Little Missy Em

Emma is sleeping in her pint-sized crib. It's been quite a day so far, and it's not over yet. We left for the White Rose Hotel at 10:30 this morning -- it was just a few blocks away. There was a big group of parents meeting their babies in one of the conference rooms and we thought we were going to stay in there to meet ours, but then Judy told us to come around the corner into another room and when I turned the corner I saw Emma walking through a door down the hall, holding her caregiver's hand. I knew it was her because I recognized her cute ears, but she has really grown up since those referral pics were taken. She looked pretty solemn and was checking everything out. I walked up and knelt down by her and talked to her a little bit, and then a couple minutes later picked her up. No tears (yet)...she was probably in shock from everything that's been going on. We had to go back in the big room and sign a couple of things and a few minutes later Emma starting looking around (probably for the woman from the orphanage who had brought her) and then started crying. Poor honey. She has a little bit of a cold, too, but it's not as bad as I thought it was at first.

We were able to come back to our hotel after a little while and we've been hanging out here ever since. Judy Wu talked to us a little bit more about her feeding/sleeping routine. She also said that when Emma's foster mom brought her to the orphanage (just yesterday), she said to make sure to tell us that Emma is "very smart." Emma seems to be curious and observant. She cocks her head and watches things going on around her very intently. She looks very healthy and I think she really might be left-handed. She has excellent fine motor skills and picks up pieces of paper carefully between her thumb and index finger...she also liked carefully picking cracker crumbs off my leg.

Joe got a big smile from her during lunch (congee, noodles and watermelon) when I had her on my lap and he fed her some noodles and then rubbed his stomach and said "mmmm". I missed it because she was facing the other direction.

She played on the bed for a while stacking up a piece of paper, a note card, her plastic teething ring (which she's been hanging on to the whole time) and a little doll -- then unstacking them, then stacking them, then unstacking them, then stacking them. At one point she realized that...hmmm, things are pretty weird today and I don't think I like it very much and she had a good, long cry and I did hear her say "mama," so she's missing foster mom. That's a good thing. I sense Emma has been very well taken care of.

She's now been asleep for about an hour.

Judy thinks Emma's potty trained. She's not wearing diapers and when we put her on the mini-potty she seemed right at home (but didn't do anything but sit). We shall see what the future holds in that regard...

So...we FINALLY have young Miss Emma and it's about time. Let the future begin!

More later.