Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Six Months Home!

December certainly was busy! In addition to all the holiday stuff going on, our tenants moved out at the beginning of the month and new tenants moved in the week before Christmas! In between there, we managed to get the unit all fixed up and ready and have our six month post placement visit. :)

I read back over some of my earlier posts and it is amazing how far we have come. It makes me wonder where we will be in another six months! Tut has grown six centimeters since we came home! He only gained a couple of pounds though, so he is mostly just stretching. :) He now counts 1 to 10 without a problem; at the beginning of December he was skipping seven because it was hard for him to pronounce. His ABCs still have a ways to go, but they are also improving.

Now that he is feeling more comfortable with us and confident that we aren't going to leave, his inner extrovert is really coming out. He seems to be participating more in life and not observing as much. He loves going places and usually shouts "yay!" or "yee-haw!" when we tell him that he is going to school that day. He also frequently asks if we are going to church, he loves the church nursery. We've been to several Christmas and New Year's parties and he is always excited when we are going to a "friend's house." He no longer cries when I leave in the morning or when Robby or I go to Tae Kwon Do on a weeknight. He has even started falling asleep before we return from Tae Kwon Do. Before, he would force himself to stay awake and come running out of his room when Robby or I got home. He has become less content playing by himself and recently has asked us to play with him a lot. I think he is getting used to having a lot of people to play with at the school. He always has good behavior around other people and has no problem with sharing. His teachers have never mentioned any behavior problems at school, other than crying when he was still adjusting and asking for us. :) You can tell he gets his energy from being around other people.

Here he is playing outside at one of the parties we went to.

We are very glad he isn't lactose intolerant, at least not yet, because he loves cheese, yogurt and everything dairy. I recently introduced him to cheese sticks and he is in heaven. He loves peeling them apart and eating them. He eats well, but he rarely finishes everything on his plate. He is pretty good at trying new things, but we have confirmed his dislike of potatoes. :(

Sleeping is getting better, he falls asleep on his own at night and naptime. Usually he starts whining a bit as soon as we leave the room, but after making good on the threat to shut the door once or twice, he usually settles down and goes to sleep. He still wakes up pretty consistently about midnight and I sleep in his room for the rest of the night. He usually wakes up a couple more times, but goes back to sleep quickly after he confirms that I am there. He also is better about being in his car seat at night. For a while after we came home, he would fuss and cry if he was in the car seat at night and not fall asleep no matter how tired he was. I think he was anxious because he didn't know where we would be when he woke up and he only felt comfortable sleeping in his bed. Now, he doesn't have a problem anymore.

We have experienced the dreaded holiday regression. These last couple of weeks have been odd with the holidays in the middle of the week. Tut has actually done pretty well, but he has had some trouble falling asleep a few nights and New Year's Day was the worst with his attitude. We went to a friend's house on New Year's Eve and Tut did really well playing with the kids until about 11. Then he started the manic "I must stay awake" behavior and we decided to leave. He fell asleep on the way home, but woke up at 8 the next morning so he didn't get as much sleep as usual. We had lots of tantrums, grumpiness, and misbehavior all day, but he did fall asleep quickly at night. :) I'm looking forward to getting back into the normal routine.

He speaks mostly English now, but he still uses a few Thai words, nii (this) in particular. He has started to use more English phrases. A favorite one is "I no know" when asked what he wants to eat for breakfast. It always starts out with me asking what he wants for breakfast, he says "I no know" and then says "no" to all the options I give him. Then after another minute or two, his brain wakes up and he settles on something. He also uses "like that" a lot. With the increase in language comes some funny toddler moments. This week I was trying to explain that it gets dark because the sun goes down at night. In response to this news he said "sun fall down?" :)

It is fortunate for him that we live in the southwest where it barely gets below freezing at night during the winter because he hates the cold. He is very dramatic and big in his reactions, so he regularly cries when I get him out of the tub because of the change in temperature and acts pathetic until I put his PJs on and a pair of socks. Sometimes he wears a pair of socks and footie PJs. :) I'm not sure if he would survive if we took him someplace that actually has snow!

Case in point. Tonight he asked for a hat when he got out of the bath because his head was cold. :)

Haku shares Tut's antipathy for the cold. He prefers heating pads. :)

Earlier in December we were able to dedicate Tut at our church. It was very special to formally introduce him to our church family. 

We made sugar cookies before Christmas and Tut enjoyed cutting them out and decorating them. He especially enjoyed eating them.

This is what his hair often looked like in the morning before we got it cut. I was very tempted to let him go to school like this. :)

Tut discovered a cart at our local grocery store that has steering wheels. It keeps him rather entertained.

This table and chairs were one of our Christmas gifts to Tut. He likes to draw and play at it. It isn't the most comfortable for us though.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!