Welcome to the Outnumbered Club

We officially joined the outnumbered club about 10 days ago.  And we have lived to blog about it.

The best thing so far is how well the kids get along.  The little brother wants to mirror the big brother in almost everything!  They play cars, trains and bike together like they have known each other forever.

this is from the first night home:

Calista loves to teach him words and we are using some board books from long ago to teach him words.  He has picked up essential terms like “yeah” and “uh-oh” and “wow.”

Last week we tried a few outings.  He loved the zoo and we went on the tiny train that takes a quick trip around the zoo.  Elam performed a classic number you really must check out:

The worst thing so far (other than jet lag [which left us a week ago thank You Jesus] and not having enough time in the day to finish anything or have a good workout at the Y or…) is what we like to call the “pterodactyl” scream.  If you approach Xuan Song and you are a stranger, or try to take a goldfish cracker or touch his visor, he might unleash 3 variations.  There is the baby pterodactyl yelp.  Just enough to tell you he doesn’t like what’s up.  Then the medium range screech that kind of hurts your ears but doesn’t make the paint peel.  This occurs when the big brother tries to help him get his shoes off or sits too close at the table.  Then there is the full on, do NOT mess with me, I’m ticked off and if you knew Chinese I’d unleash a flurry of curses you would listen to, pterodactyl scream.  It rushes through our home into the farthest corner.  I have even heard it when he is outside and I am in the basement, in the laundry room.  It makes me want to run away.

Relaxing at the ENT’s office

To be honest Elam is taking the brunt of this whole deal.  He gets himself in the way of the full on pterodactyl quite often, intentionally unfortunately.  Clothes, shoes and toys he has just grown out of now are possessed by said pterodactyl.  The pterodactyl is not always grateful either.

But overall we are very blessed.  People may say we are blessing Xuan Song, but mostly, we just feel like we have received an amazing gift and can’t wait until he adjusts so we can share him with everyone.

Last weekend we had a doctor’s appointment in Minneapolis so squeezed in a visit to the new Asker baby Addison (born July 4) and the rest of Brian’s immediate family.  We stayed a hotel with a water park and you should have seen our new son love the slides!  It was so restful for all 5 of us after a long first week together.

Asker cousins have suddenly doubled in number!

oh and people keep asking about his language development and name:

language: he is doing fairly well understanding what we mean.

name: we don’t use Tobiah much yet.  Xuan Song is so significant to us because of the policeman sharing his name, the fact that it is one of the few things he “owns” and it reflects his awesome Chinese heritage.