Change of Plans

I'm pretty sure we are the worst bloggers ever. In our defense, we had every intention of updating on Wednesday afternoon after we arrived in Hohhot. We were going to tell everyone about our trip to the Summer Palace and the Great Wall and how we got conned into buying all the tea in China. Seriously, you all know I love my tea, but we have a lot...the little sales ladies were just too hard to resist.

But, our plans to update the blog were foiled when we learned that Sam was sitting at the hotel waiting for us upon our arrival. Well, alrighty then. Saved us a night of restlessness, I suppose. Our guide Aggie pointed him out to us in the lobby and then made us go check-in before we went to meet him. It was all a bit of a blur. Snippets that I remember include: Sam sucking on a lollipop. Sam drooling the lollipop all over me and Andy. Signing papers we can't read. Family portraits in the lobby with Sam. Signing more papers we can't read. Sam looking very unhappy when he saw that the two strangers were actually walking away with him. And then Sam being an angry elf...for about three hours. Banshee screaming angry. Hate you and your whole family angry. For about half an hour of this, Aggie and her brother were in our room making phone calls and having us sign documents while the little man was going ape. But we got a crib brought to the room. We changed his diaper and fed him (probably after waiting far too long to do both), and his mood improved. Imagine that. By evening, we had him playing and smiling, and we were able to give him a bath before bedtime. There was a great deal of splashing. It was wonderful.

He slept pretty much through the night, which was not too much of a surprise after the day he'd had.

Today we meet with the Inner Mongolian official who signed off on the adoption. We exchanged some small gifts, signed some more papers, and had a brief interview. There was a very nice translator who was very interested in the fact that Erin was an attorney. He had many questions for her about legal terminology. After that stressful morning, it was time for a nap.