Jin Tao - Gotcha Day!

First let me say that we are having a hard time with our internet connection, so hopefully this makes it to our blog. Second let me say that I (Steve) am posting this, those who know expect some typo's.

Okay – here we go. We had breakfast about 9:30 am at the buffet at the hotel. It brought back memories of breakfast when we got Mei-Leigh. People here eat some pretty WILD stuff for breakfast.

At 2 pm we met our guide and another lady who was picking up her 11 month old little boy… She lives in San Francisco. As we walked into the elevator to go downstairs Laurie and I had a little deja vu as we talked about, how once again things in a few moments would NEVER BE the same again.

It was a 20 ride to the Civil Affairs Office in Nanjing. Jin Tao arrived shortly after we did. The little guy had a hard time. Several times he would just break out into this desperate cry that broke your heart. The ladies from his orphanage were really nice, you could tell that they loved him, and they keep telling him that we were his momma and baba. They brought out the pictures of us that they obviously had been showing for months to prepare him for this day.

After we left the civil affairs office – we went back to the hotel. Jin Tao did great on the ride back… And he did great the rest of the night: playing with Mei-Leigh, jumping on the bed, coloring with Laurie and the 4 of us playing catch. It was AWESOME! He would laugh and rattle off stuff we were clueless about… BUT we were connecting – it was COOL.

At about 9 pm we went to bed and it was sad because he just kind of stared up in bed with an empty expression. Poor little guy had a ROUGH day. And little did we know, it would get a lot rougher.

An hour into his sleep he woke up crying, he was laying next to me and I told him “it’s okay Jin Tao” - and then he proceeded to threw up. It was bad! Major projectile hurling. He took out the bedding on both beds (we had pushed together both beds and the 4 of us slept together). It was everywhere, on him – on us – the floor – his hair – his ears.

That was 2 hours ago and we’ve gone through the same drill three more times – minus the bedding, we got smarter there and put towels down, lots of towels.

BUT despite the tears, initial sadness and projectile hurling it was a GREAT day! And tomorrow another one will dawn.

The picture on this post is of us eating together in our room – little did we know we would see that food again.

Thanks for your prayers! They made a difference. And please continue to pray.

Steve, Laurie, Mei-Leigh, Jin Tao