Family Day- Sept. 11 and 12

Hi from Hohhhot at 10:00 pm at night!

Monday morning, we woke up around 4:00 am and really couldn't get back to sleep after that, since we were so excited to meet Andrew.  We got ready, had breakfast, and then went back to the room to gather all the necessary documents.  Then we  waited with our guide, Aggie, in a small little room in the lobby of the hotel.  She organized our documents, and then said, "Oh, here they are!"  We saw them coming down the sidewalk toward the hotel.  When they entered, we saw the cutest little boy (aside from Gabriel).  He was even cuter in person than he was in the pictures we had received from the agency.  He was much tinier than the pictures revealed, too.

One of the hardest things about that first moment of seeing your child is that you just want to pick him up and hug him and kiss him, but you can't do that.  At first, Andrew would only stay with the orphanage worker who brought him.  As much as we wanted to hold him and interact, we knew we had to wait for a short period of adjustment first.  When he was placed on the ground by the adoption worker, I first gave him a toy car to hold.  He threw it to the ground.  He didn't know what was going on, but he didn't want any part of it.  After a few minutes, I gave him a few Gerber puffs.  He threw those down at first, too, but a few minutes after that, I tried again, and he discovered that he liked those and that I might be an alright person after all.  He let both Howie and me feed him the Gerber puffs by placing each one in his mouth (a really good bonding activity), and from that point on, we were able to interact with him fully.   We brought out the stacking cups/ bowls with a ball that rattled.  He loved those and began to interact more, giving us a bowl every now and then.  He also went around the small little section that we were in and moved his hand on the intricate design that made up the wall.  I did the same thing, and he looked up at me, and showed his first smile.  After that, the smiles came more often, and we even heard a little laugh.  The orphanage worker first tried leaving, and he whimpered a little.  She waited, and then eventually, we were all so engaged in play together that she was able to sneak away.

We were suprised by how tiny he was.  We told our guide, Aggie, that we would probably need to buy some pants for him, because we weren't sure we had very many size 12s in our suitcase.  (Remember, he's almost 22 months old!)  So... we went upstairs, changed his diaper, and then went back downstairs and headed out with her.  She took us on a very long walk to a local store that carries a variety of children's clothes--- some old and some new.  Aggie and the store clerk pointed to lots of different clothes that would not come close to fitting him, but we finally found two paris of sweat pants.  Hohhot is running at about 80 degrees most days, but to them, this is cold weather.  Andrew came to us with three shirts on-- a sleeveless shirt, a short sleeve shirt, and over the top of that, a long sleeved shirt and then overalls, which were so adorable.  Anyway, while here, he will have to wear long sleeves and pants, or according to our guide, he will have diarrhea.  No one wants that!  lol

After going to the store, Andrew was sleepy, and it was one hour into his normal 3 hour nap time, so we all lay down for awhile.  After nap, it was time for some water.  It seemed like he was having some trouble drinking from a sippy cup, but our guide assured us that he should be fine drinking from one.  We wondered....  Then, we had a late lunch and then the real fun began.  We brought out blocks that he tried to snap and could successfully (sometimes) pull apart.  Then, he had us snap them all and pull them apart, and then he threw one down to the floor.  He pointed to one and said something in baby talk, pointing down to the floor.  We got the block and picked it up, and he continued to do this, enjoying the fun of throwing the object wherever he wished and then pointing to it and asking us in his own little way to go get it.  He did this with other things too, and kept laughing and smiling all the while.  He also tried to get into many things, and we realized that he put just about everything in his mouth, which was never the case with Gabriel, so we'll have lots more baby proofing to quickly do when we arrive home!  The rest of the day was ours to spend time bonding.  We took a walk before dinner, ate, and then all went to bed by around 9:30 pm (9:00 pm was his bedtime at the orphangage).

Today was a busy day!  After a hearty breakfast, we had orphanage and government officials to meet and more paperwork to sign.  Then, we presented gifts to the various officials and had a chance to ask the orphanage worker whether or not he was drinking from a sippy cup at the orphanage.  She said, "Oh no.  He needs to drink from a bottle!"  Aha!  We also asked if she could tell our guide what kind of milk or formula to buy so that our son would be sure to drink it.  After that meeting was over, we had some down time in our hotel room while our sweet guide, Aggie, went to town to buy us a baby bottle.  She bought one that had a straw, which didn't work, so out she went again-- farther away this time-- to find real bottles and to buy the formula that we needed for them.  We love our guide, Aggie!  She really goes above and beyond, and we are so thankful for her help!  Now our son can drink, and when he was first given the bottle, he drank almost the entire thing.  He was a bit thirsy, as you might imagine.

Then it was time for lunch.  We headed down to the hotel restaurant where we eat breakfast, but this time, we were turned away because it was reserved only for special guests!  This hotel is host to a variety of celebrities because the national film festival is taking place in Hohhot now!  And I think the film festival itself is here, as well.  Now, any time we leave our hotel and then come back in, we have to put all of our things through a security scanner (like at the airport) and have to stand with our arms and legs apart so we can be scanned as well.  For awhile today, there was a police officer on our floor, and Howie suspects that there was probably one on every floor.  It's really odd.  As Howie explains, it's the reverse of the Hotel California.  People check in at all times of the day, but no one knows where they are once they get here!  Hahaha!

Anyway... we ended up eating at the Chinese restaurant at our hotel, which was very nice.  Howie and I had chicken noodle soup (which was noodles in chicken broth), and Andrew had pork and mushroom dumplings, which he loved.  Afterwards, the waiter presented us with THREE complimentary desserts "because of our son", and some waitresses gave us some milk candy free of charge while we were checking out.  Everyone thinks he is the cutest, which is true.  :)

After lunch, we went to the park while Aggie was doing some more paperwork for Andrew's passport.  We didn't see any children's playground equipment there, but we saw plenty of adult equipment that allowed them to stretch and exercise.  There was another setion where a group of musicians were playing, and another section of the park where couples were dancing to music.  We thought it was a huge park, but Aggie said it was very small compared to others.

After the park, we went to the Inner Mongolia museum, which featured a lot of dinosaur exhibits and showed us some of the Inner Mongolian background.  It was interesting, and we took some pictures of that as well.

After we were done there, we went to the Hot Pot restaurant, which was delicious.  Andrew and I had noodles, lamb, meat, and veggies (that we cooked right at our table), and Howie, our guide, and our driver had more spicy foods that they cooked up.

Then we went back to the hotel, gave Andrew a bath (since he had previously bathed himself while eating at the Hot Pot), played for a little while with him, tickled him, and put him to bed.

Tomorrow, we will have to be downstairs at 9:00 to get some more adoption work done, but the majority of the time tomorrow will be spent at the grasslands.  Aggie said to bring our jackets and dress Andrew in layers, because it will be cold.  We're figuring that maybe "cold" means 70 degrees.  We'll see!  After that, we might take in a local performance of singers and dancers and then come home and go right to bed.  :)


Okay... now on to the pictures that you've wanted to see!