Oh, it's a jolly holiday with Mimi.
Mimi makes your heart so light!
When the day is gray and ordinary,
Mimi makes the sun shine bright!
Oh, happiness is blooming all around her.
The daffodils are smiling at the dove.
When Mimi holds your hand you feel so grand,
Your heart starts beating like a big brass band.
It's a jolly holiday with Mimi,
No wonder that it's Mimi that we love!

Now that Stinky Mouse has his own site we can return the focus of this blog back to its primary subject: Hui-Hui!
Life has been good here at Hui-Hui's world. He is developing like any 3 year old seems to, with fits and starts. Some days we are amazed at how far he has come. Other days we marvel at his determination to dominate us into submission. here's a few pictures of some of what he's been up to:

First, this one was amazing, He was doing the cutest thing, but I've got one of those really cheap digital cameras that has a glacial delay between pressing the button and the picture being taken, during which he wandered off so use your imagination...

Okay, caught him this time. He's got the side rail from the toddler bed we thought we might need before he came home. We still may someday, who knows? In the meantime Kai has been putting it to use as a ladder.







And now just so you don't think we are totally negligent when it comes to Hui-Hui's safety, here's some pictures of him out on his new bike. See, he's wearing a helmet! Of course it's so big it may be obstructing his vision. If he wipes out though, we'll have it on film!






Oh yeah, Stinky Mouse got an update too, so click HERE

Stinky Mouse has had a bit of a makeover and now has his own blog. Yes, that's right, it's the blogosphere's version of a spin-off! Everyone here in the production headquarters for Hui-Hui's World is hoping for a successful launch of this new quality programming outlet, and that all of our beloved readers will check out Stinky-Mouse's new digs! To visit this exciting new website, just click on the picture below!

Regular programming here on Hui-Hui's world will continue as usual. We appreciate your patronage and promise updated entries on a semi-regular basis.

I haven't edited any more of the video from our trip to China in several months. I keep meaning to do this but have been really short on round tuits lately.

I have one sequence I finished back when I was working on this and have finally uploaded it to "Hui-Hui's World". It's of our day trip to Longxing Si in the old city of Shijaizhuang. We were really impressed with this temple. It is quite old and has a couple of very impressive images of Guan Yin Pusa. I have some friends who are anthropology/archeology buffs that I think will really find this clip interesting.

I'm posting this one now because I have been reading China adoption travel blogs again and feeling nostalgic for our trip. It was all of six months ago. I love the driving sequence in this video because it has Hui-Hui in Tina's lap (no carseats in China) and he is really starting to show his cuddly playful nature (this was his 3rd full day with us) and in the background you can see the semi-rural countryside of China rolling by.

Clicking on this picture will take you to our video page
then click Shijaizhuang Temple Visit

A few notes on the music I used for this video: The first track is from a disc of contemporary music featuring the Hulusi, or Chinese gourd flute. Our guide "Bob" played this disc for us in his car and loaned it to me so I could make a copy. The music I used for the temple sequence is from a CD we got at the Six Banyan Temple in Guangzhou. We were very interested in the Buddhist practices in China which really seemed to please our guide Connie. I know there are adoptive families who use their China trip as an opportunity to evangelize Christianity. I think the guides probably bear the brunt of many of these efforts as they have quite a bit of "face time" with us adoptive families, but I felt this was our opportunity to learn about their lives and faith. Because our visit to the Six Banyan Temple was our second temple visit, I think (or hope) we didn't appear to be quite such bumbling novices regarding the practice of lighting incense, etc. Connie asked if we were Buddhist. I told her no, but said we were quite interested in the faith. She explained that she was, and that her family regularly came to this temple for festivals. She then took us over to a table that had free literature and scriptures. She gave us a number of small books (in Chinese) and the CD with the track I used for part of the temple sequence. The part with the monks playing for the man praying is actually live music we caught with the camcorder.

Blogging is a great way to let family and friends keep up with us, and has also been an amazing way to connect with other adoptive families. We read a bunch of other blogs too and I want to share a couple of my current favs: The Cady Chase is our online friends Karen & Scott's blog of their journey to their daughter Cadence. They are in China RIGHT NOW so tune in and follow along! The other new blog I've really been enjoying is And Zen What. The writing on this blog is very good and I highly recommend checking it out! While I'm mentioning other blogs, I've added a "blogroll". I don't like sidebar menus that go on forever, so it's on a sub-menu page. Check it out to see some of the other blogs we read.

