M.Y. found a fun book on Drew’s bookshelf—a paper airplane making guide. He handed it to me with big eyes, chatting away at me.

“Oh yeah, sure. I will try to make you one! Evan, come help me!”

Evan and I sat down and took out a sheet of paper from the package in the back of the book and started studying the instructions.

Step 1. check. Okay, Step 2. Fold here. Got it. Step 3…hmmm….Evan, do you think it goes like this….

When we were struggling through Step 15, we looked to our side and there M.Y. was holding this…

yeah…in the time it took a high school freshman and a nearly 40 year old woman to make a paper airplane, he could have made about 3 of these.

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We are currently hosting until mid-July with the intention of advocating for this sweet child so his forever family can find him. If you feel the nudge that he may be your son and you would like to learn more about him, email me and/or the social worker at Madison who is working hard to find him a family too. Note that Madison is offering $3,000 in grants towards his adoption with possibly more available!

I couldn’t believe it at first when I heard his little voice from the other room.

Just try to tell us his little accent is not the cutest thing ever. I dare you.

We’ve decided that Uno is one of the best relationship-building tools we got here.

He’s incredibly camera shy and hides whenever he notices my lens. One of these days I’ll be able to get a picture of his smile that shows off his adorable dimples.

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We are currently hosting until mid-July to advocate for this sweet child. If you feel the nudge that he may be your son and you would like to learn more about him, email me and/or the social worker at Madison who is working hard to find him a family too.

As much as I would have loved if this entire house had hibernated this morning, it did not. Instead, we were up making fried rice and eggs and playing Uno. When M.Y. suggested Ashlyn’s next move by pointing to a card in her hand, he officially won this crowd over if he hadn’t already.

But, his pleasure in the applause was short lived. Not long later, this sweet boy started crying again. Ashlyn’s limited Chinese couldn’t touch the need here so the on-call program translator was brought in via a phone call.

I just told her to tell him he was safe, that we’d take care of him, that he’d see his friends soon. I put the phone on speaker while she spoke. Every now and then I’d catch a word I recognized. She’d speak and then he’d look right at me as I held the phone in front of him. Then, she’d speak and pause and he’d look right at me again. She asked him if he understood; he said he did. She asked him if he’d like her to translate any questions to me; he said no. We hung up. He didn’t cry again.

He was doing so well that we made a little visit to a playground where we met up with this guy.

He seems to kinda get what we’re saying to him somehow. But, man, it’s hard to not get what he’s saying when he tries to speak a little. But, we’re going to be just fine.

And, when we aren’t feeling so fine, we’ll have ice cream.

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We are currently hosting until mid-July to advocate for this sweet child. If you feel the nudge that he may be your son and you would like to learn more about him, email me and/or the social worker at Madison who is working hard to find him a family too.