It's been a month since we've been back home and in some ways Kai is back to normal. His scars are healed, his energy has fully returned and he's back in daycare a few times a week. His daytime self seems fine, if somewhat more defiant about control issues or, alternatively, gentler and more affectionate than before. He says sweet things like "You look so pretty" or "Thank you for cooking that yummy dish" and he makes uncharacteristic pronouncements like "I want to paint!" or "I want to be lonely (his word for alone)." He wants to know whether fireflies are good animals, whether the wind can whisk coins away and whether avocados grow on the ground or on trees. He sometimes gets impatient with me ("I've said that already!") and when I give more of an explanation than he actually wants to hear, he holds up his hands and says "No more answers!" He's taken part of the bedtime ritual into his own hands, demonstratively saying "Hug, kiss and goodnight" and then marching off to his bedroom without looking back.

Every night, though, he wakes up screaming and is inconsolable until I've taken him upstairs to sleep with me. He has nightmares about scary things that chase him. Chris and I are quite sleep deprived and it has strained our tempers. We wonder about the things he doesn't talk about or respond to during the daytime that come out at night. He occasionally gravitates back to the hospital books and likes to put bandaids on Bama's invisible wounds, but otherwise there is nothing in his daytime actions to indicate that he remembers or thinks about what happened.