What he´s up to...

Kai is growing and changing so fast and I have not been great at documenting it. At this point it is hard to pin point things sometimes…those mile stones like rolling over, crawling, walking, talking…they were easy to recognize. You knew that your baby had moved onto the next stage. Now it is harder. There are days I watch him run and play and talk and sing and I really don’t know where the time has gone or what happened to my baby. He will be 3 in a couple months which seems crazy. Kinda old if you ask me. So I will try to do a quick (but I’m guessing it will be long) summary of what Kai’s up to right now.

• He is potty trained! This was a long time coming in my mind and we finally got it. In the end it was me who wasn’t being consistent enough with him. So once we started a rigorous on the potty schedule, he got it in a snap. He is now only diapers for napping and nighttime and even then he usually wakes up dry. He loves that fact that he is a little boy who lives in Peru and can pretty much drop his drawers anytime to go pee…I’m hoping he will learn this isn’t socially acceptable when we get back to the states…but for now it works for him. Being potty trained has added to his independent streak and in the same breath he tells me he has to go to the bathroom he also informs me that he can do it himself.
  
• He sings. All. The. Time. No kidding. He loves to sing…usually making up his own words or mixing English and Spanish. He often gets a song in his head and sticks with it for a few weeks. Or at bedtime he will ask me to sing with him and tells me he wants to sing “The train song” or “The bear song” or some other sort of song that I don’t know. When I ask him how it goes he sings it for me—totally made up. I think maybe Tyson makes up songs for him so he thinks it is normal.
  
• Right now his favorite toys are his train tracks. I guess he likes the trains to but he loves to put the tracks together and comes up with new ways to do it. His other favorite toy is his blocks. He loves to build airplanes with them because, well, planes are his other favorite thing:)
  
• Kai loves to ride his bike and is getting better every day. The first few weeks he had it he would just sit on it and then push it around. Then he moved onto figuring out the peddles but instead of peddling in circles he would go half way around and then peddle backwards and then halfway around again. It got him moving but would only get him so far. We practiced for a day up and down our road and I would lean down and move the peddles in circles and yay, all the sweating paid off because he figured it out! He can now ride around much easier and loves it.
  
• He loves to help Daddy. Tyson has had tons of projects around here trying to fix some issues we have and Kai is right beside him every time. He grabs a shovel and puts dirt in the wheelbarrow, goes to get tools that Tyson needs or comes to me to pass on a request. The other day I watched him carry a pick axe across the property to Tyson…I was seriously impressed. Just yesterday they tiled around our cistern to seal it so water couldn’t get in. Kai was right there to hand Tyson a tile every time he needed one…it was precious!
  
• I’m not sure what else. He loves to draw and color and do puzzles and play with playdough and read. He can catch a football and throw a spiral (sometimes), shoot a basket and hit with a tennis racket…the kid takes after his Daddy! He doesn’t cry when the ball hits him in the face, yet he will break down in tears over something silly (like when I washed his mosquito net yesterday). He is 2 and acts like it and I am learning to balance my expectations with reality. He is a tough little boy yet is also sensitive and loving. He has a great sense of humor and seems to understand mine. He looks at me and says “Mommy, that’s silly” when I joke or tease him and I appreciate that he gets it. He makes us laugh a lot and has a zillion faces and expressions.

We feel so blessed to be the parents of this little boy, he is a joy to us. It is a privilege to guide him and teach him in the ways of the Lord and an honor to watch him grow and change each day. We love you Kai, more than words can say…you are precious and wonderful!