United Day

United Day

 

Well, this is it--the big day!  We finally all got better sleep, and are on our way to recovering from the jet lag.  We had some laundry done, and had breakfast at the hotel's buffet again.  We had met a couple and their daughter from Texas, who were adopting their second Chinese child, a four-year-old boy with Spina Bifida.  They were very nice, and got us some super glue during their trip to Carrefour that morning so that Chaz could repair his iPhone case.

 

We crossed one of several very interesting bridges over the third branch of the Yellow River.

 

 

 

At 2, our guide Anna met us to take us to the Office of Public Affairs.

 

 

We saw the following rather puzzling display in the lobby--not sure I really care for "Plain sailing"...

 

 

The office was fairly empty.  We went up an elevator and exited onto a corridor that was lit only by the windows at either end.  We followed Anna to a marble-floored room with a podium, two desks, some sofas and some murals with Chinese writing on the walls.

 

 

 In this room were two women with what looked like our American friend's child--he had braces on his legs. 

 

Joshua, the other American couple's child:

 

 

The other American couple wasn't due at that office for another hour, so they had some time to wait.  After about five minutes, another little boy was brought in by two other women to wait for his adoptive parents, he had a deformed ear, and he looked to be about 3 years old.  He was very, very quiet, and was very resistant to Maddy and Jeremy's attempts to get him to play with cars.  After about another ten minutes, Kangnan arrived with two of the women from the orphanage.  I'd been worried that I wouldn't recognize him, since we hadn't had a recent photograph of him in over a year, but he looked just like the picture from his 3rd birthday. 

 

 

All at once, everything seemed complete--he was here, and although we'd had over a year to get to know his face and think of him as part of our family, he wasn't really real until I saw him in person.  Kangnan, however, was more than a little confused, and we clearly meant nothing to him--he didn't seem to notice us at all.  He was very reluctant to come into the room, and decided that he'd much rather go potty first, so they took him back out to go potty.  When he came back, he STILL didn't really want to be there, and kept trying to turn around and walk right back out.

 

 

Jeremy pulled out the Lightning McQueen car that we'd brought for him, pulled it back and let it roll into Kangnan's feet.  We got a small smile out of him.  He picked it up, looked at it, and rolled it back.  Jeremy rolled it back to Kangnan.  Kangnan rolled it back, this time with a bit bigger smile.  This went on for about five minutes, with Chaz and Maddy and me taking part.  We got a lot of smiles, and some giggles and outright laughter from him when the car would spin in a circle, or run into somebody's foot.  Everything seemed to be going really well, but he didn't really want to come near any of us.  Paperwork was completed, forms were signed, documents checked, and then it was time to leave with Kangnan. 

 

The orphanage director came with Kangnan, she was very nice, and very supportive: 

 

 

We left with our guide and Kangnan, but the orphanage women stayed behind. 

 

We went next door to the office where the "official" picture of the child and the adoptive parents is taken.  He finally felt that something was seriously wrong when we tried to get him to sit on one of our laps for the picture.  He started really crying and calling out for his Nana (the foster grandmother who he was attached to).  The picture was required, and they really wanted his eyes to be open for it, so we had to try to calm him down enough so they could snap a picture in between crying jags.  We got the picture, and Chaz had to carry him to the waiting van.  The poor thing was still crying--he cried during the 15 minute trip back to the hotel, through the hotel lobby, up the elevator, and stood in the hallway outside our room, refusing to go, still crying.  Our guide said that he spoke a different dialect than she did, so she couldn't understand everything he was saying, but he kept crying for his Nana, and asking "Why are you doing this to me?" .  He also kept explaining to her how to take him back to his Nana, and where he lived.  I'm glad that I didn't understand what he was saying as it would have made it really hard for me to not be broken up.  Jeremy was really affected by what Kangnan was going through, and he started to tear up, until I told him that I knew how he felt but that we had to be strong for Kangnan, so that we could help him try to calm down.

 

After about 10 minutes in the hallway, Kangnan walked through the doorway, and the kids got him to play some more.  That child is ALL boy--he's not one for the stuffed animals that we brought--he just wants to play with the car and pretend that the push pops that he appropriated from Maddy and Jeremy are rockets. 