I've made a few other minor changes to the layout as well: photo albums are now under a sub-menu page, and I've finally added categories to the blog entries. Now if you want to see everything about "Stinky Mouse" you can click on the category heading in the sidebar and see the archive of those related entries.

Okay! As promised - the pointless arguments with media wonks have been set aside and we return to our regular pointless content...

First an apology to those of you looking for a new episode of Stinky Mouse, I promise to post the next one on Saturday morning.

This post is a follow up to my last one. Peter Goodman is the author of the article published in last Sunday's issue of The Washington Post. I saw that the Post allows you to email their writers. I assumed Peter might be receiving a good number of emails from rankled folks in the adoption community, but I wrote him all the same. I figured at first he would probably not even read what i wrote. I'm not really very good at this sort of thing: politely expressing my displeasure with someone. And this is a complicated issue. The ethics of international adoption are murky at best and is something I struggle with personally. Still I felt that while his article dealt with important issues it was constructed in a subversive manner. What I ended up sending him was less than I had originally written and ended up being a short comment expressing my disappointment with the article:

I'll assume you are aware of the ripples your Sunday article has sent through the community of families who have adopted from China, so this message is probably an echo of many others you have already received. I see from Brian Stuy's blog that he has written to The Washington Post in response to your article. I hope you read what he wrote.

You have been afforded the opportunity to have your words read by many, many people. Your article was hurtful to my family and many others. Please be more thoughtful in your future efforts.

I was quite surprised when I promptly received a reply from him. Upon reading the reply it became apparent to me that this was most likely a boilerplate response he was sending out to everyone who had written him in opposition to the piece. Here is his reply:

Dear Scott,

Thanks for your note. First, I can assure you that I do fully understand the stakes involved here -- the emotions for adopting families, the clear benefits of the foreign adoption program -- and I am cognizant of the impact of the piece. Surely, for a family that has adopted from China, or is considering doing so, my piece dredges up a lot of uncomfortable questions. But I fear that your reaction to the piece is indicative of the general reaction from the US adopting community: You are reflexively trying to spin away uncomfortable facts rather than confronting this reality in a spirit of bringing about positive changes and perhaps pressuring the institutions involved -- US-based adoption agencies, the Chinese and US governments -- for some accountability. You are blaming the messenger.

I visited Hunan and Guangdong and spent several months investigating the events in question. My piece quotes by name a lawyer for one of those convicted, as well as the mother of that defendant, in addition to a prosecution source and others familiar with events in Hunan and Guangdong. Let's revisit some of what they tell us: 1) Roughly 1,000 baby girls were brought from Guangdong for money to orphanages in Hunan and then put out for adoption, nearly all of them to foreign families. 2) The defense side claims the babies were first abandoned and then sold, a distinction that would determine whether their clients are executed or merely get lengthy prison sentences. In any event, they are copping to large-scale trafficking. That, again, is from the defense attornies. The mother of a defendant confirmed all of this. That the trafficking occurred is beyond question: It was reported in China's official state mouthpiece, China Daily, and confirmed by the people I spoke to. That it involved the abduction of children comes from the prosecution and the court verdict.

Roughly 40,000 Chinese kids have been adopted by foreigners in the years during which this ring has been operating. That means -- assuming this ring is the only one operating in China during that period -- that 2.5 percent of all foreign adoptions involve kids who landed in the adoption program illegitimately. This is according to the defense attornies themselves, supplemented by a prosecution source and a police expert on trafficking. You don't think 1,000 kids is a problem worthy of investigation? Do the Chinese families figure in your thoughts? Isn't it more than a little selfish to simply focus on the impacts of my piece for American families wanting healthy babies?

Your letter is dismaying to me because it illustrates how a lot of people whose emotions are on the line here are adversarially dismissing these uncomfortable truths with ad hominen attacks and name-calling rather than taking on what seems to me to be their moral imperative -- demanding from US-based adoption agencies and the US and Chinese governments a thorough investigation of the trafficking situation in China to ensure that the foreign adoption program is not affected.

Yes, the foreign adoption program has done an awful lot of good, for kids being raised in good homes and for well-run Chinese orphanages that now have funds for better facilities. Protecting it demands that it be safeguarded against abuse. And that can happen only if decent people press to unearth unpleasant realities and fix them, rather than self-servingly trying to cover them up.

