What a week!!!

Ecclesiastes 3:4:A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance....

This scripture pretty much summarizes our week. The lost of my grandmother to the new transition in my son's life its really indescribable.  My grandmother is at peace now with all her family. We mourn but we know we should rejoice as her work here is done and she was a very faithful servant!!! and where God takes away he brings forth new life!!! This week  I heard his son's voice for the first time, Tuesday August 10th, through skype. I also received so many pictures and detailed information about his life from his foster mother. I really could not have orchestrated this any better myself.  They are the perfect family for the transition period. This week we introduced Tian new name Aiden. We will officially name him Tian Aiden Stevens, and will call him Aiden. HE LOVES THE NAME!!!!!! His foster family says its a perfect name and matches him very well!!! He will use this name at his new school next week. When his foster family accidentally calls him by Tian, he will just look at them and wait for them to correctly call him Aiden. So for now on in future posts I will go by his new American name. Below are some of my favorite comments from the foster mom about Aiden.....

• Tian Ai is a very clever, witty and confident man.  As far as English goes he has minimal language ability but this won’t stop him from talking he really is a chatter box!  He takes great pride in himself and his belongings.  For example, every morning he wakes up gets dressed, makes his bed and tidies his room. 

•   I took him to the market one day and he saw the movies “Kung Fu Panda” and “Stuart Little” his face lit up so I bought them for him.  He loves both these movies but Stuart Little is his all time favourite.  Now the movies over here are all illegal copies and very cheap but them come with lots of packaging.  Usually we just throw away this packaging, not Tian Ai, he carefully puts the DVD back into it’s many layers each and everytime.  He kept checking with me that these were his DVD’s? It got to the stage where I wrote his name on the DVD so he felt more at ease that no one was going to take it from him. 

• As you know he loves lego and will happily play for hours.  He is a perfectionist and wants it to make sure he does it right.  He has great patience and will redo parts over and over if it needs to be done.  He does need help on some complex parts but generally he does this independently.  Tian Ai loves having company, many many times he will come and find me to just sit and watch a movie with him, help with lego or play games.  If I ever need to go quickly downstairs to get something my 2 kids prefer to  stay with Wendy but Tian Ai always joins me.  He loves pushing the shopping trolley and carrying any parcels, a real little gentleman.

• Well since arriving on Monday Aiden has really settled into our daily routines, in fact he really thrives on knowing how, when and why we do certain things.

•  He collected all the dirty clothes one night for me and put them in the washing machine, he came to get me and showed me what he had done.  I praised him for his help and then he headed off to bed.  I didn't think anything more about it until the next morning when he runs into my room wakes me up talking fast and was very distressed! He had gone into the laundry and checked the washing machine and the clothes were still dirty and hadn't been washed.  It turns out he thought by putting them into the washing machine meant they would automatically be cleaned.  I explained we have to put in powder and turn it on, which he helped me do.  NOW he loves doing the washing!! After we had done this he wanted to help wash up the breakfast plates! I took a photo of your little "cleaner"..He LOVES his name Aiden. In fact if I forget to call him Aiden he just smiles and won't answer, Cheeky man