The people that got us through

Thanks for all of your compliments on Pickle. We think he's pretty cute ourselves. Before I get back to the adoption retrospective I thought I would take a moment to address some of your comments and questions.

The block sorter: This is by far this child's favorite toy. It took him about a day to figure out how to complete the entire thing on his own. It took us about 3. Well... There is a diamond and a rhombus. They look very similar. When he is bored or frustrated he will just take the lid off like he did in the video. He can name the octagon and triangle. He doesn't yet know the names of the other shapes yet.

His speech: When we got Pickle his main diagnosis was speech delay. And for a child his age he did, in fact, have a speech delay. He spoke maybe 5 words in Russian. By the time we left Russia he said: all done, apple, ootka, beep-beep, mama, boy, babada, dedu, paka and a host of other sounds that we knew what they were for. He now knows more words than I can count. His latest phrase is "oh my gosh." He also knows, "how are you." but doesn't know the answer. He does not learn language from the television. He learns it from us. We talk to him constantly and read to him constantly.

Sign language: CS's sister started us with sign language. It worked very well to bridge a communication gap. For the longest time Pickle would sign Thank you, but not say it. He does now say it. His other signs include, mama, daddy, apple, share, banana, lion, helicopter, more, all done, happy, please, good, boy, cake, cheese, music, and maybe a few others. We finally got him to sign his name last night. We made it like the sign for cute. For cute you brush a C on your chin. For Pickle you brush and O on your chin.

What truly amazes me is when you watch the slide show below look at the photo of him at Christmas and then the next is his referral photo. It is not the same child at all.