He is older than Benjamin, but is a few inches shorter. Unless he has a huge growth spurt, they will be able to wear each other's clothes for quite some time. He is 11, but looks and acts more like a 9 year old which is not uncommon in post-institutionalized children.

When we had guides with us, he of course wanted to be with them since they spoke his language, but we managed on our own tonight to walk down to a restaurant and order from a picture menu. I felt like a fool when I was pointing to a picture and asking what he wanted to eat and he instead read the menu in Chinese and then ordered for himself.

He talks away to us in Chinese and it truly breaks my heart that I cannot understand him. We will buy a pocket translator tomorrow, but for now are making do with our Chinese/English picture dictionary. He can count to 10 in English and very rapidly picked up today how to sign up to 10 as well. When we point to objects, he is willing to tell us the name of them in Chinese, but unfortunately, copying what he is saying is not always easy.

He has already picked up "OK" and is parroting some other English words. Today when he was trying to teach Alyssa some Chinese from the dictionary, he would say the word and sometimes Alyssa would repeat it back to him with her voice rising in a question as English speakers tend to do when they aren't sure of what they are saying. It was hilarious as he would tell her no, because by raising her voice at the end, she was not asking a question, but instead changing the tone and meaning of the words. When she messed up once, she said, "Oh cr#$!" which of course he promptly repeated. She said, "No, don't say that!" and of course that was parroted back as well.

We are infatuated with this little guy and while we know we are just getting to know each other and are in the honeymoon stage of our adoption, we couldn’t be happier with how everything has progressed. An oft-quoted statement in the adoption world is “Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.” I have done this with all three of our adoptions, and am pleased that our “hopes for the best” with Caleb are so far being exceeded.