Ian's got a girlfriend. There is a girl named Anna in his classroom now. An older woman. He tends to like women over the age of two. More experience, I guess. Anyway, he's been following her around. Yesterday, Anna was napping, so the teacher told him, "Anna's sleeping." He went and sat on the cot next to her. When they sit at the table, Miss Pat says he will walk around the table so that he can sit next to her. Yesterday, Miss Pat said she had to move a chair next to her because the seats next to her were taken and Ian just kept circling around until she put the chair next to Anna.

Miss Pat also told me that yesterday afternoon the girls (I believe that would be Sabrina, Taylor and Anna) took Ian's sneakers and socks off and tried to put his water shoes on him. Ian just sat there patiently and let them do whatever they wanted.

And this morning he was playing with the dinosaurs with Sabrina. Sabrina tried to take the one in Ian's hand, so I said she had to share, but she could ask Ian if she could have it. She asked nicely, and of course Ian shook his head vigorously and frowned. But 2 seconds later, he offered it to Sabrina, as well as the toy wolf in in his other hand. He is such a sucker for a cute face.

As I mentioned before, Ian loves to watch "Charlie and Lola" and he will point to the TV or pick up the remote and say, "Ro-ra!" Yes, he has a Chinese accent.

Over the weekend, Jeff built Ian a playhouse out of the cardboard boxes that some new furniture came in. Ian was soooo excited he was literally bouncing. Jeff put these two lights in the house that Jiu Jiu and Jiu-ma gave us when we were in California. They turn on when you push down on them and Ian turns them on and off, yelling "Den!" (Chinese for "light".) This again proves the point that you do not need to go out and buy fancy expensive toys for kids.

Ian is so huggy. He loves it when we make an "Ian sandwich", with Mommy and Daddy as the "bread". At night when I put him down for bed, after we finish reading the dinosaur books ("Dino!") and he finishes his milk ("Nai-nai!"), he likes to climb up and put his head on my shoulder and his little hands try to reach around me and the little fingers go pat, pat, pat on my arms. Love it.

He's been doing really well with going to sleep around 8:30 and waking up around 6:30 or sometimes even 7:00. Occasionally, there will be a midnight wakeup (which often seems like he's had a bad dream) or he'll wake up super early at 5:30, but he usually can go back to sleep pretty quickly after a bottle.

He will imitate practically anything we say. He said "sunscreen" last weekend, although not that clearly, while we were putting it on him. While we were in Westhampton and again last weekend, he would take the suncreen bottle, shake it upside down, then raise up one arm and rub it with his other hand, as if he were putting on the sunscreen.

He likes to hide -- behind doors, under tables, in his cardboard house -- and is just ecstatic when we finally "find" him. Although once I got a bit alarmed because he hid under the dining room table when I wasn't looking and was really, really quiet.

He likes to push me over when I'm sitting on the floor, so he can sit on me and bounce up and down. I think it helps me build stronger abdominal muscles. He's a pretty strong kid. And heavy.