Meeting JG....Our Ethiopian Monday

Our Ethiopian Monday in bullet points:
Not much sleep, the Ambien has not worked well.
No electricity=no hot water=hairy legs.
Paperwork party- I made LOTS of mistakes, and had to borrow an extra
form from almost everyone. My nerves were shot!
Lunch at Lucy Bar & Grill. Beautiful! I had pizza and DH had
curried Lamb/rice. No, not a typo. The food was great.
Driving to the Transition home everyone was so nervous!! There were 2
families adopting their first child, 3 families adopting siblings, and
4 adopting one child, like us. We were videoing the city and the
other van passed us and everyone was yelling out the window like crazy
at us. Our van-full was laughing and egging them on with cameras
rolling. When we saw the men with big machine guns we got a clue that
we were NOT supposed to be videoing in front of that area. Whoops!
The 9 families met their children in alphabetical order (we were
second). But, everyone was boohooing after the first family met their
baby boy for the first time.
We could hear what we hoped was not JG crying at the top of
her lungs from inside. They tried for several minutes to calm her
down, but to no avail (Gracie's gotta have her beauty sleep like
mommy!). We met her and it was scary, peaceful, exciting, and
beautiful all at the same time. I had to take pix for another family
and passed her off to Dean who was able to calm her down. After about
45 minutes she did warm up to us. She loved the cherrios/apple snack
we brought and the elmo phone ("mo-blay"). Funny that one of the few
words she knows is for cell phone. Coincidence? She loved the pix of
the boys, and I think she said "bubby" when she pointed to JP.
We watched her eat spaghetti and drink from a cup, and after she was
cleaned up she held her hands out to go to us. She even looked at
DH and said "abba!" The kids call all of the nannies mommy, so we
are going to have to work on that. She seemed affectionate with the
nannies and would kiss them on the cheek. She held our hand and
showed us around her yard and we played a little soccer with her
(Barry, she's gonna be awesome!). She gave us good eye contact toward
the end, and she can walk down stairs pretty confidently, holding our
hand. She also pointed for things and hand-led us…like to sit down or
show us flowers. She loved watching the older kids played and enjoyed
a sucker. She is teething. She seems healthier than we expected, and
bigger too. At the end she would rest her body on ours so that she
seemed relaxed with us, and when we had to take her back and said "
bye bye!" she cried. It was hard to walk away (as fast as possible),
but we felt satisfied knowing that she felt attached to us enough to
be sad, and that tomorrow we will have her forever.
The girls got massages and manicures while the guys relaxed at the
guest house. Nice!
We enjoyed a traditional Ethiopian meal complete with: feeding one
another (it's tradition!), wonderful music and dancing (including me
and 2 other moms in our group), coffee and popcorn.
There is more to say, and not enough word about what we have experienced so far.
Random: The children in the TH are beautiful. There were definitely
some big babies and I could hear the school aged kids learning. There
are some amazing kids there! I recognized the Korson's oldest
daughter and Ava. Kara- she is stunning. You will be blown away when
you see her in person. I look forward to taking pix for all our 4
families tomorrow.
I need sleep. Love to JP and T!!!!! We miss you so much!