Bread and Other Provisions: "Welcome To America Lucas"

Lucas has had a lot of activity in his life in the past several days, from birthday parties to visitors, to beaches and swimming pools. Sometimes it is hard to explain what is happening and what the relationships are from one event to another. So we try not to give him too many things to ponder too far in advance. I have to say he has been handling all of it very well.

Yesterday, we had a birthday party for our little friend Abby. It was full of fun. We got to have the experience of going to the store, choosing a gift for someone else, wrapping the gift, going to the party, eating food, and shovelling in the cake, and then running through some fountains. All great stuff! Lucas ate 2 pieces of cake....I think he really did quite well with the whole thing.

Then, today we told him there was another party, this time for him, but it really was a sort of "shower" and celebration of Lucas being in our family. I was told people would bring gifts, we'd eat food, play together, etc.
But, how do we explain to Lucas the difference between this and a birthday party? To him it sort of looks the same...people giving all sorts of attention and gifts to him, food, fun, fellowship, etc. Yet, we didn't want him to think his birthday is in June or that he gets multiple birthdays every year. His birthday is in January so I keep telling him that. Today he repeated it back to me--so that's good.

One interesting thing kept coming up over the past 2 days though. Lucas kept needing reassurance that he was not going back to Mongolia. "No Mongolia" "Welcome to America, Lucas" he must have said 30 times in the past 2 days. We kept telling him he is part of our family now. He does not have to go back. He is ours forever. He will live here forever (unless he wants to go back of course, but that is a fine line and hard to explain right now). The funny part about all of this has been an apparent turn in his attitude as well. I have had very few negative interactions with him over the past several days. He has been very obedient, and happy. Not sure if/how the 2 are related...could it be that obvious? That he is feeling a sense of relief and attachment because we are celebrating his NEW life? Perhaps. It just keeps boggling my mind how well he is doing.

We have tried to be very clear the past few days to make sure he knows this is NOT his birthday, instead it was "Welcome To America, Lucas" day. Our wonderful friends the Fedeles hosted this party and had everything in red, white and blue. It was a traditional "cookout" with all the fixin's. It was so festive and fun. Mr. Fedele, even painted a baseball diamond on his backyard and they played with a batting T and enjoyed some good ole' American Baseball! Lucas was in his glory!!!! And he handled the whole thing famously well. He was gracious to everyone with the gifts. He showed genuine excitement at the gifts recieved and sincere gratitude for the people there. We were very proud of him.

He continues to just blossom...

Here are some of the highlights:

Lucas's OWN toolbox and tools....Now daddy and mommy can get their tools back out of "hock" where they have been held hostage by Lucas for the past several weeks.

(notice...Sir Lucas is wearing Daddy's reading glasses "again")

thank you to the Sanders for this wonderful blessing.

one happy boy...

LEGOS!!! Thank you to the Wreyfords

some yummy food!!!

Ms. Katherine and my sista'

thanks Mr. A. for all the yummy grilling you did.

the other two men in my life...

Ms. Melissa gave Lucas some specialty candies...His eyeballs just about popped out of his head and he said "Oh my Goodness"!!! the inflection was priceless.