It's Charlie Day!!

What a day!  Let me start at the beginning.  We woke up about 6:30, got ready, and headed down to breakfast.  We've found that even though we don't really eat breakfast at home, in China breakfast may be the only good meal we get all day.  I know it's a shocker, but I'm having trouble finding food I like here.

Anyway, then we went outside to pray a little before we left.  We got very overwhelmed thinking about how scared Charlie must be and how sad his nanny must be saying goodbye to him this morning.  Unfortunately, with the joy of adoption and this exciting day, there also comes loss of so much.  Charlie loses everything he has ever known and that makes me very sad for him.

We met our group and drove over to the civil affairs office about 15 minutes from our hotel.  When we walked in, we saw him immediately, getting some snacks from the lady who brought him.  Her name is Coco and she does the paperwork for the children at the orphanage.  We immediately became emotional after seeing him.  We are finally in the same room!  The lady handed him to us and he came right to us.  No tears.  Brian and I took turns playing with him while we completed the paperwork basically saying we will take good care of him for the next 24 hours until the adoption can be finalized tomorrow.  We also got a wonderful book from the Half the Sky foundation that has several baby pictures of him as well as some type of journal of his growth.  It's all in Chinese so we'll have to do some translation.  I am so very indebted to Half the Sky for the wonderful programs they run at my son's orphanage and at others around the country.

Then we loaded the van and headed for the local Walmart type store.  The bus made Charlie very nervous.  When I walked onto the bus he immediately broke into a sweat and clung to me.  When we got to the store we picked up a few items we needed like some snacks and formula and then headed back to the hotel.  He did fall asleep on me on the way back to the hotel and napped for about an hour.

We played together for several hours after that and then went out to the mall to try to find some dinner for Charlie and some new shoes.  The ones he was wearing were too small.  We found a cute kids store and bought him some shoes that fit better.  We also looked for some clothes for him because his 12 month stuff is too big.  He is very tiny.

Shopping was interesting.  We tried to explain we were looking for smaller clothing for our baby, but they didn't really understand us.  All of the clothes we saw seemed like toddler sizes and are all for very cold weather.  We are sweating from the heat and still air and these stores only sell sweaters and coats.  We are also quite the attraction.  Store employees would call everyone over to see the Americans with the Chinese baby.  I'm not loving all the staring, that's for sure.  We did find some veggie rice to feed him and then headed to Papa John's for dinner.  The familiar taste was very welcomed!

We fed Charlie a bottle of a formula and rice cereal mixture, which we totally guessed about how to make, but it seemed to be a big hit.  We weren't sure when he would want to go to bed, but we figured he had a very long day and about 7:45 we tried to get him to sleep.  He didn't want to sit or lay down so Brian paced the floor with him until he finally gave up the fight and fell asleep.  He's in his crib next to our bed now.

Overall, today could not have gone better for us.  Charlie is such a sweetie and really did great considering the circumstances.  He really likes food and he laughs when Brian tickles him.  He hasn't cried much, but I imagine it's going to set in soon that he is staying with us and the sadness will come.

Tomorrow we go back to the civil affairs office to make everything official with Charlie!!  Thanks again for all your prayers.  We felt them every step of the way.  God is so very faithful.

Going to get Charlie!

We saw him when we walked in!

We are finally holding him!