 

 

 

He makes great sound effects, has an infectious laugh, a good sense of humor, and he's devilishly cute!  We're having a difficult time getting him to pay attention when we call his name, probably because of the sensory overload he's going through.  He's very inquisitive and was exploring the entire room with no sense of shyness.  He does understand the Chinese word for "no" ("boo"), but he clearly doesn't want to be told "no" sometimes--he'll frown, or growl at us when he doesn't get his way sometimes.  So far, he seems like a normal four-year-old boy, albeit one who has just lost everything he's ever known.  As I write this in the adjoining hotel room, I can hear another crying jag.  I'm having to work really hard not to cry myself, thinking about what he's going through.  If I can just stay calm and collected and nurturing, I think that will help him through this faster than if I let him see my cry at this point.  What I really, really want to do more than anything in this world is hold him close and give him kisses and hugs, and tell him that we love him and that we'll make everything OK.  And that's really not at all what he wants--he doesn't want us to touch him and he doesn't understand a word that we say.  So for now, patience is the word of the day.  Anna tells me that the kids sometimes cry a lot the first day, but there is rarely crying the second day.  Even though we're going to make this child a part of a loving, caring family, and will give him the best possible future that we can, a part of me still feels horrible that I've ripped him away from the only family he's ever known. 

 

We got him to play hide-and-seek with us, where he would "hide" and we'd pretend to not know where he was.  We'd call his name, search for him, and he'd giggle from behind the curtains, then poke his head out with a big grin and say, "Ni hao!  Ni hao!"  He had maybe two more crying fits, calling for his Nana before we went to dinner, and none afterwards.  He's a very active little guy, and won't let go of the Lightning McQueen car that we'd brought for him--it goes almost everywhere with him.

 

We got to dinner and Chaz carried him around the buffet to see what he would be interested in.  His eyes lit up at the sight of watermelon, so he got a few slices.  We found that he also loved the barbecued lamb and beef, and the strawberry guava juice that they had.  He's a pretty typical four-year-old--once he was done eating dinner, he kept crawling under the table and saying "Ni hao!  Ni hao!"  He also crawled over the back of the booth wall, and fell onto the bench on the other side.  He discovered the mirror on the wall behind his seat, and started playing peek-a-boo with his reflection, saying "Ni hao!  Ni hao!" at himself, then cracking up.

 

 

 

We gave him a bath after dinner, and he started to pitch a fit when we started to remove his light-up sandals and his clothing.  This little guy owned four things in this world--two shoes, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, and here we were, two ginormous strangers, trying to take them all away from him.  We got him undressed while he put up a fight, and we placed all of his clothing where he could see them, pointed to them, pointed to him, and pointed to the bath, and he calmed down after about a minute.  He kept shooting glances at the pile of his belongings, just to make sure that they were still there.  Chaz started up the water in the tub, picked him up and placed him in the tub.  Kangnan went rigid when Chaz picked him up, and stood stiffly in the tub until he noticed the running water.  His curiosity took over, and he felt the water run through his hands.  We plugged the tub and ran some bath bubbles into the water.  He refused to sit down, squatting instead.  He was clearly pretty used to bathing, as he started to rub the soapy water all over his tiny body.  He viewed the bath as business, not pleasure, but he paused when I got out the bath squirty toys that I'd gotten for him at home.  Chaz filled one of them up with water, and squirted him, Kangnan's eyes got HUGE, and a small smile spread over his face.  Chaz filled up the toy again with water, squirted him, and Kangan's face broke into a big grin.  He grabbed one of the other toys and shoved it at Chaz, and pointed at the water in the tub.  Chaz filled it up, handed it to Kangnan, who promptly squirted Chaz in the face and said, "Heyhey!!".  This helped break the ice even more, and he seemed a little sorry to see the bath end.  We got him toweled off, and dressed in his jammies, and he insisted on putting HIS sandals back on. 

 

All of our attempts to touch him otherwise--rubbing his back, taking his hand, hugging, or touching his head--were rebuffed.  The child would recoil every time we'd touch him, so we resorted to touching briefly on the back, then pulling away before he could react.  We think that he wasn't used to being carried, because he didn't seem to know how to hold on--he'd just make his body completely straight instead.

 

We watched a little bit of Cars 2, and kept pointing to his Lightning McQueen car, and then to Lightning McQueen on the TV, hoping to get him to make a connection.  He got pretty excited, and seemed to really enjoy the action and the colors.  He laughed quite a bit, but he started to get really wound up right before his bedtime, so we turned the movie off.

 

We put him to bed at his normal bedtime of 8PM, and within one minute of putting him in bed he was sound asleep.  He wasn't playing possum--his hands were limp and his breathing was regular.  The hotel didn't have a crib mattress for him to lay on, so they gave us an extra sheet, a small pad and some towels.  His tiny little 'bed' was on the floor next to mine. 

 

 

His small features finally looked at peace while he slept, and I wondered at what he was dreaming of and how he'd feel when he awoke and found out that he wasn't back at his former home with his Nana.