Our Journey to Carson

A Visit to the Hefei Social Welfare Institute (SWI)

My darling Little Man decided to wake up at the unfortunate hour of 4AM this morning...4:30, to be exact! Uh, excuse me....we are NOT awake at that hour, Little Man!! Since he was WIDE awake -- and, consequently, so was poor Meggie -- we all climbed in Mommy and Daddy's bed and watched Disney's "Cars" DVD. Uggghh!!

Getting ready to leave for the SWI visit, Carson was acting up -- BIG TIME!! He typically enjoys going "Bye-Bye" and will help everyone get their shoes. Not today. Today, we got this...
We tried to be as tolerant as possible, knowing that today HAD to be tough on him! Heck, it was tough on ME! Those who know me well will not be surprised by this...I made myself physically ill with the stress of today, with...ahem...urgent GI difficulties before we left and a pounding migraine headache when we got back. I was worried about Carson's coping today, plus very stressed about making a mistake during the visit. There are SO MANY rules of etiquette in China of which we are totally ignorant...Lisa helped us through, of course, but I was still very worried about embarrassing ourselves with the staff of the SWI.

When we arrived at the front gate and the van stopped, Carson hopped up and was very excited! Uh-oh. We didn't want him to cry, but we didn't want him THAT happy to be back at the SWI!! We were ushered into an office to wait for Director Sun. Director Yin (who brought Carson to Gotcha Day) is the Director over the children's portion of the SWI, but Director Sun oversees the entire facility. For those who don't know, China's SWIs house both children and also the elderly on the same campus...kind of a combo orphanage/nursing home setting.

When Director Sun arrived, she was SO excited to see Carson! He had eaten a Dum-Dum in the van...hey, we'll calm him down however we can these days!...and she was teasing him because his lips had turned blue! She knew his name and kept tickling his cheek and kissing him...very sweet! Carson decided, now that he was on his old "stompin' grounds," that he would lead the way for the tour...When we got to Carson's classroom, the kids FLIPPED OUT!! He was clearly very popular at the SWI -- "Big Man on Campus" in Meggie's words -- and the kids and nannies alike adore him! The kids were sitting around a large table and waited for permission from the nannies to get up -- then Carson got SWARMED!! His friends immediately noticed his Ultraman gym shoes...they were clearly impressed!When they were given permission, the children all produced laminated art pages they had made for Carson as goodbye gifts...One of Carson's foster sisters was in his classroom and she was very happy to see Carson...
As the kids started swarming around Carson and the noise level elevated, he got really uncomfortable and hid behind Kevin. I was NOT expecting that! I feared we would be dragging him away from these children, kicking and screaming. He kept bragging to them that he had a Mama, Baba, and Jie Jie...the nannies kept giggling every time he said it. Guess we actually ARE bonding, huh?!

The nannies showed me the chore chart on the classroom door. They showed us that Carson's picture is on Friday (his picture is the middle one on the bottom row across)...which is today!...and they teased that he better get busy and get his chores finished!! How cute!Through the Adopted From Hefei Yahoo group, I had accumulated a list of children to find and photograph for their parents who are waiting to travel. Director Sun was very gracious and found every child but one (sorry, Debbie!) to be sure we got the photos we wanted. In order to find some of these kids, we went to areas of the SWI we probably would not have visited otherwise, where the younger children are cared for. The nannies in the younger sections all knew Carson by name and were very excited to see him!

Our last stop on the visit was to his foster home. I was SO NERVOUS to meet his foster mother...I guess I had some insecurities that he would run to her and beg her to take him back. Did not happen. She was so happy to see Carson, but he was very distant with her. We had our guide, Lisa, convince him to stand with her for a picture...I knew he would want it later...He was very happy to see his oldest foster sister...we had been told in an update that he was closest to her. He kept sneaking over to talk to her and I could see the love between them......and before we left, she snuck a bracelet onto his arm. Watching the interaction, it seemed to be something she let him wear often...like an old habit that was their special bond. Interestingly, Meggie brought a bracelet of colorful beads specifically for Carson to play with...he has been carrying that around in his backpack since she gave it to him. Maybe that helped him bond quicker with Meggie -- the fact that she somehow understood the secret bond...that older sisters share bracelets with little brothers. Later, I asked Lisa if the bracelet has special meaning in Chinese culture. She said she did not think so, but that it obviously had special meaning to him and his foster sister. How awesome that she gave it up so Carson could have something to remember her by!!

