First week home

And all is well!  Christian continues to adapt amazingly well.  He is a little hesitant at first with some things but jumps right in after a few minutes.  Okay, everything except the dogs.  He loves to watch them from the door and laughs and talks to them -- as long as they are on the other side of the door.  If anyone tries to get him to go out there, he screams, runs up the stairs to his room and shuts the bedroom door.  He did pet Zoey a few times while someone else was holding her.  How can anyone be seriously afraid of a beagle puppy?!?  He is getting more and more comfortable in the pool but still doesn't want to get far from the steps.  Loves splashing and going under but doesn't trust the life jacket to keep him afloat in the deeper water.  We're going to the beach next week, so it will be interesting to see what he thinks of that water!

Christian's vocabulary is growing by the day.  He can count to ten, says "please", "thank you", "you're welcome", "banana", "Daddy's at work", "good morning", "good bye", "good night", "I love you", "don't touch", "Mei Mei's at school" and a few other words and phrases and can repeat most anything we say to him.  He knows the other children's names but still calls them "ge ge", "jie jie" and "mei mei" most of the time.  He also recognizes his cousin, Rebekah, from the many times he has intruded on her skype sessions with Madison.  Whenever he sees Madison's computer, he says "Hello, Bekah!" He seems to understand quite a bit of what we say.  Pointing and gestures still fill the gap.  Last night he managed to very clearly convey with nothing but hand signals that Dad and I were infringing on his tortilla chips and should eat out of the bowl at our end of the table!

Allen took all the boys fishing yesterday.  Christian didn't want any part of it at first but was soon sucked in to the excitement and caught his first fish!  Not quite as big as Carson's, but still fun!  And the ice cream on the way home was definitely a hit!