Introducing Eleanor Fang Gui Daugherty...

...but if you ever call her anything but Ella, Mike says he will "kick you in the slats."

She is tiny and lovely, with huge eyes that watch and see everything. Ella is... wow, she's our daughter. We met her yesterday around 4:15 p.m. at the Nanchang Provincial Civil Affairs Office. Mike is harrassing me to put these up, so they are in no particular order--some are from the office, some from the hotel, and some from today. She has some developmental delays--not a lot of muscle tone but she has a good grip and is clearly very interested in everything going on. We're just going to do our best to pour calories and nutrients into her (although we haven't eaten a proper meal ourselves since we left Beijing). It's kind of like a science experiment, as the extra vitamins have resulted in a couple of atomic poopies, the second of which occurred in the Civil Affairs Office. Fortunately, we had a change of clothes for her but not extra socks. We left the Civil Affairs Office and went to the Notary's Office. Our sockless, jacketless baby attracted the attention of a woman on the street, who clearly was unhappy with how little clothing the foreigners had on their baby. It was our first encounter with the Clothing Police--apparently complete strangers will come up to you and pull your kid's socks up or pull her sleeves down. Our Chinese vocabulary being limited to about 20 words, we were unable to tell the woman that Ella's socks were collateral damage from the atomic poopie.

Herewith, some pictures. We borrowed the laptop from the family we're traveling with (who've adopted adorable twins who are exactly one year older than Ella--they coincidentally have the same birthday).

Love to you all.

P.S. Mike is looking at a bag of soy-flavored Cheetos and dying for a hamburger.