The Boy: Wakes up cheerful. Really, Crazy Cheerful.
The Girl: Almost always wakes up in a bad mood.
The Boy: Loves the dog. Terrified of the ferns in the front yard.
The Girl: Completely indifferent to the dog. Fears nothing in nature; once touched a snake to her face and then asked if it might bite.
The Boy: Sobs uncontrollably if I put a different pair of shoes on his feet.
The Girl: Never met a new shoe she didn't like. Would wear a new pair of shoes every days of the year if we could afford it.
The Boy: Completely emotionally transparent. In fact, one may even describe him as a bit "simple."
The Girl: Takes us minimally two days to figure out why she is upset.
The Boy: Does not hold a grudge
The Girl: Remembers personal transgressions we committed two years ago. At least. Reminds us of them frequently.
The Boy: Is easily consoled either by a hug, or food.
The Girl: Makes us work for it.
The Boy: Falls down a lot.
The Girl: Fastest kid in kindergarten, and possibly first grade.
The Boy: Wants to cuddle.
The Girl: Wants to ski, run, bike, swim...etc. etc. etc.
They are, of course, both perfect. perfect. perfect. Nora claims to love Jack Kai--hard to say really. He is a little bit indifferent to her, and she isn't happy about sharing her cars (they are actually his cars, but if he doesn't play with them for at least five minutes, she takes possession of them).
While Jack Kai is still stuck to me like glue, I did manage to take a shower yesterday without an audience. Yay for privacy! So his anxiety about being abandoned is subsiding, albeit slowly. Hopefully when he can hear a bit better, and/or his communication becomes more sophisticated, he will begin to understand all of this craziness. In terms of his communication, he understands a bunch of signs: shoes, please, thank you, more, banana, milk, water, light, sock, ow, sleep, yes, no, dog, cat, daddy, sit down, eat...and he has used: ow, water, no, thank you, please, more, light, yes, daddy, all done, cat, and dog spontaneously. Every day it seems he learns at least one word. "Light" is BY FAR his favorite word. The communication piece is harder and, at the same time, easier than it was with Nora. Kai doesn't understand as much, but he is a much "clearer" communicator in many ways. He wants us to be able to understand what he wants, whereas Nora was a bit more stubborn.
As is clear from the below pictures, despite their differences, they are bonding. Rather, Nora is doing her best to bond with him. And he is going along for the ride, as long as the game she is holding looks like fun.
