We’ve had only 9 days with our friend; but, we’ve learned a lot about him in those 9 days with most of the learning happening in the last 3 days as he’s gotten a whole lot more comfortable with us.
– His favorite American songs are “YMCA” and “Happy Day,” singing them both with an adorable Chinese accent.
– He’s scared of cats and dogs, but he will cautiously pet our cats with encouragement.
– While his first experience at the pool was not so fun, he had a ball swimming during Visit #2 and #3.
– He surprised us by loving the sand and wave jumping at the beach.
– He laughs with a short, little chuckle.
– He matches uppercase and lowercase letters on a little learning toy we have.
– He has really cute dimples.
– His favorite American food is spaghetti with my homemade sauce.
– He never turns down a banana and doesn’t like strawberries at all.
– He is a great Lego builder and paper-folding engineer (think origami boat and basket).
– He has a love-hate relationship with ice cream (tastes good but so cold!).
– His favorite arcade game is the candy claw machine (it’s play until you win…smart boy).
– He sleeps like a champ.
– He burps like a champ (but is learning to say “excuse me” at least).
– He’s rather parrot-like with English, mimicking nearly everything we say.
– The first English sentence he learned and now uses (a lot) was, “It’s okay.”
– He is a little bit of a pain with a seatbelt.
– He’s also a little bit of a pain with the buttons for the automatic sliding doors in the van (grrrrrrr…..).
– He and his buddy (hosted with one of our best friends) are quite the pair; his buddy is clearly the ring leader, and he laughs and follows along.
– He doesn’t like being told “no,” but he does listen and let us be in charge.
– Drew (GeGe) is his best friend in our family, followed closely by Mark (ShuShu).
– Eye contact is hard for him, but we’ve seen him start to take a bit more risks and try.
– He’s sensitive, crying silent tears for a few minutes when overwhelmed.
– One of his coping mechanisms when under stress is to really focus on something (like Legos for an hour and a half).
– He loves taking pictures when he’s the photographer, but he doesn’t like being in front of the camera or even looking at pictures he’s in.
– He loves piggyback rides from Ayi.
– He likes fake sneezing to receive a blessing (we’re saying “God bless you” nearly all day long).
– He needs a family, one preferably willing to be lifelong friends with us because all of us really, really care about this little man.
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If you feel the nudge that he may be your son and you would like to learn more about him, email me.