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Friday, May 7, 2010 BICYCLING, BIRTHDAYS AND BAPTISM - THREE MONTHS HOME We have been home now three months and time is flying by! A couple of weeks ago we went on our first bike ride as a family of 5. It is our favorite thing to do together, and I was glad to find out that it is still possible! EB and Michael rode their own bikes, (first time for Michael and he did great!). We rode on a trail near our house to a burger joint called B-Bopps for sandwiches. We stopped along the way to play at one of the parks on the trail. Ethan rode in the Burley with Mike pulling him. He seemed pretty happy. And to think this all started when Mike called me to see if I wanted to go bike riding... almost 14 years ago! We've gone from two bikes, to four bikes and a Burley! Ethan celebrated his 2 1/2 year old birthday with a special cake which he loved! Since Mike will be on his deployment for the kids' actual birthdays, we are celebrating the halves, this year. Tomorrow is Michael's turn, as he will be 7 1/2. Probably the biggest milestone was that Ethan was baptized on May 1st on a most beautiful day. We are so grateful to family who drove to Des Moines to help us celebrate. Ethan enjoyed every minute of it. He did not cry when the water was poured on him, in fact I think he was hoping to get even more wet! After everyone marked the sign of the cross on his forehead, he turned and did the same to me!!! Too cute! He doesn't miss a beat! It feels like such a huge accomplishment to think back when we were just talking about adopting to the day Ethan became a child of God. We are so hopeful that his Christian faith will be one of the biggest gifts that we can give him. One that he most likely would not have had in China. We hope that when he has challenges or questions about his past or his identity that his faith will help fill in any void he might feel. A lot of people have asked how he is doing, and how his language is developing. His adjustment has been as good as we could possibly hope for. He is a good sleeper, and is generally a happy little guy. He has been very healthy since we brought him home. He understands us extremely well. We are teaching him some sign language. He knows and can use the signs for "more", "drink", "eat," "cheese", "cracker", "milk", "help", "please", "thank you", and "sorry". Pointing works very well for him too! He is so curious about everything, he points and wants someone to tell him about what he is pointing at. Ethan is getting better at sitting with us for stories. As far as his talking, he is always verbalizing! You definitely know when he is around! He makes so many different sounds that he is always keeping us entertained. He is saying a lot of words with approximate pronunciations, such as for "yummy" he says "uh-ee". He always get the number of syllables, intonation and context down exactly, but many consonants he is not able to say yet. His favorite word is "wow" which he says when we are driving and he see a big truck. He says it perfectly. He can also say "hi", and "yeah, "yay" perfectly. But a word like "truck" he cannot say at all because of the "hard" consonants of "t" and "k" at the beginning and end of the word. He can say the "m" sound in "mama" but doesn't use it yet for other words that start with "m" like "Michael". Right now it is "I-ull" But... he is so smart because when I say "look at Mama" he knows that I'm going to show him how his mouth should be for a beginning sound of a word and he can make his mouth ready for the "m" sound in the exact right way (before he even looks at me!), it just doesn't translate yet to being connected to the word, if that makes sense. After his palate surgery in July and recovery, we will start speech therapy and I know he will make good progress. In the meantime, we are reading to him, talking to him, listening to him, taking him places so he can learn all he can about language and the world. The rest will develop in his own time and we are content with that. Hopefully he can be on track by kindergarten but if not we will just keep working on it. For a time, people may think his name is Ian (which is how he says it) instead of Ethan!!! That "th" sound is a little tricky!! Thanks for going along with us on our journey to bring Ethan home. We are so blessed by all three of our children.

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