Enabling Comments!

As of this post, I have now enabled comments on the blog. Anybody may leave comments, so please let me know you're out there. Initially, I will be moderating comments, which means I'll OK them before they appear. So, don't worry if there is a delay before your comment appears. Also, I've enabled a feature that should keep automated (spam) comments from being left.

Half Life

As of today, Evan has now spent half of his life with me...10 months and 4 days of it!!! So, Evan's orphanage* days will be in the minority forever more.

*It's not that I think Evan's orphanage experience was completely horrible (as I fear it is for many children). Evan seemed well cared for, he had no developmental delays, his height and weight were within norms, and he was healthy. Nevertheless, I'm glad he with me now!

If you don't eat your dinner, you won't get any...pickled radish!

This is not a phrase one hears often. Except in this house. Japanese food was for dinner so the Japanese pickles (tsukemono) were on the table. Just for fun, Evan got to try a piece of pickled daikon radish. They are pungent and slightly sweet and not really something kids should love. However, Evan really liked them - maybe because they are really crunchy. The rest of the meal was an exercise in bribing him to eat his regular dinner in exchange for bits of pickle (it worked). Evan was too full for dessert. Here is a picture I found online of tsukemono - the radishes are the yellow stuff.

Yesterday was Korean food and Evan liked the dried chewy-sweet baby anchovies.

By the way, we've flown to Denver and back since my previous post but I have not had a chance to tell that story in full. Of course, Evan did visit his buddy, Jackson, and they had a great time playing at the Children's Museum and at the amazing playground at the former Stapleton International Airport (closed when DIA a.k.a. West-Kansas International opened). Here they are:

Fire Truck

Ok, one last thing from the weekend. I took Evan to a safety kids day at the park, where they had a fire truck to see. When Evan saw it, all he could say was wowwww...... wowwwww...... wowwww. In fact, he was so excited he got weak in the knees an had to sit down. It must be nice to be able to get so excited about something so simple. Here's a picture of us:

More Weekend Events

Another interesting thing thing happened this weekend. Evan loves to play in the pantry, stacking cans, dropping things on the floor, and using his teeth as a can opener. On Saturday morning, as I was working in the kitchen, Evan pulled out a selection of things form the pantry and arranged them on the floor. He looked so cute sitting among them that I took a picture. Only later, when looking at the picture, did I realize that there was something more going on:

Do you remember the scene in Superman where boy Superman uses his toys to build a model of the universe or something, much to the shock of his adoptive parents? Maybe there was not a scene like that but there should have been.

Anyway, I later realized that Evan had laid out the cans carefully on various flat packets of seasoning mix or whatever, with the stacked items aligned nicely and organized by type. I'm sure it is insignificant, but I think it means Evan is capable of a very high level of thinking for his age. On the other hand, he may just be growing up to be as anal retentive as me.

Self Awareness

On Friday, during dinner, I pointed out to Evan that his fork had his name printed on it and that it was his. Evan sat and stared at his fork for a while, deep in thought. For a few weeks, he had already exhibited great interest in the "Evan" that is over his bed in big wooden letters.

On Saturday, Evan looked at his fork, pointed to his name, and said his name. Sounds more like "Ow-wa" than Evan but it was clearly what he meant. I guess it took 24 hours to process but now Evan has proved that he knows he has a name that uniquely identifies him, he knows his name can be represented in a permanent way, he knows how to say his name, and he knows that things can belong to him. That seems like a big step to me.

Learning Language

As you can see on the left side of the page, Evan is learning more and more words. Of course he understands probably a hundred words or more and can follow directions like "can you please put this outside?" I'm also trying to put words to bodily functions in preparation for potty training. It's clear that he is hearing everything that is being said because he'll pick out words he knows from hundreds in a conversation. Suddenly he'll start saying car and I only realize I've said the word in the midst of a conversation or it's been said on the TV. Still, Evan does have a hard time telling some sounds apart. I was talking to him the other day about tongs (he LOVES playing with cooking tongs) and he kept sticking his tongue out at me.

Next week is going to be a big trip...I'm taking Evan back to Colorado, where I'm hosting a memorial celebration for my mother, who passed away in July. Hopefully, we'll get to spend some time with Evan's buddy, Jackson.