How's It Going?

So every day gets a little better.  By that I mean that with every day we get a little more accustomed to life with Joshua and he seems to get a little more comfortable with us.  He's a few updates on random topics:

• Sleep: We're all back on Houston time and have a schedule pretty well worked out that works for the kids.  When we keep the schedule, things go pretty smooth.
• Eating: Joshua ate everything in site when we got him and when we brought him home.  He never made himself sick but he clearly had/has a concern that the food will run out at some point.  He's getting better about this every day.  It probably helps that at our house there's an abundance of food in plain sight at all times and I'm not really the type to let us go more than 4 hours without eating something.  We still have a ways to go in this department though.
• English:  He's starting to repeat a few english word and he clearly understands several others.  He's coming along, I'm sure he'll be up-to-speed before we know it.
• Chinese:  Got a few leads on folks that we might be able to use to speak chinese with Joshua so that he can continue to build on what he already has in the way of speaking/understanding chinese.  If you're out there and you know of a student (or anyone really) that is a native chinese speaker (mandarin, not cantonese) and has time to come visit with Joshua for about an hour a week let us know.  It would be good for him and for us.
• Health:  One round of blood-draws are behind us.  Still at least one more to go.  I think Heather will take him on the 26th for the second.  Some of the initial tests have revealed that he has an intestinal parasite.  Not really that uncommon for children in his situation.  Got the drugs and started treatment on that today.  We've also setup appointments to meet with several specialists, will let you know how all that turns out.
• Baths:  Joshua likes taking baths now (was totally scared of the bath at first, also didn't like for his hands to be wet).  He still doesn't like it when water runs over his face but hopefully he'll get over that in time too.
• Bugs and Leaves:  Joshua is petrified of bugs and leaves and sticks and anything that gets on him.  I think he's just never seen many of these things as there wasn't really any plant life around his orphanage and he spent most of his time inside where the bugs were limited.  I presume he'll get over this in time as well.
• Lora:  Joshua loves his sister and is usually kinda distressed about her whereabouts when she's not in view.  They play together well although Lora is a bit rough for him and she gets a little too wound up some times.  Generally he does whatever she does which is good and bad.

Tomorrow is Christmas.  It's not actually Jesus' birthday but it is the day we celebrate the birth of Christ.  I hope you have a wonderful day, more importantly I hope you know what it means that the God that created the universe came to us in the form of a child so that he could buy our eternal freedom with His own life.