Blossoming Boy

Every day I am more impressed with Jon Wiley. What a tough, smart, intrepid little guy.

Yesterday, he and Devyn accidentally crashed into each other in the playroom. His toy nicked her leg. He stopped immediately and came over to her, gently touching her leg, patting her head, and cooing at her. Good. We can check off empathy, a great sign.

Until yesterday, he has tolerated Scott but not much more than that. Every time the hotel delivered a paper under the door, Jon Jon would bring it to Scott and then walk away. We wonder if he simply didn't have much interaction with his foster father. Yesterday he ran up to Scott with outstretched arms, "asking" to be launched into the air and caught. Check off trust of father figure (also recognition of him as safe amusement park ride).

Last night we stayed up a little later than usual, as I went on a mini-medical call to the room of one of our traveling families. When I got back, everyone was amazed that Jon Jon had climbed into his crib himself. He was looking at us like, "People! Have you checked the time?" Check off adaptation of routine and listening to body signals.

He has learned that when he is finished with a wrapper, banana peel, or kleenex, it is not acceptable to throw it on the ground or floor. He will scan for a trash can and whisper "Tash, tash." Check off acquisition of new social norms.




He is really doing so well. He has absorbed the "no hitting" message to the point that his high fives have become a little lame. He understands and speaks more English every day. Several times a day he says something in Mandarin that I don't understand --or maybe it is in Chongqing dialect; he speaks a mixture of the two. His solution to this is to gently hold my face and repeat it veeeery slooooowly, as if maybe my hearing aids aren't turned up all the way or the Chinese part of my brain is broken. I'm so glad I learned a teeny bit of Mandarin over the last 10 months, but what I wouldn't give for a babelfish.

He tolerated his medical exam. It was much more thorough than Devyn's; probably more Hague Convention nonsense. He weighed 11kg with shoes on, and he was 81.5 cm tall. This puts him at just less than the 5th percentile for height and right at 5th percentile for weight, on the American chart.