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.

_____________________________________

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.