Quinn is 4!

Today is Quinn's "Happy Birthday," as he calls it. We're still in Boston, so we had a fun and relaxing day with no medical appointments and lots of stuff Quinn likes to do.

We brought him a couple little presents and Nana sent a recordable story book that he loved (but he kept looking at it when he heard her voice and asking, "Nana? NANA?") We also took him to a local toy store we've been to on previous visits and let him pick out a toy. He picked a small dump truck - no shock for the Things That Go kid - but the surprise is that this kid who has never liked stuff animals and is not what you would call the nurturing type took to this new friend like it was a doll.

First came the greeting - "Hi, Rocky!" - and then came the hugs. Then he started showing Rocky the ropes - when the waitress delivered our food and removed the number from our table, Quinn shared his concern with his new charge. "Oh no, Rocky, she took our sign!"

Best of all came after dinner, when he held up Rocky and asked me, "Go change diaper?" I took him into the bathroom, where he pulled down the changing table, put Rocky on it and asked for a paper towel. We wiped the truck down good, and then Quinn directed me to lay the truck on its back and put on a new diaper (made from paper towels). Quinn gave Rocky a once-over and proclaimed, "Okay, he's all clean!"

Tonight Quinn let Rocky watch us do a puzzle and brush our teeth, and now the two are now sleeping side by side. Many a therapist has tried to get this child to engage in pretend play with dolls and action figures. Turns out that all he needed was a yellow dump truck!

Catching up with Cousin Anna

While in Boston to see Quinn's surgeon, our wonderful friends and China travel companions Susan and Russ drove in with their three kids, including Quinn's Cousin Anna, who joined her family approximately five seconds before Quinn joined ours. (Cousin Malia was the other child adopted in our trio, and we were lucky enough to catch up with her and her sister Cousin Ari at a reunion of kids from the Beijing CWI last year.)

It was so incredibly wonderful to see the kids together again. Anna, nine months older than Quinn, tried her darndest to get him to interact with her. Quinn, being nine months younger and a boy and generally unwilling to make eye contact unless forced, was less interactive but enjoyed himself in his own way. He also dug the "big boys," Cousin Spencer (during a visit to the aquarium he kept hollering, "Cousin Speeeeeeeeen-sur!") and Cousin Kent.

It's amazing how far these kids have come. They went through so much we'll never know about before they came to us, and they've been through so much since. But here they are, growing, smiling, thriving. Anna charmingly sang us a Justin Beiber song during dinner Saturday with the sweetest smile on her beautiful face, and Quinn ran joyfully around every square inch of the New England Aquarium, exhausting him and all of us.

It was a beautiful reunion, and a fabulous weekend. And it made me realize how incredibly blessed we were to be thrown together with two really wonderful families in China who we immediately liked and quickly grew to love. Sometimes you end up with your family, sometimes you get to choose. We chose to bring Quinn into our family, and now - for his sake but also because we just plain want to - we choose the families we traveled with to be part of our own patchworked, embroidered, crazy quilt of a forever family.