Jamie enjoyed family birthday party...

Jamie is smiling after having an adult-sized portion of lasagna! First time he ate something with cheese that he didn't spit out. Yay! You can see the sauce stains on his smiling mouth. ;-) Jamie thorougly enjoyed his first family dinner. David's family all live nearby and we frequently have family lunches or dinners on weekends together. This was the first one for Jamie! You can see he enjoyed celebrating grandaddy's birthday and he loved his first piece of cake. (Well we know he's had cake in China but this was his first with us anyway.) The other little one from China in the pictures is our niece Ava. She lives not far from us so they'll see each other regularly. David's mom, known to her grandkids as Mimi enjoyed singing patty cake with Ava and Jamie. You can see Ava is enjoying doing the fingerplay along w/ Mimi and Jamie is enjoying the song though he isn't at the stage of imitating it yet. It was cute seeing the two of them together. Ava is 1 year older than Jamie. She is talking up a storm! She wasn't too keen on sharing the tricycle with Jamie but she was so sweet to him earlier sharing her blocks and letting him knock over her creations. ;-)

Jamie might be a future Jeff Corwin!

My word, this boy LOVES animals. He is passionate about them! Okay so you know he loves squirrels and kitty cats. I put Animal Planet on once yesterday and earlier today when a dog program was on and he was quite excited about the dogs. This evening he was getting more relaxed and sleepy and snuggly so I put on Animal Planet HD and there was a program on large cats (mainly lynx and bobcats with some mountain lions.) Oh my goodness! Jamie gets excited about animals, but this was really something to behold! I wish we had someone to video us watching this ( we were all on the couch and I was under Jamie and David was under the cat so we weren't moving to find the camera.)

Jamie would screech with delight and get wide-eyed and hoot and squeal and say cat over and over every time a big cat was in the picture. Well when the squirrel (red squirrel) appeared in the nature program you know who was very interested. ;-) He was pretty keen on the bear, elk and everything else but the big kitties just made his day. He would jump off my lap and run up to the tv, pointing towards it and looking back at us as he ran to the tv, so excited and wanting to be sure we were seeing these amazing cats. We really enjoyed how excited he got. I wish you all could have seen it. ;-)

Jamie is obviously delighted with this excellent program as you can see in the picture. He is pointing to the bear in the other picture though the cats were the animals he was squealing the most about. Probably b/c he can say ga for cat. In fact he would point to the tv and say Ga! Ga! And then he would immediately point to Zoe and say Ga! Ga! He petted Zoe more today. Now that he's trying to pet her (he's being gentle) Zoe isn't into lying right up next to him any longer and she vacated the couch. Too bad for him b/c he's nuts for her!

Squirrel!

If you have seen the movie 'Up' you will remember that whenever the dogs saw a squirrel they shouted squirrel! and then stopped and stared, wide-eyed and attentive. Well, Jamie reacts exactly the same way to squirrels! He LOVES seeing them outside on our walks or from the front door. One rather nutty young squirrel delights in coming up to our front door mat and licking it to death along with licking the front porch floor slats (it actually leaves them wet), completely oblivious to us standing there at the front glass door, staring at it. Even when our cat Zoe sits there staring at it and clicking her teeth at it, there it is, licking like crazy. I can only think it is b/c there must be a small remaining residue of melting salt from this past winter when we had snow and ice that needed salt on the walkway. We tracked the salt melt stuff up onto the porch and the doormat I remember. I plan to buy a saltlick for it. So, Jamie was pretty impressed with the nutty baby squirrel. He actually was rather nervous when it started coming closer to lick more surface area of the mat and Jamie backed away, lol.

So, has Jamie said dada for daddy yet or mama meaning me specifically (and not mama for both of us and for up and more which is what he uses mama for right now)? Nope! Today he said squirrel. ;-D Well, technically he said sku or schoo (as in school.) On our outdoor walks if I say let's look for squirrels as soon as I say squirrel he starts looking all around and I think he looked up in the trees too!

This evening some of our good friends paid us a short visit and during their visit I was telling them how Jamie tried to say squirrel today and how much he loves looking at them and pointing at them and growling w/ delight. So I said to Jamie, " Say squirrel, Jamie! Say squirrel!" and he immediately put his lips together like for a q but w/ no sound and his eyes opened wide with delight and the poor kid toddled fast for the glass door to look out. (This is with full night darkness.) He thought I'd sighted a squirrel! He can give a squirrel-lovin' dog a run for the money any day for sure! So now David and I (and our friends this evening) were saying 'Squirrel!' like from 'Up' when Jamie wasn't paying attention. The poor boy, we really shouldn't mess with his little mind.

Oh, speaking of learning words, David and I were feeding him dinner tonight and Jamie wanted to know what the computer was called. When we told him, we *think* he tried to say computer! It was three syllables and sure looked like a baby trying to say it. We laughed together saying he says computer and squirrel but still doesn't say mama and dada. ;-D At least he has mama and daddy's great loves in mind (computers and animals.)

I'll add some pictures from the past couple of days. The sequence with the rocker: that is an antique rocker that my stepdad had when he was a little boy! He gave it to Jamie and I kind of expected he'd be able to use it a little later, like when he is three. Well little man needed some assistance the first few times of trying it and I still need to stand nearby b/c he is wobbly w/ his coordination still but he did it all himself, including rocking a little! Wow!

