From Mike: It is great to see Eli develop a bond with his mother. He looks at her and smiles. I even saw him give her a kiss on his own. And his mother can't stop smiling, and holding her son. This is great news especially after the traumatic first night. According to the literature, the bond between child and caregiver is critical for any healthy adoption. I am very optimistic that we are on the right path watching the two of them interact. Of course, those same books also said that it usually is between new dad and new child. Usually the adoptive child will reject the mother as a response to being abandoned by a previous female caregiver especially if that bond has been positive. When his entourage of caregivers arrived to hand him over fussing over him I admit I was concerned this might be the case. Instead we think that he only knows female caregivesr and was drawn to Jodi. I'm fine with that since he is at least bonding. My role is more like a personal assistant. I am his gopher, diaper and clothes changer, and waiter and I'm fine with that. I typical sentence is "Baba (dad) get me/give me a ______". Then the fun begins as I try with my limited Chinese to decipher that last part. Sometimes I get it right and I get a "ShuiShui baba (thank you dad)". More often I get a growl, a furrowed brow and the sentence repeated with an empahsis on the object as I have brought over the wrong toy or food item. Usually Jodi just giggles. Again I'm fine with this since he is developing an attachment to one of us. Later on, back home if this continues we are going to have a chat about not being so bossy. I am man enough to admit when I have been conquered. I am defeated, I quit, I lose, I give up. I have been beaten by the Chinese toilet. Actually, I am usually beaten by the whole bathroom experience with Eli. It begins with some translation time loss for his words for potty. Unlike some kids that grab certain parts or do that little crab walk as a visual cue, Eli will just say "Laushi" for poop or "neenee" for pee. Of course, we only arrive at this after a few minutes of question and answer from Jodi since he never strings it into an "I have to go to the bathroom" kind of a sentence. This means by the time I start looking for the toilet, we have already lost valuable time since kids don't say "well, I feel a poop coming so I'm taking these magazines into the bathroom. See you in 20 minutes." like some adults do. That isn't the worst part. What happens next is what is beating me. There is a dizzying amount of different commodes in this country. I feel like I'm entering a twisted game show of Decipher the Toilet when we get in the room. There are the standard urinals you will find in any U.S. stadium or the usual toilets but never both in the same place. Unfortunately, they don't have these in kids sizes and Eli if he is to have a chance must be held up for either of these to be effective. Then there are toilets that are long rectangles and rest almost on the floor with no seat cover. Finally, there is the hole in the floor, literally. In these stalls, there are no handrails and the porcelain part is too wide for a kid to straddle. By the time I have set upon a plan of attack based upon the bathroom design, it is usually too late. When I have lost, the look on Eli's face is priceless. His eyes say "get it together". He usually mutters something in Chinese. Since I have limited language skills I am not certain but loosely translated I think he is saying "Dude, you have to figure out what to do in the bathroom. I can't keep peeing on my pants. I'm gonna run out of clothes." At one point, in desperation, I had him stand on the counter and pee into a sink. This was in full view of the hallway as the door to the bathroom was taken down for some reason. I looked across to the women's room, also without a door and saw two older ladies watching us and giggling. Then a gentleman came in, stopped dead in his tracks after seeing us, and walked back out slowly never taking his eyes off us. I looked at him smiling trying to think what the Chinese equivalent to "I will wash the sink when he is done" but wasn't able to get the words out before he was gone.