There are 3 families from Spain here adopting in our group. We were talking to one family this morning and they have a new little 2 year old boy with a cleft lip. She expressed to me her magnitude of different emotions she has felt over the last 24 hours. I confided in her that I had the same emotions with our 13 year old. She was relieved to hear this. It was such a beautiful moment for me. Here is a woman from another part of the world with a different language and culture, yet our feelings as mother's are the exact same. We both don't want to fail.
Because of Kai's age, he had to sign papers today saying he would willing go with us. We knew from the beginning that we could come home empty handed. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. The man called Kai over. Kai didn't blink an eye. He sat down at the desk as the nice man explained what he was doing and signed the papers. My heart felt relief and joy.
Kai loves to draw and he often draws pictures of sea creatures. He does have memories of his birth family before he was abandoned and one memory is of being taken to an aquarium. We know this from the records we received from his orphanage. He has good memories of his birth family. So, after our adoption become final today, we took him to the Zhengzhou Aquarium. In his quiet way, we could tell he really enjoyed it. I taught him how to use the camera on his ipod and he took pictures of EVERYTHING! His ipod ran out of battery so we gave him Ken's phone to take more pictures.
Our favorite thing at the aquarium was feeding the giant sea turtles and bottle feeding the Koi fish.
On the way home, the kids pulled out our english/mandarin flashcards. They tried speaking mandarin and Kai would give them the correct pronunciation and then Kai would copy the english. It was so nice to hear his voice. This is the most we have heard him speak.
The day could not have gone better. Everyday is a baby step forward. So thankful.
