There's a little kid in our room

It's the end of a long, long day, and Niranjana is with us now. She's sleeping in our hotel room in Chennai. This is a little unexpected, but we're good with it.

This morning, we headed to the orphanage and got to visit Niranjana and her friends during their Montessori class. They sang us some songs, we sang them some songs, and we passed out the hand puppets Melissa brought. They were a huge hit with all the children. My mom got to meet her granddaughter, and it's all becoming quite real for her now.

From the classroom, we all headed upstairs (Niranjana included) to tour the third floor, where the nursery is and where the toddlers live. It was, at once, inspiring and heartbreaking. These children are loved and cared for by Guild of Service, and they all need families. To further drive home this point, Kamala (one of the caregivers whose voice we hear on the videos from the orphanage) headed to court for the afternoon to help more children become adopted and report on their progress. That left Niranjana with us. Alone.

Holy crap.

We got back to the hotel and headed up to the room. Just as we went in, Niranjana started to sniffle, then the tears came as she pointed to the door. She must have figured that the orphanage and her friends were on the other side of the door, and that's where she wanted to be. This is part of the grief we've read about for the past three years and happens even to newborns. They are taken away from what is familiar, and it is scary and hurts.

Nothing seemed to be helping until we started to show her photos of the house, the cats and us. She is fascinated with photographs and wanted to keep going through them. This went on for an hour or more. We also got some room service, and she devoured plenty (note to Vanessa: hard-boiled eggs, rice and a bland yellow lentil/vegetable dal were a thumbs-up). This calmed her down and made her happy (well, it's hard to tell if she's happy because she hasn't really smiled yet and hasn't said a word to us). We also learned what she does when she needs to go to the toilet - and she apparently does not like wetting herself.

By 4:30 p.m., we were back in the minivan, off to find the church where Niranjana was left by her birthmother. We thought this church was somewhere near the orphanage - or at least in Chennai. But we drove and drove and drove. Then we drove some more. Turns out there's some big festival celebrating the god Ganesh tomorrow, so everyone was out in the streets. It was also quitting time on a Friday, so the traffic was terrible and got worse. I will never, ever say Seattle traffic is bad (OK, I probably will).

Our driver stopped a half-dozen times or more to ask directions to the church. It always seemed to be "one more kilometer" down the road. Finally, we arrived. Some women were in a Bible study and were singing, and Niranjana was immediately attracted and began to dance to the rhythm. We met with the pastor and his wife, who distinctly remembered the day in January 2004 when they heard a baby's cry near the entrance to the church. The church gave the baby to the police, the police took her to a hospital, and she ultimately ended up in Guild of Service in Chennai. And now she's in our hotel room.

She was pretty tired and had fallen asleep in Melissa's arms on the way from the church. Now, she's asleep on the bed, curled up under a little blanket. It's the cutest damned thing I've ever seen.

When she wakes up at 4 a.m. and either a) starts screaming her head off because she doesn't know where she is, or b) starts jumping on the bed to wake us up, I'm not sure I'll think it's so cute.

Who am I kidding? Sure I will.