I think he called me mama!

Twice now Jamie has pointed at me and said "Mama!" So, I *think* he's starting the get the idea. He did it once today and once yesterday. We'll see. But I did say, " Where is mama?" and he pointed outside, so, um....maybe not yet. ;-)

Jamie continues to impress me with his ability to understand what we're saying to him. He keeps trying to say things but no one but David and I would know much of what he is saying b/c he continues to do mostly specific variations on the d's and various vowels put together to make words like snowman (day day or something like that.) Spending all of your day with a toddler though makes you get really good at understanding what they're saying even though no one else would!

The other night when we were putting him to bed he was looking out of the window into the dark night and pointed and said, " Sku? Buh?" for squirrel and bird. I told him I didn't know where they were and shrugged. David also said, " I don't know" and shrugged. So Jamie thought that was so funny and copied us, shrugging every time we said ' I don't know'. Well then last night David was asking me a question at dinner and I answered him with, " I don't know." I happened to have Jamie in my peripheral vision and saw he was shrugging and putting his hands up, lol! Tonight he pointed to the dark window again and shrugged and I said the squirrels and birds went night night in the trees. He loves to say nigh nigh now for night night.

A couple of nights ago we delivered this wonderful Christmas crunch toffee/saltine/chocolate bark thing that we make every year to our neighbors. (I can't take credit for the recipe. I have no idea who the genuis was that came up with this pairing of saltines w/ chocolate and homemade toffee but it is really good.) Since Jamie didn't seem to want to say bye bye and wave at people as we left their doorsteps, David said to say night night. Well he loved that. He was even looking over his shoulder as we were leaving people's houses, walking down their driveways shouting ' NIGH NIGH!!!' ' NIGH NIGH!!' It was so funny.

We've taught Jamie to do something I think is cute. Sometimes when we say, "Sing music Jamie!" he will hum. I will ask him whenever we get into the car, " Do you want to listen to music?" and he will start humming with an Mmmmmm sound. ;-) We listen to Christmas music pretty much exclusively these days both in the car and most of the day at home. Sometimes I think about how to Jamie, this music must start to sound completely 'normal' and yet these are hits from decades ago. I like that he is enjoying some old fashioned music. I will miss it when the season passes and we're back to the typical music.

Jamie has started to try to say run run run when he plays with his stuffed donkey (thank you for that, Pop Pop!) He picks it up like we demonstrated, by the back making it appear to be running. But he growls ru ru ruuuuuu!

Hope I'm not boring you or gushing too much about his language development. It's just so fascinating. I will have to talk with my mom (a speech therapist for preschoolers) about whether we might need some speech therapy in a few months if he doesn't start adding some consonants on the ends of his words and start to sound a bit more intelligible. But I would think for his age he is doing really well.

Jamie has another doctor's appointment tomorrow. I feel badly for him b/c it will involve more shots. :-(

David and I sure feel extra blessed by God to have been given this particular boy as our son. I think of all the possibilities that could have happened and that are not uncommon in adopting from China. He could have been in a situation of malnourishment or neglect and developmentally delayed. He could be having obvious attachment problems early on. He could be very, very ill and he might not have been cute or smart. We are amazed that he not only is healthy and from the great CWI he was from and he is ultra cute to boot but now we are quite pleased to see that he seems typical or maybe above average with his perception and smarts. We are so happy for him. We would have loved him even if he had a lot of mental delays and all but it does make us so happy for him to see him just shine like he is. We don't know why God has shown us such extensive grace in giving us this little one but we are so happy to have him. I am glad that all those years I wasn't able to have children or we would have missed out on this little ray of sunshine.