One Month Home!

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Yesterday, marked one month since we have been home!  What an experience!  It feels a lot longer than a month, for both good and bad reasons :)  Good:  We love having two boys, specifically, our two boys.  They are pure joy.  Bad:  We have to deal with what most parents of two young children deal with - temper tantrums, crying, testing, unpredictability and lots of ENERGY (which means we are just much more tired on a daily basis).

Just to make sure I get a post in today while A is playing and K napping, here are some quick bullet points to mark the changes we have seen in each boy:

K (9 mo old):

• When we first met him, he was on his first week of solid food and didn't know what to do with it.  Now, he eats rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, yogurt and lentils.  He is not a messy eater at all for now (except when he sneezes).
  
• He barely held his head up when we met him.  Now, he has excellent posture and is almost sitting by himself.
• K is now able to feed himself a teething biscuit and pick up puffs with his fingers and eat them, sitting in his high chair.
• K didn't give us good eye contact at first.  Now, he lights up when he sees a familiar face and coos and smiles when we talk to him.  He gazes into our faces and looks directly into our eyes.
• His vocal ability is expanding.  He LOVES to YELL, blow raspberries and sing to himself.
  
• He has slept through the night a few times - thank you, thank you!
  

A (3 yrs, 2 mo):

• A is picking up a lot of English and Portuguese words.  He can say:  up, down, sleeping, awake, truck/caminhao, tricycle, work, Elmo, George (as in Curious George),  muito bem (very good), hot, cold, hello, baby, airplane/aviao, yes/sim, no, grandma/vovo, papa/vovo, park, hat and of course, lots and lots of animal names.
• He is having fewer and fewer tantrums (thank God!).
• He is more and more affectionate with his brother and with Samba.
• He is a very good eater - a special post on this later.
• He has gained 3 pounds.
• He has gone from screaming at a bath to playing happily for a long while in the bath.
• He repeats and retains so much of what we say :)
  
• He is learning to ride a tricycle.

Since Bill's parents (aka Ah-papah and Ghee-ran-ma) were here for a few days to help with the transition to Bill working full time, we were able to all go out yesterday to celebrate our one month of being home.