I have loved being able to blog in the evenings! It has been a wonderful vacation! Tomorrow evening we will be back to reality and back to the chilly Minnesota weather! Reality is good - the weather is yuck!
We are thrilled with Sarah's progress swimming! She is so comfortable in the water! She still will not go over her head but she is bobbing up and down, gliding, jumping off the side and doing back floats with a little help- all the time! She is under the water more than on top of it- it is amazing to see this much progress in such a short time!
One of her favorite things to do is visit the park and swing! Such a simple thing and yet it brings so much joy!!
Her birthday is coming up in early March! She is so excited for it! I don't think she really knows what a birthday is- she will soon find out! We thought about changing her birthdate but her age is appropriate for her. It just wouldn't work for us to do that and it would not be beneficial for Sarah.
Someone, somewhere asked me how old Sarah thought she was when she came home vs her actual age. I am sorry I am not sure who asked the question but here is the answer. She said she was 9 yrs old. We had an interpreter tell her she was 8 yrs old. At first she said no she wasn't but the interpreter told her in America that is how old you are- she also said how do you know you are 9? Who told you? Well, we are telling you that you are 8 yrs old. She also didn't know when her birthday was/ is. She has no concept of time regarding years and months. We are working on that now- I think it will be awhile before she understands it. There are so many things she needs to learn. It is exciting teaching her and yet amazing that at 8.5 yrs old these concepts were never addressed- even in Chinese.
I do look forward to when she can speak better english and we can talk about so many unknowns in her life before she came to live with us.
4 comments:
THe girls suits are adorable!!! Love the colors!!!
Jean, I was the one who asked you about how old Sarah thought she is because havign just adopted Rachel we found out older kids usually say they are a year older than what we do here in the USA because they count the day they are born as being 1. We finally have Rachel sayign and beleiving she is 6 instead of the 7 she was told in China. Its very confusing but alot of older kids have this concept taught to them from a early age.
Kathy
Jean, Both girls are just delightful! Thank you for sharing your life adventures. It is great to see how Sarah is developing her place in your family. I am so looking forward to this with our daughter. Chris
Cute photos!! Tessa also said she was a year older then her birthdate. The guide explained the difference to her, but she would still tell people in China she was 10 when she hadn't turned 10 yet. However, when I asked her how many candles we should put on her cake, she said "10 of course!" So, there was still a "gray" area on how exactly this was explained to them :) When we came home, I told her the Chinese calender is different then the "May-Gwoh" (American) one so she was fine when I told her she was turning 10 on her birthday (it was the day we arrived home) since she lived in America now. She's still OK with that and hasn't said a thing about being a different age since!
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