Continued...

Ben was up from his nap while most of the others were still sleeping, and we got to spend some time with just him, which was really nice. I had brought some play dough, magnet games and coloring books, all of which he loved. He started to relax with us and show his hilarious little personality. His smile could melt butter and my heart all at the same time.

We went into one of the buildings to color and to give a few of the other kids their care packages from their adoptive families. One of the workers asked us if we would be taking Benjamin with us that night or if we would leave him there and come back to visit again tomorrow. I was thinking we would let him stay at the care center for the first few nights, especially since he was still pretty shy with us, but when they asked him what he wanted to do, he very emphatically said he wanted to come with us! We told him we were going (and explained we would be back in the morning) and he said again (in Amharic) that he wanted to come with us!

I was excited, but a little nervous too. He had great “school English”…he could count, knew his letters and numbers, could name the countries, continents, months, etc. but his conversational English was almost nil, and my attempts at Amharic seemed to be a better source of entertainment than they did communication. But I was thrilled that he wanted to be with us, so we gathered his things and headed back to the hotel, with the promise that we would be back to visit again the next day.

We showed him the hotel room, his bed and where to put his things, and decided we better find something for dinner. We headed back over to the hotel and sat down in the “Ethiopian part” of the restaurant. Let me say it was a good thing we had a smart little five year old with us, because he showed us how to wash our hands at the table, how to eat with our hands and knew exactly what to order. He was such a hoot! And we would have been lost without him! We (ok, we being Josh and I, not so much Dan) enjoyed the Ethiopian food, and Ben ate his fill.

We walked back to our hotel room and Ben ran and played some. He got more and more playful with us by the minute. He happily held our hands by this time, and gradually got more comfortable sitting on our laps and letting us hug him too. He called us Mom and Dad from that very first day.

I was a little worried how it would be being in the hotel room alone with him, I worried he would get scared or sad and cry, but he did great. He loved the Legos that I brought, and quickly assembled the model car without much help at all, and also continued to love the coloring books and crayons. Whenever he was done using something he carefully put it back into his backpack to make sure it was safe and sound. He got less shy, and started to really enjoy our attention.

He thoughtfully chose which pajamas he wanted to put on (after I tried to explain that he couldn’t wear the bathing suit to bed and that it was for swimming), and he quickly showed me that he was more than capable of brushing teeth, washing face, using the bathroom, etc. We laid down and watched a movie, and then he went to bed happily in his little bed and slept all night. He slept with the little bear we had sent him in December and the blanket I had made and brought that trip. He was sweet and beautiful and perfect.

It was a dream to have him there sleeping with us, and that things were going so well.