Josiah Kemin Hunter!

 

He's ours!

After a mostly sleepless night for me, we awoke to rainy skies. We met our guide a little after 8 am for the hour long bus ride to the civil affairs office where we were to get our kids. When we arrived, we were ushered into an office where we did some paperwork. Basically, we signed temporary guardianship papers until tomorrow. They give you 24 hours to decide whether or not you will go through with the adoption, can you imagine? "Uhhh, no, we've changed our minds!" I know there are cases where that actually happens but it is pretty hard for me to imagine. Anyway, the kids had not arrived yet due to traffic problems. There were several "false alarms" as different people came into the room and we anticipated that Josiah and his nanny would be next...this happened five or six times...it drove us crazy! After we finished our paperwork, a group of parents from Iceland came in, also awaiting the arrival of their children. Turns out they are also staying at our hotel, the White Rose. We moved out to the hallway so they could start their paperwork, and as we were entering the hallway, the nannies brought Josiah and Sarah right to the door, but the guide and officer wanted us to go sit on a couch down the hallway! It was pretty weird walking right past our kids and waiting for the nannies to bring them to us, which actually took a few minutes. If you look at my web album, you will see the nannies sitting across the open foyer from us. Josiah was crying and saying "mama" and gesturing towards us (we thought-but alas, we were mistaken ;-) Finally, they brought them over to us. Sarah did really well and warmed up fairly quickly, but Josiah was very sad and scared. He kept crying for his foster mama.

Eventually, we got in our bus and returned to the hotel. Josiah did pretty well once we got in our room, since we pulled out a ball and started playing with him. He was laughing really hard. This kid is all boy, let me tell you! He will fit right in with our boys. He loves the toy trucks I brought, especially when Marc crashes them together or topples then off the edge of the bed, and the stacking cups, which he has figured out how to turn into a tower to knock down! He also likes books so far (thank you, God!)

When I first saw Josiah, I thought, "Wow, he is BIG!" He looks wonderfully healthy. He was wearing a short set with no underwear on (do they have underwear for toddlers here? I must go check...) The pink sandals he was sporting in our video were NOT on his feet-yea! He is potty trained but we don't know if we'll be able to maintain that. Marc demonstrated the proper use of the potty but it took about an hour before Josiah imitated Marc (the apple doesn't fall too far...!) We were able to get a pull-up on him prior to his nap just in case he left a little in the tank!

After a little time in our room, we went down to lunch and he ate fairly well. He and Marc were playing across the table, and Josiah would mimic whatever Marc did. Very cute! After lunch, I went off to do more paperwork and he played with Marc in the room. We put him in his crib for his nap and there were quite a few tears and cries for mama, but we patted him and comforted him a bit, and he didn't climb out (which he could easily do!). Finally, he dropped off to sleep, and is still snoozing away, giving me a chance to get this blog finished!

We are thrilled with our little guy! Check our the web album below.

Forever Family Day