Update!

Lian is such a happy boy, he laughs and smiles for us and seems like he has always been apart of us. He has 2 bottom teeth, so cute! He babbles ALOT! He says "ya-ya", "ka-ka" most of the time and also uses the g, h, d, sounds when we persuade him to say it. He is so smart, it has only been 6 days and he has learned to put 2 stacking cups into one another, pull them apart, clap his hands together, got him to wave his hand "bye-bye" once, play peekaboo, and blows air out of his mouth to make funny noises. His pincher grip is really good and likes to rip paper. His cleft palate isn't too severe from what we could see, only the front palate into the gum line and up through his nose, the middle part of his hard palate and back soft palate are intact. We were so surprised as we were expecting the worst but Lian is the greatest son we could have hoped for.

A couple things we didn't really realize/expect: he has high anxiety/stress when drinking from the bottle and falling asleep. He would drink from the bottle SO fast that he would run out of breath and would need to stop to breathe and then start all over again, he is a little better now than the first time. Also he works himself up so much before going to sleep, he doesn't want to fall asleep, so we have to hold him while walking and that's the only way he is able to fall asleep. He will work himself up so badly that he is sweating profusely, his clothes, hair, everything is full of sweat. He also tosses and turns so much during sleep. He will always rub his eyes when he's getting tired (so cute!) but sometimes he does it so roughly that I think he's going to hurt himself. He also sweats a lot when feeding on the bottle. He was constipated too and he finally got some out with the help of prunes. One thing, when we visited the orphanage, his personality totally changed. He was very quiet and showed no emotion. All the caretakers were trying to get him to laugh or smile or have him come to them but he wouldn't budge. They took us to lunch as a kind gesture and then one of the caretakers took him from me to feed him, I know it was a kind gesture but I got upset because the way they were feeding him no wonder he stresses, they were feeding him so fast and piece after piece of bread, so that his mouth was so full, food was falling out, I felt so bad but didn't want to be rude, so I was so happy when Lian just fell asleep. When he woke up he screamed out crying and he reached out to me and when I held him he immediately stopped. Lian knows already Steve and I are his parents, and doesn't tolerate anyone else holding him.

Our time in Jiangsu was riddled with sickness. Lian already had a cold, then I got it pretty bad and Steve has it now. I was really worried because I got really sick, won't go into details because I don't want to scare anyone since I am getting better now, but we had to leave 1 day later to Guangzhou so we got in last night. Bill (our agency guide) has been so great and rearranged some appts, don't know what we would have done without him.

Anyway! More pics :)