After lunch we went to Aftan's finding spot and took a few photos for him when it is time to share that part of his story.  Then we drove into a back neighborhood to Aftan's foster home.  I feel very fortunate to have been given permission to visit the foster home, apparently this is very rare.  The foster home was almost a mini orphanage because there were four women attending to eight babies.  When we got Aftan they told us there were 12 babies in his foster home but today there were only 8.  The foster home had a room full of toys, there were flowers painted on the walls and baby clothes were hanging from lines outside.  The first floor was a play room and a kitchen and probably another room or two, upstairs was where the babies were.  There was a large play room and three bed rooms with three or four cribs in each room.  There were four nannies at the foster home and Aftan seemed to know all of them, he wanted to go to them but he was okay staying with me.  We all agreed it was best for him to stay with me and not be held by his nannies so he wouldn’t get confused about his caretakers.  They all pinched his cheeks and told us how he was a busy baby, they put him in a much biger crib than the other babies because he would climb out of the little cribs and get into trouble.  They told us how he liked to claw at things and people and showed us the little girl in the crib next to his who had a zoro mark on her forehead from Aftan.  I showed them the claw marks he had given me and they all laughted that he was a strong mischevious little guy.  The foster home was nice and there was a lot of love there, some children were playing on the floor and others were asleep in their cribs.  They were held and played with.  One obvious difference between Sun and Aftan is that is is apparent Aftan was held a lot and he loves to snuggle, when we first got Sun she was very difficult to hold she was like trying to hold a wet fish and she had to learn to be held and snuggled.  Aftan isn’t grieving as much as Sun did, I think he was cared for with love and attached to his caregivers but he also spent almost a month in Shanghai and he seems to be going with whatever we do.  He doesn’t seem to get overstimulated like Sun did, which I think has a lot to do with having had more attentive care takers and having had some stimulation.  Sun’s orphanage was bare and had no toys the babies were in cribs and there were only two care takers for about 40 babies.  We are going to Sun’s orphanage tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if anything has changed.

Today was our last full day in Henan province, tomorrow evening we fly to Guangzhou and finish our time in China at the legendary White Swan Hotel, which is were we spent our entire trip when we came to get Sun and where I first learned about Chinese adoption in 1996 when I stayed there with my family on our way to a boat trip down the Yangzi river and we met a group of Americans adopting baby girls and as it turned out all the families were from Colorado. 

We spent the day going to Pingdingshan, which is the city where Aftan is from.  It was an emotional day but also a good day.  Pingdingshan is a coal mining city of about five million.  Population statistics in China  never cease to amaze me, Pingdingshan isn't even on the map in our guide book yet five million people live there.  Our guide said the city is fairly wealthy because of the mining and the city did have a lot of tree lined streets and some nice parks.  As we drove into the city farmers had spread their corn out onto the streets to dry, our van had to weave around the drying corn.  I found it strange that such a large city would have this "village" agriculture on its outskirts.  We also saw a lot of open markets and vegtable stands, in fact Aftan's finding spot was on a street corner one street a large boulevard 8 lanes wide and a small side street filled with frut and vegtable vendors. 

The orphanage director met our Van outside the city to guide us back through town to the orphanage.  When we drove through the gates the orphanage looked more like an appartment complex than a government building.  The orphanage was in one building on a courtyard housing several appartment buildings.  We went into the dirctor's office and he told us that there were 150 children in his care but that all but 30 were in foster homes.  The 30 at the SWI were the children with the most severe special needs that the orphanage was unable to find foster homes to take them.  They also said the children ranged in age from one month to 30 years old.  The youngest baby we saw was the one month old and they said she had down syndrom.  The rooms were small and had between 8 to 12 cribs, the children loolked gray and very ill it was obvious the children at the SWI were not thriving and had some severe needs.   There was also one room with about 12 to 16 older children who were playing.  According to one of the nannies there was one care taker for every five children, we saw one care taker in each room which would make the ratio a little higher but I am sure the 1 to 5 is total and they have to have 24 hour care.  Still there were more caretakers per child than we saw at Sun's orphanage.  We asked if they got any non special needs children and they said almost never, they also said there are more children these days than in the past and they felt that this was due to environmental pollutants.  Aftan is the 14th child adopted from Pingdingshan this year and they have been participating in international adoption since 2008, they also do a fair amount of domestic adoptions but mostly children without special needs or with very minor special needs. 

