Young Americans

Little Man is acclimating to our culture with apparent ease, continuing to achieve several “firsts” each day.

He no longer rejects all but scalding hot bottles, like those he was accustomed to in the orphanage. In China, he barely consumed any liquid during his first 48 hours with us– until we finally realized that due to the lack of potable water and adequate refrigeration, most of the populous boils their water and drinks it promptly, piping hot. In fact, every public place we went had hot water stations, seemingly in lieu of drinking fountains (or bubblers, ahem Courtney, ahem).

He used to struggle with cold foods, as well,  flinching after every delectable bite of ice cream– yet eagerly returning for more.

He has mastered the stairs. PRAISE THE LORD.

He enthusiastically proclaims “CHEEEEEEESE” whenever he spies a camera pointed his direction. (Which is pretty much all the time.)

I was delighted to overhear him making motor sounds while playing with cars just this weekend.

Nevermind that it’s a pink doll stroller, he was imitating his daddy with the lawnmower.

He’s getting better about dirtying his hands. The Chinese traditionally find it offensive to eat ANYTHING with their hands, a cultural quirk seemingly passed down genetically.

He seems to understand most of what we say in English and readily parrots words back to us. We still use some Mandarin phrases to communicate with him, but now always accompanied with the English translation.

This morning we stumbled upon toddler story-time while visiting the local library; Little Man’s first. He loved it. It made me nostalgic recalling the girls at his age, we religiously attended a simalar story time facilitated by my Smary-Pants Librarian Friend. I even took our oldest the morning that I had her little sister, quietly notating my contractions as she sang and danced and listened to stories.