Jack is opening up – he has his first word

First, let me please apologize for the technical difficulties! For some reason, we were unable to access the blog for the last week. Good news – after some help from the US (thanks John and Christy) posting everything up through yesterday, we are mysteriously able to log on to blogger now. So, hopefully our posts will appear daily from now on. Ironically, I have now been able to load some video clips into YouTube and they are linked here, BUT I am not having great success posting photos, so those may be added a little later. For now, enjoy the video!

This morning, we took it easy. Sandy is busy pursuing our paperwork and needed the morning for some meetings, so we just hung out at the hotel. We are little bit tired of our rock-star status and everyone staring at us and whispering. Jack is walking around now, so we cruised around the hotel floors and made nice with all the staff. Jack does not want anyone to touch him, but he loves to wave goodbye to everyone.

Before his nap, I was feeding Jack some crackers and teaching him the sign for “more” - big news, he signs this now by himself! So, his first word is “more.” Smart little boy! Jack cried for about 30 minutes before his nap, which we thought was a HUGE improvement. When he got up, we fed him ramen noodles for lunch on the bed again and then met Sandy for the afternoon.



First, we went to see the spot where Jack was found. From the police report, we know that he was found under and overpass on the west side of town. Sandy tells us that there are a lot of migrant workers that live in this area and many of the people are very poor. She said that she believes that Jack’s birthparents left him in this area because it is close to the location of the old orphanage that is now a senior home. She believes that they were probably migrant workers and did not know that the orphanage had moved to its new location a few years earlier. The sign outside the building still says it is the Children’s Welfare Institute. It is a bustling area where migrant workers wait for day-labor opportunities so there are many, many people around all the time. It is likely that his birthparents could not afford any medical treatment for him and were forced to make this tragic choice. It was a very emotional day for me to think about two years ago what painful decisions his birthparents faced that resulted in Jack being placed in our arms. We are so pleased to have some photos and information that we can share with him.

Next, Sandy took us to get a massage at a local massage place. The massage was AWESOME. The young people who did our massages were very curious about Jack and asked Sandy a lot of questions. They just couldn’t understand why we would adopt a child when we already have 3! The one child policy certainly has a far reaching cultural impact. I don’t think there is anything we could have said that would have helped them understand. They enjoyed looking at the pictures of the kids and said Jack was a lucky boy (there was no explaining that we were the lucky ones).

After this, we went to a Sichuan restaurant for dinner and Sandy ordered only local spicy food for the adults and some dumplings for Jack. She told us she would never order that food for her American clients and we were so glad she did! It was very flavorful and we loved it. I don’t think Sandy slipped anything by on us this time – I think we ate chicken – but I guess we will never know for sure… At dinner, I discovered that Jack is indeed a little ticklish and I was able to get him to laugh. He is definitely feeling more comfortable with us! Tonight, only 5 minutes of crying and the fingers went in the mouth and he was sound asleep shortly after that - what a relief...



So, a little more about this precious little boy… He eats non-stop and will eat anything we put in his mouth. He has been eating nearly all day. We have discovered though, that we have to watch that he is swallowing. Yesterday, he had watermelon for breakfast and then an hour later when I gave him his bottle, he spit a whole bunch of watermelon at me! He loves his little light spinner and has been pounding it on stuff all day. Now, it has a vibration problem as the spinner is no longer straight. He doesn’t seem to care and is sleeping with it again. He sucks his forefinger and thumb on his left hand – at the same time – when he is sleepy. His finger has a huge callous on it from his teeth we think. He has a very sweet smile and loves to run into my arms. He is very smart and conscientious. If something falls on the floor, he runs over to pick it up and hand it to me. He is just a very sweet boy and we are very blessed!