Samuel Mao Ping's Adoption...Day 1

The meeting place was small, crowded and chaotic. A large American family dominated the room in anticipation of the arrival of their daughter. As we walked in they mistakingly cheered followed by a loud groan of disappointment. Our party of six then filled the remaining space in this little room!

In the corner stood a young man in a military uniform and a round dirty toddler who had a concerned look on his face. The young man saw us and started telling the boy his family had arrived. That is when Dang, QingYong started to whimper and cling to his nanny.

The nanny settled QingYong easily and then repeatedly said "here is your family" (in Mandarin). He pointed to each one of us as he reviewed our pictures in the photobook I had sent months ago. Our boy would look at us, shake his head and start to cry again holding more tightly to his nanny. 

The nanny was very pleased with us and at the same time looked as if he was on the verge of tears. Before departing he requested a picture with all of us together. He then set QingYong/Mao Ping down and dashed out the door. 

 

Our boy ran to the next familiar person, the Orphanage director, who picked him up and gave him a good scolding "Go to your family"! At this point our boy would not even look at us and we were supposed to leave for pictures. Su Yee was very concerned that something was wrong with her "baby brother" and asked over and over "why won't he come see us?". 

Total Chaos...Patrick is signing our  24 hour fostering papers, I'm trying to get close to QingYong while
Su Yee is grilling me with questions and Kevin is taking Pictures! 

Eventually QingYong/MaoPing let Patrick hold him and he did not cry. The tears started in earnest again once we opened the hotel room door. This is where jiejie did her magic and started sharing toys and cheerios. Two hours later (with the help of Patrick's awesome harmonica playing) our very dirty little boy produced his first giggle. He has a great laugh and I love his dimples!

Initially he was hard to hold as he smelled like diesel and was covered in soot. A black smudge was left on the wash cloth when I wiped the back of his neck at bedtime. He fell asleep in his in clothes and we could not clean him until the next day. After removing all the clothes his girth diminshed by ~2 inches! He had been wearing a yellow puffy Panda jacket, a mustard yellow padded jogging suit, a yellow quilted pajama set, a thin green pajama set, big socks and small runners! I washed all those layers but the clothes still smell like diesel. They are now tucked safely in a keepsake box!

The Nanny's story...

When we returned to the Taiyuan Civic Office to sign the official adoption papers the Orphanage Director was present so we asked her for QingYong's nanny name for his lifebook. We were surprised to find that the nanny had the same last name! All the orphaned children from Yuncheng Social Welfare Institute bear the last name "Dang".

Dang, YunWu' s left hand and arm were "malformed" (not visible in the pictures). YunWu grew up in the orphange but he was not adopted. Once he reached the age of majority he started working at the orphanage. He was QingYong's favorite caregiver and he called him gege (older brother). Truly they were brothers for a while with their common orphanage experience.

As we waited for our van on the Civic Office steps YunWu watched us cautiously from inside a car in the corner of the parking lot. As we went to get into the van he popped out with a huge smile on his face and gave us a big wave! I think he was very happy that QingYong was being adopted. We did leave an email address with the orphanage. I am hoping to send periodic picture updates but China censors everything and we are discouraged from directly communicating with the orphange.