Tea Party and Ballet Time

I just had to post these video clips of the girls (below). If you listen closely you can get a tiny glimpse of Faith's English skills. She is really alot more fluent than you can tell in these video clips though. It's amazing. We have several Chinese words that we are attempting to preserve for her by calling our shoes "high-dees" and our phones "peimbas" and saying "Boo-Yow" instead of no. I honestly have been listening for her to say "shir-da" (yes) ever since we got her and just heard it yesterday when her Aunt Susie took her out to eat. I said, "Did you have a good time with Aunt Susie?" and just as plain as day she shook her head yes and said, "Shir-da".

Her English is very functionable (is that a word?) already. She says many whole phrases and sentences and at times she's almost conversational. Her prayers really get you. Two nights ago she said "Dear God we love You. Thank you for my bed. Thank you for Mommy. Thank you for Daddy. Thank you for Mitchell....."and she went through the whole family without missing a person. I would love to try to plant a recorder to capture one of them. I wonder what my Chinese would be like if I had been dropped into China all alone 2 months ago??? Oh wait...most Chinese can speak some English so I wouldn't be totally submersed like she was. It's really amazing.

Many of you have asked me for an update on her night time anxiety and I am happy to report, she has not had any night terrors for several weeks. I am so thankful because they make for really abrupt awakenings as she would just scream in her sleep. Also, and this is the neatest thing, she almost enjoys bedtime now. A few weeks ago she stopped crying about bedtime and now she actually snuggles down under her covers with a big smile on her face and says "night mommy". She has started saying, "Thank you for my bed" in her prayers and I never prompted her to do this.

She also sings all the time. I don't know if I ever wrote about the fact that we were really shocked to see a child who never sang. I can't explain it very well but there was no music in her at all and wow, is music vital to the spirit. The first time I was ever holding her and sang, she pulled back and looked at me like "What in the World are you doing"??? ....She now sings all the time. By the way, just in case you don't understand it, she's singing "All the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white". She'll sing something and then look over at me a grin.


Her other favorite activities are drawing and eating, eating, eating. Did I mention she likes to eat? She calls herself Fay-ful, and she always says, "Fay-ful kungry" She says it constantly and the other day she was back in the bathroom on the potty and Mitch had walked out the hall and I followed him out and said, "Are you hungry?" and clear from the bathroom we heard this little voice yell, "Fay-ful kungry!" Yesterday she got up from a nap and I sat her on the potty and she took my face in her hands and very seriously said, "Go get pizza mommy".

I guess one last thing to report would be that she now rocks and sings to her stuffed animals and babies. The reason this is so momentous is because when we first brought her home, she was greatly angered by the showing of affection. When we would put a doll on our shoulder and act like we were rocking or patting it, she would swat at it and yell and if we put a doll in her arms, she would throw it down and yell. It is amazing how just a small amount of cuddling and rocking rubs off on a child so quickly.

Anyways...I hope you enjoy the video. Gracie is a very good ballet teacher. Yesterday Faith was trying to teach my dad ballet....imagine that. Hope you enjoy it.

Love as always.