I’m a week late on writing this post. I wasn’t sure if I should keep doing them, but I remembered that I read through the updates on Leo during the early days home with August when I was up with jet lag. It can be helpful to see the difference a month makes.

August now goes to sleep without crying and sleeps through the night. He takes a good nap every day. His receptive language is very good. He can follow directions and shows us that he understands what we are saying. His spoken language is a little slower. He says many phrases that we use throughout the day: hi, hello, by, night-night, all done, more eat, more drink, shoes on, outside, mine, no (we hear this one all day long), go van, my turn, no mine, okay, and he says the names of most family members. He still uses some Chinese phrases and often his babbling still sounds more Chinese. He always hears “wait” as “wei”, which is what you say when you answer the phone in China. He often pronounces words with a Chinese accent. He says ee-TUH instead of eat and calls Vincent “win-son” the same as the adults at Chinese school.

His fine motor skills aren’t too shabby but his gross motor skills are crazy advanced considering his limited range of motion on his left leg. He can climb over the back of the couch and jump off. He climbs up the slide on the playground. Besides this rock structure, he has also climbing two different 8 foot climbing walls. He loves to ride a plasma car around in our basement. Leo was only able to climb one of the climbing walls recently and the other he still can’t climb!

August is a great eater. There are very few foods he won’t eat. He will now drink some juice with water. He also drank more than a sip of milk for the first time over Easter weekend. Plain water is still his beverage of choice. We are continuing to make our way through medical referrals but so far he seems to be healthy and on-target in all areas.

Our biggest challenges continues to be his behavior. His tantrums have decreased a huge amount over the past month but we still have daily meltdowns. He is generally bossy. He gets angry if I turn right while driving if he wants me to turn left. He will often say no or refuse to do something I ask him to do simply to be contrary. For example, he will say “eat” but when I offer him a granola bar he refuses it. But if I put it away he will fall to the ground crying because he really did want it. We relied heavily on distraction as a parenting technique during this stage with our other children but he is usually too strong-willed to be distracted. However, given how much he has improved in the short time he has been with us, we feel he will eventually move beyond it as he matures.

Like any other toddler, he is playful and happy. He loves his family. We are blessed to have him.