Day 9. Hello again from sunny Nanchang. It's 3:00 p.m. local time on Friday. Ivie is fast asleep for her afternoon nap. She's quite a stubborn little girl when it comes to nap time. Renee was out shopping so it was just Ivie and Daddy. Daddy tried to put her down in her crib, and she sobbed for 5 minutes straight. I tried to be patient and let her cry herself to sleep, but I couldn't stand it any more so I picked her up and played with her some more. She started rubbing her eyes, and eventually laid down on her side and started to sleep. I waited a few minutes, then picked her up and laid her in the crib again. Again she started sobbing, but this time only for 30 seconds or so, after which her head hit the mattress and she fell sound asleep. Quite the little battle of wills.

Today we went to the local police station to get Ivie's Chinese passport. It is so very cute. The way this works is she is a Chinese citizen with a Chinese passport. So, she needs the U.S.'s permission to enter the United States. We will apply for that permission at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou on November 8. She will be given a U.S. immigration VISA, which means once she passes through customs in Chicago she will be a United States citizen. We will have to apply for a U.S. passport and turn in the Chinese passport. The U.S. government will nullify the Chinese passport, but send it back to us as a memento. That means when she comes back to China with us to pick up baby #2, she will need a Chinese visa to enter the country.

After the police station, which only took about 30 minutes, we went to a local porcelain shop. Evelyn, one of our guides, specially scouted things out and found a reputable shop for us. The best porcelain in China, and some of the best in the world, is made in this province. Other than agricultural products, this is the most important product produced here. We didn't think it was a good idea to have a wide awake Ivie Chao in the porcelain shop with us, since she is an expert kicker and wiggler. You know the expression, "like a bull in a China shop," well this would have been similar, we think. So Scott took Ivie in the hip hugger and Renee went into the shop to buy gifts and mementos.

Ivie fell asleep in Scott's arms in about 2 minutes. Soon thereafter a group of 15 or so local older women crowded around Scott pointing at Ivie and motioning that I should cover up the bottom of her legs. Now understand we dressed her today in long pants, socks, shoes, a onesie, and a jacket. This little girl couldn't have been cold. But the hip hugger caused there to be about 1 inch of skin between Ivie's pants and her socks. The local women were having a fit. Before things got too out of hand, our bus driver, who speaks virtually no English but treats us like his own family, shooed them away. This was none too soon, because one of the local women tried to grab a little girl from our group, Zoe, out of her father's arms. Yikes.

After the porcelain shop we went with two other families to a local restaurant across the street from our hotel. Now, every time we've crossed a busy street we've had our guide, Evelyn, with us to literally direct traffic. Traffic around here stops for no one, not even mommies holding babies. The food at the restaurant was excellent as always, and just as cheap. The bill for all of us ended up being 146 Yuan total, or about $6.50 per family. And we were not want for food, let me tell you. The best part was the owner of the restaurant, which was very, very crowded, spent the entire time with our group to make sure everything was just right. Apparently it is good for business that he can show locals that the food there is so good that even foreigners eat there. Evelyn stayed with us until the food came, then had to leave to help our other guide, James, with some paperwork. We were left to settle up the bill (no problem, since the owner wrote down what we owed). We tried to leave a tip, but the owner absolutely refused to accept it. Can you even possibly imagine that happening in the U.S.??

Now on the way back to the hotel, we didn 't have Evelyn to help us direct traffic so we were left to try to direct traffic and cross two busy, busy streets on our own. It was very much like our own game of "Frogger."

We have a meeting in about an hour to finish up our paperwork necessary to register the adoption with the local officials and prepare for our Consulate appointment in Guanghzou. Then we'll probably just chill out in our room the rest of the day.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading our posts and lending us support from back home. We really appreciate it.