Getting back to normal

The past couple of days have gone much smoother, and it seems like TongJie is getting back to his old self a little more each day.  It's nice to have our silly little boy back!  Like we were hoping, not having the arm restraints anymore seems to have helped a ton - now TongJie is able to sleep a lot better, and me and Jeff are too!  And the better sleep seems to be helping everything.  TongJie has played by himself several times in the past two days without being upset that I'm not holding him.  

Since today was November 1, I tried to take another picture of TongJie standing at his growth chart like I've been trying to do the last couple of months.  Getting him to stand still in a certain place is a lot more difficult than it sounds, and he always has a hard time standing right up against the wall, so of course the pictures didn't turn out very good.  You get the idea, though.  He's definitely growing.

He even got a book and read by himself today, something that he hasn't done since before his surgery.

The weather was beautiful today, and after Jeff got home we all went for a walk.  We ended up walking to Coffee Cabin and sat outside.  We couldn't go inside anyway since we had Albert with us, but it was nice to sit outside in the nice weather, and TongJie likes to play on the toy helicopter and in the little house.  Jeff squeezed into the passenger seat on the helicopter and TongJie did the steering while Jeff spun the propeller.

After we got back, TongJie "helped" me make some biscuits for dinner.  I gave him his own little piece of dough to pat and roll out, but it got eaten long before I took the picture!

TongJie has been saying a couple of words now, and his favorite is "no."  He can also say "hi," "eye," and "no" for nose.  Anyway, we were trying to teach him to say "no" to Albert when Albert gets in his face and licks him, and it was hilarious.  TongJie shook his little finger (something he learned from watching a video of 5 Little Monkeys when he was recovering from surgery) at Albert and said "no no no no no no!"  Jeff recorded it on his Flip Cam, and then TongJie wanted to watch the video of himself over and over again.  So I took a video of him watching the video of himself.  There are a lot of "no's," some from TongJie and some from TongJie in the video that he's watching.  Poor Albert!  You can see him in the background, slinking over to wait at the back door.

One of the highlights of the past couple of days was that yesterday was Halloween.  TongJie, of course, didn't know what was going on, but Jeff and I had fun with all three of us wearing our matching costumes for the Awana "fear not" party at the church last night!  TongJie had fun, too, because there were fun games, some of which involved balls, and he got to carry around a little bag and pick out prizes to put in it.  I don't think he had a clue that many of the things that he put in his bag were pieces of candy, but there were also other things like a whistle, a magnifying glass, and bouncy balls.  The candy had mysteriously disappeared by this morning when he got out his bag to play with the toys . . . hmm, I wonder where it could have gone?

Earlier in the day, TongJie wore his costume to the Wednesday morning play group that we attend.  There were only two other kids there, and they were both dressed in costumes as well - an astronaut and a butterfly.  TongJie always enjoys playing in the kitchen area with the pretend food, and yesterday he also spent time vacuuming, driving cars, and giving me change from the cash register.

After the play group, we went to visit Jeff at school for lunch.  His district is having parent-teacher conferences this week and they don't have school Wednesday through Friday.  Jeff has been enjoying having some extra time to work in his classroom, as well as some conferences with parents.  TongJie enjoyed playing the bells in Daddy's classroom.

We're so glad that TongJie is feeling better!