he is AWESOME!

from brooke:
We met him this morning along with 15 other toddlers who were clinging to us and holding on like if they held on tight enough, they'd leave with us, too! i already found a sister for grace but i'd better wait a while, i guess-haha
Words of english he speaks and understands: zero
But we are able to communicate using simple amharic
He is so cool-so small, skinny arms and legs and big belly and if you smile at him he gives you a huge shy smile back-just like his picture we had for months in the U.S.
He is so calm-the first half of the day he sat there and stared at us-no speaking...but there are 3 other older adopted kids here at the guest house and they have been a huge help in communicating and helping us-for instance, when we tried to get him in the tub, he was freezing cold and naked and scared and the older girls told him to not be scared just get in the bath and he went right in. he speaks very well to people speaking amharic...
He is opening up a bit and repeating words we say, pointing to balls and dogs and LOVES his toys we brought...his favorite is all the clothes we brought with trucks and cars on them-he was so proud to wear the construction shirt that grandma darlene bought luke for valentine's day (luke said it was ok to take it with us for anteneh to borrow!) he kept pointing to the trucks and saying, 'mekina!' over and over again (that means car)
the funniest part of our day was laying him down for a nap-we laid him on the little pillow i made and covered him with his matching blanket-told him 'goodnight' in amharic and he closed his eyes and fell asleep within 3 minutes! we laid down and laughed ourselves to sleep for a nap of our own-for those of you who know how hard it was for us to get our biological children to sleep well, you will know why we were laughing.
we also took him out to a nice italian place to eat dinner and i've never seen a more well behaved child-his eyes lit up when he drank the orange soda like he'd never had it before and we were the coolest people in the world for letting him drink it...
now, we did have to take him to the doctor today because he has a cold, and a skin infection (we thought it might be an ear infection b/c his ear was oozing and bloody-gross, i know) but he is on antibiotics and ear drops now-his ear is only infected in the canal-not the inner ear and his skin looks very scarred on his arms and cheeks but the doctor says it will go away-it looks like a fungal thing but the doctor says it definately is not and it's not contagious-
right now he is downstairs playing cars with his 'abat' (daddy-daryn)
the sweetest moment today just hours after we met him was when a little girl asked him in amharic if i was his mom and he said 'yes' and she said 'what is her name?' and he said, "i don't know" hahaha-he does understand...he is obviously so happy to be with us...i hear him downstairs right now blowing on the 88 cent flute from superwalmart :)
we love you all!!!!!!!!!!! pray for our continued bonding with anteneh, my stomach issues that won't go away (aagghhh) and for our visits with anteneh's extended family that we are going to try and make in the next few days...