8 Weeks post-Gotcha!

It's very hard to believe that we are now 8 weeks into forever. 

In some ways, it feels like Jaden has been part of the family forever and in other ways it doesn't seem like it could already be 8 weeks.  Weird, huh?

He is doing exceptionally well.  He is working to learn English and doing much better in 8 weeks than I did in 6 months of Mandarin lessons.  He understands much more than he can say but has learned lots of words.  I have a hard time sometimes knowing what he knows the meaning of and what he is just repeating but he can mimic almost anything that we say now. 

We've begun letting him have some time at the office while we see both patients.  Our long term goal is for him to be able to spend time at the office playing or watching movies while we see patients for 3.5 hours at a time.  This summer Jaden will spend his days with his GeGe and JieJie and then in the fall he will start Pre-K.  He loves our staff and is being spoiled rotten by them.  Today Karen brought in a bag of clothes for him.  One of the shirts had robots on it and he loved it!  He insisted that we put it on him immediately and didn't take it off until PJ time.  He has a little desk that he enjoys but really likes to sit at Baba's desk since it has the computer.  He has had such a wonderful reception to the office and to the community.  The other day a wonderful prayer warrior brought him a "happy" as a welcome home.  We got to listen to "Jesus loves the little children" on the electronic book about three hundred times that day.  He loved seeing a Chinese child in the book.  :)  At a church meeting, one of the women asked which Dr Suess book he doens't have as she wants to get one for him.  Marsha (my office manager) is constantly finding things that Jaden "needs" for his time at the office.  Just this week, he has started to let some of the ladies at the office pick him up.  Tonight, after NaiNai and YeYe had dinner with us, as they were getting ready to leave, he told his NaiNai that he loved her for the first time.  He has just been showered with attention and well wishes since we have come out of hibernation.  He can't help but feel loved.  Everyone that sees him smiles at him; he's a hard kid not to love.  :) 

We went to Six Flags Over TX this weekend and he had a blast.  He went on all of the kiddy rides multiple times each.  He isn't tall enough to do many of the adult rides but he did all that he could.  He loved the Pirate ship that rocks back and forth and he talked JieJie into the Sombrero ride 3 or 4 times.  She wins big sister points for that.  He enjoyed the ride was wasn't very sure about the soaking at the end of Aquaman.  He loves the bath but doesn't like his clothes to be wet.  Unfortunately, Six Flags frowns on naked boys, even if they are just 3 years old!  He is really going to love the park when he gets just a few inches taller.  We also went to a local park to meet with my niece and her family and he had a great time.  He got knocked down by a big boy once and an adult once and didn't even give them a dirty look (I did that for him btw).  In truth though, both guys were really nice about helping to pick him up and asked him if he was ok.  He did amazingly well on the trip.  It was a total of about 9 hours of driving and he never cried or complained at all.  He did do the happy dance when we got home and was very happy to see his "housie." 

While we were out of town, Dan (our Rent a Guy friend) and his son put our cedar Sky fort together.  He had had so much fun on the playground we thought he would be thrilled and we waited until morning to show him.  It didn't have the swings up yet but had the slide and the crows nest and the fort.  When he saw it this morning, he looked at me and said "Jaben's housie?"  and when I agreed he went out to look at it.  He checkout out all 3 levels of it.  He then got upset and kept telling me "no, no!"  I finally figured out the problem.  He thought we were making him move out.  Once we got the swings up and it looked more like a playground, Tim told him (through google translate) that this was where we could play but we would all still live together in the big housie.  That made him very happy and he spent several hours with various family members playing and exploring.  All is well.

Tomorrow he has pre-op for his surgery.  We have to go to St Francis for a visit and then over to the pediatric dentist for more paperwork.  We did his lab at the office today and drew a half million tubes of blood.  He was a trooper!  I told him before we left (again, thru google translate) that he would have blood work done today.  He clearly understood and got sad.  When we got to the office lab, he crawled up in my lap and behaved beautifully.  He cried giant tears but never wiggled and never tried to pull away.  He stroked my nurse, Karen's hand while she was holding that arm still.  Donna did great!  One stick, no searching and we were hopefully able to get everything we need.  There are lots of tests that we need to get.  He got a Buzz Lightyear sticker afterward and settled down immediately.  He didn't seem to hold a grudge at all.  :)
That was a big worry for me; I didn't want him to hate to come to the office. 

Prayers for normal lab work.  No lead problems, no hepatitis, good titers on all of his vaccinations, well you get the point.  After this lab is back, we can know with confidence that his health is clear. 

He is still really enjoying his book time!  He is currently asleep on "Brown bear, Brown bear"  He'll wake up, turn the page and put his head back on the book.  He is already learning the reading through osmosis technique that med students use.  :)