During my now five years in China, I have seen repeatedly how reporting of sensitive issues by the foreign press can lead to action from Beijing. On SARS and AIDS, for example, initial government cover-ups of the extent of these problems eventually gave way to credible public health campaigns after sustained reporting by our paper and others. So I really have a problem with the position you are taking, suggesting that we should effectively self-censor ourselves lest China stop handing over healthy infants. The foreign adoption program is in so many ways an excellent thing, and may it continue -- above-board, scrutinized and protected from abuse rather that riven with problems that some would simply push under the rug to keep the babies coming.

I do appreciate that this is an issue you care about and that you took the time to write. I hope you take my response in the spirit in which it is intended -- as a way of clarifying and shedding light.

Best wishes,

Peter S. Goodman
Asian Economic Correspondent/ Shanghai Bureau Chief
The Washington Post

I read through this response several times. Each time feeling a bit more insulted by his tone. I should just let this crap go, but the stupid voices in my head just wouldn't let me. so I shot off the following:

Dear Peter,

Thank you for replying to my email. I appreciate that the intent was to "clarify and shed light”. I wish that intent were more clearly apparent in your original article.

You imply I have resorted to calling you names and have tried to discredit your article through personal attacks on your character. I have done neither of these things. In addition, your response makes a number of assumptions about my position, which I am not, sure how you arrived at based on what I wrote. I kept the comments in my original email to you very brief as I assumed you might be receiving a large number of emails on this article. I am sorry if my brevity confused you.

You accuse me of reflexively trying to spin away uncomfortable facts and promoting self-censorship. These are not my positions. I do not question that trafficking of infants has occurred in China. Nor do I believe this fact should be swept under the rug. The problem I have with your article is the way you have structured it to lead people to believe things for which you have no proof. You state, "assuming this ring is the only one ... 2.5 percent of all foreign adoptions involve kids who landed in the adoption program illegitimately." Obviously this is an issue that is more than worthy of investigation. However your efforts cheapen genuine investigative reporting when you twist things in order to generate lurid headlines. I am dismayed, but not surprised to learn money has changed hands in China over the exchange of children. But of these 1000 children, how many were "stolen" as your headline implies? Was it your intent to for readers to believe that a 16-month old named Fei Mei was taken to supply the international adoption market or was this simply the result of poor editing?

You accuse me of focusing on the impact of your piece for American families wanting healthy babies. You are mistaken. My focus is on the thousands of children languishing in orphanages in need of families. My newly adopted, special needs son waited for 33 months in an S.W.I. to be adopted. The PRC's official estimate of the number of orphans in its care is 500,000. Some outside groups put it at 2 million or higher. The number of all children adopted internationally out of China added together doesn't even dent this. For an article so riddled with inconsistencies it seems somewhat glaring to leave this fact out.

You ask if the Chinese families figure into my thoughts. They most certainly do. I wish the birth parents of my adopted son had had the resources to enable them to keep and raise him. I wish they lived in a culture that valued both genders equally and were accepting of people with physical defects. The unbearable social pressure generated by China's one child policy coupled with the traditional value placed on healthy sons forces women into abandoning countless children every year. The human rights issue here is huge, yet instead of even mentioning this, your article implies the demand of foreign adoptive parents has created a market for stolen babies. I apologize if I come across as selfish when I ask you to avoid sensationalism and to practice responsible journalism.

Sincerely,
Scott Ocheltree

Okay, I figured this would be the end of it. Probably wasted bandwidth on my part, but I just couldn't let the things he had written go. And then I got this next one back from him:

I appreciate where you are coming from. The foreign adoption program has been a very valuable way to provide homes for kids in need, and I applaud your concern for the kids. Now that program is being exploited by corrupt elements in China. That is simply beyond debate. As for the girl in the lead of my piece, nowhere do I say that she landed abroad. I am very clear in saying that we don't know where she is. But that's precisely the point: We know she was taken in a place where a trafficking ring has been operating. We have defense attornies for a convicted trafficking ring acknoledging that their clients have delivered 1,000 babies to orphanages for money for the foreign adoption program. How many kids are abducted as opposed to be being abandoned and then sold? Don't know. I'd like to, and it's an important question, one that I'll keep after. But I know that some kids have been abducted -- the court said that, and it was reported in China Daily... I mean, c'mon! -- and I know that the foreign adoption program is vulnerable to such abuse. I fail to see how it "cheapens investigative reporting" to highlight a problem and a vulnerability. I would hope that you would spend more time leaning on US adoption agencies now spinning reassurances for some accountability, as opposed to criticizing journalists operating in the public interest.

