Update from China - We got Will!

Yesterday we recived Will!!!

Will is a 2-and-a-half year boy (who is twice the size of our my three-year-old sister) who is very active. He likes rice, biscuits, spoons, banging things together, being held, soy milk (yuck!) and water from a cup. He likes to take walks and ride in taxis. He grumbles alot if he doesn't get his way (reminds me alot of Robbi...). Even though he grumbles and complains, he is SO CUTE (but he will not let me hold him, only Dad.)

Last night Will ate enough to be make an overweight sumo wrestler sick. He ate two bites of food and took a drink of water.took two bites of food, drink water. Two bites of food drink water ect. ect. ect.

He is also a neat freak. for every bite of food, he wiped his mouth. If he did not wipe is mouth, he would grumble tell you gave him a napkin to clean his mouth.

When we first got him he kept crying for his orphanage caretaker. It was tear jerking. He settled down after, I don't know, a couple of hours.

Well, besides Will being so upset about leaving his caretakers, so far so good!

[Jim's entry]

We got our long awaited phone call yesterday around 3:30 pm and took a cab to the Guangzhou Civil Affairs office. We proceeded to a empty room on the 5th floor and then waited for Will to arrive.

At exactly 4:00 pm, Will and his caretakers appeared. Will was very bashful and did not want to enter the room. It was obvious that he had been well prepared for this event, but even so, he did not want to meet us. To try and break the ice with him, I sat on the floor and got several Thomas the Tank engine toys and rolled them towards him. This peeked his interest just a little. Will was clinging to a small plastic bag that contained some snack crackers, soy milk, and a few pieces of fruit candy. He then proceeded to one by one pick up the toy train and place them in his bag.

For the next half hour, Jacob and I tried very hard to get Will to come to us, but he was being very bashful. We then spent about 15 - 30 minutes were I was questioning his caretakers about Will (I had a list of about 20 questions that I wanted answered - as this would be my only opportunity to find out anything about Will's personality and previous life at the orphanage. This is something I failed to do when I received Hope and as a result, We know hardly anything about what she was like for her first 10 months of her life. Of course now it's not hard to imagine her bossing her caretakers around when she was there!) I asked the people if Will had an orphanage nickname. "General" was there reply (Hmm, I wonder why?)

After taking care of some administrative details, the orphanage director and caretaker left Will with us. This was nearly unbearable. Will wailed in pain from being left with us. Will continued sobbing for most of the half hour taxi ride to the hotel. Finally though he stopped and as long as I held him, he wouldn't cry.

Unlike Hope, Will was more than willing to sleep by my side the first night. I did put him in his crib around 1:00 am, but around 5:00 am he awoke with a cry. I moved him back to my bed were he slept until I woke him at 8:00.

Today we finalized Will's adoption by going back to the Civil Affairs office - basically we had to see two different officials and promise to never abandon Will and to take good care of him.

We still have a ton of work left, but except for the passport, it's all Alabama and U. S. immigration related stuff. From China's standpoint, Will is now ours!

Tomorrow - Medical, VISA and passport photos, and then nothing until next Monday!