More on day 1

What an amazing day! Watching Briggs come through the hotel's revolving door was pure magic. It brought me straight back to November 21, 1988 when an elevator door at JFK slid open and out stepped Lee (and his fabulous bowl cut). I managed to put our camera on the wrong setting so our first picture of Briggs is a little funky. Luckily, no photo is needed for me to always remember the moment I first saw Briggs.

Briggs played perfect baby while we starred at him in awe and chatted with the agency supervisor. She told us his Taiwanese name means "go abroad and study." So that's the plan.

Once back in our hotel room, Briggs dropped the perfect baby routine in about 10 minutes. The hotel guests next door have requested a new room, I am sure. But two hours later and a few practice sessions on the stuffed dog, we had mastered the art of swaddling and our shushing was top-notch (thank you Meredith for the swaddling blankets and Vicky for the 'soothing sounds' giraffe - lifesavers!). At this point, our translator found out from the orphanage that Briggs is "a little fussy."

In the evening, Briggs met his Nina in RI and his grandparents in Minnesota via Skype. (If you're on Skype, you can find us at se_stroud.) Then we decided to take Briggs for a walk which first involved me watching the 'how to wear a Maya sling' You Tube video about 25 times. I am not friends with the lady in the video who simply explained "and then you just put the baby in the sling."

On the way out, our elevator stopped at another floor and about 15 older Japanese tourists got on. Two seconds later they realized there was a baby in the sling. Briggs instantly achieved rock star status as they all cooed over him.

Briggs slept for the entire walk so I think there will be a lot of long walks in the future. He went down soon after we got home and our first night is going well on the sleeping front.

Looking forward to day two...