Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, Mom Dryer and all my Mommy friends out there! We spent part of this gorgeous day at the Reston Zoo, feeding bottles to the baby sheep and goats and riding a big wagon around the grounds. Mia, Grammy and I had a ball petting the camel that came right up to the wagon and seeing the zebras, "tatonka", and alligators. Mia kept saying over and over, "Mommy, I LOVE snakes!" I guess she is ready for her big brother to be home!
Sounds like the gang in China is getting a bit homesick, but enjoying Guangzhou, nonetheless. They are on a very special trip this time. While a typical trip in the past has included almost all healthy baby girls being adopted, this travel group is about 50/50 healthy babies versus older and/or special needs kids. You can imagine in the hotel restaurant, the line up of many highchairs as well as tables with older kids being adopted. John said it appears that at the moment, the older kids are adjusting even better than some of the babies. Amazing how the Lord knits each family together so uniquely and as part of His perfect plan.
We are staring to get some glimpses of Jonathan's personality. From what I hear, he is very generous, almost to a fault . . and not easily deterred, once he has his mind set on something. Apparently, Grandad was in the shower earlier today with the door locked and Jonathan went to get a Sprite. His Daddy informed him that the Sprite was Grandad's. So that little guy, determined to get the Sprite to his Grandad, poured the Sprite under the door! What a crack-up! He also had a can of Pringles on the bus that he just had to distribute to each of the kids there before he could eat some. All of this sharing is unusual for a child out of an orphanage -- they will typically hoard things because they've never had anything of their own. Pretty amazing little boy!
Another quick picture: shortly after Gotcha Day, they were walking down the sidewalk in Hohhot and someone had left a half-full cup on the ground. Jonathan took a few running steps and jumped right on top of the cup, of course making a huge splat! Grandad said to John, 'Now there's a typical 6-year-old boy for you!" HA!