Home one month!!!

We got home one month ago today! It has seemed much longer than that. Everyone is adjusting. Some better than others. Ezra is still having a very difficult time. But he balances it out with having a ton of fun playing with Asa.

Asa is still not speaking a lot of English. Just a few words. His only phrase so far is, "Look Mom!!!" We still hear mostly Russian but I am not sure how much Russian he still understands. I tried asking him some questions with my translator app (Who were your friends? What games did you play? What did you eat?). They were basic questions that a four year old of his intelligence and verbal skills would be able to answer easily. And he just nodded politely at the end of each question. That polite nod we got before he understood much English.

He is picking up some English from Ezra. Great. Except that Ezra has a repaired cleft palate and the English he speaks is very unclear! "Ah ah aughty" means "I need to potty". Yesterday Ezra came to me and said that he needed to potty. Right behind him, (mis)pronouncing everything correctly, Asa also says, "Ah ah aughty!"

Food is okay. He eats well if he likes what is in front of him. He does not want to try anything that is unfamiliar. We have started making him at least taste new things. Usually after 2-3 times he will decide he likes it and eat it willingly. Last night he turned his nose up at applesauce. I made him try it. He was not a fan. We will try again in a few days. He has learned that if you don't eat what is for dinner, you don't get dessert. Took only a few meals for him to get that one.

There is still some indiscriminate affection happening and he seems to latch onto certain women too easily. We trying to work through that. I bought some baby bottles and he will let me bottle feed him and rock him. He enjoys it and gets excited when he sees me with a bottle.

Sleep is good. He goes down without tears, stays in his bed and sleeps until I wake him up or for 11-12 hours, whichever is first. He still naps and if we are in the car after lunch, he will falls sleep in the car seat. I was even able to take him from the car seat and put him in bed without him waking the other day! It took a couple of months before Ezra would allow himself to sleep that deeply and not remain vigilant and on guard :(

We do not have many temper tantrums now! I think we are past the figuring out the rules but still in the honeymoon phase so it seems good now. We know that this phase might end, or this might just be him: easy going and compliant. We are just taking it one day at a time.