Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Jim, Vickie, Amber, Anagrace and Austin!
Please email us.......
March 14, 2006
Sorry we didn't get our post in yesterday. With limited time and a slow internet, it makes it difficult but we'll do double duty to get everyone caught up.
Austin continues to do just great! It has been so much better than what any of us could have expected. We were preparing for the worse and hoping for the best. Jim decided that he would try and help me out by giving Austin a bath while I was downstairs in the business center posting our Gotcha day. Everything went well until it was time to rinse the soap out of Austin's hair. That's when the tears started flowing. Austin was very upset because he did not understand what was going on. Fortunately, as soon as Jim finished his hair he settled right back down. As of today, those were his first and his last tears that we've seen. He just continues to smile and rambles on in Chinese. We do not have a clue what he is saying so we just smile and nod. He loves all of his toys. He keeps all of them in his little turtle backpack that we brought for him. He'll get them out, one by one, taking inventory to make sure that nothing has disappeared. Then he'll play with them for a while and then re-pack them back up. He has to take his backpack with him where ever we go. It is hard to explain to him that it's okay to leave it in the room when we go to eat, and that it will be there when we return. He's slowing starting to understand this concept, but it just takes time.
This morning he woke up looking a little dazed, like where on earth am I? I leaned over, gave him a few kisses on the cheek and then he flashed me one of his famous smiles--all was well. We went for breakfast in which he had 2 glasses of orange juice, 2 containers of yogurt, 1 sausage link, 2 pieces of ham, 1 slice of bread, 1 hash browns, 1 fried egg, and half of a banana. Amber and I were getting sick just watching him pack away all of this food. We finally just had to pull him away from the table. Lord only knows how long he would have stayed there and kept eating.
We then went back to the civil affairs office to finalize our adoption. As soon as we walked in there was the assistant director from Austin's orphanage (different lady than the day before). She scooped Austin up in her arms and started rambling to him in Chinese. He was okay at first and even offered her a kiss on the cheek, but after that he was wanting to get down. He came running over towards me yelling mama, mama. So I picked him up and when our guide came over to check on him he told her that he did not want to go back with her that he wanted to stay with is new mama. I was very thankful that it didn't end up going the other way around. The asst. director was not upset at all, she was pleased to see that he was happy with his new family.
We answered a few questions, then had to sign the adoption documents and then they had us put our right thumb on a red ink pad and stamp our thumbprint over our signature. They then did the same thing with Austin's little finger and stamped it in a square box--guess this means he wants to be adopted by us? ha!
After that we had to move one desk over and go before the notary and swear that we had answered everything truthfully and that we promised to never harm or abandon him. We said "yes" and that was the end of it. Austin is now officially our son according to the Chinese Government. Now we wait for his Chinese passport to be processed, which should be Fri morning and then we can leave to head down to Guangzhou where the US Consulate is located. There we will finalize the American side of the adoption and then we'll be ready to head home.
Hope you enjoy the pictures of Austin. We're having so much fun getting to know him. Amber is in heaven playing with her little brother. He loves to play with Jim, but is still unsure of him. Time is the best medicine right now and we're looking forward to our one on one time with Austin before we head back home next week.
Thank you for all of your emails and especially for the prayers. They mean so much to our family and have made the difference for our trip and for Austin's adjustment.
