Day 2 - 8/16

Well, it is 9:30 pm on Day Two of Jackdom and it has been a thoroughly productive and successful day.  Well, except for the whole sleeping thing once again.  Last night Jack did not go to sleep until almost 9 because he simply didn't seem able to turn off the need to know exactly what was going on when and where.  This evening, however, he has managed to keep himself awake until now by using age old 4-year-old techniques.  Just as the 4-year-old already living in my house (Sophie) does most nights, Jack has decided that going to sleep is actually not part of his whole going-to-bed plan.  Stay on the bed - sure.  Keep his head down - no problem.  Go to sleep?  "No thank you.  I would much rather play.  Isn't that what feet and blankets and pillows and stuffed rabbits are for?  Oh and don't forget my ability to whisper to myself in an amount of verbalness unheard by anyone else in this room before now.  (And by the way, thanks Daddy for calling us on Skype and giving me a reason to get out of bed for a few more minutes too.)"  So... here we are, 90 minutes after "lights out" and, well, let's just say Jack's lights are not out.

But all of this does come at the end of a very productive day, so once again we give Jack some leeway and keep this going to bed thing in the work-in-progress category for now while we celebrate the bigger successes - like our formal adoption decree.  Hurray!  But I'm getting ahead of myself so let's start at the beginning.

This morning started out in a fantastic way - opening my eyes to see Jack sound asleep on the bed next to me.  Ironically, neither Katie nor I slept very well last night, but Jack slept like a rock.  This again is a huge blessing as there are several families in our group who had tired children as well as adults when heading out this morning.  For us, we were pretty much just in the same fog we've been in since we got here so all was good.  =)

Breakfast this morning was fun as I'm pretty sure Jack saw the hotel's breakfast buffet and thought he had died and gone to heaven.  I took him to the fruit section and his little eyes just lit up.  Then we headed to the more traditional Chinese fare (for lack of better description) and he pointed faster than I could believe at one of the dishes being offered.  I'm still not sure exactly what it was but it was one of the first things he ate and he left not a drop.  He also enjoyed using his spoon, but as it was generally the size of his head it did pose a bit of an obstacle.  He was very interested in the forks on the table, but much preferred for me to use the fork and feed him that darned dragon fruit that kept slipping out of his fingers than to use the fork himself.  By dinner tonight, however, the fork was no longer to be avoided and he did quite well with one - even eating spaghetti.

After breakfast we met back up with our group and headed back to the Registration Office.  We weren't there long as we were mainly turning in the paperwork we completed yesterday afternoon and then waiting for our official Adoption Certificate.  Once we had that certificate in our hot little hands all of our adoptions were official, binding and COMPLETE!  Once again, I was amazed by Jack's comprehension of English throughout this entire endeavor, he just seems to understand everything.  He doesn't respond with words of any kind yet, but he follows directions beautifully and is making my life extremely easy.  Just as an aside - in the bus this morning Katie and I were discussing Jack's said English awareness when Katie said "We're talking about you, you know."  Jack, who up until that point had been fixated on the cars outside the window, looked up at us smiled his little "Oh, I know" smile, and then turned back to watching the traffic.  I'm telling you, it is amazing!

Well, after finishing our business at the Registration Office we headed over to the Notary Office where we completed more paperwork so that Jack can get a passport and thus begin his travels home.  This also did not take long and Jack happily passed the time by eating the entire bag of cheerios and raisin bran I had swiped from the breakfast buffet this morning.  From what I could tell, raisins and banana chips are a very good thing in his book.

From there we headed back to the hotel.  We had lunch next door at the Holiday Inn Express which made Jack happy once again as we fed him fried rice and dumplings.  Then it was back to our room for a nap.  Luckily we didn't have any of these going to sleep stalling techniques in place at that time.  Jack laid down on the bed, told me to rest next to him and within minutes he was O-U-T.  And that is where he remained for over an hour.  Yeah!

After resting time it was time to head out one more time - this time to the Lotus Center for some Chinese style shopping.  Katie and I have been looking forward to this trip for several reasons, but our main mission today was to find Jack some shoes.  The shoes he came to me in are purple jelly sandals with lovely flowers across the toes.  Beautiful shoes - if you are a four-year-old girl.  Not so cool for a Jack.  Unfortunately, the smallest shoes I brought with me turned out to be about two sizes too big for his tiny little feet so finding new shoes was a must.  But just so you know, Jack wore those shoes I brought - the ones with pirate stuff on them - all day today as he didn't think those purple sandals were very cool either.  On a very positive note, we were  able to find Jack new shoes, though it was very difficult to find ones small enough even at the Lotus Center, so he is now the proud owner of his very own light-up Mickey Mouse sandals.  Yeehaw!

The rest of our Lotus Center journey was successful too.  Jack picked out a dump truck to play with which he just smiled and smiled about.  And he also picked out a very soft stuffed rabbit - the one he is using as a must-stay-awake-accomplice this evening.  We also gathered a good amount of snackage to keep in our hotel room as well as a few items to take home.

And finally it was time to come "home" - to new mattresses!  Yep, you read that right.  When we arrived at the hotel the staff was in the process of replacing the mattresses for our entire hallway.  Apparently it is part of some hotel-wide renovation, but we are not complaining because our beds are much softer and comfier than they were last night.  So, after a long day shopping, we got to watch the hotel staff switch out our furniture before heading to dinner at the hotel's Italian restuarant.  And now, one pizza and spaghetti dinner later, I am here blogging for you fine folks, dreaming of sleeping in my nice new soft bed, and wishing that Jack was not still awake.  But as I said, today has been a very productive and successful day so all is well.

Tomorrow we will head out at 8:30 a.m. to spend the day at Maria's Big House of Hope.  Katie and I are very excited about this and happy to be sharing the adventure with two other families.  We haven't told Jack what we are doing yet, but our guide is going to explain everything to him before we leave so he will know where we are going and that he is not staying there but only visiting.  I can't wait to see Mikey and Mariah, and I am anxious to see what they have to say about Jack.  The transformation in him in just 24 hours has been astounding.  This evening he was not only running from one end of our room to the other, but he has started to laugh when he's tickled, talk (although in a whisper to himself) and the highlight of my day was when he kissed me square on the lips completely unprompted while we were at the Registration Office this morning.

I know I said a couple days ago that I had a true peace about all of this and that it seemed like I was simply here picking up my son as if he were already part of my everyday life, but I cannot explain to you how completely natural he also seems to think all of this is.  I know there will be rough patches ahead and everything won't be roses forever, but I am reminded every few minutes just how completely impossibly easy this transition has been so far.  The simple fact that he is right now rolling around on the bed whispering to himself like any other typical four-year-old would is in and of itself proof that this is no typical adoption journey.   So, as a very wise friend of mine said to me yesterday, Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow because Jack is truly at the end of his long journey home.