Our beautiful boy

I hope many of you have been able to see our updates on Facebook. For those that haven’t, sorry I’m just now getting to this blog (and I’m glad Fred brought his laptop since punching out a blog post on an iPad is time consuming.)

So Sunday we arrived in Changsha, Hunan by train. Our hotel is the Sheraton and we are pleased with the rooms (they don’t smell like smoke!! Yay!)  The girls are doing great on the trip and are getting along and sticking together and not complaining. We are so glad they were able to come with us on this journey.

View from our room

I didn’t sleep much at all Sunday night… we were all up very early. Butterflies filled my stomach as the hour grew near. It still felt kinda surreal. Not the same as with Sam’s adoption and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because we had more updates with Sam and knew more about him, maybe it’s because this process flew by so quickly that I didn’t go through the same longing since we never really had to wait for anything this time, maybe it was because he was older and I was anxious about that… I don’t know. But I kept praying and trusting that God would give me peace, and He did. I was excited but not nervous (okay, a little nervous) as we left the hotel to go to the Civil Affairs building. It was about 15 minutes away. We arrived early, took the elevator to the 7^th floor and there was another little boy there with his nannies. He was from another city and was being adopted by a Dutch family.

We waited in the sparse, humid room that had several windows open letting the construction noise in from across the parking lot. (There is ALWAYS construction going on in China.)  The girls kept look out for Joshua’s arrival below. It seemed like 45 minutes went by, but I think it was about half that time.

Suddenly Ella excitedly announced that she saw him get out of a car below! He had on his Superman shirt that we had sent him!

This was it. Almost a year had past since I saw that video of him when I had felt an instant connection to this boy, but I could not have dreamed that on this day I would be in here with my faithful and loving husband and daughters minutes away from meeting our new son and brother… this 5 year old little boy who had spent his life in this large orphanage, waiting... for us.  I could not have dreamed that I would be so blessed to get to be his mom, to love him and help to teach him what “family” means and what unconditional love feels like and how cherished he is.

He came off the elevator with a nanny supervisor and young lady. When I made eye contact with him, he got a nervous expression on his face. He knew what was going on. He was a brave boy, he came to us and gave us some high fives. They encouraged him to give us hugs and he did. He came with a brand new backpack filled with all kinds of new toys and learning tools. He had his photo album we had sent and he was holding two of the Matchbox cars we had sent him. After a few minutes of sitting with us, Fred got him laughing by playing with a stuffed animal. And that was it. He’s been happy since. No kidding. This boy is amazing and God is so good.

Making it official 

A little bit about Joshua, or YaQiu (pronounced Ya Choe)…

He has the BIGGEST smile ever!

He has a great laugh

He is very smart and loves to color and use stickers (appropriately)

He is an expert bubble-blower

He is very good at building Legos and has great fine motor skills

He takes a nap every day after lunch

He eats whatever you give him

He’s small for his age and the 4T shorts are big on him and the 2T bathing suit fit, but he’s not too skinny… just little

He puts on his shoes to go to the bathroom (must have been what they had to do at the orphanage)

He LOVES to play with balloons

He LOVES to play with his sisters

He is a very happy boy

Fred and I looked at each other yesterday and both agree this couldn’t be going any smoother. (I know… don’t jinx it, Alison !) But really, he is a precious, delightful, sweet boy. He gets along just as well with Shannon as with Ella. He doesn’t prefer Fred over me or vice versa. He hasn’t tested us too much at all with his behavior. Yesterday we wanted to walk down to the market, and we wanted him to ride in the umbrella stroller we brought because we wanted to be able to walk quickly and it was several blocks away. He didn’t want to get in the stroller. He just smiled and shook his head… with a big smile. We let him walk down through the lobby and out of the parking lot, but once we got on the sidewalk, Fred told him again to get in the stroller… he smiled and shook head…. Fred put him in…. tried to get out, Fred told him to sit and off we went, and he sat in it the whole time, not a complaint. 

He definitely prefers this mode of transport over the stroller:) 

As good as he is and as well as this is going, I know that we still have a long journey ahead of us. He is happy with us, but he really doesn’t know what a family is. We are all nice people and he’s having fun and he feels safe with us, but it will take time for him to really and truly bond with us because he’s probably never bonded like that with someone before. He doesn’t even know what it feels like. For those of us lucky enough to be born into our own families, we never knew anything else. You can't explain "family." You can't put it into words. But I know that God is all over this and in time he will know, he will understand. I'm beyond thankful that I get to witness that...but not just to witness it, to be an integral part of it... to be his mom, to love him.

AND today was Shannon's 11th birthday! This is one she won't forget:) The girls have been so great to have on this trip. They love to play with him and the feeling is mutual!

The hotel sent up this amazing cake!

Here is a link to the video I made about our journey. http://vimeo.com/99622161