After breakfast (the boys only ate rice and orange, in spite of the huge buffet), we navigated through the snowy streets to return to the Civil Affairs office to complete the paperwork. In Heilongjiang Province (city of Harbin) all the paperwork is completed in one central location. This made it much easier for us all. It was one-stop shopping, so to speak. DangTong became quite the momma’s boy in the offices, refusing to leave my lap. The orphanage director and a few teachers were present, and DangTong did shed a few small tears when he saw them. However, when the director asked DangTong to come to her (he was on my lap) he flatly refused. She laughed and commented that he is bonding well with his momma. Because we were not allowed to actually visit the orphanage, we gave the orphanage director a large cash donation (in addition to the adoption expenses) to help the waiting children. She presented us with a written donation certificate, to show accountability. As I’ve mentioned before, DangTong is several years behind developmentally, and that stems from the orphanage being in a more rural area and lacking provisions. The whole adoption process took about an hour total. We will receive DangTong’s passport tomorrow morning, and head to Guangzhou (a five hour flight) to complete the U.S. consulate part of the adoption process. The rest of our trip will seem like the movie “Ground Hog Day.” We basically get up, eat, and kill time in the room. It snowed quite a bit this morning, so we can’t even take the kids out for a walk. I didn’t bring boots or warm enough jackets. I knew we were only here for a couple of days, and decided that winter gear would be too much to pack. Right now, David and John are playing DS, and the little boys are playing with the balloons I packed.