Peter

Now I'm really surprised. He does seem to be reading my emails. Still I am bothered by his hubris. He is completely ignoring my main point and has even spun my words around on me. Why can't I let this crap go?
I write again:

Peter,

Your habit of spinning words around to change the appearance of things is apparent even in your last reply to me: I never said "highlighting a problem and a vulnerability" cheapens investigative reporting. I said twisting a story to generate lurid headlines cheapens investigative reporting. And THAT is my point. You have taken a very serious issue and spun it for its shock value.

I don't believe the international adoption community has sided against you for your reporting of the facts surrounding baby trafficking. People are upset because you have used this tragedy as a tool to smear them. You say I should be pressuring agencies who are "spinning" reassurances instead of bothering you. I haven't been exposed to any of their spin, but then they don't have the front page of the Washington Post as a platform.

You printed the headline: "STEALING BABIES FOR ADOPTION" . Then went on to say Americans pouring into China with dollars in hand have transformed once-unwanted Chinese girls into valuable commodities worth stealing. I find it amazing that in an article of this length concerning the adoption of abandoned children from China you managed to not even mention China's one child per family policy.

"...i mean, c'mon!"

I am glad you view your role as a "journalist operating in the public interest"; I believe a big part of that job would be to report the facts honestly instead of shading the truth and omitting parts of the story to create a sensational headline. Again, I take no issue with the facts you presented in your article. It is the way you spun them, exactly like you spun what I said into something else.

Scott

And now it appears to me that the Asian Economic Correspondent/ Shanghai Bureau Chief for The Washington Post is just as stubborn as me and doesn't have anything better to do either, for he responded again:

Scott,
We could bandy about on the headline. (Reporters don't write headlines, by the way, as lame as that sounds. I wouldn't have written it that way.) And I take your point about the one child policy. I had a paragraph in there originally about it. It got chopped for space, but I didn't argue strenuously against the change because I felt we were covered by noting that child trafficking predates the foreign adoption program by a lot.

Yes, this is a serious issue, and, yes, the front page of the Post has real impact and that carries real responsibility. You sound like a reasonable and serious person, and I'm sorry if I've lumped you in with some of the less reasonable people with whom I've been unfortunately corresponding these past days. But I do think that your judgment is being clouded on this one by your position as an adoptive parent -- a perfectly noble position from where I sit, by the way, for whatever it's worth. Given that the DEFENSE admits they illegally procured about 1,000 babies to feed the foreign adoption market, how can you possibly argue against the reality that the program has turned healthy baby girls into commodities?

Now, it is true that the defense contends that the kids presented into evidence so far in Hengyang were abnadoned and then sold and not abducted. And that is obviously a very significant distinction. It is also true that the court found otherwise, and my prosecution source says that the other several hundred kids did include cases of abduction.
None of which fundamentally indicts the foreign adoption program. But it seems an inescapable fact that a byproduct of the program is that healthy baby girls have been turned into a commodity, as the very people who have participated in the trafficking have told us.

Peter

Okay, I surrender. Peter is incapable of conceding that his reporting of this tragic story might be colored through his rhetoric to portray international adoption and adoptive families in a negative manner. At best this will be a verbal stalemate, and he is much better than me at quickly crafting a reply which redirects my argument.
The CCAA made an announcement today stating that no abducted children were placed with adoptive families from the U.S. You can read the AP version of this story HERE. For a clear, and not so happy interpretation of this announcement see Brian Stuy's analysis on research-china.org.

Sorry for the long boring post. Anybody out there still reading? Post a comment and let me know you're there.

Since we've been home from China, this blog has pretty much been about the fun stuff going on in Hui-Hui's world (along with a few updates as to the antics of Stinky-Mouse). However, over the last month or so, there has been a fair amount of press coverage regarding the issue of child abduction within China, and allegations that it is related to China's international adoption program. I am bringing this up here because of the obvious connection our family has with this program, and I hope that by directing a bit of light on this issue I may help to inform a few family and friends as to what the "facts" are regarding this issue as best as they may be known.

