Well done, God. :)

It is 3 in the morning in China and I am having the distinct pleasure of listening to the gentle snores of both of my guys.  :)

Since I had a little down time I though I'd share a little of our first 18 hours.
When we got back to the room, he looked around and was very solemn for the first bit.  He has a very  thoughtful expression that he uses when we don't understand him.  He played with us with his ball and his truck but especially loves his stacking toy.  It is 8 or ten 1/2 balls in graduated sizes.  It can be put together in about 1000 ways and he has tried all of them.  ;)  He would occasionally stop and rub his elephant's ear for comfort.

After his nap, he was happy and seemed pretty relaxed.  His fear seemed pretty well resolved.  We got to our first bout of tears whe we couldn't understand what "da shi" meant.  Apparently that means "my bladder is about to pop, please help me to the potty"  or at least something similar.  The guide Jin, happened to be here but apparently he wasn't using Mandarin as she had no idea.  That frustrated him even worse that someone who usually understood didn't.  She called the SWI folks and they explained.  Potty was reached in time, tears gone, crisis averted.  :)

We went to dinner with Alain, Andrew and Emmi in the hotel restaurant as we thought a buffet would probably make it easier to find something the littles would eat.  We shouldn't have worried.  When we were getting food for Jaden, Tim would ask him "Yao?" ("want?"), and literally everything we asked Jaden if he wanted he nodded yes to let us know he wanted it ... Tim was skeptical that he would eat all the different things, but Jaden was right.  (Although admittedly we did not ask if he wanted any of the "pig heart and lung soup" or the "chop the snail" dish.)  If we put it in front of him, he ate it.  Jaden ate:  funky green beans with something unidentifiable in it, white rice, fried rice, noodles, orange slices, watermelon wedges, corn, shrimp,  grilled fish, spiral pasta with green peppers, french fries, crinkle fries, hmm it seems like I'm missing some but you get the point.  He literally ate every grain of rice (and everything else) that we put on his plate.  We had to distract him as we removed our plates as he was wanted to clear ours as well.

It sort of breaks my heart.  This child is skin and bones under his clothes.  It is clearly not an issue of what he is willing to eat.  I know that some orphanages really struggle to come up with the funds to take care of everything; I really don't want to think that my son has not had enough to eat.  And it was not an issue of care, either.  He was clearly loved by the caregivers who brought him to us, he clearly has been read to (based on how he handled his book with us), and the fact that he knew what an elephant is indicates that someone has spent time with him reading / teaching, so it is not an issue of neglect.

The meal was the turning point.  After that, he thought everything was hilarious.  It's amazing what a full tummy can do!

He gave us probably an hour of full belly laughs.  We gave him a bath as he seemed interested in the tub, and he LOVED IT!!!  He splashed and laughed and then did both some more.  He splashed me and that was even funnier!  I love this kid!   We sat on the potty and with his new toothbrush (Thanks Jenny Warren!)  he happily opened up and let us brush.   Walking from the tub with my little burrito wrapped boy, I got my first kiss.  He planted a big wet kiss on my cheek.  Sweet boy.

When we got back to the bed and dressed, he showed a little more of his sense of humor; it went something like this...

Looking at his photo album of our family,
Jaden:  Zhege ma? (pointing at Tim's pic)
Tim:  Baba
Jaden:  (big smile and moving on to the pic of Laura)  Zhege ma?
Tim:  JieJie (sister)
Jaden:  (big smile and moving on to Mitch's pic)  Zhege ma?
Tim:  Gege (big brother)
Jaden:  (big grin, pause look at me and then sly smile)  Zhege ma? (pointing at my pic)  '
Tim:  Mama
Jaden:  Bu, zhege NaiNai!!  (No, grandma!!)  giant roll on the bed belly laugh.  :)

Funny, funny boy.   Is it to soon for a time out?  Kidding, Kidding...\

Then we had book time.  We were all together on the bed and he looked at a little dark skinned boy in the book and said Jaden and at a pale woman in the book and said Mama.  :)  Stellar moment.

As he started to wind down he held his stuffed elephant and played with it for a few minutes, then drifted on off to sleep holding it.  He has been sleeping soundly for almost eight hours now!  I expect when he wakes we will hear "da shi" again (at least I hope we do!!)

All in all a blessed day ... tears at times, which lets us know that he was loved, tender moments, appropriate fears, lots of laughs, and sweet snuggle time.

When Tim woke up Monday his thoughts were something along the lines of "Well, God, You brought us here and now it's up to You" ... well done, God, well done!

Well, he is still sleeping so back to snuggle time.  :)