Finally Family Day!!!!

We met our son today. We meet our guide at 10 am and went to the Civil Affairs office to met Jing/Will. We went by taxi, walked up the stairs and turned to the left where the Civil Affairs office is, it has glass doors that were closed. Their were two children standing at the door, David said their he is, that is Jing, our son. The other child was a little girl, whose family came in about 20 minutes after we arrived. Because Monday was a holiday their were fewer families adopting today.

When we came in the door we said hi/ni hao to Will, he looked at us but said nothing. He stayed very close to his ayi/nanny Margret. He did not want to leave her side. He had a snack whole wheat crackers, in a round shape. The orphanage sent another package with him, along with several other snacks. They brought back the photo album we sent, you could tell it had been well used. He also had the camera, and bear we sent in February. We signed guardianship papers, showed our passports, provided a passport photo, and a copy of each of our passports.

He walked around the room some, eating his snack, he would walk close to us but would not come to us. We handed him the car and plane we got for him, he put them in the pocket of his coat. David handed him the sippy cup and he threw it on the floor and smiled. We tried the sippy cup two more times with the same result so we put it away. We took out the stacking cups and he loved those. We also gave the soft wire ball and he threw that several times. He kept coming back to the stacking cups. We wrote out a statement of why we wanted to adopt him and a statement of care, similar to what we have already written. It will be translated and part of the adoption paperwork we complete tomorrow. Then we went to take the family photo for the add option decree. This did not go well as Will did not want to leave his Ayi Margret, he was crying loudly, thrashing, did not want to sit with us or look at the camera. With lots of help from the director, the nanny, the guide and the women taking the picture we finally got at least one photo that should work for the adoption decree.

While we were filling out the paperwork I asked some questions the first one was had they brought the list of questions we sent in the care package they were all answered just in Chinese, so our guide was going to write the English answers for us. We asked about if food or drink came out of his nose because of the cleft palate being open, they said not much mostly when he drinks alot. They said he will eat anything, but does not really like vegetables, he loves fruit especially bananas. He has been eating food for a little over a year, he can feed himself with a small bowl and a spoon. He does not like taking a bath. He drinks from a bottle not a sippy cup. He goes to sleep with a bottle of water or milk. They said he had no problems with the first surgery to close the lip. The ayi/nanny Margret that brought him is the one that often took him home to spend the night with her family.

We then had to go upstairs to take a passport photo as the one the orphanage brought was not the correct size. He did not want to take that photo either, even with his nanny sitting next to him. We then went back downstairs and our guide and his nanny decided that she should leave quietly without saying goodbye as he was easily upset if she moved away from her. He saw her walking away from the building and started to cry and scream again. He allowed me to pick him up but continued to cry and wail, he did put his head on my shoulder. Before we left the office he was whimpering. it


We went to the bank to exchange the money to pay the fees tomorrow. David held him while I did this. The only time he cried in the bank was David had let him get down and when he picked him up again he started to cry. As David and I tried to comfort him our guide said it was okay babies cried. We finished at the bank walked across the street and to our hotel. Our guide walked us up to our room and spoke to Will again telling him he would stay in the room with his mama and baba. She also reminded us to call us if we had any problems no matter the time.