Since Charlie was 2 years old, he has lived at Bethel, a foster home for blind & visually impaired kids. After arriving in China on Thursday night, we spent most of our first day in country going to Bethel to meet Charlie and celebrate his adoption with his friends, teachers, & care-givers at Bethel.
We drove from our hotel in downtown Beijing out to a suburb, and then out into the countryside a bit to arrive at Bethel. When we walked in the front door, Charlie and his teacher were right there to greet us. He was happy and understandably a bit nervous, but seemed very excited. He's generally a smiley, adventurous, outgoing little dude, and he enjoyed showing us around the Bethel campus.
We had seen many pictures and videos of Bethel, but it was cool to see it in real life and have a chance for Charlie to introduce us to his world where he's lived for 5 years. He showed us the cottage where he and a few others sleep, and the 3 kids played on the playground together.
When we had skyped with him before, we showed him a few gifts that we were bringing, and he was pumped about the toys. We gave him a green car that repeats several phrases, which we thought was a hit, until he decided to trade it with his buddy for a talking female doll that quotes Lady Gaga songs. [Fast forward to Monday for a minute: when he joined us for good on Monday, we learned that he traded back, so he kept the talking green car. And now, some of his favorite phrases are "Eat my dust!" and "I drive angry!" Needless to say, we are proud of his early progress with English.
We got to have a special lunch at a local Chinese restaurant with two wonderful ladies from Bethel, Anna and Teacher Fang. We were glad to have a little private room, especially when Charlie began to loudly show his appreciation for "COKE! COKE!" Somewhere along the way, he got his hands on the camera, and captured everything in sight, often with a motion-induced blur. These early days are a challenge in finding the balance between connection with enough correction to keep everyone safe. [For the record, we did tell him that we would use glasses instead of chugging the 2 liter.] But in general, we try to be very permissive in these early days so we can emotionally connect with him instead of bringing him into boot camp.
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| photo by Charlie Seabolt |
After lunch, he had requested a special shopping trip, and since it was a special day to celebrate, we all threw out the rule book, so it started to resemble the Supermarket Sweep game show [the one that you all loved to watch but are probably too ashamed to admit it.] He was running around shouting "SUPERMARKET! SUPERMARKET!" as he loaded up on snacks, while clutching his sheep the whole way. For me it was equally charming, comical, and stressful.
After the shopping spree, we returned to Bethel for a party to celebrate Charlie's adoption, with cake, singing, and lots of the normal and beautiful chaos that happens when lots of small kids get in party mode. One of the most precious lines from the whole day was when one of the teachers translated what Charlie was saying to many of his teachers: "Teacher Li, have you met my mom and dad?" At the party, we took turns saying a few words of appreciation, where we thanked Bethel for their enormous investment in Charlie for so many years, and they thanked us for welcoming him into our family. We knew that this day was a bittersweet day, where the Bethel workers and Charlie were preparing to say goodbye. We said our goodbyes and told Charlie that we would see him in a few days, when he would join us forever. As we drove back to Beijing, we were super grateful for an awesome day and such a great opportunity to experience the place and people that have been Charlie's home for most of his life.
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