It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Today Maddox turned 23 months old. We are now seeing his precious personality show itself. It is hard to explain how much he changes each day. Today was almost like having a different child than the day before, and so on. Today we went to the zoo, which was fun. The zoo was fairly new and quite large, but really not much to speak of as zoos go. We did see a giant panda, which was a treat. The panda was in a nondescript concrete building with just some water and a few sticks of bamboo. Obviously, it was too cold for him/her to be outside right now. But, Stephanie and I noted that when a giant panda is in the states, it tends to be treated like royalty (at least the way I remember them at the Atlanta Zoo).

The zoo trip couldn't have fallen on a better day, because Maddox is really showing interest in his world now. He was wandering around in the hotel room this morning investigating everything. At the zoo, he was interested in the panda, elephants, and monkeys. We fed the monkeys from our hands but every time we tried to get Maddox to feed them he tried to eat the food himself! He fell asleep about halfway through which is about the time we came to the petting zoo section (so wish our guide would have taken us there first!).

We had a delicious lunch but I found out that diapers can only hold so much urine before even the best leak. For some reason I had this idea that as long as a diaper was on, we were in good shape. Not so, my dear Pirkle. Ahh my naivite'... I can hear all the parents out there laughing right now. Stephanie wanted to change Maddox in the car on the way to the restaurant and I said, no let's just wait until we get there. Well, when we got there and Maddox woke up from his nap, he promptly emptied his bladder again. So, we had a leak through a onesy (sp?), pajama pants, and khakis with no extra pants in our diaper bag. Stephanie's jeans and my shirt took hits too. So, now I know, must change when wet or next wet may be bad. Our friends from Louisiana, Marty and Tiffany, who received their son Keagan at the same time we received Maddox, blogged about how Keagan used the western style toilet in the hotel right when they sat him on it. Sounded like a great idea to us, so we are trying that now (no success yet, but he is actually much less scared of that than the little potty we bought for him that did not work out).

A funny adoption note: we were warned, and all the books mention, that older Chinese women will comment on how the child is dressed, specifically, that he/she needs to be bundled up and have more clothes on. Well, we have now experienced those comments from both sides of the coin. The first was on the second day we had Maddox when we returned to the government office to finalize the adoption. We had him bundled to the hilt but did not take off his coat inside (we thought it was still pretty chilly in there). The older woman from the orphanage quickly reprimanded us and told us to take that coat off, that he was too hot! Then, once on the street in Taiyuan, a stranger came up to us with a very serious look on her face and pointed out that his pants had ridden up and some skin above his socks was exposed! Yikes, you would think we were the worst parents in the world.

Maddox has said several words, but not consistently. We have heard "mama", "dada", and "more" for sure. We are trying to teach him the baby sign language to help and he has picked it up. He can sign for "more" and "all done" now. We also taught him to "give me five" today, which he liked very much. I think that he used to associate clapping with someone asking him to come to him/her. Whenever we clap he comes over and holds up his arms to be picked up. We are trying to hold our hands down and clap and say "yeah" when we clap so he knows it is for praise and not a request.

This afternoon was a roller coaster (thus the best and worst). He was well rested after his morning zoo nap, so early afternoon play was great, lots and lots of running, laughing, exploring, looking at himself in the mirror. He even got between a bed and the wall in a little place only he could fit and was thrilled with himself! He chased us, we chased him, he rode on my back like a horse and rode on my shoulders. He carries his shoes around a lot and even spent 20 minutes playing with the do not disturb sign, carrying it from the door to me to Stephanie and back again.

We were unsuccessful with afternoon nap, however and things got tough. He was so sleepy but we couldn't get him to nod off. He was sleepy for the rest of the day and was more tearful tonight at times. But, it was a good toddler tearful if that makes sense. Not the previous pitiful, terrified tearful. He was tired and that was that. We did have another good bath time to close out the day. Going to sleep was tough tonight - for the first time he didn't just let us lay him down, he cried and we had to stand and hold him until he was asleep. I know, I know, I shouldn't complain - but we had gotten spoiled with the ease of the first 2 nights.

What we are so thankful for is that all of these things, the ups and downs, mean that his real personality is coming through. We know that this is a huge blessing because many children do not attach this quickly (he CRAVES close contact, cheek to cheek) and many children may not open up for weeks. We know that the Lord has heard your prayers and ours and has truly blessed our family.

Thank you again for all the encouraging email and fb posts. Sorry we do not always respond but we spend all our time looking at our beautiful boy. JP and SP