Dank you ..Dank you belly much!

On Friday night we had the pre-school concert and graduation ceremony for Ben and Maddie. I was a little unsure as to how this would go, as during the rehearsals Ben had memorised EVERYONES lines and would say them regardless of whether it was his turn or not. The teachers all found it very cute, and one even confided that she really hoped he would do it on the night. For the first time ever, he did only his own lines, and did an awesome job at that!

The second Maddie chose a dress to wear, he went straight for one of the Indian outfits that we'd bought in India for him. I guess in his mind it's the dressiest thing he owns (and lets be honest, American style clothing pales in comparison), so thats what we went with. He was super-proud of the way he looked, and was delighted when Cassie decided to wear her Indian outfit too. He then chose a shirt for me that I'd bought in India, so we were all set. He was a little apprehensive when we first arrived at the preschool - Anything that goes outside the realm of normal everyday routine still has him a little unsure - but once we were there and he saw all those familiar faces he was good to go. Once the performance started and people started clapping, he started bowing, and at the top of his lungs announced "Dank you, dank you belly much!". There was not one person there that wasn't grinning. I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks. To look at where he was just a couple of months ago, compared to now is pretty overwhelming. He has this air of new-found confidence about him thats wonderful to see ... espescially when you know how hard his life before now has been.

Today is Fathers Day, so all of the kids made cards. I tried to explain Fathers day to him, but all he wanted to know is if he gets cake. When J called in from work to say good morning to everyone Ben ran to him and told him "Happy Birthday Daddy!!". Close enough. This afternoon we're making muffins and a chocolate chip cake, so they're all looking forward to that! If Ben has anything to do with it, we'll have candles on the cake too. For as many birthdays as there have been lately I'm sure he thinks we get cake every week.

Ben continues to adjust to life here amazingly well. Since he arrived home he's learned to ride a two-wheel bike with no training wheels, and can now get himself swinging on the swing. (he goes so fast and so high its hard to watch). Yesterday he decided to tackle tree-climbing and predictably got up the tree and then got stuck. All of his sisters were standing beneath the tree encouraging him, which both amused and infuriated me. (Yes, lets encourage the child who's lived in a concrete box with no backyard the majority of his life to climb the tree ...What were they thinking??) It turns out that he got part of the way up the tree and convinced himself that he saw a monkey and a snake, and at that point was too scared to move. It was Mum to the rescue, and even once we were safely down and I could show him that there was no monkey's or snakes up there, he was not going back near that tree for anything.

Between Maddies bug phobia and the monkey up the tree out the back its got the potential to be a long summer!