He was the first one there. He sat on this little yellow toy. He stared at us emotionless. He wasn’t scared, or happy, or sad. He just sat there, staring at us. I explained to my parents after I woke up. I had a dream about my brother the night before I would see him for the first time. No one thought much of it, but I had a feeling like no other. My family and the other families were eagerly bordering our bus to go to the orphanage. There were no words to describe how I felt. I was excited to see my little brother for the first time, but I was also scared. I was scared he wasn’t going to love me like I love him. Before I left the bus, I came to the realization that our adoption story, had a happy ending after all. The dreams we had, all pro dad’s morning meeting, a message in the leaves and many more events have led us all to here, Luis Hao D.’s gotcha day.
            I stepped of the bus holding my mothers’ hand. As I walked through the gate, I noticed two boys around 10 whisper to each other about us. We got that a lot, a group of about 20 Americans in China doesn’t go unnoticed. The building was nice, more modern then what I thought an orphanage would look like. When we walked through the door a Chinese’s woman who was small in stature, I suppose you could say informed us in a quite voice in which you had to lean in close to here told us that our child was waiting for us inside. My family held hands and circled around to pray before we would see our little Lou Hao for the first time.
            I pulled out my phone right before I walked through the door. I stepped into a brightly colored room with little animals on the wall, a little tree seating area smack in the middle and a mountain of toys on the floor. To the right of me was a little boy on a yellow toy horse quietly rocking back and forth. It took me a moment to realize that right in front of me was my little brother. Immediately a flood of tears poured from my eyes. The little boy whom I had inly seen through videos and pictures laid right before me. I walked over slowly almost like I didn’t want to scare him away. We all got down on our hands and knees uncontrollably sobbing tears of happiness.
“I love you” we all whispered. “I love you; I love you; I love you”. That is the only thing we could all say because I suppose that’s the only thing we felt in that moments. A wave of love crashing over us like jagged rocks on a stormy beach.
My mother reached for his tiny little fingers and started touching his hand in a petting like motion meanwhile I was carefully observing every little detail about him. His head was shaved, he had the standard dark brown eyes and jet-black hair. His head was a little bigger than most, which I expected considering they claimed he had hydrocephalus. His face was a little hard to read but under that cute little chubby exterior, I wondered how he felt. Was he happy, or scared, or nervous? I had previously heard that most kids cry or become overstimulated when they meet their adoptive families for the first time, but Lou Hao just sat there starring with an emotionless face.
“Ball.” My mom said as she handed him a toy that looked as if someone had accidently splattered different colors of paint on it.
“Ball” Lou Hao repeated starring at it.
            His little brown eyes carefully observing the ball that he had given to him. A good 30 seconds after he was done observing the ball, me and my sister handed him these little stuffed animals that we picked out for him in the airport. He took both in his little hands and once again observed them carefully. We were all still crying at the sight of this beautiful little boy. The lady who was at the orphanage strongly suggested that my mom picked up my brother and held him. My mother did as she said and sat on the couch.
She embraced him in her arms and starred at him until he fell asleep. He slept like an angle, his little eyes squinting and his body completely relaxed, you could tell he was tired. Every inch of his body was covered in sweat by the time 20 minutes had past, we all took of his shoes, socks, pants, jacket, and a shirt in attempt to cool him down. As he slept, I laid my head on my mothers’ shoulder and held his hand until he woke up, and it was time to leave.
We all boarded the bus with our new children and sat down with our tear stained shirts. My family having been the biggest, sat at the back of the bus. Me and my sister sat one row in front of my parents. I had the aisle seat and my mom holding Lou Hao sat directly behind me while Maylie had the window seat with our father behind her. The whole ride home I played some form of hide and seek with my brother where I would peek my head out and yell “Boo” when he least expected it. He had the cutest little laugh. His eyes would squint, and a huge smile would arise on his face and he would go in and out of silent laughs.
We exited the bus and entered the elevator of the very, very fancy hotel which we were staying in. We all ran to the room and laid out on the bed and watched Lou Hao explore a hotel which I assumed he had never been in. It didn’t take him long to find the remote and learn how to operate the T.V. When he hit the power button immediately what I would presume as a children’s show appeared on the T.V. and caught his attention. After he had gotten board of scrolling through channels, he found a big red balloon in the corner. Oh, how he loved that balloon. He hit it up in the air and laughed as it slowly fell down to earth and bumped him in the head. After me and Maylie noticed he enjoyed getting hit by the balloon we took turn softly throwing the balloon at him which lead to more on and off silent laughs.
When the room fun had ended, we all went downstairs into the lobby and into the indoor / outdoor play place the hotel had. The place screamed of multicolored play structures and a puzzle piece foam mat. We played in there for a while the parents socialized and reminisced about the events that had just occurred. There was a tennis court which me and my sister tried really hard to break into but failed multiple, multiple times. Endless hours of nonstop fun, laughs, and happy screams past as the time went on.
Time flew so quickly that when we looked at the clock, it was time for bed. We all turned off our fun and started our own induvial nighttime routines. When we were all settled and ready for bed, my mom picked up Lou Hao and carefully laid him in his bead which resulted in an explosion of screams and cries. It most have took 2 hours of nonstop yelling for my brother to finally calm down and go to bed. We were all so tired but couldn’t fall asleep because of all that crying Luis did, but I don’t sleep well in general, so it wasn’t too big a deal to me. I remembered that whole do through memories, focusing on every little detail, experience the whole event for the second time until he eyes shut and I drifted off into a deep sleep.