Chinese Channel

Baby is watching the Chinese channel. She loves to watch this channel and claims she can understand what they are saying. I think the real draw for her is just to see so many people that look like her.

I know from experience that it is very difficult to live in a place where you look different than everyone else. I mean children literally stare at me when we are on the bus. Hubby thought I was imagining it but has had to admit that yes they are mesmerized, or terrified of my big blue eyes.

Whatever the reason it is difficult to be stared at everywhere you go. When hubby first got her started watching the Chinese channel she would not watch very long. Now we find her watching it for longer and longer periods. She also likes it when we put on Chinese music for her.

We feel it is important to help her connect with her roots. Yes she is an American now and no longer lives in China. But everyone there looks like her. That is big, as I have found. When we go places that there are more Chinese people she loves it! I think it is such a relief to her to not be in the "fish bowl" for a change.

This is part of the reason we have chosen Austin to live part time while hubby finishes his degree. They have a big FCC chapter there and we are very excited to get her involved in that. She will be starting Mandarin lessons here in October, when she turns 7.

In the meantime she will continue watching the Chinese channel and yelling out every few minutes, "she looks like me too!"

New Friends

Baby is making new friends at school this year. One of the friends she has made lives real close to us. The most interesting part is her friend is Nica or Nicaraguan. We have found the Nica's to be very friendly here, and a little more apt to invite you into their lives and homes. Today we walked home a different way so baby could see where her friend lives. Turns out their family live in a little guard house on the property that the new Chinese department store is on. We like to take baby to the store so she can practice her Mandarin. There are many Chinese supers here that we have visited and met cool people for her to talk to.

We met one Chinese lady at a Chinese super around the corner that wanted baby to play with her daughter. Her daughter is a couple of years younger and they did not hit it off really well. The cool part was the Mom gave baby a beautiful Chinese dress before we left. Baby loves to wear it and looks like a princess.

Teeny is also doing a first for her this weekend. A whole group of kids from church and the neighborhood all went up into the mountains to do some camping tonight. I am thinking they are going to freeze, but we will see how it goes.