Baby Steps

The trial run at my work went fine.  We stayed only about 45 minutes.  Wynn deadpanned anyone who spoke to her, but behind the safety of the one-way glass, she smiled at therapy sessions.  A PT was tickling a little boy, and she laughed along.  It was a Monday, which is a light day anyway, and then two therapists were out, so it was really quiet, and only a couple of patients were present.

We went shoe shopping, and she actually found a pair of shoes she wanted, which she had been unable to do among the thousands of shoes we looked at in China.  Then, we went to Walmart because my shopping list was as varied as cat food, yogurt, oil absorber (for spilled container on garage floor), headphones, and pull-ups.  One stop shopping, but never fun.  Wynn actually saw a pair of slippers she wanted and used the translator to ask.  By the time she got it written, we were past slippers, but I went back.  For that amount of effort, she can have some Walmart slippers!

When we got home, she pitched in automatically, helping carry in the Walmart bags and then the groceries from her dad's trip to Costco.  She watches everything so closely and tries to do what the other kids do, like clearing her plate from the table, though she looked confused by what to do with it once she got to the kitchen. Every morning in the hotel, she made her bed, and she hasn't made her bed here yet!  Just like her siblings.  :)  (That's OK with me.  If they want to sleep in a pile of twisted blankets, they may.)

Last night, she asked if she could call "home" again because she wanted to celebrate; it was her brother's birthday.  I had, with her permission, woken her early yesterday morning so that she could call her foster family when it was their evening.  So this morning, she got up early again for a phone call.  Getting up will help her adjust to our time zone.

She hasn't been eating much, but this morning, she asked for some noodles for breakfast.  Michael had picked up some noodle bowls at the Asian market yesterday that were more similar the ones she liked from the Guangzhou 7-11 than American ramen.  Then she asked where her sister's shoes were because she wanted to go for a walk.  It has to be so strange for her here in the rural northwest!  (The walk was short, with an umbrella, because it's cold and raining.)

We haven't had any major communication breakdowns simply because she hasn't tried anything but basic requests, but even those can be hard.  This morning, the translator said, "Please show me the music player no electricity."  My first thought was that her player needed charged, but we gave her a wall charger, so it should have been fine.  Lots of pantomime - Did she need help plugging it in?  Did she want to listen on speakers instead of headphones?  Finally, via translator, "I want to listen, but I can't sleep.  It's too big."  Volume!  It is not intuitive how to change the volume on this player.  Push the button quickly, and it skips to the next song (which was quickly corrected - she did not want to skip the song); hold button down, and the volume changes.  We finally got it, and she nodded and seemed satisfied.  A long process for a simple question.  Michael says this will make me a communication exert.  Isn't he funny?

Ari keeps telling us Wynn wants this, Wynn wants that.  How does she know?  Well, she asks, and Wynn "wiggles her head."  Ari doesn't recognize any communication barrier.

Wynn is still silent.  Except for more and more frequent giggles.  That'll do for now.