Progress :)

After 2 more days of touch and go we are making progress! Woohoo!!!! We spent most of the day yesterday out and about and Noah did really well. He is starting to show his little personality and it's pretty funny. He has started to play more and talks to himself in Chinese when he is happy and smiling. We have no idea what he is saying, but smiles are a good indication that he's doing better. After a really long day out, we spent a few hours in our room yesterday afternoon and he actually only screamed and cried for his yaya for about an hour out of it all. That was a major miracle! He is still waking up in the middle of the night and screams and screams and cries without end until he falls asleep from exhaustion, but we'll take what we can get in terms of his progress :)

This morning he actually woke up and looked at me a whole bunch of times... thought about screaming and then decided that maybe I was alright so he didn't cry! I was praising God over and over. I almost started crying I was so happy! Once in the shower, however, the screaming started all over again, but as soon as Peter dried him off he was fine. So.... slow and steady we are making progress and things are getting better. :)

He is starting to listen more to what we say, even though he doesn't understand English, but we point and show him what to do or make gestures and he figures it out pretty quickly. We are starting to understand his Chinese a bit better too so we are quicker to respond when he needs something so I think that is helping with his frustration.

Right now he is running around our room giggling :) It's great to see that he can be a happy kid. He's also started to come to us more when he needs something and always reaches for our hand when we go outside, so those are good signs that he is bonding well with us. This morning he started copying us and has been trying to help with whatever we are doing which are more good signs that he is bonding and beginning to trust us. He very much has a mind of his own though, which may just be 2 year old behavior, or it could be that what his foster parents said is true about him being stubborn. In China grandparents don't really discipline children, but very much indulge them, so it will take some work to get him to understand the word "no".

We leave in a few hours to fly to Guangzhou to do more paperwork with the US Embassy. I'm curious to see how his first flight goes. He has a pretty bad head cold so we'll see a doctor when we get there. I hope his ears don't hurt too bad. I'm already starting to worry like a mom....

Well, I'd better help Peter finish packing. Our bags are overflowing and I think he needs me to sit on the suitcases to get them to shut.

Thank you for all of your prayers and words of encouragement. It really means alot and helps us make it through the tough times :)