Food & Language

It commonly understood and expected that when adopting children the age of Piper, now 14, two of the most challenging transition hurdles to leap over are language and food. As we've written about so much already, both of those hurdles have been much lower than we expected. We also fully understand that our entire transition has been unusual from a relative perspective. Victoria and I were just chatting last night about the Lord's mercy upon us, wondering whether He just knew from the get-go that we simply couldn't handle much more than the ease by which He's kindly favored us. It's not perfect mind you - it's far from it, but let me elaborate on those two "hurdles" just a bit.

• Food: Chinese cuisine has become a staple in our home. Lots of rice ("mifan"), noodles, cooked vegetables with special Chinese spices, fresh fruits, fewer meats, etc... (We've run fresh out of chicken feet, however. Surprisingly, Xiao Qian never asks for them.) In the same way that we've adapted to Piper's more traditional cuisine, she's remarkably adapted to ours. She's a very brave little girl, and is willing to try just about anything. She's now eating more meats (which we don't think she had much of in China, except fish), starches and sugars (which may not necessarily be a good thing), salads, and even Mexican food (which she also likes, but not the beans). She's also become quite the cook, enjoying working with her Mama around the kitchen preparing meals. This is a special bonding time between Victoria and Piper. So overall, the food transition thing has really gone pretty well.

Language: Xiao Qian is a very smart woman, so her adaptability to our language has taken off like wild fire. While her English vocabulary is at the level of about a three year old, we're so impressed that it's even there. It could be at the level of an infant, which is pretty much no verbal communication at all. She's taking English Language Development classes everyday at school, but a majority of her English language development is happening right here in our own home. And she's not bashful about communicating, let us tell you. Like I blogged about before, the volume level in our household has risen significantly since she came home with us, and we're noticing the two little girls are being a lot louder too. I think our tolerance has started to build up, but it still gets to us from time to time. And here's a good indication of how far Xiao Qian's come in her English skills since she arrived: The other day she was Skype communicating with some of her friends in China and we noticed that she intermingled English and Mandarin into her sentences, almost like she was having a hard time knowing which language to use. Why we even heard her translate English into Chinese on Skype not too long ago; she even surprised herself when she did that. But here's one communication link that goes much deeper than mere words themselves. I haven't even shared this with Victoria yet. Yesterday I was in a bit of a "funk". I don't know why I get that way, but I do. I try real hard to hide it from the family, and I'm usually pretty good at it, but Victoria can read right through me. Well this time Xiao Qian also read right through me and asked in the afternoon, "Babi (that's she calls me), what wrong? Are you sad?" First of all, she now understands the emotional word in English, "sad". But more importantly, she could sense that something just wasn't quite right with me and was genuinely concerned. I thought this was a major breakthrough in our communication and signaled a whole new level of depth.

Well, that's it for now. I thought I'd just give you a brief update on these two significant and meaningful aspects of our family dynamics with Xiao Qian. We're experiencing some real frustrations (Victoria and me) with her lack of desire to go to bed at night and then complaining of being too tired throughout the day. This is just one of a few adjustments Victoria and I are wrestling with and trying to figure out how best to parent her in these areas. We're overjoyed she wants to be with us just about every moment of every day, but God's created us to also rest, and this is an area of tension for us right now.

Writing about rest, I need to go to bed. I'm tired too. Time for me to "shuijiao" - sleep. Aren't you impressed with our Mandarin skill development? (Cute picture of Willow "shuijiao-ing" above. Now I know that's pitiful Mandarin.)

Wan an,