Communicating

We were emailed the following question:

We're curious about how you all communicate...does she repeat anything you all say? She called you baba...have you been saying that for 2 days straight, or what? Are you using English terms too, and has she said any of those?

This ties somewhat into a previous post about the uncertainty of her knowledge of Mandarin. As we've mentioned, (I think) we were tutored for exactly one hour in some basic Mandarin phrases and have read through (and listened to the audio version of) a basic speaking book from our agency. We have that book and the cheat-sheet from the tutor with us and have referred to and practiced from them often. We also try to practice with our guides.

We've had two guides, one in Beijing and one here in Changsha. We notice that THEY say words and phrases differently. We can tell what they are, but they correct the pronunciation we got from the tutor, or from the other guide. It's confusing. So who knows if our pronunciation is even intelligible.

Never-the-less we try. We do try to use some simple (Mandarin) words with M. We also just speak English and use a lot of gestures. We also use the Mandarin we know followed by the English and gestures. We believe that there are some words that EVERYONE seems to know, such as baba and mama (dad and mom). All the guides, the tutor, the book, nannies and directors etc etc. etc. have used them. They were spoken passionately to the children by guides, nannies and directors alike at "Gotcha" with reference to us, and natives continue to use those terms of us when speaking to our daughter. We also repeat them playfully along with "mom" and "dad" etc.

I can't say we heard M. say a single word or sound that sounded like a word in any language on either 9/11 or 9/12. She was extremely quiet. Even though she smiled and giggled a bunch yesterday, she still had not really spoken. I heard something in her sleep, but am uncertain if it was some form of Chinese or just some muttering. Today (9/13 in China) we've heard several words in Chinese. Nothing in English. I'd be shocked to hear that so soon. We've only been with her from 54 hours! (wow, they've been a full 54 hours!)

On the one hand, our guide has wondered how much Mandarin M. has heard from her nannies. She sees that it can be quite difficult to communicate with both M. and the other boy in the group (from yet another area of Hunan.) They don't always seem to respond to her. But there's clearly not a congnitive issue--they both appear to be very bright. On the other hand, she does respond at times. Also, she said a word over and over again in the play room while throwing a ball. We repeated the sounds to our guide and after a couple attempts she realized she was saying the word for "throw." Makes sense. She's said a few other words in the room repetitively --a couple phrases having to do with a book; a couple with eating. (so it seems.)

Starting at breakfast, this was a day full of mutual communication. She clearly made signs to us asking for things throughout the day. She pointedto her milk and clearly wanted to drink it. She pointed to her neck and clearly wanted us to fix the napkin (drat! we forgot BIBS!!!!) that was sliding down. etc.

We're just winging it all the best we can. We just know that she's definitely responding to us and communicating back to us in a host of verbal and non-verbal ways. And it's great! She definitely called me "baba" and it was an absolutely amazing feeling that still lingers nine hours later.

--R

Here We Go ( a little out of order)

Here's a picture of us JUST before we walked out the door. We actually left with LESS than the maximum allotment for luggage.

Here We Go!

This will be the last post until.....probably China.

We put the boys to bed and said good bye. Soooooooooo hard. That's the worst (only bad?) part about this whole thing: leaving our boys for 18 days. yikes. Hate it. Gut wrenching, in fact. I've been away from them for 14days---that was HARD. They've been without both of us for a max six days in one stretch. Hopefully business at school (for them) will keep them distracted. We really hope the Skyping helps.

Talk to you from Beijing!

--R

TOMORROW!

Ni hau.

We leave tomorrow. Amazing. Absolutely incredible! All the dreaming, praying, hoping and planning is finally coming to a climax. And we're actually pretty ready.

As of last night we are (I'd say) 98% packed. This has to be some kind of record for us. We're much more likely to be in the "packing til the last possible moment" crowd. But we were determined to have it basically done so we could do a little house cleaning and spend a bunch of time with the boys today. Only a few details left to tackle today and we're ready to go.

--R

Zhou Shang Hou (good morning)

We leave the day after tomorrow. (wow)

We are pretty well packed, but there are still plenty of odds and ends to take care of before we can go. We hope to wrap most of those up during the day today so we can devote tonight and tomorrow to the boys. (were really going to miss them and they us) I've been apart from them for 14 days (when I went to Kenya and I believe another time when they were visiting grandparents.) J has not been away from them this long, and of course they've not been apart from BOTH of us for this length of time. It will be hard for all of us--but we all know why we're doing it.

I did a test "skype" with my oldest son last night. I set the laptop up in my office and he used the home computer. Something's wrong with my sound. We'll have to work that bug out today.
--R