Carson was very proud to give us a tour of his old bedroom, including his bed......and his desk.

I half expected all signs of Carson to be gone from the home by now. Not so. There was a framed photo of the entire foster family...we photographed it and, back at the hotel, Lisa zoomed in using the digital camera and translated all the names for us. Take a look......his older foster sister's picture is the one at the top on the right, and Carson is right below her. They truly treat the foster families as real families...no wonder Carson fit right in with us and very easily understood the family dynamic!!

Director Sun had to leave the tour at that point, so we asked to take a picture with her...Standing next to Meggie in the photo is the foster mom, Director Sun is holding Carson, and his foster sister is in front of Kevin. I was shocked that not one person cried when we left. Everyone was truly happy for Carson and pleased to see him happy with us. That amazed me, 'cause I was on the verge of tears the whole time! After this picture, Director Sun shook my hand and Kevin's and thanked us for coming. Then she turned and grabbed Meggie for a hug! I was shocked...that's not typical in Chinese culture from what we've seen...and it made me want to grab the foster mom and hug her, thanking her for all that she has done for Carson. But I didn't...etiquette wins out in China. Instead we gave her the gift we brought...and tucked some money in a red envelope in the side of the gift bag for good luck. Really a small token compared to what she has done for Carson, but it was all that was available for us to do.

We were ushered back to the office to wait. At that point, we gave our orphanage donation (the clothes and shoes we purchased yesterday) and our gifts for the nannies.
In the office, we were given Carson's passport, immunization record, and a scrapbook of his life. The text within the scrapbook is all written in Chinese...we'll have to get that translated, for sure!...and contains many priceless pictures of him, all dated! There is even one picture of him wearing the outfit we sent in the first care package! (We didn't get that outfit back, which is fine with me...we were glad to be able to donate it.) I sent a disposable camera in that first care package and I was hoping they would have taken some pictures of him with his friends...unfortunately, they had no record of a camera being included in the box. What a shame.

As we headed to the van, Carson seemed quite upbeat. He did, however, insist that Meggie hold his hand continuously once we left his foster home...He was a little more rambunctious tonight, but no meltdowns (yeah!!) or problems to speak of. He is adding more and more English words every day and we talk to him normally...he understands almost everything we indicate and follows directions very well. He loves to put things in the garbage can, so we watch him like a hawk when he's in clean-up mode so important things (like passports) don't end up in the trash! His favorite English words and phrases are currently "please-eeeee" (please), "gu boy" (good boy), "yoo-meee" (yummy), "doe tush it" (don't touch it), "lub you" (love you), and "Ulta-man". He also likes to make us smell his feet (or shoes, if they are close by) and then he'll wave his hand over them and say "woooooo-eeeeee"...so cute!!

Tonight is our last night in Hefei...thank you, God! We are so isolated out here and VERY tired of being stared at constantly! We leave for Guangzhou around 12:30 tomorrow afternoon and are looking forward to seeing other Americans! For those who are wondering, my e-mails work fine over here...even my work e-mail, believe it or not! We get exactly two English speaking channels...BBC News and HBO Asia. We watch HBO pretty much constantly, as long as the content is OK (which it has been, mostly)...we have watched Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in "The Producers" four or five times already!! You know Kevin's desperate for entertainment when he WILLINGLY watches a Broadway musical!! (No ESPN here, although we did see that the Red Sox won the World Series on the BBC News channel a few days ago.) I haven't listened to a radio since we left the U.S....Meggie brought the wrong cord and can't charge her iPod, so she is using it very sparingly to save her battery and won't let me listen. I miss MUSIC!!!

That's all for tonight. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers...so far, it is very obvious God has his hand on this and we're just along for the wonderful ride.

A few bonus shots of my kids...

In one of the playgrounds at the SWI

Cracking up back at the hotelTrying to make the Giggle Monster stop giggling

"Lub you, Muggie!"

...and we're off to the Big City!!