The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid do not be discouraged.
Deut. 31:8
Our morning began with breakfast in the hotel. The buffet here in our hotel, The Grand Mercure Hotel is very delicious. A huge variety of food awaits us each morning and we enjoyed being able to see Joshua’s reaction to this plethora of food. We filled his plate full of things that we thought he would like and found it amusing that he smells everything before he tries it. He didn’t seem to like anything other than the congee and an orange. He ate 3 bowls full of congee and about ½ of an orange. We had a full morning of paperwork so we quickly changed his clothes packed a bag of toys and snacks and skyped the kids in CO. We anticipated that Joshua would love seeing Cody, Grace and Emily but for some reason he started crying during the phone call. These were the first tears that we had seen. We were disappointed to have to quickly hang up due to the fact that we love being able to see the kids and chat with them about their day but it was obvious that Joshua was really upset.
We scooted out to the lobby and met our guide while Joshua was still visibly disturbed. After arriving that the governmental offices he returned to his playful self. He is so incredibly curious and inquisitive about everything. We cannot take our eyes off of him for a second. The paperwork took quite a while as we were questioned by the governmental official about why we wanted to adopt Joshua as well as many other personal questions. This was unusual in that we did not have this questioning in Kunming when we adopted Emily. We also had to affix our thumbprint to all signatures and Joshua’s handprint had to be stamped to documents as well. All the while Joshua is exploring every nook and cranny of this office. The orphanage director arrived to collect the donation as did a notary public. It was very efficient and orderly. All the officials were kind and very respectful of us. We then headed to another governmental office where Joshua’s photo was taken for his passport. By this point Joshua was getting very tired and fell asleep on the way back to our hotel. Our afternoon was spent in the hotel. It is cold here in Xi’an and extremely polluted. In fact it is really hard just being outside due to the heavy pollution and it is hard finding our way around. We don’t feel as comfortable getting out as we did in Kunming. We get lots of looks when we are out and about and given that we seem to be the only Americans with a Chinese baby you can only imagine how we stick out. Our afternoon with Joshua let us see a side of him that lets us know that we may have work ahead of us. He is quite the rambunctious little boy and is really rough and tumble. He doesn’t stop and is very inquisitive. He thinks it is absolutely hilarious to throw things. He threw an entire bowl of cheerios across the hotel room, trains, and cars and thought the whole throwing incident was incredibly funny. We did break out the bubbles and he loved them but is more interested in the electrical plugs in the room and turning the TV on and off. On Day 2 of getting to know our sweet boy we are seeing how difficult it is for him not to understand what we are saying to him. The simple words “no no” doesn’t seem to penetrate therefore our afternoon was quite challenging. He is taking a nap right now and Mike and I have gotten a chance to rest as well. We are still recovering from jet lag so we welcomed a chance to lie down for a rest. We will probably stay in our hotel tonight. There are no restaurants nearby to grab dinner so we will probably just snack again here. I am already missing food in Colorado. Actually, I miss everything in Colorado. I am so grateful for where I live. I look out my window here in the hotel each day and gaze upon the sky filled with so much pollution that the sun in seldom seen and I thank God for my crisp blue skies of Colorado and my fresh mountain air. Despite our challenges, I am still smitten by our darling little boy and I give thanks for his vibrant personality. He is amazingly bright and absorbs everything. I was thinking earlier that he had to make his way living in an orphanage and his roughness was a mechanism of survival. The road ahead may be long in helping him realize that he does have to be so rough to get what he wants but I am confident that God will go with us as we allow our love to take our brown-eyed boy into our family. I couldn’t be more thankful that he receives my love and affection and loves looking into my eyes with his big brown ones. It is obvious that he was loved and spoiled and for that I couldn’t be happier. It will just take some patience getting him acclimated to life where he doesn’t have to fight so hard for attention.
We have 2 days of tourist type things ahead of us and are looking forward to getting out and about. Joshua seems to do well when we are out of the hotel. Thank you so much for your prayers and for all the sweet comments in the guestbook and emails. I have treasured every word deep in my heart and am so grateful that Joshua will one day be able to read how many people prayed and celebrated his coming to our family. Enjoy our pictures!
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