Second Day With Siri

Hey Boys -

It's Dad writing again.  We got to see sissy for the second time today.  About 10:30 in the morning her van pulled up to the hotel and all the children were led into the lobby for a group picture, before heading to the Central World Mall to spend some time in public, bonding and shopping.  Here is a picture of the entire group, there are four families in the group with us.

We also had lunch there together.  Even though we had French fries and chicken, she opted for the fried rice and egg.  I don't think she's used to some of our same favorites yet.  But she really liked drinking my coke and momma's mango smoothie! 

It was a little frustrating today to see the other dad's holding their new little ones, but so far Siri has decided that she feels safest with momma.  Even though I want nothing more than to just squeeze her and give her kisses all over, I don't want to pressure her and force myself on her too much.  I think she'll come around to me in her own time.  One of the social workers said that she didn't think Siri liked going to men at all, which discouraged me a bit, but I had renewed hope when I saw her interact with her foster dad when we visited them today.

It was neat to see Siri in a more comfortable environment.  Her personality seemed to change a bit.  Still, she seems to be a tough little girl with lots of attitude and spunk.  Her social workers like to talk about how low her voice is compared to other girls her age, and about how when they took all the babies to get vaccinated, she was the only one who didn't flinch or cry at all.  She's so animated with her face when she doesn't like something, and when she smiles or giggles, you know she really thinks somethings funny.  She doesn't hand out smiles and grins at just anything.  She's pretty serious a lot of the time and I think she'll have a lot in common with her Papa Paul! :)

Her favorite toy is a ride-on tractor which she was sure to show us right away.

The foster family lives about an hour and a half outside of Bangkok.  When we arrived, we were greeted by the mother and father, and asked to come upstairs to have a talk on their porch.  The heat and humidity were high, so they they were already prepared with three oscillating fans on the porch to help keep us comfortable.  One of the nephews brought out some bottled water and some fruit for us to snack on while we talked.

I was quickly informed not to hug or kiss our foster mom.  Evidently this is a no-no in Muslim culture.  We had a wonderful conversation with the family through our interpreters.  We asked them all kinds of questions from, "what kinds of things does she like to play with?" to, "How does she let you know when she needs to go to the bathroom?"  And the foster mom probably asked us just as much.  It was evident that she cared deeply for Siri, as she seemed to be interviewing us to make sure we were fit to take their little girl home.

 One question she had for us was, "Why would you want to adopt a little girl with this kind of deformity?"  When Danyel's answer was interpreted, her body language communicated that we had her approval.  Danyel told her that, "God told us that we would one day adopt a child that would have a special need, and need a special kind of love.  When we saw Siri's picture, we knew that she was the one."  The mother, seemingly a highly religious woman, began to grow teary-eyed and put her hand over her heart and repeated something 3 times in Thai.  We waited for the interpretation to come through, wondering what she was trying to communicate.  The social worker turned to us, smiled, and said, "She says, Now, I am happy." 

As our visit came to a close, we handed out our gifts to the entire family, took a tour of their home, watched Siri dance on the aged wooden floor while a holding my music playing phone, and tried to express how deeply grateful we were to her family for taking care of our little girl until we could come and get her. 

As we said our final goodbyes, I think it hit everyone involved that this was real and that tomorrow she would be brought to our hotel to stay with us permanently, and that this night would be her last with them.  It also hit home that an hour and a half conversation didn't seem to be long enough to convey all the feelings and emotions of the moment, especially when it had to be relayed through another individual.  But as I shook the hands of the foster father, I turned to see Siri's two mothers exchanging their final goodbyes.  I saw two women who live in countries about as far apart as you can get, who speak different languages, believe in different religions, and who live a lifestyle that neither one could imagine living the other, put all aside and embrace each other with tears flowing, because the one thing they had in common superseded anything else....the love of a child.