Maizie Day -- June 11, 2006

This has been one incredible day. We are absolutely in love with our daughter. Maizie is doing very well. She has a great personality. She is quick to smile and laugh and really enjoys playing with adults and her toys. She laughs and laughs and laughs. It’s too bad we aren’t technologically savvy enough to download a video of her laughing. She likes to rock and likes music. Our guides also told us that the nanny’s told them that she is a very smart and beautiful baby.

So far, she seems to be very comfortable with both Carrie and me holding her and playing with her. She is very curious and likes to look around. To my amazement, I think she actually enjoyed the car ride from the office we picked her up at back to our hotel as she was able to look at the hustle and bustle of Guangzhou. She also did very well when we took her to the crowded supermarket to pick up diapers and formula and enjoyed our walk around Shamian Island (the small island our hotel is on) to pick up our laundry. In fact, she was enjoying herself so much during our walk around Shamian Island, we sat at a park bench for about 15 minutes to play with her before coming back to the hotel. Knock on wood, but there hasn’t even been much crying or fussing yet (the only time she has cried so far was about 15 seconds when we were rubbing lotion all over her after her bath.) Our only minor concerns are that she didn’t drink quite as much formula as we wanted her to (about 2/3’s a bottle) and that she fell asleep at about 7:45 and her normal schedule is to go to bed at about 9:30.

Outside of a rash and some dry skin, Maizie seems to be in very good health -- she doesn’t even have a runny nose. Carrie and I are also very pleased with her development. She is able to roll over, crawl and grab and hold onto her toys and our hands. She also likes to stand on us with our help and seems to be relatively strong.

As for the details of the day, after a sleepless night, Carrie and I met our guides at 9:00 am and toured a local park with the Perry’s, the couple from California who is using our adoption agency. The park was beautiful and lush as Guangzhou is in a tropical climate, but I couldn’t really enjoy it as my mind was obviously elsewhere.

Following the park, we came back to the hotel and had to sit and wait a couple of long hours before leaving to meet the babies. We finally left the hotel at about 2 pm to meet the babies.

After filling out some paperwork (which was absolute torture as we knew the babies were in the next room), they finally brought us the babies. The orphanage director brought the Perry’s daughter Kendall in first and then brought Maizie in. Another larger group of 6 to 8 pairs of adoptive parents came into the room we were in to meet their babies, but I didn’t even notice that the other babies were brought into the room until we were getting ready to leave as I was so wrapped up with Maizie. We had a chance to visit with the director and nannies for a short amount of time and thank them for taking such good care of Maizie. I was able to give the director and two nannies copies of the updated photos of Maizie that were taken a couple of weeks ago for them to keep.

From there it was off to the extremely crowded supermarket to buy diapers and groceries and then back to the hotel for some more paperwork and down time. During the down time, we took Maizie around Shamian Island to pick up our laundry and sat on a park bench for a few minutes and played with her. We then gave her a bath and fed her and she fell right asleep. So far she has been sleeping like a log and hasn’t woken up or stirred even though the lights are on and Carrie and I have been talking.

At the end of a long, exhilarating day, that’s it for now. We’ll post more in the coming days as our incredible journey with Maizie continues.