Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... and now it's Friday

Friday, May 8, 2009

Ok, Ok... I know it has been a while since you've gotten an update. It's hard to find a time to come to StarYucks to get online. We thought about getting internet in the room, but it's around $100 for 1 week of internet service. So, we'll stick with this method for a few more days. OK... and now the updates. I'll post the events of the week. Starting with this morning.

We walked to a nearby park and watched the people doing their meditation exercises. If you didn't know that it was a meditation thing, it really did look quite graceful. The park is huge and there were a lot of people there.


Thursday, May 07, 2009

A trip to the zoo

This morning started with an early breakfast. Little G woke up a happy boy. He played with his keys and stacking cups while we finished getting ready for breakfast. We headed down to the restaurant around 6:30 since it takes Little G quite a while to eat. At about 7:45 we came back up to the room and packed up for our trip to the zoo. We could tell that Little G knew we were going somewhere. I’m glad today’s outing was a nice, relaxing one for him. There weren’t any animals in particular that he liked or didn’t like, so I’ll just share some of the pictures that we took while we were there. Enjoy our trip! :)

My 2 Gs

Checking out the elephant

playing with bubbles

Self explanatory...(read the sign)

Watching the monkeys

Cutest thing in the zoo!

Red Panda (looked like a raccoon to me... well, almost)

Family picture with the "panda"

Miniature deer (no, that's not the correct name, but it gets the point across

Flamingos

Froggy

Once we got back to the room, Little G quickly downed some apple juice. We had been hoping that we wouldn’t have to use a suppository…but we did. The apple and prune juices just didn’t do the job. But, the job is done now and we are praying that his little body will work properly and he won’t have to endure that again. After the deed was done, he ate most of a bottle of congee with prune & apple juice before going down for his nap. He’s sleeping now. He doesn’t like to lay down when he gets put in his crib. Today he finally just flopped forward. He’ll be waking up soon and we’ll see what he wants to play with this afternoon.


We decided to postpone our trip to the orphanage. I think at this point it would be pretty hard on the little fella. I'd hate to lose the ground we've gained. We will probably go on Monday.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009 (For the sake of time here at my favorite coffee shop, I'm just going to post the pictures at the end of the narrative.)

A trip to the Police Station

Little G had slept about 11 hours last night when we woke him up to get ready for the day. We did take time, of course, for morning snuggles. He’s a great snuggler! He had a slight fever so we gave him some baby Tylenol before heading down to breakfast. Yesterday we wondered if he was teething but we’ve only caught him grinding his teeth once. Please pray that he’ll have a normal temperature. He’s been VERY snuggly and clingy all day long. I don’t mind that, really I don’t, but I can tell that he just doesn’t feel too good. This evening another lady in our group suggested that it might still be from his shot on Monday.

Anyway, after a late breakfast we rode the escalator a couple of times for entertainment. Guille doesn’t mind the escalators but sure lets us know that elevators are not his thing! He’s getting better, but still doesn’t like them. After riding the escalators we went up to the 4th floor of the hotel and walked around the outdoor swimming pool. Since we didn’t have suits on and Little G doesn’t even like a bath, we didn’t swim. He did put his hands in the water beside the pool and thought about it…but decided to cuddle instead of playing in the water. Then, back to the room. We thought he would play with some of his toys but he started falling asleep. I gave him a bit to drink and then he was off for his nap. While he slept I tried to organize things a little better, since we’ll be in this hotel for almost another week. I washed socks and a few other things then got the rest of the laundry ready to send to the laundry guy.

At 3:00 we loaded the bus and headed to the police station. No, nothing bad happened! That’s where we had to go to apply for Little G’s passport so he can go home! We were some of the first people there, but by the time we left there were many families with little ones who were there for the same reason. While we were sitting there waiting our turn the reality of all of this sunk in one more layer! I nearly cried as it hit me (again) that this really is our child. He’s really going to go home with us. He’s OURS! The process of applying for his passport was very easy, on our part. Our guide brought all the paperwork, presented it to the official, told us to sit there and smile. So we did. The official looked over the paperwork, asked the lady beside him some questions, got out a little web-camera, took a picture of Guille (hopefully he wasn’t crying too hard in the picture), gave us back our passports and our OFFICIAL ADOPTION Certificate. That was it. All done!

After the police station visit we went to Pizza Hut for supper. We had seafood pizza with crab meat, shrimp, octopus and veggies on it. We also ordered a side of spicy chicken and pineapple kabobs. It was a nice change from McDonalds and granola bars. Good thing the breakfast is good and plentiful!