David's sister and her daughter and I went to the playground yesterday near their house. Jamie loved it. Towards the end of the time there we were by the basketball hoops and older boys were playing. Jamie was extremely interested and wanted to be in the thick of it. In fact he was. he was directly under the hoop. Oops! I did move him but he nearly got a ball on the head and he was so excited. David's sister picked him up w/ a basketball in his hands so he could dunk it in the hoop and he loved doing that several times. He is all about that kind of thing!

A funny thing: we have a couple of baby dolls for him which I thought would be good to help him be a nurturing 'daddy' to his dolls. Well he is such a boy. Yes, he'll play with them a bit but yesterday he was found trying to stuff the head of the doll into one of his stacking cups. He really enjoys trying to see how things work mechanically and fit together. He's very spatially oriented. Ah well. I guess he can keep fitting baby's head into the stacking cups if that is truly what he loves. ;-)

I'd like to say that Jamie and Zoe cat are looking for squirrels in the picture of them at the front door but in reality Jamie was watching daddy trying to jump start his car. We took it into the shop today for some repairs. Jamie was asleep when we arrived at the car shop. Otherwise I know he would have been thrilled to be there. What amazes me is that this boy has had no background for having such a love for cars. I mean he hasn't had someone feeding a 'boys love cars and trucks' agenda/stereotype into him. I guess in his case it really is just an innate love for anything with wheels! He really is into them big time! I really thought boys loved that kind of stuff b/c that is what parents conditioned them to want and like but boy was I wrong!

Well, that's enough for now. ;-) Night night.

I need to go to bed but here is a quick post...

I felt like putting up a picture of the woman in China who matched us with our son. Her name is Lily and she tries to travel to Guangzhou from her nearby city whenever her families come so she can share a meal and some conversation. She is so gracious and wonderful. I am so glad to have met her. She was so incredibly helpful to us every time we needed some info. She has a great relationship w/ the CCAA (Center for Chinese Adoption Affairs, the center that processes all China adoptions in China) so she did many things for us that we needed along the way. She also made some translations for me so I could show people laminated cards whenever we ate that said I was allergic to shrimp, crab, etc. I really enjoyed meeting her. Lily, you are an awesome woman and we thank you so much for caring for our family! I don't look great in the photo but I want to go ahead and share a picture of us with Lily!

Day by day some learning and improving!

I guess we're all learning, not just Jamie. Jamie has some issues at mealtimes, I guess from his being in an orphanage. He tends to try to hold a ton of food in his mouth and doesn't want to swallow it before stuffing more in so we've had a lot of issues with feeding times. Today was so much better! I know each day can be completely different depending on his moods, but still, I am encouraged. At breakfast and lunch he didn't launch into screaming fits of anger if we didn't continually stuff him w/ bites before he swallowed the previous one. I gave him whole wheat french toast in little bite sized pieces and he loves drinkable yogurt so he enjoyed some strawberry keffir. He actually would eat the bite of french toast and swallow most of it before I'd give him the next and surprisingly he wasn't complaining like on all previous days. Then at lunch he was the same way w/ his chicken casserole. Let's hope dinner turns out the same!!

Our doctor said to start feeding him all regular food including whole milk (and this doctor is an allergist) even though the 2-3 diarrheas a day haven't gone. He said it can be good to have fat and veggies in the diet sometimes for diarrhea so we'll see what transpires. Only 1 diaper of it today so far so as long as we don't have more than 2 or 3 a day the doctor said it's fine b/c he's happy, healthy and hydrated.

Jamie really enjoyed his Mimi's (David's mom) visit today. She helped feed him lunch and believe it or not he actually let her hold him and he was happy! That shocked me b/c he's been not into anyone putting their arms towards him and has only had David or I hold him so that was cool. He also led her around by holding her finger. He's down for a nap now, David has gone down as well and I'm about to become the third family member (fourth if you include JoJo cat) to take a nap.

Tuesday is here and nearly gone...

We've had 3 full days at home and while the night before last was AWFUL and very sleep deprived for us three (and the cat Zoe) I think I figured out why. I think it might be a teething issue. He has almost all of his teeth but there was one bottom front one that is only emerging now and I saw blood on his gum. So the awful night, after hours of crying, I said, "Hmm. Well maybe he's teething? I'll give him some tylenol and just see if it does any good." Well he slept for 6 hrs after that! So last night I gave him ibuprofen right before bed and he slept for 12.5 hrs!! Woohoo! It felt great to us to get a normal night of sleep and we even got to eat breakfast and shower before we went and woke him up. Yes he was still sleeping!

Here are some pictures from his time as a new American. We visited Jamie's great grandparents this afternoon and the American flag sweater pictures are from then at their apartment. They adore him and he was fascinated with their toys and the curling ribbon.

I put up a picture from our living room showing the cat in her tunnel and Jamie wanting to hover nearby with toys. He is crazy about the cat and says ga and gee ga for kitty cat. This is a typical scene in the other picture. Jamie and daddy building something and playing and Zoe cat lying near by. The poor old girl has had some near misses w/ Jamie nearly stepping on her tail and feet as he toddles around with eyes forward. When do they start looking down? 8? ;-) You can see the 18 month pants are way too big for him. We have to go get 12 months pants for him b/c those jeans kept falling down all day and the only thing keeping them on were the shoes!

Pictures from last days of trip...

The outdoor photos are from our group's trip to the botanical gardens in Guangzhou. There are also a couple of indoor photos of Jamie in our room at the Victory hotel. (Eating Cheerios, of course.)