So, obviously, we have our Johnathan!!!! It was our strangest gotcha by far. We got the other kids in the morning (so we only had anxious breakfasts instead of anxious all-days... this time I was emotionally spent before we ever left to get him!). We also had to wait for Ben and Catherine to arrive but Johnathan was already there when we walked in. After 2 years of waiting it was kind of anticlimactic... we didn't get any pics or video of the gotcha moment because our cameras were still in our backpacks. But, it was a good moment nonetheless and he came right over to us (smiling!) when we got there. There is only 1 other family adopting in this province this week so we signed our paperwork, took our official photograph (no tears, unlike Catherine), and we were in and out of there very quickly. The whole time he had a big smile on his face :)
We left the civil affairs office and headed to a giant store to buy some essentials. We found out that Johnathan's idea of essentials is EVERYTHING in the store so we got out of there as fast as we could. We headed back to the hotel (as Johnathan snarffed all the snacks we just bought) to do our official adoption paperwork with our guide. Johnathan got busy playing with all of his new possessions (which he is VERY possessive about... we have to carry all of it with us all the time). He had a great time just hanging out in the room, playing with toys, getting to "know" the ipod, trying out the backpack carrier, eating anything he could find, and getting into EVERYTHING. Seriously... that boy gets around quickly and he can find trouble in a millisecond. Oh, and he laughs really loud when he is naughty (like when he splashed all of the water out of the tub)... great!
We went out to dinner and everything was great until he started crying and yelling at me. Of course we had no idea what was the matter and we thought maybe he was upset about leaving some of his toys in the room. He was really really mad at me and he kept yelling and pointing. We only found out later that he had to go to the bathroom! Why oh why did the other people in the restaurant, who heard him yelling, not show us to the bathroom or something? I had no idea... BAD MOMMY! Now I know the particular word he uses so we are good to go from now on! That was our one and only bad time of the day... pretty good I will have to say!
When we got back from dinner we skyped with the kids at home (he was so excited to see JieJie, GeGe, and Mei Mei and he kept saying "Ni Hao" to them!) and then he laid down, said Nigh Night to all of us, and went right to sleep. He is such a little sweetie and he is so well behaved. He is so aware of what is going on in the world around him it is amazing that he was in the orphanage for 3 years. He is so bossy and has no problem telling adults what to do... when he rides in the backpack carrier he directs Jay like Jay is his horse :) Our guide said that he was saying, "Daddy go this way" and "Daddy don't stop- keep going." He is a little prince... he is going to have a hard time being the low man on the totem pole when we get home!
It was a very strange but wonderful day. He has to be the cutest little kid who has ever lived (or at least he is making a good case for the title!)...
Serious Cuteness Factor #1: He spontaneously breaks into song. It is hilarious! He will just be sitting there or playing with toys and he will just start singing to himself and dance a little bit.
Serious Cuteness Factor #2: He cannot get enough of looking at pictures of himself or looking at himself in the mirror. Whenever he sees his image he smiles, points to it, and says his Chinese name. And I do mean whenever... the elevator in the hotel has mirrors on the walls and ceiling that he was thrilled that he could see multiple Jia Yu's at the same time :)
Serious Cuteness Factor #3: Jay made him a paper airplane and he named it his butterfly :)
Serious Cuteness Factor #4: We were trying to get him to change his clothes but he did not want to (we wanted to save the orphanage clothes for him so we needed to get him out of them). Our guide told him he had to change and he asked why. She told him that he was stinky and needed to change. He was so offended that she said he was stinky and he totally told her off!