Thumb sucking, a smelly man & and a sarcastic husband

I hope y'all are all doing well. I know it's been awhile since I have posted anything. Time really seems to be going by so quickly here. I think that's a good sign...right? I keep meaning to go online and post, I just get busy I guess.

Anyway, I don't really have anything amazing to say. We have not had any out of this world experiences lately. We have just been "normal". Which I KNOW is a good thing. The boys have totally settled in. They have a routine. They have made friends. They feel comfortable here. Gabe is even starting to naturally substitute Chinese words in place of English words when he can. For that matter, so is Maddox. Gabe will start swimming lessons next week. It will be interesting to see how that goes. He likes the water lots; he just always likes it from the steps. The class is for 4 year olds and up so he's going to be the youngest one there. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully by the tenth (and final) class he will have at least ventured off the steps!!!

The whole language barrier is really frustrating sometimes. It can also be, well, let me just tell y'all what happened. We were taking the subway (one of the boys favorite things to do) to Best Buy yesterday when the incident occurred. When were in the middle of the herd of people trying to crush themselves onto the subway car, a local man saw Gabe sucking his thumb so he reached up and pulled it out. While this happens to Gabe a lot, I don't think it's something he'll ever get used to or like. (I wouldn't either.) Anyway, his reaction yesterday was to move quickly away from this man as he said, "NO...NO...NO. Don't touch me......PLEASE!!!!" He was obviously upset. I was trying to tell Gabe everything was ok when the Chinese man tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to Gabe and said, "He....um...is...ah....offensive." OFFENSIVE!?! At this point my incredibly sarcastic husband turned to the man and exclaimed, "Well nobody's making you look at him, are they?" While I was bouncing between anger at the Chinese man and frustration at Michael for thinking that sarcasm was the way to handle this situation, the man then said, "He.....um....is.....ah......very aggressive." AGGRESSIVE!?! The kid was just reacting to you, a strange smelling man he doesn't know, invading his personal space by grabbing his hand and pulling his thumb out of his mouth! I am his mother for goodness sake. If I didn't want his thumb in his mouth I would take care of it myself. So Michael is standing there glaring at the man, Gabe is finally starting to calm down, and I am wondering how to handle the situation when the guy smiles huge and says, "I...um...little speak English. You...um...from...um....U.S.?" WHAT!?! Someone should really tell this guy not to talk, at least not in a language he doesn't understand! Michael was looking like he was about to throw down with this guy so I, the calm, cool, and collective person that I am said, "Let's assume that he doesn't know what he's saying ok? Just forget it." My point is that the whole language thing makes for lots of interesting experiences. Some funny, some frustrating, some kinda upsetting. If anything though, it makes we want to learn Chinese faster.

Well, I'm gonna run for now. We are going to the playground. The curly slide is my favorite...