At issue here is a recent case in which a Chinese orphanage director and nine other people were sentenced to prison, and another 22 officials were fired in the southern city of Hengyang in Hunan province. Allegedly the director of the Hengyang County orphanage (an orphanage that participates in the international adoption program) brokered children into his orphanage, as well as orphanages in other Provinces. Anthony Kuhn of National Public Radio (NPR) reported this story on February 23rd. You can hear his report by CLICKING HERE. While this case clearly shows that corruption and greed has tainted parts of China's international adoption program and SOME of the Social Welfare Institutes that work within this program, it does not support the inflammatory allegations appearing in current headlines. When this story first broke I followed it closely, as I do almost any news story regarding adoption from China. However, as of late, this story has appeared to spin into something different.

On Sunday Peter S. Goodman wrote an article in The Washington Post entitled, "Stealing Babies for Adoption". In this article Mr. Goodman states a number facts, then creates connections to allege things which cannot be proven. As a parent who has been through the process of adopting a child from China, I obviously have a bias here. However, I also have a fairly clear understanding of the program, and feel that this article does a great disservice to many, many families. In this article, Mr. Goodman references Brian Stuy. Mr. Stuy writes a fascinating blog on issues related to adopting from China called RESEARCH-CHINA.ORG. I have had a link to his site on my "Interesting Links" page for several months now. He has written a number of entries on this particular issue, and if you take the time to bother reading the Washington Post article I strongly encourage you to read what Brian Stuy has to say in response to it.

It seems to me that Mr. Goodman's article is little more than an attempt at generating a sensationalized headline at the expense of the international adoption community. In rebuttal, I will quote Mr. Stuy who wrote:

"Goodman begins by detailing the tragic abduction of a child from the streets of Dongguan in Guangdong Province. He artfully transitions to China's adoption program, leading readers to conclude that somehow the seven month old girl had been kidnapped to satisfy an adopting American family.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence to establish this link, and in fact considerable evidence to disprove it. By Goodman's own admission, 50,000 children were adopted to the U.S. since 1992, an average of 4,000 per year. I suppose Goodman proposes that these 4,000 children represent a significant number of China's 1.2 billion people to result in kidnapping rings to develop, but the sad reality is that annually an estimated 250,000 children (mostly girls) are abandoned in China, 35,000 of which end up in China's foreign adoption program. One can readily see that there is no shortage of adoptable children."

All of this is very unfortunate and confusing. It is my hope that the truth will prevail, and that ultimately the children of China and the rest of the world will one day all benefit by having the loving families they deserve.

Just in time for your weekend entertainment! It's another installment of:

On Tuesday we went to Children’s Hospital in Seattle for Hui-Hui’s second consult with Dr. Hanel. “We” are me, Tina, Hui-Hui and my Mom, Evalyn (NaiNai). Hui-Hui went because it’s his hand that Dr. Hanel is interested in. Tina and I went because we are his parents and want to make sure that he receives the best care possible. NaiNai went because she is the expert and wanted to hear for herself exactly what Dr. Hanel had to say. She knows better than to trust Hui-Hui’s care to rank amateurs like Tina and me.

Evalyn has been visiting us for the last couple days, which has been great! And really, I can’t imagine going to “Children’s” without her. Mom has been very involved with the care my nephew Devon has received there and knows her way around the place. Having her with us for these trips down there have made the process much easier.

On our last visit Dr. Hanel refrained from giving us any clear directive as to what we should do, which left us a bit perplexed. When we started this process, over a year ago, we assumed Hui-Hui’s hand would require some kind of corrective surgery. So when he told us that with Hui-Hui’s condition there was no clear directive and it was up to us, we were left with a perplexing situation. We had sort of assumed Dr. Hanel would present us with a clear course of action. Suddenly we were adrift. What should we do?

To clarify, only his left hand is affected. He has what is called “radial club hand”. His forearm is quite short, the radius more than the ulna, and he has no thumb. His index and middle fingers are also affected as they are somewhat fixed and don’t flex properly.

He has what I have been inappropriately calling “a funny hand”. But since he has been in our lives I have come to love that funny little hand. And it really doesn’t slow him down much. Somebody asked me once if he was right-handed. Um, yeah. He’s VERY right handed. But he uses “Little Lefty” quite well.

So on our last visit Dr. Hanel said we could really go either way. He told us to go home and think about it. He had an O.T. make a splint for him to sleep in to help stretch tendons in case we decided on surgery and told us to come back in March.

So we went home and tried splinting his hand at night. We were wimps, and when he fussed we took the splint off. It’s in mint condition.

We read up on radial club hand and pollicization surgery. We joined forums like limbdifferences.org, helpinghandsgroup.org, reach.org.uk. The more we learned, the more we wondered if surgery was the right thing. We talked with my sister about their experiences with my nephew Devon who has arthrogryposis and has had a series of surgeries at Children’s Hospital.

