Tyler's First Full Day
We all woke up around 5:00am this morning, including Tyler. It has been less than 24 hours since we picked Tyler up at the CAB. He is doing so much better already, he isn't crying hardly at all unless we do something to provoke it, such as trying to give him a bath. At the orphanage, we think that he always had sponge baths, but we aren't sure. Mom tried running some bath water for him, but he didn't want anything to do with that. She tried a couple times, but didn't want to push him too hard yet, so when he really didn't want to take a bath, she settled for a sponge bath, and he was ok with that.
The hotel doesn't start serving breakfast until 7:00, so we had a couple hours to kill in the hotel room. We really hoped that he wouldn't wake up quite so early because it is a lot harder on him sitting in the hotel room with nothing to do. We made it through the time and went down for breakfast right at 7:00. Tyler didn't want to feed himself at our first meal together, but was willing to eat if mom fed him, so she did. At the orphanage, they have congee most of the time, so we got that for him and a banana since we know he likes those. We found out he doesn't care for the potatoes they had - he ate it, but you could tell he didn't really want to. Amy met us about half way through breakfast and got him a boiled egg, which he ate on his own after she peeled it for him, and then he also ate more congee on his own. He ate really good, maybe too good. Just as we were getting done with breakfast, we had a breakthrough... Tyler said something to mom, of course we couldn't understand, but by his body language we could tell he needed to go to the bathroom. He spoke to us, which was wonderful.
We had to leave the hotel about 8:15 to go finish up some more paperwork at the CAB. We were concerned about how Tyler would be since we were taking him back to where we first got him. We found out on the way that his nanny and orphanage director were going to be there again today as well. As expected, he threw a fit and cried when we were leaving with him, but it didn't last very long at all. When it was happening, we were debating whether we should go see the orphanage or not on Saturday, but most people do and he really did calm back down quickly.... we stood outside for a few minutes before leaving, waiting on some paperwork, and he had already quit crying before we left and he did fine the rest of the afternoon. I think he's going to be ok.... actually visiting the orphanage will be hard on him, but I don't think it will be too bad.
After the CAB, we had to go to the notary public to have the paperwork notarized. While we were here we started talking with another family who was adopting from this orphanage. We had seen them yesterday when we were picking Tyler up, they were also picking up their baby girl. We had also seen them in the hotel, they're just a few doors down from us, and again at the CAB today. We talked to them and found out that they are from Spain. Their second language is English and their guide didn't know spanish, so they were trying to communicate with their second language to their guide using her second language. It worked fine most of the time, but we helped interpret when we could. They seem like a really nice family as well. At the hotel, we also met someone who adopted a 2 or 3 year old girl about a week ago who is from Washington State. She had assured us that it gets better quickly. They were actually leaving for Guangzhou today. While we were talking at the notary, Tyler fell asleep laying his head on the table, but with just a touch, he was awake again.
After we were done at the notary, which didn't take too long at all, we went to the Walmart SuperCenter. It's a lot like our walmart, except it's on 3 different floors. They have flat escalators to go between floors, they're just like an escalator, but they don't have steps, just a belt. The lower floor was the only floor that was real different, it's where all the open food is, the meat, beans, etc. We got Tyler a few outfits, some new shoes, some legos, a ball and a coloring book as well as a few snacks and juice for both us and him. The outfits that we got for Tyler ranged from $6 to $12 for two piece outfits.
When we got back from Walmart, we showed Tyler his new toys. I built him some vehicles out of his legos. He watched me making them and then took them from me when I offered them to him. A couple of them had windmill type pieces on them that he liked to spin. We decided to try giving Tyler a bath again, and he accepted it much better this time, he didn't cry at all.... don't know that he liked it, but he didn't fuss about it. After his bath, Amy came in to get our laundry to send out. While mom was talking with Amy, I tried to play catch with him with his ball. He held it at first, but then tossed it to me. We played catch together for several minutes. Another breakthrough as far I was concerned... he actually was playing 'with' us.
It was time for lunch, so we went down to the hotel restaurant for lunch. We ordered and waited... and waited. They brought Tyler a roll shortly after we came in to eat while our food was cooking. Tyler is used to taking a nap in the middle of the day, so he was tired by now, since we were a little late eating lunch. He fell asleep waiting on for our lunch, but woke up again once we got our food. We found out that he likes french fries... as most kids do. :) He ate very well again. After lunch, we started to wonder if he was taught that he has to eat everything on his plate, because he seemed to be really full and one of the times near the end of lunch that mom put a few more french fries on his plate, he acted like 'oh, not more.' He was quick to shake his head no when we offered him more after that. We don't want to force him to eat too much, but we don't want him to go hungry either. Now that we think that he may think he has to eat everything on his plate, we're going to be more careful about how much we give him.
We came back upstairs to our room and mom put him in bed for a nap. Danni and I left to see what else there was around and to let mom put him to sleep. We figured it wouldn't take long at all since he was obviously so tired.... we were wrong. He cried and cried for a while before finally he started dozing off and quit crying and fell asleep. We don't think it's the fact that we were making him take a nap, but rather the fact that Danni & I left. That was the first time since we have had him that we haven't all three been here, and he was probably afraid that we were leaving him. If that is the case, it was good for this to have happened, because when he woke up we were all here again showing him that we will come back if we leave.
Danni and I walked around Lakeview Park, a beautifully decorated park in the middle of the huge lake we're staying at. We walked around for probably an hour and took several photos. People here use their parks much better than we use ours - at least where I'm from. There were people playing dominoes and chess on tables in the park, jugglers juggling, some guys practicing martial arts - or playing martial arts, don't know which for sure... and there were also a lot of people just sight seeing and relaxing, taking pictures, etc. We got a few stares, but nothing that much out of the ordinary.
Most of the rest of the day Tyler slept. When he did wake up from his nap, we took him and mom to the park, but shortly after we got there it started sprinkling and it was a long walk back, so we started back in case it started really raining. They had already closed a lot of the buildings in the park and shut off the water fountains, so it wasn't as nice as what we had seen earlier anyway. We'll take them back another time.
Continue on to Tyler's First Smiles! & more or go back to the Main Page.
I'd like to welcome you to come along with us by checking out this site every day for updates. You can also visit my mom's web site at http://www.rainbowhorses.com/tyler.html, and I strongly encourage you to join us at our forum to ask questions, post comments or anything else.
Thanks for checking out our page!
Print