Back to Bangkok

Hi everyone. Thanks for following along with us. Your comments have made me cry each time i put a new update. Love to all of yall. We are well, for the most part. Solomon started having a GI bug before we left. He was pretty sick, vommiting and diarrea. When we got there he got a little worse. It's a new and terrible feeling to not know how to help your little one. He has had a bad cold and cough as well. me too. We met a little angel at Koh Samet, the director of house keeping, a women named Yim, which means smile. She brought Solomon two hermit crabs to play with and we told her he was sick. She ran off and immediately brought him a warm bottle of medicine and a thing to heat water and two other doses and a bowl of rice soup. She also kept bringing toys and leaving them at our doorstep. Solomon eventually got better and we haven't had vommiting in a full 2 and a half days, though his bowel movements are not normal yet. He has been a little trooper and smiling and playing between each bought of sickness. We had fun at Koh Samet, a wonderful place. And Solomon has really bonded with us. It was so cute, by the end of our stay, at dinner last night, every single employee and nearly every guest was clucking and kissing at him, doing silly crab dances and making funny faces at him, thinking up reasons to walk past our table and play peek a boo with him. It was like being with a crazy celebrity. Most of them wanted to hold him, but each time someone offered, he clung tighter to us. This morning, a new Thai guest asked how long he had known us. We said one week and two days. She was very surprised. She said, "How is it that he likes you so much already? I can see that he likes you and finds comfort in you." We didn't get video footage that does our time together there any justice. It was just way to hard to get video, with all the puke and snot and sand and water everywhere. We'll try to do better. Here's one or two to hold you over. Thanks for loving us an dloving him. jessica P.S. We took a speedboat on the way there and went over waves huger than anything i've seen before. i was flying off my seat and whooping and hollering, Solomon was in my lap and fell totally asleep. It was so uncanny that Ben and i were checking for pulse and heartrate and got ourselves in a panic till we were shaking him awake. He was totally fine. ;)

All is well. He is ours and we are his. The Thai govt gave final approval. The US embassy gave a passport and visa. We are all done with that stuff. Solomon is still happy. He is so happy and up for anything. today i was just so impressed with him - he was bounced along on our crazy excursion to get the visa, walking, running, sky trains, waiting in a crowded waiting room, parks, loud noises,hundreds of new sensations, tastes, smells, and experiences, and he just went right along smiling. he fell asleep for his first nap in the noisy waiting room on my lap right on schedule. he loves swimming too.

tomorrow we go to a "bungalow" on the beach on koh samet. it's still a nice place with air conditioning and all that jazz. we'll be there for five nights, then back here for two, then on our way home. we're going to take a private car to the dock for the island rather than the bus. it takes a couple hours off our travel time and the driver is a real nice guy. yesterday a random stranger at the hotel got in the pool with us and said, i just got back from sametville and it was heaven on earth. that's the name of the exact hotel we're going to. he gave us some helpful details.

anyway, we're happy to be with our beautiful boy. thank you for all your comments.
love to everyone,
jessica

It's been an amazing day. Solomon became "ours" forever today. and we became his. I feel like a much different person. I feel as if he is an embodiment of grace. I feel forgiven and blessed beyond anything i can imagine. sorry, i can't find the words to describe it. solomon is such a happy baby. there were hardly any tears today, at least on Solomon's part. when he fell asleep for his nap, ben and i both wept. i really can't tell you what a beautiful happiness we've shared today. solomon just smiled and played and laughed all day. he already looks at us with light in his eyes. we are already head over heals in love with him. we went swimming and he was so brave, reached for ben in the water twice and ben spun him around and he reached for me on the side. no tears. smiling and giggling and kicking the water with his feet. then we took a bath, which he was supposed to hate, but he was loving it, splashing the water and standing up and stomping the water and laughing his head off. he is a good eater and goes to bed with very few tears just a little rubbing on his back. he woke up twice from naps today to see our faces without crying. his smile and his laugh are, how do you say it, life-changing. i will write more tomorrow i hope. tomorrow at 8 am we gave our interview with the thai govt for "final approval." i'm sure it will be fine. also yesterday, monday, we visited the foster family. they are beautiful people who have loved Thanapat (Solomon) intensely and when we got there he lit up like a light bulb and ran to his foster sister (we hadn't seen him take a step yet at that point). she played can't catch me and he chased her and laughed. that was the first time we heard his belly laugh. we heard it alot today. wow. i'm posting one video of the foster family and one of today. love to all of you. thank you so much for all your encouragement. you were right, it's going to be allright, it's going to be absolutely amazing.

love yall. we took a nap yesterday afternoon at 4 and slept through the night. ben said this morning, "it seemed like the fastest way to see him again." ;) we see him again at 10:30. and we're going shopping together with the other two families at central department store. they said solomon has never been out shopping like this and so we have to go to get him accustomed to the crowd at the airport. then we go to visit his foster family. the social workers are very nice. everyone's very nice. i'll post some more pics and videos tonight. we are 12 hours ahead of central time.

love to everyone,
jess

he so cute - nah-rak mak

Today we met him. We held him in our arms. We comforted him and played with him. We fed him and watched him fall asleep. It was perfect. The beginning was heartwrenching, cause he would get to a whimper and then look at us and get this bewildered look on his face and start crying again. He was afraid of the way we looked. He'd let himself calm down in our arms and then look at our faces or our hair and cry. After a while we got him playing. He liked to be in Ben's lap best. We had some wonderful smiles and laughs that weren't caught on video. He liked when i'd repeat his actions (like pounding on the window the same amount of times as he had or bending backwards and stretching) and he'd laugh and laugh. He is so beautiful. We held his little hands and rubbed his little belly. After lunch we brought him to our room and he fell asleep on our bed while we rubbed his back. he is amazing, cuter than i ever dreamed of, and already smiling and laughing with us. here's a couple video clips.