We decided to ask Dr. Hanel directly, what he would do if this were his child.

Now the blow-by blow:
It was a two-hour drive down. We thought it wouldn’t take this long as we would miss rush hour – WRONG. We got there late and it took forever to get checked in. Fortunately Mom had Tina go up to the orthopedic office and tell them we were here or we would have missed our appointment. We finally went up and waited in the second waiting room. Tuesday is “Hand Day” so we saw lots of other funny hands and little tiny kids in casts waiting with us. Finally they called us back. Hui-Hui was not excited to see Dr. Hanel, but he had nothing to worry about. Dr. Hanel’s bedside manner is excellent. He quickly put us at ease and commented on how much Hui-Hui had grown. He wanted to get a look at Hui-Hui’s elbow and with a little persuasion Hui-Hui gave him a quick glance.

Dr. Hanel then told us that in his job he often has to tell parents that a specific course of action or surgery is absolutely necessary and to not have it done would be negligent. Other times there is nothing that can be done. Then again, there are times like with our family where it could really go either way and all he can do is say what he would do if this were his child. Then he told us he would leave Hui-Hui’s hand the way it was. He sited a study of children with similar conditions that found children who had surgery actually fared somewhat worse as to functionality. If both of Hui-Hui’s hands were affected surgery would be a clear choice, but as he is affected unilaterally it’s just not going to help him that much.

We were very relieved to hear this. While I wish there was a way to make his hand perfect that is not the case. He has a funny hand. Surgery could rearrange it, but he would still have a funny hand. It would be different than it is now, but it wouldn’t be like his right hand. And since his right hand is perfectly fine, he’s going to always favor it. He already has a number of strategies for using his left hand and if we surgically rearrange things on him it will likely disrupt his present functionality.

Dr. Hanel told us he didn’t even recommend O.T. He said everything Hui-Hui’s doing right now is O.T. He told us to take him home and let him be a kid. Keep feeding him and loving him. This all sounded like a great plan to us!

It seemed like a great plan to Hui-Hui too! He was very pleased to get out of the exam room without being strip-searched or injected with any antigens. He swaggered back down the hallway to look at the fish again before we left, and then we went out for Chinese food.






We had a great lunch at China Village, just down the hill from Children’s, which I highly recommend. It’s a great place for lunch and they have food Hui-Hui will eat: soup and rice! If you give them 24-hour notice they can even prepare Peking duck for you.


Our trip ended with a small drama. When we left the restaurant and got in the car to head home we discovered Stinky Mouse had gone missing! We searched the car - no mouse. We double-checked the table we sat at in the restaurant - no mouse. WE LEFT HIM AT THE HOSPITAL!!! Fortunately we were just down the street. We drove back and Tina ran in to check with the ortho clinic to see if they'd found a stuffed mouse...
THEY HAD HIM! Life is good!!!

The evening we got home from Children's our oldest son Cam got out the crayons and sat down with Hui-Hui at the little table. Cam used to fit at this table much better, but it was great to see him still using it. A bit later he handed us what he had drawn it was a still-life portrait of Stinky Mouse

When I saw them sitting together at the table I wanted to take a picture but didn't want to distract them. Here's a picture of Cam and his girlfriend Brittni having "tea" with Hui-Hui at the little table from about a month ago...

We received a great email message on Friday from Helen and Paul in Minnesota. They were Google searching for information about the S.W.I. in Baoding and found our blog! Now the reason they were looking for information about the S.W.I. is because they are in the early stages of paper-chasing one of Hui-Hui's little friends!
They sent us these great pictures:


Hui-Hui really seemed to recognize him and agreed with us that his name is "Mo-Mo"!
This is the third boy from the Baoding S.W.I. whose family we have connected with. They told us that they also know of another family adopting a boy from Baoding as well. Counting Hui-Hui, that will be the Fifth Boy From Baoding!
We feel very lucky being able to make these connections for Hui-Hui. I think it will be comforting to him as he grows up to know of other children with whom he shares a common past.
We hope Helen and Paul are able to travel as soon as possible to bring home their son, and that someday he and Hui-Hui will see each other again!

It's a whole new month here at Hui-Hui's world, so if you're new here you might want to scan through the monthly archives in the sidebar!
And now, due to the massive response Stinky Mouse received last month (5 comments!), we are starting out March with his next adventure!