A beautiful Day

And I am not talking about the weather in Nanjing!  It is the rainy season here, so it is dreary here.  But, that is ok because we have our Xu Lu!  He is so wonderful.  Lets see if I can lay out our day.  We got to the civil affairs office about 15 minutes before Xulu or Jada (the Bilby's daughter).  There were other families there already receiving their children.  So, we sat down and started on some paperwork.  A short time later, they brought a little girl in, that was Jada!  Oh it was so exciting to watch them become a family!  I was able to shoot some good pictures for them while we waited.  (Gabe and Jada are not from the same SWI).  I stared out the window and saw 2 ladies bringing in a little boy and I just knew that it was him.  Tim got the video camera ready and he was able to get him coming in and being brought to us on video.  He really didn't look at us at first, so I dug out 2 matchbox cars for him and they were a huge hit!  He started playing with them right away!  It was great.  We played with him, signed more papers and he warmed up to us really quickly.  He started calling us mama and baba and the staff all laughed.  I guess on the way in he told the SWI director and Nanny that his mama and baba were coming to get him and that they could come to dinner with us!  So precious! We had to get a family photo taken-which is so that no one can say that he is not ours at any point.  Gabe/Xulu also had to have his passport photo taken, which took a few attempts.  After each try he would say something in chinese and do the peace sign-that made everyone laugh again.  He is one funny kiddo!  We were able to ask the director some questions and one thing she said is that he is very talkative-that's an understatement-he never quits talking!  LOL   He had no tears and was excited to come with us.  Jada was much shyer.  On the way back to the hotel he offered everyone in the van some cheerios including the driver and would not take no thank you for an answer-even Baba (daddy) who doesn't like cherrios at all had to enjoy quite a few.  We went to lunch with our Guide at a local resteraunt-that was culture!  Tim had to order for us and said it was quite hard as after you got past the inerds, chicken feet, heads, and other strange items there wasn't much left!  We ate some fried rice and a very very very spicy chicken dish-too hot for both of us.  Xulu had one melt down at the restaurant which had everyone in the place looking was that I put his rice in a little bowl and he didn't want that, so I dumped it on his try-not a good idea mama!  He wanted it on his little plate-he is a very clean eater!  No messes with this kid!  The staff was enthralled with the kids.  They wanted to know all they could about them.  At one point Gabe was chattering away with our guide and we had about 8-10 women and men all around our table staring, laughing, and really getting a kick out of him!  I have no idea what they were saying?  They did ask him who his mama was and he pointed to me!  On the way back to the hotel he told our guide-Denise that he wanted to take a nap and then get a phone (He took Jada's light up tinker bell phone from her and refused to give it back, so we had to con him out of it and he would not forget about that phone!).  At nap time he cried for a little while but finally slept. He woke up in a great mood and later we went to a huge 5 story shopping mall around the corner just to walk and see what it was like.  It has water fountains, a starbucks, and a DQ!  We may try that tomorrow.  Gabe loved being in his stroller :-)  Jada likes her stroller too and she really started coming out of her shell-it is so cute.  We got McD's for dinner as after lunch we were not feel adventurous, but did find a place in the mall that looked good. However, we thought that our first night with two toddlers that we are not sure they are going to react, we should keep it low key.  Gabe/Xulu does not like chicken nuggets!!!  LOL, but the fries were ok and our pop (not his milk)!  He loved his bath and bath toys and had no problem getting into his jammies.  He also has been going to the bathroom like a pro-even #2 for us!  He is so wonderful!  It was a little harder for him to go to sleep, but finally did-I put him in the crib as Tim and I would never sleep if we all tried to get into the 1 bed.  I held his hand for a bit and he stopped crying, settled down and laid away for quite a while.  I quickly put some photos into a montage, I hope you can see them!  I will add the photos to flicker tomorrow.