Meeting Bowen

What an interesting day! I love this little guy. When we met Bowen he watched us watching him and looked slightly nervous. He came right to me for Hot Wheels and Animal Crackers. He let me pick him up, let John take a picture, wouldn't go to John for a minute but then let him pick him up and me take a picture. He even laughed at us a bit. He seems to be a very calm boy who just doesn't talk a lot because he doesn't want to. He can speak his language very well, the guide tells me, he just seems settled not to speak a lot. Our guide, Jane, thinks it is just his personality -- his way.

The shoes I bought for him exactly fit (Thanks, Renata) -- a size 9. I was glad as the ones he came in were really too small. We changed his shoes and unloaded a few layers (I believe he had 4 very thick layers) of clothes from him before we went to dinner. The guide had written in Chinese what his favorite food was so we tried the authentic Chinese restaurant in the hotel. John and I had our choice of the jelly fish, the braised pigs ear, turtles in softened shells, and duck livers but finally, the staff rescued me by recommending the eggplant and beef (which was like the texture of ground beef but cut like roast beef). It turned out to be very good. One of the waitresses figured out that Bowen could speak Chinese so she came over and fed him his noodles with chopsticks and spoke constant Chinese to him as the other waitresses looked on and giggled because they all thought he was so cute. (We were the only customers in the restaurant...). When he had tried all the noodles he wanted, he asked for eggplant and beef. He wanted to eat what we were. Then he requested a fork and when they brought him one, proceeded to try to cut his food and eat it like we were. I cut it for him but he tried to cut the little pieces futher my mimmicking what I had done. He learned how to scoop it all up on his fork and showed me so that I would praise him.

Bowen's nanny

All through this time, he always wanted to make sure both John and I were there with him. He wanted one hand in John's and one in mine. If it didn't work out that he could have both, he was okay but made sure the other was following. He made a lot of eye contact with both of us and laughed a lot.



He rather enjoyed his day of freedom and was very interested in all that went on outside in this big new world but when bedtime came, he jumped up to put on his too small shoes -- I can only assume that he was ready now to go back home to his nanny. (He seemed to have a very loving relationship with this nanny and actually called all the nannies in the orphanage 'mama' and the director 'baba' - 'daddy'). Now I could see that this is not all fun and games. I feel so sorry for the poor guy -- what a dirty trick it seems to me. We held him, loved him, wiped his tears (and his nose), tried to tell him it was all okay. He would let me hold him for a few minutes but then suddenly get very angry at me and push me away. We finally decided that since it was already well past his bedtime that we would turn on the TV (maybe he needed noise) and let him fall asleep that way. John held him close, I got a hold of one hand, and together we watched Chinese TV until he fell into a deep sleep... until 1:00 AM.



When he woke up at 1, he was wide awake and ready to go...I know because he put his shoes on. He tried to say things to us in Chinese and we had no idea what he was saying so I excitedly pulled out my book of "First Thousand Words in Chinese" and he loved it! He especially loved the pages with the sports and the cars. He would point to the ball and wait until I said "ball" then he would say the Chinese word, then I would attempt the Chinese word, then I would repeat "ball" and he would say "ba". He is very smart. He wanted to learn what everything was. He said many of the English words. He said 'car' a great many times and wanted to know what that big truck is that has the ball on the end that destroys buildings (?) if anyone wants to help me know the English word for that truck please email... I feel like this was a very bonding experience.



He played with our faces after that, pulled and pinched our noses and laughed at how we talked with them pinched. He held John's face very still and just looked into his eyes (I know John was just melting) then hit him with a huge head-butt for such a little guy and just laughed and laughed. He pointed to the water (and yes, he has learned the word "this"), took some huge gulps (he doesn't know how to drink very well yet), then spit the last one out at us and laughed and laughed. He attempted this more but has realized we don't like this so swallows it down instead of spitting it out. We finally got him to sleep again at 2:30, with both of us beside him holding his hands.

We feel very blessed. What a beautiful, wonderful little guy!