Thanks so much for letting me come!  This little boy, Liam, has a wonderful sense of humour and is hilarious, his language is quite sophisticated now with tenses, conditional clauses, words like especially, actually etc all being correctly used.  He slips between Dutch and English very easily, talking to Barry, then turning to me and explaining in English what’s being spoken about in perfect English!

But his games have become really sophisticated too. Now that he is feeling healthier he is playing, talking and laughing flat out all day, runs a lot in the house, plays football skilfully with a range of indoor balls and regularly rides his bike up and down.

He has some puppets; his favourite being Fozzy bear from The Muppets.  I put Fozzy on my hand and he has great conversations with Fozzy  about all sorts of things! I have pretended that Fozzy is scared of his T Rex dinosaur I bought him.  When we were in the car especially he says ‘T Rex’ to Fozzy and I get Fozzy to hide behind his car seat.  He loves the game and really chuckles.  We now play it in lots of other places too..

At bedtime he likes me to read his story and put him to bed, especially when Gene is not here at bedtime.  His routine is that you read two books that he chooses, then he lies down, you give him a kiss and cuddle and his bottle, turn off the light and sit on a chair beside his bed.  He drinks his bottle, hands it to you, turns on his side, holds your hand and falls asleep pretty quickly.

Last night he held my hand in both his hands.  They are just like our kids’s hands and feel lovely.  Such a sweet little boy.  He has games for everything now.  Liam is really intelligent and creative. We have been talking lots about what he has been learning at school and I have been building on that in our games, especially phonics.

We have been playing little games with the letters on in the cupcake game too and he roars with laughter, falling about like Jas used to do. Once home from school and often later in the afternoon he likes to come into my room, get under my quilt, lie still and pretend he isn’t there, then jump out and surprise me.  He comes in  and watches little video clips and plays games on my IPad with me..

We have been learning lots about dinosaurs, even listening to little dinosaur songs.  He has his own IPad but loves to use mine so he can be with me.  If my battery is low I just bring his IPad into my room and he is perfectly happy.  Liam can concentrate for hours, a very good sign for his learning and is now really observant.  Every day we are playing together for hours.  He has lots if toys and has a lot of variety in a day now.

Every day after school Barry and I play with him in the playground, sometimes with other kids too. When we go out of the school main door, as soon as he sees Anand he runs flat out, throws up his arms, runs, jumps up and gives Anand a big cuddle.  So lovely to see and Anand clearly really loves him too..

We went to the National Science Museum yesterday after school because there are dinosaurs there.  Liam enjoyed it, although initially being a little scared of the huge moving dinosaur models, which are also in the dark in Delhi.  Barry was great with him and we went though the section several times talking to him about the dinosaurs he saw and especially the ones he knew. Dinosaur names jut trip off his tongue, even one pretty sophisticated names! He also enjoyed he hall of mirrors, mirror maze and some games where ball bearings are sent hurtling through big wire tracks in a variety of ways.

Since being here I have also treated the house fir cockroaches for Barry.

Gene has been in Chennai for the last 2 days.  All went well at home here.  She us now up so I will go and say hello.  She came home after I  went to sleep.  She wasn’t looking forward to going as it has all it pretty political.  Hope it went well.  She sounds happy and relaxed out talking to Liam at the moment in the lounge.

Love you.  See you soon.
Elaine
Xxxx