The Hour in the Room

The girls in the beautiful lobby of the White Swan Hotel 

Lila at the park this morning.

After a morning walk we returned to our room for the hour wait for our guide, Grace's, phone call. This is it. She is at the American consulate right now with our paperwork file. The I600, the province paperwork, the adoption certificate, our homestudy, our proof of fingerprint approval, our I171-H, our passport copies, and our daughter's passport. It's now 1/2 hour into the hour and no call...so far a good sign. She will call for two reasons - 1, if there's a problem with our paperwork and she tells me to jump in a cab to the consulate to help resolve it; or 2, the call I hope will come which is that everything is fine and we can leave our room now. Once that call comes we are done. The last thing to do will be to go to the consulate tomorrow afternoon and pickup our daughter's American visa and swear her in as a citizen.

Breeda is doing the last of her homework. I am checking email. Lila is writing something in one of her notebooks, pretend writing, and telling us a great story except we can't understand what it's about. But it sounds like it's pretty interesting!

Today we woke to a haze of gray resting on top of the city of Guangzhou seen across the Pearl River and went down to the lovely breakfast finally able to say "the day after tomorrow we leave." It feels like a year since I've seen Aidan and Clara. 

What do two women staying at the White Swan do when their kids get along really well? They swap babysitting services for 1/2 hour massages. T and I are taking turns for 1/2 hour massages later today! :)