This past Friday, 6 days after arriving home from Thailand, we finally had a sunny day. Thank goodness because otherwise I was about to pack up the family and head south. It is amazing how sunshine can affect our moods.
Lilian is 8 months old. She was extremely busy in Thailand. She began crawling the day after we arrived. Within just a couple days of her crawling her first pearly white started poking through. Then 2 days later another started pushing through. Her hair had a growth spurt and it all grew straight up. Her funky hair was the delight of many.
Madeleine has said a couple really fun things lately. 1 - "Why does Lilian have that on her forehead?" (a red, speckled birthmark in the middle of her forehead) "Did she fall out of you?" --2 - "Shhhh, I hear snowing, I think" (said on a particularly cold evening while playing outside).
Getting back home after vacation seems to be difficult no matter who you are or where you live. I don't know for sure but I think it may be particularly hard for folks that live in highly polluted cities. That would be us. Going from blue skies everyday to gray hazy skies everyday is a bit of a shock to the system even when you know it's coming. This past week was a hard week for us all (minus Lilian who doesn't seem to care much about stuff so far above her little head). I don't know if the sunshine on Friday was what changed our moods or if it was just enough time for us to adjust but we're all doing better now.
For months I had been looking forward to Thailand. Now it's finishing school and moving to Chengdu. I am really looking forward to the move. I am so ready to be done with language school. For 2 years my job has been to sit across the desk from my teacher and desperately try to grasp the words coming out of her mouth and then somehow say those words myself. I can not believe that we have been doing this this long. It's really rewarding to know we've survived and even conquered a bit. A small bit, very, very small bit.
We do have 2 tests before we are officially finished. One will test our vocab and grammar. The other will test our ability to read The Word and explain it. The first test doesn't worry me. It's not that I'm so great at vocab and grammar but I'm at where I'm at and there's nothing I can do about it now. But the second test is a bit scary. The headmaster of our school will pick 10 sections for us to read and explain (we have 20 to prepare and she'll choose 10). She'll ask questions. I often have a hard time understanding her when she talks to me at school. The positive thing is that she feels like a friend and I think if I just pretend like she's really seeking to know truth I can do it. The subject matter is my very favorite to study and it really brings me joy and satisfaction when I can talk about such important things in the language. I'll take the test mid April. I'm already preparing.
Although I'd really like to spend my time thinking about moving and all that goes with that I'm glad I have these tests to keep me focused on school. Otherwise, I think I would just mentally check-out.
Today we had fresh milk and yogurt delivered to our door in little glass bottles. It was so quaint. We did this once before at our old house and we didn't like the taste. Today it was good. Could be one of 2 things - our tastes have changed or there was so much melamine in the old milk that it didn't taste right.
Our family has a new obsession. Shaun the Sheep. It's the claymation stuff done by the makers of Wallace and Gromit. You should watch it, too.