Our Gabey...

Our little Gabey has changed A LOT in the past several months, more than any of our other kids.  The first transformation that he has gone through is that he has declared that he is no longer a boy, but a dog.  His dog name is Ruffy and when we ask Gabriel a question, sometimes all we get in response is: "Ruff!"

Gabriel has been quite consistent with this persona and regularly goes around the house on all fours, carries his stuffed animals with his mouth, and will put his food in a bowl on the floor and eat it like a dog.  We will see long long Ruffy continues to live in our house.

With Xiao Yu coming home, Gabriel has switched from being a Daddy's boy to a Mommy's boy.  This is because the dynamics in the family have changed and he is feeling discombobulated and confused.  So he has glommed onto Emily and goes to her for everything.

His behavior, in terms of not being obedient and other things, had also gotten worse to the point where we, at the advice of our pediatrician, took him to a play therapist for kids.  We never knew there was such a thing, but apparently there are people out there that specialize in helping kids cope with changes in their lives.  The therapist really encouraged Elvin to reach out to Gabey and interact with him even if Gabriel at first doesn't respond.  So Elvin has been doing that and with that, Gabriel's behavior has improved.  Another good sign is that Gabriel has started playing with his kitchen toys again and "cooking".  Gabriel had stopped that earlier and we see that maybe Gabriel's willingness to play at cooking is a barometer for how comfortable he feels...

Gabriel is also back in the kitchen with Elvin helping out.  Here he is helping spoon out cookie dough.

And in the evenings, Elvin sometimes helps Gabriel with his Lego construction set.

Whereas before, all Gabriel did was cooking, since coming back from China, he has really expanded his interests and has become more of a "typical" boy, i.e. he is now playing with trucks, and dirt, and cars.

Once, he filled an empty watering can with soil, dumped it all out on our patio and then used the plastic rake to make a pattern.  Messy, but very creative!

He also likes playing with the school bus and fire truck, both of which make sounds.  He can play with those for hours.

And he really loves playing with our train sets.  We have quite a set and he has spent dozens or maybe hundreds of hours playing with them.

Gabey has also gotten much more interested in books and will sit down and "read" through books by himself, which he never used to do.

He will also gravitate towards mommy if there is a story being read to the girls.

Because he sees Eliana being homeschooled, he also is interested in completing worksheets.  So Emily got him some workbooks for young kids for him to work on.  It has stuff like tracing activities. 

Gabey continues to enjoy things that no normal two  or three year olds like.  Here, he is not having plain toast, but toast with sautéed mushrooms piled on top.  Yum!  And for dessert, while everyone else is having a bowl of ice cream, he asked for "Olives!"

And he does other silly things, like have a conversation with no one in particular on the toy phone.

And, we'd like to announce that Gabey is in the process of being potty trained! Once, several weeks ago, he did decide to pee in the toilet and we gave him candy and lots of kudos.  But that was just a tease.  We are pretty sure that he can go at will, but he decided that he did not want to be potty trained and so that was that.  We think that this was because of the recent big change in our household.... continuing to wear diapers was one thing he could control and that didn't have to change.

But this past week, he agreed to start potty training and has been fairly good about going.  He has had a few accidents; one time was when Elvin was watching him instead of Emily.  Elvin is not nearly as good at recognizing Gabriel's version of the potty dance.

And of course, Gabey continues to play his guitar CONSTANTLY.  His strumming technique is actually pretty good, Elvin says, and he has figured out that if you press the strings of the guitar against the metal bar on this toy, and then slide the guitar up and down, it will change the pitch of the strumming.  Our Ruffy is a smart doggie!

And so there you go...our Gabey is still full of energy and personality.  He makes us laugh every day and makes sure that he is heard wherever he goes!