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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Gotcha Day!

I will never forget today as long as I live!  Wow!  Thank you God for giving us such a wonderful Gotcha Day.  We left at 9:30 this morning to go to Joseph's orphanage to get him.  Our nerves and anticipation were at their max.  We arrived at huge, beautiful building that was newer than what I had anticipated.  We were taken to large room which looked like a waiting room.  It had chairs that circled the room with end tables between them and a large empty space in the middle of the room.  They brought him in as we were finishing up some paperwork and he immediately started crying.  He cried for quite awhile.  They ended up moving him around the corner where he couldn't see us.  They talked to him for awhile, but you can tell when they mentioned us being his mama and papa but the would cry harder.  It was really sad.  I tried giving he a toy and he said, "I don't want it"  They told him to come and see us just for 2 minutes and he agreed.  They brought him to us and he reluctantly sat with us.  The whole time he kept saying "2 minutes, then I want to go upstairs."  Our guide talked to him for a long time with us.  By this point, he was sitting in Ronny's lap, eating a hot dog and still crying.  We started playing with the dinosaurs and the cars I brought by balancing them on his knee.  He would knock if off (probably because he wanted us to stop) and we would laugh and do it again.  We kept doing this and eventually he started laughing about it too.  Soon, he started playing with the cars too.  We crashed cars and dinosaurs for a long time.  As we took pictures we would show them to him and decided he wanted to look at all the pictures on my mom's camera.  So we let him and that led him to want to take pictures himself.  After he took several pictures, our guide told him that we should go outside and he could take pictures of the snow.  He agreed and that how we got him to leave with us.  From that point on it has been smooth sailing.









We left the orphanage and drove to the hotel.  We played for a few minutes in our room and left to go to McDonald's for lunch.  He doesn't seem to be picky at all with his food.  Our guide told us that his meals for different each week and so he is used to a variation of food.  After McDonald's we went to a market to get him some gloves and a hat.  We spent the afternoon in the room playing and went to the mall for dinner.  He told us that he liked that food better than McDonald's.



That night he slept very well.  He cried just a little when we went to bed but he was so tired from not getting a nap that he fell asleep fast.  He seems to be a hard sleeper.  He didn't wake up at all during the night.

We are having the time of our lives!  He is the sweetest and funniest little boy.  He makes us laugh all the time even when we can't understand him.  When he smiles, he wrinkles his nose and it melts our hearts.  He is a very happy little boy and very smart.  On the bus we were asking him if he liked the name Joseph.  He said, "No, my name is Chang Bao Jiang"  Our guide told him that his name translates to Joseph.  He was ok with it, but still doesn't like it."  The bus driver told him, "When you here us say, Joseph, you need to answer"  Bao Jiang said, "Drive your bus".  ha ha!  He is very funny.

2 comments:

  1. I loved the pictures! It broke my heart a little to read that he was crying but I'm sure it's b/c this is such a huge transition for him! He sounds like a sweet heart and a very funny kid. It still think it's incredible that you guys are getting to do this!

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  2. Debra, thank you so much for these blogs!! This has been such a great experience even for those of us back home. I am loving reading all the details and seeing the pics. It just makes my heart melt and I am so happy for you all. I just can't wait to get to meet him. Love to all.....Andrea

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