We went with the director and three of his staff memebers to lunch.  We had the best meal we have had yet in China.  There were probably 7 dishes, of chicken, pork with chilies, an amazing eggplant dish, steamed eggs for the baby, green beans with chilies and fried pumpkin.  After we ate his huge meal they brought us big bowls of noodles that are a specialty of Henan.  The director engaged Sol in a little drinking of the local wine which is actually grain alcohol that they serve in wine glasses the size of thimbles.  The director liked that Sol would drink a few with them and they made a toast to us for adopting Aftan and giving him a loving home.  We toasted them for finding him a sponsor for his surgery and placing him in a good foster home where he got very good care. 

After lunch we went to Aftan's finding spot and took a few photos for him when it is time to share that part of his story.  Then we drove into a back neighborhood to Aftan's foster home.  I feel very fortunate to have been given permission to visit the foster home, apparently this is very rare.  The foster home was almost a mini orphanage because there were four women attending to eight babies.  When we got Aftan they told us there were 12 babies in his foster home but today there were only 8.  The foster home had a room full of toys, there were flowers painted on the walls and baby clothes were hanging from lines outside. 

I have to put the baby and Sun to sleep now so I will have to post more later.

Yesterday we had a long hot day of sight seeing.  We left Zengzhou at about 8am and went to Shaolin Temple, home of kung fu.  The temple itself was beautiful with several "houses" with prayer stoops and large gilded Buddahs.  Sun was inspired by the people praying and she wanted to pray as well, so we said two prayers in two different buildings.  We said what we were thankful for then we asked for good health and good fortune and a happy, healthy family.  We talked about Buddhism, she seemed interested but much of it was confusing to her, explaining enlightenment to a four year old is a difficult task. 

There is an ancient pagota forest that was the highlight of the temple grounds, there were dozens of pagotas some several hundred years old and some as new as this year. 

The grounds of the Temple are most famous as the home of kung fu and there were hundreds of boys, who apparently go there to study for periods from three months to three years to learn Kung Fu.  The boys were walking/marching in military like groups when they were going from the practice grounds to the dormatories.  Apparently the Kung Fu school is open to anyone who wants to attend and there appeared to be some foreign students at the academy.  Our guides took us to a Kung Fu show, but after the tourists who paid a special feel got up on stage to pose as Kung Fu masters I decided I was too hot and the baby was too heavy to stay for the show.  We went outside and waited for our group, according to Sol I didn't miss much. 

By the time we got back to the hotel all the kids on the bus were screaming or crying and so were all the babies and probably some of the adults.

Today many of the families went to our various orphanages, we are going tomorrow and took today off.  Sun and I went to the local museum to have a little special time.  I loved the museum, Henan is the where the earliest civilizations in Asia emerged and the museum had relecs from 7000 years ago, including the oracle bones where Chinese writing developed.  I wanted to take pictures but we were not suppose to, another family in our group went and they took photos so I am going to have them send the photos to me so I can use them when I teach ancient civilizations next year.  Looking at the stone, bone, pottery, jade and bronz work from the civilizations as they emmerged was amazing. 

Sun and the baby are starting to play well together.  He loves chasing her around and she likes being big sister.  He likes to throw things, pull hair and grab with razor sharp nails.  He has scratched me up a bit, I did get a pair of baby clippers today and cut his nails a bit shorter, and he has gotten a hold of Sun a time or two.  Today Aftan started letting Sol hold him without screaming.  He still mostly wants me but it was a big step for the baby and his Baba.  Sol was feeling a little left out because Aftan only wanted me which made Sun jealous and only want me.  I will upload pictures later.  
 

