Readoption Day

Blurry photo with the judge.

Today (ok it was Monday...) Liya's adoption was finalized in the United States. This means she is granted the full legal rights of being our child and is now a US citizen! Her name was also legally changed from Ephrata Travis to Liya Ephrata.

A court appearance during a toddler's naptime is not the greatest idea anyone ever had. I was going to write about how our day went but can't ever seem to get to it so I'll just abbreviate a bit. I will say we had to pry  crackers out of Liya's hands before the judge walked in the room because the sign on the door said "No food or drink allowed in the courtroom, no exceptions!" I'm betting they wished they made exceptions. Envision a toddler running amuck (in a delirious sort of way) in an otherwise tranquil courtroom. Confining her to a seat ends no better than the aforementioned cracker incident. She ended up in the court reporter's booth several times saying some very enthusiastic, mostly unintelligible things to her and threw some nice tantrums when Travis removed her. She's probably on record wailing "Momma!!!" and also saying repeatedly "Hi momma! Hi momma!" when I had to take the stand. When Travis took the stand he had to say he didn't know what I had said. Our attorney then asked the judge if he had any questions about my testimony. He just smiled and said he didn't hear what I had said either.

Travis' Update: I would have to say without a doubt that this the second worst part of the whole adoption process. The first obviously was sitting next to a guy having a 13-hour panic attack on the flight home because he was scared out of his mind to fly. That should give you a sense of just how awful it was trying to manage this hungry and tired toddler.

Waiting for our court appearance with crackers in hand.

Looks innocent enough, right?

Running amuck in the courtroom.

Sitting still for a half a second. Of course that was before court was in session.

New US citizen. Those smiles may have been manufactured.