This morning I FaceTimed some friends back home to get some help with Aiden's rash, and had a complete meltdown while talking to them...like full-on ugly cry. This trip has been so hard and emotional, and I do my best to keep things together for Aiden, but when the emotion hits, it hits hard. It's being overwhelmed, missing family, endless travel, not being able to fix a child's hurt, etc. Adoption is hard, but so worth it. We have fallen hard for this sweet boy and will do everything in our power to give him everything he deserves.
The drive to the airport took about an hour. We were thankful to tell Zhengzhou farewell. It was the city where we met our son, and now we were going to put him on a plane, and continue our journey to bring him home.
Everything went so smoothly in the airport. I can't say enough about our agency, Bethany Christian Services, and the organization of our trip. We have enough to worry about, so we are so thankful they take care of all the travel details.
On the plane, we saw another Aiden moment. He began to play with the tray table, laugh and eat snacks. He sat on Alana's lap, and Mama got a little break. We put ear plugs in his ear before take off and gave him a sucker to help his ears. However, BinBin crushes suckers instead of taking time to suck on them which completely defeats the purpose of helping his ears. Oh well...it is so adorable to watch him crush a sucker!
Aiden slept the whole 2 hour plane ride. We were fed a meal of chicken and rice. Alana says it was better than the food we ate on our long flight to Beijing. She has become quite the food critique during our China stay.
A driver met us at the airport and took us to our 3rd hotel of the trip. When we got checked in and to our room, Aiden let loose and began playing with us. We were on the bed and had to watch him closely because he had no fear of rolling off the bed. He even walked some for us!
After we got settled in to our home for the next 5 days, we decided to find a pharmacy for a med we needed for Aiden. The concierge wrote the name of a pharmacy down on a hotel card for us to show the taxi driver. A bell boy called a taxi for us, and we were on our way.
The pharmacy did have what we needed, but it took us a while to communicate to them what we were looking for. When we were walking out of the pharmacy, we realized that there wouldn't be a bell boy on the side of the street in downtown GZ to call a taxi for us! I started waving down taxis and was being ignored. Some man was kind enough to tell us we were in the wrong place to call a taxi and showed us where to go. As soon as we got to this spot, we got the first taxi we saw, but then realized the taxi was stopping for someone that was already standing there. So I did what any mom in a foreign country just ready to be safe and home would do...I got in the cab and acted like I didn't see them. And I'm ok with that.
After arriving safely back to the hotel, we walked outside to find a place for supper. David spotted a Mediterranean restaurant. He is anti-Chinese food right now. BinBin sat on my lap and faced the table. Normally he is up on my shoulder. Since he was opening up a little, I got some snacks out for him, and he ate them. Then I gave him some of the turkish bread and hummus we had ordered, and he loved the bread but not the hummus. He ate that until it was all gone. We were getting excited thinking maybe he would actually eat a meal. Alana ordered lamp chops, and David and I shared chicken fajitas and rice. I made the mistake of letting Aiden eat a piece of chicken before I tasted it, and he spit it out and began wiping his mouth. It was very spicy! Thankfully he was still willing to try more things after that. He tried some of Alana's lamp chop, and we had hit the jackpot. He ate a lot of that and some rice. This is the first meat we could get him to eat. We were so excited to watch him eat. He is making progress every day, and it so fun to watch!
After supper, we ran into some friends from our group that we hadn't seen since Beijing. We have been looking forward to reuniting with our group and meeting all of the children. Tomorrow morning we will get to see them all as we will ride together to our children's medical appointments.
Some Aiden funnies: When we change his diaper he says something to me over and over that sounds like "Yo Mama" and "Holla". We have to find out what these words mean, but it is so funny to hear him say. I am trying to get as much of his Chinese words on video because I will miss them as he begins to learn English.