I met him!

It was wonderful and chaotic and crazy and fun!  The time came and went for us to connect on Skypenand we thought that perhaps the internet was down.  Low and behold--our ringer wasn't on!  They had been trying to connect.  Well. . . when we saw that they were trying to reach us we connected in a hurry.  :)

Gary suddenly declared: "There he is."

There he is.

We moved from the living room to the dining room table so that we could set the computer on the table.  We took turns moving in front of the screen so that we could talk with him.  We introduced ourselves.  He dutifully repeated what his teachers were telling him to say.  "Mama.  Baba.  Love you.  Hello."  The teachers standing behind him were fascinated with us.  They fell all over themselves when Simon showed his cute face.  Barbara, the teacher who was in charge of the whole thing, was Simon's main caregiver.  She is the one who took him home on week-ends, who potty trained him, who loved him so very dearly and delivered him to us. . . who felt such a loss when he left.  So she was very excited to see Simon again.  We asked if Michael had received the birthday gift we sent and they held it up.  It made the trip!  Michael opened it in front of us--what a gift to see!  He was pretty clueless about the sidewalk chalk, but lit up with the Legos!  (Note to self: bring Legos to China, which is a funny statement because aren't Legos made in China?!?)  They also went through the photo book with him.  Now he can see us every day and become familiar with what we look like and what our names are.

Our time ended with Penny having a major meltdown--a couple of the other kids weren't holding up so fabulous either.  Their questions to him in Mandarin became things like "Do you like to eat eggs?"  He does.  "Do you like to eat apples?"  He does.  It was over an hour past their bedtime and we needed to be done.

So I talked with my son for the first time and he called me mama.  He might not know what that means, but I do.  They kept wanting to know when we were coming and we can't tell them.  We just don't know when we'll get invited to travel, but we are still hoping for January or February.  He seemed to talk well which I'm so thankful for.  He kept eating a snack which I loved to see.  (The boy is small: probably from undernourishment in his earliest years.)  He smiled and my heart skipped.  It won't be long and we'll see each other face to face.  Woo-Hoo!