He is becoming more "Americanized" with his eating, well sort of anyway. He loves Mexican food and gives the double fisted "Yea!" when he hears we are going to El Charro for lunch, he loves pizza as long as Baba will cut it into little pieces for him and he loves home cooked meals at NaiNai's house. He still isn't enthused about chicken or beef but most other things make him happy. When he first got to the US, he avoided the M&M's in the trail mix and preferred the nuts and raisins, now he still loves the nuts and raisins but the M&M's are the first to be eaten. (I justify it by saying we are practicing our colors with them. (: ) He eats pretty well non-stop while awake but still isn't gaining much weight. I suppose if I was as busy as he is, I wouldn't worry about my weight either. He is up from 28 lbs to 31.2 lbs. At almost 4 years old, that's pretty skinny but it is better than he was.
Behaviorally, he is a pretty normal 3, almost 4, year old. He is clever and cute and sometimes umm, determined? He loves to watch movies and some of his favorites are "Toy Story," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Shrek." He has an incredibly long attention span at times. He will spend 90 minutes at a time, entertaining himself with his building materials or Mitch's train set if he is in the mood. He loves Disney things, but as a Sanford, could he have avoided it? His current favorite character is Buzz Lightyear and I wish you could hear him say it! Precious. As I type, he is wearing his new Buzz Lightyear pajamas in bed and he and Baba are reading "The Very Busy Spider" together. He saw his first in theater movie this week, "Wreck it Ralph" and was engrossed the whole time. We followed that a few days later with his first play at the Performing Arts Center, "Peter Pan." He had some belly laughs and a few "wow!"s but seemed to like Cathy Rigby's flying the best.
He got to spend a few hours together alone with his big brother Friday night while we were at an Emmaus meeting. We found out that he knew a new word in English. Mitch called us while we were on the way home and asked what "Pea Joos" meant. (Sometimes Jaden speaks Jadenese that only mom and dad understand.) Well, the only thing that we knew that sounded similar to that in Mandarin was "beer" and we hoped he wasn't asking his brother for a trip to a bar. When we got home we found out what he wanted . Since Mitch couldn't understand "Pea Joos" he said "car shirt" instead. He wanted his Cars PJs. I love watching him learn to put words together.
He loves books and loves to be read to at night. He can say the names of some of his favorite books to include, "Go Dog, Go!," "One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue Fish," "Caterpillar" and tries very hard to say "Cinderella" although in truth it sounds more like "Kahuna" for some reason. Like I said, he is proficient at Jadenese but at least we know what he is trying to say. He typically wants to read 5-10 books every night before bedtime and any book that has a cat, even peripherally, in the story gets preference. He likes to end with "Sam's Rainbow" (which we read as "Jaden's Rainbow") and "Goodnight Bear" most nights. He is so funny about bed time. When he gets tired, he will flip to the end of whatever book we are reading and say "The End!" and shut the book. At that point, he cuddles in and is usually asleep within minutes.
He still wallows all over us at night, his skin hunger is evident still. Perhaps he will never outgrow that need to be comforted with frequent touch. He doesn't yet want strangers to hug him but will give high fives now.
He has almost completely gotten over picking necessities as his precious objects for the day. Tonight, his picks were: the 4 gingerbread men from the Candyland game, the felt basket that Joyce got him for Valentine's day, some matchbox cars and a lint roller (ok, we do have 2 cats and a dog, I guess I can see why that would be precious.) I love knowing that he feels that he will be fed and cared for. He hasn't included fruit with his precious objects in several weeks now.
We came to a new realization today. One of the very key factors in Jaden coming to join our family was the influence of another adoptive family, the Nichols. Gael probably arrived in China to get her little girl on the very day that Jaden was left in a stairwell, waiting to be found by his family, us, 3 years later. When his birth mother was making what had to be a devastating, heart-rending step, she had no idea that the woman who would lead her son to his forever family was somewhere in her country. I can't imagine the helplessness she must have felt that day, knowing that she couldn't give him the medical care he needed and having to make an impossible decision for her tiny son. I can't be sorry that she made that decision but I can feel sad for her that it had to be made. The choice she made will be a good one for Jaden; I hope she has found peace. I just wish I had a way to let her know that her son is healthy and well loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment