Gotcha day February 18th

Everyone,

What an amazing new son we have all been blessed with. He can do almost ANYTHING! He is extremely intelligent, can write many chinese characters with his "stumps"--he wedges a pen into his "elbow" and leans way over the paper and writes. He's very meticulous- can pick up french fries, dip them in ketchup and stuff them in his mouth-- many many french fries! He loves to eat. He'll wedge a fork in his elbow, stick it in some meat, then balance the fork on his stump and use his other arm to flip the fork over into his mouth-- just amazing to watch. Nothing is going to hold this child back. I forsee him doing great things in his lifetime. He just picked up a paperclip from the table and handed it to me!

He's very inquisitive and will get into anything that's at his level. We're gonna need to keep some things up for a while. He's not sure what's his and what he shouldn't be touching--such as Mary's eyeglasses, so he just starts grabbing. That will improve over time.

He was very soft-spoken when we first met him, but as the day wore on he got a little louder. Now he is often calling out "mama, mama"!! Now we'll have 4 vying for Mama's attention all the time!

We are beyond words to describe this young man - we could not be happier except to be able to understand all of his talking! How we wish we were fluent in Mandarin! I wrote Jeremy's name on his mini doodle and he erased it one letter at a time and rewrote his name. Then he erased it all and wrote it all out. He is very quick to learn.

He is so sweet - he will sporadically just lean over to John or I and smack our cheek with a kiss - then smile big. I think he is very happy to have a family.

We arrived at the Civil Affairs for 10:30 and Jeremy was waiting for us. He shyly stood at the doorway waiting with the assistant directors that brought him. He was smiling and not afraid at all - he said "Mama" right away to me as I approached him. Our first encounter couldn't have gone any smoother. When we showed him his few things in the book bag we brought, he quickly took out the mini magnadoodle and started writing chinese characters - for his name, for 'mama' and 'baba', for his main ayi back at the orphanage. He proudly holds up any work he has done for approval.

We left and returned to our hotel room to do some paperwork - BUT Jeremy was way too full of energy for us to get any paperwork done. We played keep the punch balloon up/volleyball and he thoroughly enjoyed it. He investigated each and every item in our room - the TV,the computer, the phone, the light switches, etc. He was like a toy that was wound up way too tight, darting from thing to thing. He did not respond to "boo-shing" (no) at all at first - simply smiled and went right on doing what he was doing. By the end of the day, this changed - when he stopped what we asked him to stop, he would smile and kiss us - I in turn hugged him, wanting him to know that just because we told him 'no' doesn't mean we don't love him or are mad at him.

We ate lunch at a local chinese restaurant - Jeremy said he wasn't hungry. Well .... if that 'wasn't hungry', I do NOT want to see what 'hungry' looks like! He ate and ate, asking for more of everything. He thoroughly enjoyed his coke!

We returned to the hotel and our guide remained with us - he would tell Jeremy he was going to go, but Jeremy wasn't ready for him to leave yet - Jacky, our guide is terrific!! We played in a playroom down the hall and then some more in the room. Then we put Mulan on the computer in mandarin, thinking this might calm him a bit - it did, but it took 1/2 the movie before he actually sat down to watch it. When it was over, it was nearly 5pm and we decided to go to dinner - Jacky told Jeremy he needed to leave and Jeremy was okay with that - so we were finally "on our own". We set out in a cab to find some new shoes for Jeremy - his are fully plastic and his feet sweat alot ...and stink alot!! :) We went to Walmart, but the only shoes they had in his size were all plastic. Walmart was connected to a walking street/mall - we don't have these in America and they are really neat. Store after store we only found adult shoes. Jeremy proudly walked ahead of us by several yards, skipping or looking all around - really enjoying himself. We finally found a place and he walked out with new sneaks. We then went into a nearby KFC - there was a McD's just before it, and Jeremy's eyes lit up and said McDonalds! We said mingtian (tomorrow) as we preferred chicken tonight. He really, really likes french fries with lots of catsup ... just like Sarabeth!! We had to encourage him to eat his chicken and when it was all gone he wanted to finish off all the fries, too! Then we enjoyed some ice cream! While we were at KFC, there was an older man with his 10yr old grandson - this man gently asked us how long we were together with Jeremy - he was astounded that this was just our first day!! He has been an english teacher at a local university for over 40yrs. We had a very nice chat with him while Jeremy amazed him with his ability to eat french fries with his stumpies!!

We headed back to the hotel in a taxi and gave Jeremy a bath first thing. He enjoyed it and didn't seem to mind water in his eyes too much. He braved his new electric toothbrush ..... he, too,like Nate and Sarabeth will need braces! After getting pj's on, Jeremy grabbed the remote and proceeded to turn on the TV and check the stations - nothing good on for him to watch. We brought out a pad of paper and he drew me a picture of me ... Mama!! and then wrote mama in chinese characters by it! How sweet!

He is tough to get to lie down and he is still restless in the bed after 40min of trying to go to sleep. Jacky told us that Jeremy said to make sure we wake him up at 3am and take him to the potty ... oh, joy!! The job was relegated to John, since he can get back to sleep so much easier than I can ... he's not all too happy about it!!

Well, I'm off to bed. Thanks for following along! We will be going back to Civil Affairs tomorrow at 8:15 to complete the paperwork.

Blessings,

Mary and John