Another good day!

Today we ventured out of the nest to the school playground. The three amigos had a lot of fun, running races, climbing on the equipment, and being silly.

Nathan is overall doing just great. There are some things that scare the heck out of me- yesterday, he was practicing using the skateboard in our driveway, and all of a sudden he just ran up to it and jumped on with both feet. SMACK! He landed on his rear hard and was close to tears. We have yet to see this kid really cry from pain. Grace was the same way, I remember having to make a big deal of little hurts (so totally against my nature!) before she would feel free to cry and seek comfort when hurt.

We did see a little bout of the wildness/bouncing off the walls kind of activity yesterday that we saw constantly in China, but somehow we got Nathan to stop revving and settle down fairly quickly.

He is eating great, though not the massive quantities that we saw in China. I am pretty limited in my Chinese food cooking skills, despite many attempts, but he seems to like American food fairly well. As for Chinese food, I have given him a couple of noodle bowls, frozen potstickers, my sad attempt at fried rice, and some sauteed bok choy with his eggs this morning. If anyone has any other suggestions of easy stuff I could have on hand for him, I'm open!

We also made a short foray to the grocery store yesterday after the playground and he did very well, staying with me, picking out a couple of noodle bowls and some apples. I had to turn down his request for a balloon and he took that very well. I let the kids each buy a pack of gum at the end and he was quite excited to hand his cash to the cashier! When we got home, he offered all of us a piece of gum (which was about half the pack!)

Nathan is having a little trouble adjusting to sleeping in his own bed, even though he is sharing a room with three of his brothers. I don't think he has ever slept alone in a bed, and he always wants to climb in with Marc and me. In China, we let him do this a couple of times (but we had a king bed there.) Neither of us could sleep well with him there- he grinds his teeth at night like crazy, and it is the most horrifying sound. We are heading to the dentist as soon as our insurance is in place, though I sure wish we could communicate with him a bit better before we go. Last night, he came in our room, half crying, sort of whining, and wanted to get in bed with us. I had set up a sleeping bag and pillow on the floor next to me already, just in case, but he was not thrilled about that option, and he didn't want me to come and lie down with him in his bed either. He did end up getting in the sleeping bag, but it took him a long time to fall asleep again.

We received an email from his foster family thanking us for sending photos of him while we were in China. I am so thankful that we can stay in touch with them.