Our first meeting!!

Well we've had quite an exciting, nerve racking, long day today. Well actually my nerves were working overtime and Scott was A-ok as usual. Just got back to the hotel, it is 6:00 p.m. now Monday evening. We left here this morning before 10 a.m. to meet our Drew. We went to the Civil Affairs office and when we got there, the kids were already there in the room. However, Drew was no where to be seen. Of course I panicked and wondered if they forgot to bring him!

Thank goodness not, he was there, just in the bathroom. He was very quiet and shy at first, he stood over to the side trying to hide from us. He stood there and got tears in his eyes for a few minutes as there was a lot of noise going on in the room with the 3 other kids meeting their families too. The room was quite small of course. First Scott gave him some bite sized chocolate chip cookies which he ate a few of. We showed him his backpack and he perked up immediately. He continued to unpack EVERYTHING in his backpack, every little nook and cranny pocket was emptied out. He had a ball with everything he could find to drag out of there. Then the other kids came over to check out all his neat stuff, we all had a good time sitting there in the floor as the kids went through all the toys. Let me tell you that he LOVES his BABA-- (his daddy), he wants to be beside him at all times and only wanted to sit on the bus beside him. We did switch seats coming home and he asked to sit by his dad, but then he settled for me I guess. He only wants his baba to hold and carry him too. Scott says he weighs a ton! hahaha

We were walking down the street waiting at this office, and Drew wanted a balloon. Well he not only got a balloon, he got 2 more toys and juice to drink. He was very happy with that. We realize he doesn't truly understand what is going on, as he asked the Chinese tour guide who was taking him back to the orphanage. She told him he was staying with his mama and baba. He said ok. Just to tell u as I'm writing this, Drew found his MP3 player and wanted me to get it started for him. He is into EVERYTHING! He is a Very inquisitive little boy to say the least. He opens everything he can get his hands on or into. When we first just now walked into the room, he walked straight to this laptop and turned it on!! I'd say he knows how to use a computer....

Drew had a big time passing the beach balls around in this office we were in today, we were in there for hours!! He got it out and wanted it blown up. He was laughing out loud while throwing and catching that around. He also kept asking for ice cream, preferably chocolate according to our tour guide Wendy. So finally later, his baba took him to buy a chocolate ice cream bar which he ate all of. He seems to be very independent. He likes to play with the other kids at times, and other times, he just wanted to sit down and look around,or draw pictures at the table by himself. He can definitely entertain himself pretty good. Ok I'm going to post some pics for now, and will do more later. It appears since we've been in the room, that he can speak a few words in English it sounds like. We shall see.... Oh yeah, his dimples are sooooo darn cute!!!!

Ok here's the rest of the day events. After we got back to the hotel, Drew (Xin Suo-his Chinese name) wanted to go outside so we walked out to this (concrete) play area/park across the street from the hotel. He wanted baba to hold him, actually stopped in front of him and held his arms out for Scott to put him on his shoulders! He got to ride these little animals car-like things. He didn't want to get off of it after it was over. He locked his legs around it, but did not throw a fit at all-thank goodness. He then saw this kiddie train-which of course he wanted to ride. Once this was over, he jumped out of it and got into another cab of the train to ride again. So we're walking around here and there's this man selling balloons, he spots him and immediately gets excited. So you know he ends up with yet another balloon! After this, we walked back to the hotel to eat. Just to let you know, you would have thought he had eaten out with us a thousand times before. He did so wonderful. We found out he likes watermelon, tomatoes, broccoli, meat, not a very picky eater-yippee!!