Day 2 (6/20)—First Visit

Evan's having a bit of a hard time with jet lag. Or rather, we're having a problem with his jet lag. He's been getting up around 3:30 in the morning and would toss and turn and goof around till we let him get up, which meant we didn't get much sleep during that time. 

At the suggestion by Emma's social workers, St. Lucy arranged a meeting for all of us before the actual "Gotcha" day so that we could all spend a little time together and she could get to know us a little to help ease the transition a bit (hopefully a lot). June 20th was the only day they could arrange it since St. Lucy's director had to be present for the meeting. We really appreciate all the effort they put into helping us!!!

We had the Chinese breakfast again this morning before going to the main train station to head down to Tainan for the day. The high speed rail was pretty crowded. We found out that children under 6 didn't have to have a ticket (more on that later), so he ended up sitting between Sis and I. Evan slept for about an hour. I wanted to make sure he's somewhat fresh when we meet Emma, so he would be more charming than not. I was prepared with a map of the area surrounding St. Lucy's this time and the taxi driver was able to find it without too much trouble. We got out of the taxi and there they were! They had just gotten there. There's a requirement to take and record everyone's temperature before you're allowed to go in. I handed Emma the stuffed husky we brought. I told her Blue couldn't come himself so we brought the stuffed dog instead. She was a bit shy then. The foster mom secretly handed me a bag filled with some of Emma's favorite things, stickers, bubbles, chocolate candy bars, and a couple of balloons. She told me to give it to Emma. There was one for Evan too. We were then lead to the green couch room. Evan and Emma found the toys in there right away. All kinds of stuff! They were determined to explore and play with every single item. Emma's a lively little girl, very verbal, definitely has a mind of her own. The foster mom and social workers kept trying to push her to play and interact with us. A bit pushy at time, I felt. Emma hung back a little at first. We played for a bit. Then SLC staff brought us boxed lunches. Then we played some more. A lot of pretend games, supermarket checker, doctor's office, dentist office. At one point, Evan and Emma were trying to jam toy medical instruments in my mouth. Yikes! Emma took to Hubby very well after he showed his prowess at blowing balloons and picking them up to toss them around (at the cost of knee pains). She commented on how big Hubby's nose was in Chinese. Everyone laughed (Hubby could understand that sentence in Chinese). We played there for a couple of hours. Toward the end, Emma was asking me to pick her up too. The staff decided to take us out to a museum at Cheng Kung University. It was sort of a test to see if she would be willing to go in a separate car with us while the foster mom and her social workers got in another one. She was pretty much ok with it although she looked back to make sure the other car followed us. It got too hot to be outdoors, so the staff suggested going to a McDonald's with a play area. Evan and Emma had a blast! Evan behaved very well with Emma. He didn't get upset when she took (snatched) toys away from him or didn't want to share her bubbles. One thing though, at McDonald's, we heard Evan teaching another little girl to say "underwear" when they were high up in the play structure. It's one of those things we frown upon, but of course he's gotta do it when we couldn't get to him. Several times, Emma and Evan got into these yelling matches to see who could yell "Baba" or "Mama" louder (I must say mostly lead by Emma). Well, that's gotta stop. I don't put up with that kind of stuff. It's liable to make the Hulk come out (but I shall try to control myself). We left Tainan around 5 pm or so. On the way back, I got stopped by the train station staff. He thought Evan looked too big to be under 6. I got quizzed a bit on his birthdate and stuff before he let us pass. We kept telling Evan how happy and proud we were with how he behaved. I think he'll be a good big brother (might actually get pushed around by Emma…)

Here's Hubby's own words on his knee and such...

So a bit more on the knee when you're tossing a 60 lbs kid around like Evan, they say lift with your knees. This is true usually except when you already have a tweaked knee then its just bad bad bad. Needless to say, I finally survived the encounter but it cost me that night with ice and propping up the knee for a few hours. So back to the knee brace for a while and strengthening the knee or seeing the doc when we get back, because 2 are gonna be harder on it than 1. As a side note for the people at work the blankets were delivered and they were received warmly. I do not have pictures of this mostly because I was assaulted by 2 little ones as soon as we got there. Emma was there and introductions happened while walking into the orphanage property. They later told me that they would be put to great use so thank you again for the generous donations to the orphanage. 

I hardly took any pictures while we were in Tainan, being kind of preoccupied by the two little ones and all the goings on. Thank goodness Sis was there. She took pictures for us. However, I forgot to bring a card reader. Dang it! We'll have to go get one. I'll post more pictures later!

Main Tapei Train Station

Goofing around and falling down.

On the bullet train