Chinese Mentor Group

Today was the first re-convening of the Chinese Mentor Group at St.J Academy (near enough to us to be totally do-able). We went a few times last spring and are very excited to get back to it again. It's a group of several high school students from China who want to teach the adopted Chinese kids in the area about China and typical stuff that kids in China learn about and do. The first time we went last year The Spark said after awhile, "They all have black hair like me." I guess that made her happy because she counts down the days til we go again.

Today they taught us a very common/popular kids' song in Chinese, and we talked a lot about our China trip and adopting Cupcake. And two of the students read the note that Cupcake's birth father left with her and the booklet that the staff at her orphanage gave us about her. That was very cool because we had no idea what the booklet said. It tells a bit more about the day she was found and all the names of the other babies in her age group at the orphanage. Her "sisters and brothers" as it said. It also listed at what age she reached certain milestones which is really nice to have. She got her first tooth at 6 months, stood at 11 months, and walked at 14 months. Now I can fill in a few of those ugly blank spots in her baby book.

The other interesting thing that happened there today was that another mom and daughter came whom I had not met before. The daughter, Jada, is eight and absolutely beautiful, sweet, well spoken, and friendly. The mom was in awe of how much Cupcake reminded her of her daughter as a baby. Turns out Jada was born in Changzhou which is where half of our travel group's kids were from, and it's only about an hour from where Cupcake was. She pulled out a few photos of Jada as a baby, and she really did look a lot like Cupcake. So that was fun. We'll go back in a few weeks.

Oh and our attorney in Guate was told to check back at the court on Friday and maybe the doctor's report would be there by then. Sigh.