivia to fetch. That was so much fun that she giggled until she snorted. She is so very definitely my kid...

When we got back to the hotel, she refused to take off the backpack Grammie had sent. She stood at the table and played and giggled and stuffed her face full of little panda crackers. When we put her in the bath, she was dubious at first but then loved it, to the point that she figured out how to shut the drain every time I tried to open it to let out the water. She's so funny - she didn't want to sit, and spent most of the bath squatting. The washcloth and bath toys were a giant hit. She kept washing her face with the wet washcloth, then reaching into my lap for the dry towel to wipe off her face.

She's just so... BUSY. And maybe slightly OCD. At dinner tonight, she spilled a bit of soy milk on herself, so I whipped out a wipe to clean it up. She took it from me, wiped off her arm, then proceeded to wipe up the table. For twenty minutes. You all, she picked up every item on the table -- books, cups, dishes -- and methodically wiped under them and put them back. And then did it again. And again. I have a feeling that if she's going to destroy my house, at least she'll clean up after herself.

I am so in love with those giggles and smiles and sighs and that pudgy little toddler belly. She is so smart and so sweet, and SO feisty. I think we're gonna have our hands full with this one...