A Better Day

Thank you all so much for the kind words. Things are going great but I want to be honest about some of the realities that we are experiencing. Adoption is a wonderful thing but it's not all rainbows and unicorns. It is hard work. Things might be a little bit rough right now but they get better every single day. Today it seemed like we all had new attitudes. Maybe it's because I let go of all of my expectations and decided to just enjoy being with our new little boy. Maybe it's because we are finally starting to feel comfortable with each and got a good night's sleep. Maybe it's because we borrowed a stroller from the hotel and Roo couldn't run off in a different direction. I have no idea what it was, but we had a really good day.


It started off with a visit to Roo's orphanage (which is also Sprout's former orphanage). I was a little hesitant taking him back here so soon but I couldn't pass up a chance to get a small glimpse into his life before us. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the whole idea of a giant compound of buildings housing over 600 special needs children that are waiting for families. Without going into too many details, it gives a nice image but behind the pretty facade it is still an orphanage, not much different than the Russian and Kyrgyz orphanages we have also visited. We were allowed to see the rooms where Roo spent the past two weeks (prior to that he was with a foster family) and he was even able to say goodbye to a few friends. We didn't stay long as Roo seemed a little anxious and held Stu's hand the whole time. He was quite excited to leave and yelled "Bye bye!!" to everyone we passed. I'm glad we were able to visit and I'm glad we will never have to go back there.






Later this afternoon we visited Yuyuan Garden and the Old Shanghai area for awhile. It was rainy and it was so crowded with people. I'm so glad we visited though; it was Monkey's first view into China's amazing history. He couldn't even wrap his head around the fact that some of the sights were so old (but then again, neither can I). Monkey said he felt like a celebrity because so many people were coming up to take pictures with him. The younger people don't seem to pay any attention to us at all. The older people, however, have no problem walking right up to us and just staring/touching/grabbing. We just smile and try to talk with them and I'm so proud of Monkey for being such a good sport about it. Many people seem so confused as to how we can have a Chinese child. Adoption is relatively unheard of in this area...especially the adoption of a young boy. We've had several people that have seemed angry we are taking one of their treasures, but most people think it is wonderful and tell Roo what a lucky little boy he is. I think they are wrong though...we are the lucky ones!





Time to say goodnight on our last night in Shanghai. Tomorrow we leave for the last leg of our trip in Guangzhou. I like Shanghai but am looking forward to meeting up with so many other adoptive families in GZ. To have support from families that are in the exact same situation really helps us power through the last week of our trip.