Officially a Woyke!

Today it became official in the eyes of China. Shiloh is a Woyke! Our day started with great skype calls with Celia, Barak, Todd’s sister and family, and Grandpa and Grandma from Japan who arrived in the Cities yesterday (Monday) and with my parents in Wisconsin. Everyone got to “meet” Shiloh over the internet. After our calls we headed to breakfast and touched base with other families in our group. It seems almost all the girls slept well. Shiloh was getting very sleeping by the time we finished breakfast so she took a nap while Todd went with our guide to take care of some business aspects of the adoption.

In the afternoon we boarded a bus in the crazy hot heat and went back to the Civil Affairs office. We submitted some paperwork, had a family picture taken, and had an official interview/ceremony where we promised to care for Shiloh and be her parents. We all had to be fingerprinted for the documents. Todd and I put our fingerprints over our names and Shiloh had to put her fingerprint next to her picture (with a little help from Mom and Dad).

After Civil Affairs we came back went swimming (actually Shiloh and I just sat on the edge of the pool and she sucked her thumb and fussed off and on—she was definitely tired). After the pool we gave her a bath in the sink which we don’t have pictures of because it was a two person job! She screamed the whole time. According to her paperwork, she had bath time at 8 every morning but judging by her reaction I think our definition of a “bath” is vastly different. Then bottle and bed and she’s still sleeping now (6 AM China time).

Some things we learned about Shiloh today:

• She likes fabric and paper! Which is so funny because Celia is a huge paper lover! Shiloh grabs paper every time it’s in reach and she always likes to be holding something soft like a burp cloth or snuggly or her clothes.


• She doesn’t have a lot of core strength and is not stable when she sits which has already resulted in a few wipeouts. It looks like she spent a lot of time on her tummy but hardly any time sitting up~ we’ll work on that. We’ve heard that kids often catch up very quickly in developmental areas with one on one attention.


• She loves to see what’s going on~ her paperwork said she likes social activity and we have definitely noticed that. She wants to see what’s happening at the next table, or why the baby is crying, or what we are doing.


• She doesn’t like to lay on her back or get her clothes changed~ that’s when we’ve really heard her cry (that and the bath:)


• She’s starting to recognize us and follows Todd with her eyes when he walks away or cries when I walk away.


• There is a smile somewhere in there~ we saw a glimmer of it playing with toys but it was too short lived to catch on film.

We had some good moments of eye contact today! Pray for continued bonding (I’ll probably write that every day!) We hope to see a real smile for us today or tomorrow but we will be patient.

We only have video of the ceremony but hope to have regular pictures later this week.