Back in the room LittleG just wanted to sleep again. He slept from 5:30 til around 6:30 when I decided I better wake him up and get him to do something, otherwise he’d be awake at 4:00 in the morning… and I’m not up for that! We walked in the hall for quite a while. Started out holding hands, then he got adventurous and walked a few steps ahead of me. He’d turn around every now and then to make sure I was coming. Then, he’d turn around and come at me with arms open wide. I love it!! We came back to the room and he ate some congee with apple juice and prune juice mixed into it. We made that mixture up at breakfast time and brought it back for later use. It looks like he needs more prune juice! Pray that his little body will adjust to the new schedule and food intake and that he will poop soon. I don’t mind not having to change dirty diapers, but I know it’s not good for him, so I’m praying for a poopy diaper in the morning!  (Imagine that!) After the congee mixture we sat on the bed and read a couple of books. He was really interested in the books and knew about turning the page, we were so excited about that! One of the books has some flip-up windows on a couple of the pages. He really liked looking under those. After the books he got ready for bed…without a fuss. When I put him in his crib he laid there quietly for a little while before falling asleep. Maybe the sound of his daddy snoring helped get him to sleep?!

I remember… I was going to tell you about Little G’s walk. It’s so cute! He kinda has a penguin walk,-- Legs apart and rocking back and forth as he goes. I think he’s getting a little better each day. I did take a video of him walking. Tonight as we were walking, his new pants are a bit too big in the waist and a bit too long in the leg. So I rolled up the pantlegs and put him back down for more walking. With the waist being so loose, the crotch was down below his knees and with his spread apart feet, it looked like he was a middle school or high school kid trying to keep their pants up because they won’t wear a belt. At least Little G was happy to get his pants pulled up!! :)

Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo in the morning then MAYBE a trip to the orphanage in the afternoon. We haven’t decided yet how Little G would react to going back there at this point in time. Yesterday when our guide asked us how he was doing we thought he would be fine with it. But today with being so clingy and quiet and not being sure if he’s just not feeling well or if it’s part of his grieving process we told the guide that we’d like to decide tomorrow. She said that if we don’t go tomorrow there is a possibility that we can go early next week. I really would like to go see where he lived for his whole life up til now and where he was abandoned. But, his wellbeing is more important, and if going back there would be hard on him, I will forego my wants for his sake.

Well, that’s all for now. SOMEDAY I’ll get these posted and you all can read about what’s happening here. Meanwhile, thanks for your continued prayers.

Pizza pals

Nap time buddies

More juice please

Good to the last drop

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

It’s official! The adoption is final!

We left the hotel this morning at 8:30 to go back to the civil affairs office to meet with the civil affairs officer and the notary. In China the notary is more like a judge, according to our guide in Beijing. So meeting with the notary is a very official act. Before meeting with the officials we had our “family portrait” taken. This picture will be used on the certificate of adoption. Then we had “interviews” with both officials who asked basically the same questions. They asked why we wanted to adopt, do we like the child after having him for a night, will we ever abandon or abuse him, will we provide him a good education, are all our answers true…. That was it. We signed our names and Little G was officially ours.

The Gonzalez Family! :) 

After leaving the civil affairs office we went to the “grocery store”. It was more like a multilevel high end shopping center with groceries shoved back in a corner of the 4th floor! We also went on up to the 7th floor to buy more bottles for Little G. His cleft is a bit bigger than we expected so drinking from a bottle with a BIG hole cut in the nipple works better than a cup, sippy cup or spoon. I did spoon feed him some apple juice and orange juice this morning at breakfast since the only bottle we brought with us had milk in it. We also bought him a couple of outfits. He fits size 12 month for weight but for height he needs 18 month. I thought I had brought a couple pair of long pants for him, but couldn’t find them this morning. Maybe they got donated to the orphanage with the other clothes I brought for them. Oh well.




We came back to the hotel and Little G fell fast asleep after eating a bit of oatmeal and drinking some milk and fruit juice. He slept about 3 hours and Big G and I slept between 1-2 hours. Naps are good!! :)




In the afternoon we walked in the hotel, walked outside, played with some toys, tried to find a restaurant for supper that didn’t cost $30USD/person and yet we could tell what we were eating. We ended up at McDonalds…yippee (note the sarcasm!) After supper we went to the StarYucks that is in the hotel. Actually, there is a whole MALL in the hotel! This place is HUGE! Anyway, we bought a muffin so we could use the internet to post about “Gotcha day”. Once we finished that post, Little G and I came back to the room where he got a bath (in the sink…with water…which he really didn’t like!) After his bath we cuddled a while and I rubbed lotion on him. His skin is so rough. Poor little guy! He liked getting the lotion rubbed on him. No fussing there! I suppose it felt like getting lotion rubbed into your hands in the winter when they are so dry and cracked. Guillermo came back to the room and cuddled with him until he fell asleep. (Last night he slept from 7:00pm -7:00am without a peep from him.) Hopefully he’ll sleep as well tonight.

After bath

Mmmmmmmm!! Ice Cream!! 

He likes to cuddle and be held. He likes to know where we are. Most of the day he just wanted to be held. We set him on the floor and we both got down and played with him for quite a while. He’s starting to make some noises that aren’t crying noises, so I think he’s beginning to trust us. I hope so. I hope he knows how much we love him. He’s such a sweetheart and I can’t wait for you all to meet him.

Morning snuggles

I’ll try to post Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s happenings tomorrow (Wednesday). Sorry for the delay in posting GOTCHA info and pics. Things have been a bit busy for all of us. OK, the snoring in the room is making me quite tired, so I’ll sign off for now. Good night!