"Well, how he is he? Is he fitting in?"

 

Everyone wants to know about A: "Well, how he is he?  Is he fitting in?  is he bonding with your family?"  I'll tell you - here is how he is and what he does:

He steals the remote control while his brothers are watching cartoons, turns off the TV, and runs out of the room laughing hysterically.

He taps his brother on his shoulder as if to say "Check this out," puts his head down, and then looks up again laughing hysterically with his eyelids turned inside out just to see his brother freak out (gross) ... 

He eats with gusto and glee each and everything that is not nailed down. He screams at the wait staff for more like a rude dining companion.

He dances gangnam style.  He sings frere jaques.  When he is tired or hungry or in a foul humor he shrieks bloody murder, arches his back in an almost complete C shape, and kicks like Michael Phelps.

When he gets into the car, he shouts in Chinese "Let's go!"  When we leave a hotel room, he says in english "C'mon Mama!"

He loves taking a bath, brushing his teeth, washing his hands.  He folds laundry and doesn't want to go to bed if his big brothers aren't.

He is enjoying looking at pictures of his extended family and is fascinated by his paternal grandparents.  When shown pictures of and had the concept of "aunts/uncles" and "cousins" explained to him he looked thoughtful for a moment and replied in Chinese "Nonsense."

He insisted that J carry him up and down and over the thousands of steps at the Shaolin Temple home of Chinese Buddhism and birthplace of Kung Fu.  When i attempted to make him walk or pass him off to someone else, he practiced his back arch/kicking/screaming maneuver.  I decided to view it as some sort of act of penance to carry this squirming loud child on my shoulders throughout this great religious site.

In short, he plays, he eats, he laughs and cries, he roughhouses with his brothers.  He is our son and brother and cousin and nephew and grandson.  He loves and is loved.