Introducing our new son!

D Day! He is such a doll – all bushy eyebrows and pudgy cheeks and the cutest little giggle when he succeeds at bonking someone with a tinker toy. We’re totally crazy about him already.

Mei-Ru picked us up at 8:30 in the lobby (we were half an hour early) and we headed to FengYuan, carrying bags of presents and still rather anxious. Well, except J, who wasn’t entirely sure what was going on – I think he’s heard about D for so long he’d started thinking of him as imaginary, like the dragons or pirates. He fell asleep – announced that he’d take a nap because then it would be faster.

After a brief stop in the office to drop off the bags (why aren’t we allowed to give them to the foster mom ourselves?) and to sign a single, simple paper that finalizes our acceptance of the adoption, we drove to his foster mom’s apartment. We walked across a little stone path through someone’s ceramic pot garden and across a narrow cement walkway over an urban stream, and then there he was in Mrs. C’s arms, peering out the door at us!

He was so very quiet. She told us that that is how he reacts when he is uncertain or upset – he gets quiet and doesn’t interact very much. And it must have been overwhelming to have all four of us plus Samantha and Mei-Ru suddenly stuffed into his living room, shaking stuffed animals at him. J showed him each and every thing we’d brought – the stuffed dog, little lion, ball, noisy truck, and the no-spill drinking cups. It was the cups that broke the ice a little. He liked to screw the lid on and off. Then he was willing to play with the truck a little bit. Roni and J got right down on the floor with him and were persistent until he gave J at least a bit of a smile. I plopped down nearby and asked his foster mother questions through Samantha’s translations, but even with the lists I’d made, it was hard to concentrate!

We all trooped out to the car, and he transferred to Roni’s lap without an trauma, but was again very quiet, and extremely vigilant, watching every move any of us made with big eyes. There were a couple of baby store stops for formula (why is a 2 ½ year old still on formula?) and diapers and a little backpack. Then we were on our way back to Taipei, just a couple hours after we arrived.

We unfortunately didn’t get to meet his birthmother, which I’m sad about. Or J’s. We don’t really know why, as the agency maintains a lot of privacy about the birth families. So we left our packages and the book I’d made of J’s first year with us and TWCA will get them to the birth mothers.

On the ride back, we practiced D’s Taiwanese name, which we’ve been doing for months, without noticeable effect. The “Bo” syllable gives us trouble. There are Os and As and some sort of Rs in there, and all three adults pronounce it slightly differently and Mei-Ru was quite amused by most of them. We persist, and seem to be showing some improvement. Highly embarrassing not to be able to pronounce your own son’s name. We’d listened to the videos over and over again at home, trying to get it. I guess it is like the Hebrew R or CH - if you don’t grow up with it, it will never come easily.
The most successful toys during the car ride were the tinker toys that J got out and the markers/coloring book. He and J took made long connected sticks and bonked everyone in the car and soon D Bo-Hsiang was laughing along with J, to our thrill. He also made himself a multi-colored kid while scribbling in the coloring book.

We stopped for lunch at a freeway food court where we relearned the difficulties of feeding a toddler from chopsticks, and J indignantly told me that D stole his chicken right off his plate and now “his germs got on my germs and the germs are mixed and that’s not good!” D devoured the meal, really, which was great to see. (Roni, on the other hand, did not like the flavor of his “thin noodles with large intestine” even though he requested the intestine be left off, so we took pity and shared our fried noodles and dumplings.)

Back at the hotel, I tried to get him to take a nap but he was too vigilant, even with his head nodding. So we all went to play in the little park behind the hotel, which was a big success. He and J raced/toddled up and down the slides and across the climbing bridge and then just raced around in general. D it seems is rather fearless, and we’re going to have to watch him like a hawk. He was perfectly happy to race off the edge of the raised park without pausing – Roni had to catch him in mid-air several times. But it was so great to hear the two boys laughing together as they ran around the people doing their slow exercises and then ran equally as fast around the marble hotel lobby.

Dinner was an ordered in pizza from Dominos – might as well get him used to his mama’s cooking style now J - because it was just too much to go back out again in search of food.

J’s showing some signs of sibling rivalry already. He protested mightily leaving me with D when Roni took him off to Starbucks so I could try to get D to take a nap. And when D stumbles and falls down, J falls down right away so we can help him up too. But he’s also bringing toys and water bottles to D and talking about “my brother” a lot in approving tones, so we’ll hope that that side wins the majority of the time.

Getting D ready for bed was peaceful, but then he wouldn’t lie down for anything. J was completely unconscious but D just sat there, staring, resisting our efforts to coax his head onto the pillow. He was so obviously exhausted, and worried again, and he wasn’t going to relax enough to sleep. We dozed a little, though Roni and I tried to stay awake, but every time I’d look at him, he was still staring out at the room. It was heartbreaking! Finally I got him to sit on my lap and held his head against me - he fell asleep sitting up and I was able to lie him down and he was out for the night. So little to have to be so worried – we’ve shaken his whole world.

It has been a very different experience from our first day with J, and I have to say that I prefer the version where our new son is not vomiting noodles due to his extreme hysteria, but it is also clear that this isn’t easy for little D, and as much as we try to make our family a happy place for him, he’s going to need lots of time and love. But his little smiles give me a good feeling about the long term.

Hurray! Hurray!