Best Day Yet!

Yesterday was Charlie’s best day yet.  Breakfast was very manageable.  Where we have breakfast is very chaotic and overwhelming and every day has been struggle for him, but he was much better. 

We went to the Zoo and he got to pet lots of animals.  It was hot as blazes, and he does not like to be hot, so we weren’t sure how much he would enjoy it, but he got to pet several farm animals and was very happy.  

He was talking to them in English and I told him I thought the animals understood Chinese, so he laughed and switched languages.  For lunch we went to McDonald’s and he took the bun off his burger and ate the patty exclaiming “Hamburger!  Hamburger!”  Sam ate his bun for him.  

After lunch we had to take him back to the medical clinic because his TB test from Saturday came back positive.  When we got there, he jumped out of the van and said, “Hello Doctor!”  He had a quick chest x-ray, which was fine, and then we took him out for ice cream.  I think Stephen was more excited about the ice cream than Charlie was.  

After that, we went to the pool and he played by himself with his float and farm animals for a little while.  This is the first time this has happened.  He also wants to jump in the pool with nobody there to catch him now.  After dinner we were in the playroom at our hotel (it’s on the same floor as our room) and we said it was time to go back to the room.  He ran ahead of us and locked us out!  For about 10 minutes he would not let us in and our key wouldn’t work because he’d locked it from the inside.  We told the hotel staff and she said she had an idea.  She called the room on the phone, and as soon as it started ringing, he came to the door, opened it and said, “Mama!  Mama!”  I think the phone ringing scared him to death!  Ha.  I told him what he did was not nice, and he could not lock his family out, and he said, “No go to bed.  No go to bed.”  That kid is smart.  We had already given him some Dramamine at dinner, Benadryl hadn’t worked the night before, and a friend let me borrow her Essential Oils.  We brushed teeth, watched a little TV and then we told him it was time for Sam and Kate to go to sleep.  He objected mildly, but went in their room with us to sing them songs and tuck them in.  He kissed both of them and said, “Good night.”  Then we went to our room and he said no sleep again.  I asked him if he wanted to sleep on the floor or in the bed and he said floor again.  But this time, he wanted both of us with him and asked for the Panda Bear book that he loves.  After we read it we said, songs?  He said, no more Panda Bear.  We read it 6 times, and then told him it was time for sleep.  He kissed us and asked us to lay on the bed and he went to sleep.  After about 2 minutes, Stephen and I were silently high-fiving each other in bed.  We had just witnessed a miracle.  This same sweet boy had been spitting, hitting, biting and scratching us at bedtime for the past several nights.  I think we might by some stock in Essential Oils!