Saturday: Medical exam

Today was our first full day in Guangzhou with our new guide Elvin. We've also connected with three other families from our agency who had been in other provinces last week. We had an amazing breakfast buffet - full of Chinese noodles, dumplings, meats and then also American favorites like scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, pancakes, fruit, and cheese. The buffet went on for rooms and rooms.

Then we went to the clinic for Haijun to get his check up to get clearance to go to the USA. The clinic was a super hot humid room with different stations - vital signs station, ENT station, general exam station (AKA get naked room, as Sam called it), and the blood drawing station (for a TB test). Haijun did great and had everyone laughing until the blood draw room. That was the one room that parents are not allowed to go in with him. He came walking out looking tough but when he saw me, he started crying and pointing at his bandaid. We get the results of the TB blood test on Monday - fingers crossed it's negative. He doesn't have any symptoms of TB but lots of kids in orphanage have had TB or have been exposed to it which would cause the test to be positive and we'd need to go back to the clinic. The doctor in the general exam room was great. He told me how happy and smart Haijun was. Then he confirmed my scabies concern - he kept saying WOW looking at all the bites everywhere. I told him that I'd already treated him twice and he said to continue treating once a week until there are no marks on him. All the bites are healing but now that I know that's what it was, I've treated all the rest of us just in case - so no one has to be concerned, we are all bathed in scabies medicine and will be completely un-bugged by the time we get home - Yuck! Once I get past my grossed out reaction, I just feel so badly that little June Bug lived with all those bites!

Then we went with our guide to a grocery store to stock up our room. Especially with Haijun being so active, it's hard to go out places. It's really nice to have food to just heat up in our hotel room where he's contained. As we went up and down the aisles, Jay had our guide cracking up. He was grabbing everything throwing it in the basket. He had no interest in breads, chips, snacks but was screaming for pickled chicken feet and sunflower seeds. Elvin said Haijun is a true Chinese boy - and eats like one. Haijun was talking a mile a minute telling me things and Elvin was interpreting and then Haijun turned to Elvin and said - "I'm talking to my mom, not you!" And, Elvin laughed and told him he was helping his mom understand and Haijun said - "Oh she understands me!" Glad he at least thinks I know what he's talking about! Ha! Elvin pulled me aside and said that Haijun is a very "cool" name to have. He said it means Navy and only very "cool" kids are named Haijun. He also said he can tell that Haijun is very confident, very handsome, and is "happy like sunshine." Elvin said he can tell he'll have a wonderful life - I'm not sure if he says this to everyone or just saw me struggling to contain this wild man, but it was sweet. 

We then spend the afternoon swimming. It's Jay's favorite thing and it's the one thing I've found that wears him out! At the grocery store, we got water guns so the swimming pool was even more fun than usual. 

Then Elvin asked to meet the families in a hotel conference room to complete all the paperwork needed at the US Consulate. I knew paperwork wouldn't go well with Jay, so Audrey agreed to babysit the boys in the hotel room when I did the paperwork. Jay did great with her! She's such a great big sister!

Jay has started saying "I love you" and then doing kisses... So sweet...