Week Three - Climbing trees/Karate

We do alot of things that don't require language. This week that included climbing trees and, for Dominic, karate. After the kids conquered what we have always called 'the tick bush' (you can probably guess why) they attempted the two maple trees in the front yard. I had to tell them that using the slide is cheating. The rule is, if you can get up without artificial aids, you can climb it. Dominic has good coordination and upper body strength so he had no trouble pulling himself up. If Nellie can get a good enough foothold, she can scramble up, too. Then I had to make a rule regarding carrying animals up into the trees. It is not allowed. I am sure 2 or3 animals are relieved.
School has gone very well this week. Dominic can work in the first Primary Phonics workbook and read the first reader aloud with Andy and I. Instead of trying to teach Ariel Chinese, today Rosie began to ask her how to say words in English ! Hooray, perhaps she has decided she will learn English after all. It is probably a good thing since our translator is no longer working. It acts like someone emptied everything on it. If anyone reading this has a guess what might have happened please comment.
Both kids made calls to China again this week but the calls were even shorter this week - probably less than 5 minutes each. I am glad because I am anxious for some of Dominic's relationships to be a thing of the past and it will be much easier if the initiative is his. Rosie did have a wonderful Skype talk with a friend she grew up with who was adopted by a family in Oklahoma last November. I met Mary Kate and her mom in Atlanta before we went to China, MK gave me a letter to take to Rosie which Rosie read over and over again. The only time she ever cried was when we got home and she couldn't see Mary Kate. MK has as many siblings as Rosie does so the conversation was very much a family affair with faces hovering in the background of Skype and many introductions on both ends. MK has learned alot of English and lost alot of Chinese so I think we probably got more insight into their conversation than we would have if they had both been fluent in Chinese. There was talk from Rosie about Chinese mama , who she loves, but MK said she did not want to talk to hers, because she hit her. Then Mary Kate asked if Rosie knows about God and tried to tell her about Him but she couldn't remember enough words in Chinese and said we would have to talk about it more when we meet in November. MK recited to us the first verse she learned for AWANA this week, Genesis1:1. I think it is so glorious that He took two little girls who grew up together in an orphanage in China (we have pictures of them together as babies and later) and set them down halfway around the world into families which are so alike. I hope they will always be able to encourage each other,in the Lord.