Tender moments

Today, Jake had his first ice cream cone at a McDonald's across the street from our hotel (you take an underground walkway to get there, which we love because we don't have to navigate the traffic). The look on his face when he took the first bit was priceless, and Momma and Baba did not take the camera. Sorry. You'll just have to let us paint the image for you. Our boy loves to eat, so when he saw drinks and the cone in our hands and that we were headed for the table he was excited! He sat down on Momma's lap and the first bite commenced. Now you have to realize, in China nothing is served cold. If you're lucky, it will be cool, and, of course, you cannot ask for ice. McDonald's drinks are the coldest we have found. So Jake sticks his mouth on the ice cream (not very wide, mind you) and he pulls away and looks at Momma, and the face starts to scrunch up like we've played the biggest joke on him and it's not funny and the tears are coming and the wails will begin and ... wait ... the face turns thoughtful, and he licks his lips and you can see the wheels turning and this stuff isn't too bad, as the sugar hits the taste buds. So he takes another small bite, and soon he has the cone himself and is going to town, and, with a little help from Momma and Baba he eats it all – he did a good job biting the cone, as well.
A few other moments we've been wanting to post:
On Monday, Violet went down the street a way to get us KFC for supper. It was our first, full day and Momma already broke her cardinal rule of never leaving without telling Wen Feng goodbye. When he realized Mom was not in the room, he got a little upset, but not too bad. When Violet came back, Jake looked back at her over his shoulder and said Momma as plain as day. That one made Violet grin ear to ear.
The next day, our little Jakester was one grumpy boy, but when Kevin had to tell him "no" to getting in and out of our refrigerator in our room, he got upset and pouted, but Kevin just pretended to ignore him. After a while, he went to Kevin and wrapped his arms around his legs asking to be picked up.
And, finally, today, Kevin and Violet received the honor of having Jake hand us Cheerios and puffed cereal from his snack cup, a sharing feat that had not occurred as of yet. In fact, when we had asked before he sometimes would ignore us and sometimes get upset.

All in all, our experience has been phenomenal. We are so blessed with our little boy.

Here are the token pictures (even if they don't include ice cream):

Momma holding a screaming Jake. His fits Tuesday went on for quite awhile, but Momma wasn't going to let it get her down. She eventually won, just barely. Man this kid is strong:


This is sometime later (after a nap, I'm sure) when our little man was in a better mood. He and Baba playing around the crib:


Soooo, this is western food. Yeah, I think I might like it:


He strikes this pose quite a bit. We love it!


Here is Jake stylin' in his OU jacket in front of the hotel after the ice cream run. You can see remnants of the ice cream on his jacket (and, yes, the pants are too big – almost everything we have is – but we hope to work on that in Guangzhou where there are some more western stores):


And, finally, this is my view right now: