Jeff's leaving for Tunisia tonight, so he just finished putting Ian down for the night. I'm downstairs listening to the monitor. Ian was quiet for about 5 minutes, and now I'm listening to him sing, "I love you, you love me..." and then give himself a "Yay!" at the end of it. Jeff sings it to him every night before putting him in the crib.

I discovered some DVDs to help Ian learn Chinese. It started with just the CD and he liked it so much, I bought the 6-DVD set. It's not the most polished DVDs, but Ian is glued to the TV when I put it in. And we've been listening to the CD every day in the car to and from school. He always says "more" or "mas" or "again" when the CD ends and sometimes gets very upset that we have to get out of the car. The first time he watched the DVD, he wanted to see it again. I think he especially likes all the cute little girls dancing and singing. Anyway, the DVDs and CD are by Mei Mei Hu, a woman originally from China who married a non-Chinese American guy and adopted a little girl from China. She made these because she has been a teacher for 20 years and wanted something to help teach both her daughter and her husband Chinese. If you are interested, check out her website www.meimeiandme.com. I sent her an email the other day to tell her how much Ian enjoys the DVDs and CD and to ask whether she'll be making any more. Her daughter is now 8 and her husband is also a teacher and he does the recording, so unfortunately, they won't make any new CDs for a while because they are so busy.

OK, Jeff left a little after 9:00, and I said as he was leaving, "Did you say good-bye to Ian when you put him to bed?" Jeff said no and I figured we'd have a rough morning. So I go back in and I hear Ian on the monitor saying, "Daddy, bye, Daddy, bye-bye. Bye, Daddy!" Then silence, so I figured he was ok. He probably heard the front door close. A few seconds later, pathetic crying. So I had to go in and comfort him. He was lying in his crib, Elmo tightly clutched in his left hand, Puppy being strangled by his right hand. I stroked his cheek and sang "I love you, you love me...". When I said, "I love you, Ian" there was a tiny whimper, so I sang again. Then I just rested my hand against his cheek, and he pressed his little face against my hand. It's now 9:45 and he's still talking and singing to himself and tossing around up in his crib.