Ethiopia Trip #1: Our little man!

I call it "the moment".  It's that instance when we get to meet our child for the first time.  The moment that someone puts our child in Marjorie's arms.  Each has been different.

We woke at 7.  Showered and got ready.  Our awesome cook at our guesthouse made us breakfast.  It's one of those days that is going to change the rest of your life.  I was way more nervous than Marjorie was.

We got our ride to the St. Thomas Center where he's staying.  We met the sister who took us up to his room.  The toddler room has 10 or so cribs lining the walls.  As soon as we walked in we saw him across the room.  There's our son.  The sister asked if we remember which one he is.  We point to him and she smiles...we know our boy.  She walks over and picks him up and carry's him over to Marjorie.

He just sits.  No tears.  No noise.  Just sitting, looking, watching.  We gave him some cars which he held on to.

 And then slowly he was OK with us.

That first day was just OK.  He kind of flirted around the room playing with toys.  He'd stop in with some of the workers to get hugs and kisses and tickles.  He'd hide in corners waiting for us to "find" him.  He was hesitant with us....which was OK.  We didn't want to push things that first day.

What we loved from that first day was feeding him lunch.  This boy can EAT!  We were given a big bowl full of squished up pasta and tomatoes.  We're talking a portion size that I would eat.  This dude ate the whole thing!!!  I don't know how he can open his mouth this much!  (sorry for the dark picture)

Day 2 was way better.  He was much more engaged with us on day 2.  As soon as we walked in the door he recognized us and smiled.  He came to us willingly.  We gave him a picture book of our family and the boys and he played with those pictures all morning.  It was awesome.  Daddy and E played with a ball for awhile.  He's a quiet little guy, but he giggled and smiled when we played.

 

 Toward the end of the morning we tried hard to get a picture of the three of us (the one we used in our announcement post)....he didn't really wanna look at the camera.  So we had a lot of bad ones.  HA

 

We want this guy to come home soon.  It was great to get to know him a bit.....but he needs to be in our house now.