Goodbye China!!!!

Feels so good to be writing this post! Although we technically leave mainland China tomorrow morning, we still have a 14 hour layover in Hong Kong, then HK to Seoul, and Seoul to Chicago. What were we thinking. I would pay about 1,000 dollars right now to be home one day earlier. Otherwise, we are doing well. Sleeping is going much better since Chris laid down marshal law. I had gone out shopping the other day and left the boys to fend for themselves. Up to this point Ethan had not napped nor had he fallen asleep without feeding, rocking, in and out of bed with us, etc. Mom had a little emotional breakdown the other night as he was thrashing around inconsolably at 2 am. Anyway, I came back to the hotel to find Ethan sleeping soundly. Chris let him throw a fit in his crib for about 30 minutes until he exhausted himself. Chris said he valued my sanity far too much to keep letting Ethan run the show. In other words, if mom goes to the funny farm, this whole operation gets shut down. It's a little tricky deciding when to start treating him like our other children and actually disciplining him (or at least not giving into his every whim) He is pretty willful and extremely smart. He's already learned the signs for "milk" and "more" and tries to imitate about everything we do and say. Smart enough to manipulate us and his environment...and to be defiant. For example, he knows he's not supposed to put his hands in the toilet and we tell him 'no touch' in Chinese every time he does it. Now, if we forget and leave the door open, he runs for the bathroom, plunges his hands into the water, looks at us and laughs hysterically. So we've started a few light slaps on the hand which only mildly and briefly redirect him. On Monday we took the oath at the consulate. This is the final step in the adoption process here and basically means that he can become a U.S. citizen once we touch down in the U.S. I don't think I was the only one to get a little choked up. The consulate official told us that Chinese adoptions have been up in 2010 and that over 60% are special needs children. There are 16 families in our travel group (was quite a feat to try to get a group photo) and all of the kids have some kind of special need. Very inspiring! Last night we took a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. The city is lit up like Las Vegas for the Asian Games so it was very beautiful. Today we got Ethan dressed up like a little Emperor for the traditional "red couch" photos. Tonight, packing and then we're outta here! See you back home in about 48 hours!