"Gotcha Day," Monday, Dec. 8, and today

Orphanage officials who brought Ben:

Rejecting us at this point...
After the chocolate:

Riding on daddy's/ baa-ba's lap on the way back to the hotel. There are MUCH different safety standards here. Car seats...What is a car seat?

Standing in the lobby...We looked at the Christmas tree, listened to Chinese ladies playing traditional instruments, and got a little free Santa made out of pipe cleaners from a nice lady in a sales booth/ gingerbread house.

There's so much to say that I don't know where to begin. When we first met Shan Shan (nickname for You Shan) in the notary office, he knew what was going on and was pretty much rejecting us, especially me, who's taking the place of his nannies. But chocolate warmed him up a bit. When we traveled from the notary office back to the hotel and took him to the hotel room, our guide explained to him in Mandarin that he would stay there with us and be with us from then on. He went into a pitiful heart-wrenching scream crying session and I held him, while he tried to push me away. After a while, daddy got the bubbles out and started blowing bubbles. That distracted him out of crying and perked him up. We played with some other toys, walked around inside and outside our hotel, and went to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant. By the time we went to bed, he was beaming with a big, contented smile as he slowly looked back and forth at Bob and I.

Ben is SUCH a good boy. Of course he is 3 yrs old and starts playing "I'm going to be a stinker right now" once in a while, but after a firm "no" from mommy and a displeased mommy face, he quickly changes direction. He is a people pleaser.

He is extremely independent and methodical and knows how to do a lot of different things that he learned at the orphanage, including washing his hands. He hates having dirty hands. He didn't seem to know/remember any English, but he's catching on really quickly. I'm using a few Chinese words, but one problem, though, is that the Suzhou dialect is so different that Suzhou people sometimes can't be understood by people speaking the main dialect. For example, our first guide explained to me that instead of "shway" for water, it's "shwee" in Suzhou dialect. The only thing he seems to understand me saying is that and a few other words that must be the same--hello, are you hungry?, no (to not permit)...I tried a few other phrases to only have him look at me like I was speaking gibberish, so either I'm not saying them right or they're different in Suzhou. He communicates very well by grunting and pointing to what he needs or wants and doesn't seem to be frustrated by our lack of Mandarin.

He is such a happy little boy, smiles and laughs a lot, and loves holding both of our hands while going anywhere outside of the hotel room. He's such a cutie and so full of love. He slept peacefully all last night after he understood that we were all going to stay in the same room, but I hardly slept. Ah well...there's tonight!