6 weeks home and 21 months old

How time flies. Jack had turned 19 months two days after our court date and here we are - another 2 months later. Things are going extremely well, except for a pesky parasite problem. Jack, like many other orphanage children in Russia, had Giardia, an intestinal parasite common even here in America. He's on a second round of antibiotics because his symptoms came back again. Unfortunately, David and I also have the bug and so we're all going to be on antibiotics together to prevent passing it around. I'm baffled how this happened with how vigilant I've been with washing but hopefully we'll be rid of it once and for all.

Jack has been picking up words all over the place, repeating them almost immediately. We were at the doctor's office when they gave him a sticker and he repeated the word almost perfectly. (He also did the sign for "thank you" and it looked like he was blowing them a kiss and it made them ooo and aaah over him - he's a playa) It's weird though, the more words he learns the more he forgets the first few. For example, he used to say Shoes all the time, but since learning how to say Socks, he doesn't say Shoes anymore. It's been fun watching him grow and learn and explore (though the exploring gets him into trouble sometimes... )

One more thing, Jack loves bath time and lately he loves to (for whatever reason) stick his mouth into the water. He then comes up and looks at daddy and does the sign for 'yummy' that he learned from my parents. (index finger pointing to the cheek dimple area and hand rotating back and forth). Here he came up with a beard full of bubbles after doing that. Silly....

Within Week 6

We've gotten into the sixth week at home with Jack and things are really rollin' now. Jack has started picking up words everywhere. At first everything was either a cah (car), a daw (dog) or papa (even mama was papa) and even though I'm still papa, now Jack has more than 25 words he can mutter. Granted, most of them only we can understand and several words sound like other words, but at least he's getting the jist of speaking the language! He's also starting to understand how to play with toys the way they were intended to be played with. Up until this week we had to really get in there and show him a ton of stuff - totally understandable but very exhausting as his attention span lasted all of (literally) 2 seconds. This week he's started understanding the point of books and has spent a bunch of time going through pages and "reading" through it. It's still a work in progress but it's progress and we are thrilled. Jack jabbers constantly and decides all the time that he wants to pray... (hopefully he's praying for us!) He'll squint his eyes and want to take our hands and then says "stuff" some of which sounds like 'Jesus'!
Jack turns 21 months next Tuesday. Time is really going fast. Before we know it we'll be planning his birthday party!

Saturday in the dirt

We've had a wonderful day today. This morning David gave me an early Mothers Day gift, a fiction novel by Ted Dekker, one of my favorite authors and then we went to the bookstore for some more things! This afternoon David and Jack worked in the backyard doing some much needed landscaping work. David said Jack did great, rolling around in the dirt, playing with the plants, and just plain getting dirty! Well, here's a picture to prove it!
He also thought getting into the garbage can and having David roll him around in it was fun too! Crazy boy!
After a tough week for Jack physically, (teething, slight cold) it's great to see him excited about being outside! Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

Shhhhh....

Jack and I were in Kohls the other day and we heard several children around, some hollering, some crying, etc. At first Jack imitated one by making a grunting noise with some volume. I just said "really?" and then moved on. A while later we were a little closer to a boy who looked to be about Jack's age. He was crying and I overheard his mother say he didn't want to be in the shopping cart seat. Jack looked at me, looked back at the boy, put his finger to his lips and said, "SHHHHHH". Yep, so polite my boy can be. :o