Trying to Begin a Schedule

I went back to work yesterday and took Wynn with me.  (Actually, also took Mandy and Ari.  Mandy was waiting to be picked up by her mom to go for a haircut, and Ari has speech therapy on Mondays.)  And it was tedious.  I got there at 11:30 but didn't have a kiddo scheduled until 3:00.  From 3:00 on, I had cuties, but too much free time before the work started - on the only day of the year that I didn't have paperwork to catch up on!  Wynn was so bored.

On a positive note, though, my friend Belinda, who speaks fluent Mandarin, was able to stop by - and Wynn talked to her!  It was great!  I was doing a therapy session with a 5 year old that involved direction-following with color crayons, and Belinda even got Wynn to say some of the color words in English.  I suggested that one thing that Belinda could ask her about is Wynn's challenge that, "Wǒmen yǒu sì māo yě èr gǒu." At least that's what I tried to say - I can see at least one error made in the written pinyin (wrong form of two) - and who knows how screwed up my tones were!   Belinda looked at me blankly for several seconds before saying, "Ooooh," and talking to Wynn about dogs and cats.  (I had tried to say, "We have 4 cats and 2 dogs.")  This confirms how awful my mandarin is; poor daughter.

Thus, I got a good laugh out of this site.  It's true.  Everywhere in China, my Chinese was encouraged, and obviously, it gave me false confidence!

As wonderful a job as Belinda did drawing Wynn out and getting her to use her voice - even in English - Belinda said she felt like she had struck out.  No!  Not at all!  I am so grateful!

A cute anecdote:  Ari was telling Wynn, "You're Chinese!"  I said, "Ari, you know what?  You're Chinese too!"  She looked at me in genuine astonishment and said, "Really??!!"  She knows she was born in China and adopted, but she still doesn't have any concept of what that means.  Too cute.