Yesterday we signed the official paperwork making Aftan our child under Chinese law.  We took an oath, signed and finger printed multiple documents and now we just wait for his passport, which we get Monday then it is off to Guangzhou to complete the US part of the the process. 

Aftan is adjusting well, he keeps calling for his ma but is willing to accept me as a substitute.  He is very snuggly which is nice but Sun is a little jealous and wants to sit on me while Aftan is in my lap.  Sol is feeling a little left out because Aftan won't go to him, unless food is involved and Sun is wanting my attention because much of it is focused on Aftan and not her.  Sol keeps calling Sun to come sit with him but she wants to be touching me.  When we are not in the room, you wouldn't know Sun knows us she is so busy playing with the other kids in our group.  She sits with them on the bus, plays in the hall with them, swims with them and so on. 

Aftan's personality is starting to show.  He smiles a lot and laughs out loud when Sun does something he thinks is funny or when he feels accomplished in his cup stacking or toy throwing.  Walking is a fairly new skill for Aftan and he loves walking up and down the hall in front of our room.  He seems to like all toys especially balls.  At the civil affairs office he was sitting with me playing and the next minute I had to look around to find him, he had crawled accross the room to go find a ball.  He also seems fairly social, when Sun is in the hall with the other kids he wants to go out and see what is going on.  He is still a little young to engage in very much play with other children but he likes to play around them and he likes it when any of us play with him. 

Aftan appears to be healthy, he is chubby and his skin is clear except for a few bug bites.  It is very hot here and many of the babies have bug bites, we think that the orphanages and foster homes must have had the windows open to let in some air and they probably don't have screens.  His intestinal issues are not very apparent to us yet, except he is having a lot of BMs.  Welcome back to daipers mom!  We were told to watch and make sure he didn't get constipated, so I brought a lot of stuff to prevent constipation that I am now giving to our travel mates because this is not Aftan's problem.  The orphanage told us he is mostly on a liquid diet, but he is always hungary so we have been feeding him more solid food and he loves it.  They told us to watch how much meat and rice we give him so he doesn't get plugged up, I am very curious to see what the GI doctors say when we get back to the States about his condition.  Our doctor's partner was trying to think of the best GI doctor at Children's to send us to, but I figure we will get that information when we get home. 

Today we are going to a temple that is the home of Kung Fu, apparetnly there is a pagota forest there that looks very interesting.  It should be a fun day.  We were told we could go to the orphanage tomorrow if we want, but it is three hours by car and there are no other families from our orphanage or even near our orphanage.  I would like to go because we saw some photos of the area and it looks beautiful, but six hours round trip in a small car with two kids and no car seats might be a bit much.  We will see what it costs and decide if it is worth the trip.

We had our first night together and there were only a few tears when we realized Aftan was still hungry, the kid can eat!  We are a little worried about what and how much to feed him due to his intestinal issues but so far everything seems to be working and his foster mother told us to feed him mostly liquid.  I wasn't ready for bottle feeding so we didn't bring any bottles or a thermous which I am regretting.  Sun's pediatrician's partner is in our travel group adopting a little girl with his family.  He is here with his family and his parents (his father is a retired pediatrician as well) He said he would give our Son a check up when we are ready but I wanted to give Aftan a little time to adjust to us before I let someone poke and prod him. 

Everyone slept fairly well but we did wake up at 4:00 am, so I am anticipating an early nap today. 

Aftan is walking but is not very steady on his feet yet.  It is obvious he hasn't been walking very long.  He is into everything around the room, investigating and tasting anything he can find.  He likes to throw things and laughs out loud when he makes Sun react. 

We are learning Sun's language skills.  She hasn't used very much Chinese here but when she wants to tell Aftan to stop doing something she tells him off in Chineses.  Trust my daughter learn to tell someone off as her strongest language skill.