Zuri's language development

Ever since ayi has again realized that Zuri has good language skills and can speak Chinese, she has doubled her efforts to make sure that he learns. They read picture books together, she is teaching him his numbers and she talks to him ALL the time. Things like, "We just met. Let's shake hands." *shakes his hand* It's so funny and I'm so happy. I like to hear him repeat after her in his little voice, "yi, er, san, si..." to count to ten.

Yesterday, he said a new Chinese word--"zhe ge" which means "this." I asked him what he wanted and pointed at the crackers and said "zhe ge." I was impressed and had to brag about it a little bit to friends. He'll be translating for us pretty soon!

He also has a deeper understanding of the languages than the other two at this age. He already uses yes and no appropriately (he says it "yesh"). I forgot to blog about on the plane back from Guilin, he didn't want to sit still during the last half hour and he was yelling, "Bu yao! Bu yao!" over and over again (don't want! don't want!) much to the humor of the Chinese folks about him. I even heard, as we were getting off the plane, one Chinese person tell another, "That's the little boy yelling 'bu yao.'" Imagine being Chinese (and remember Chinese people are very racist by nature), hearing an annoying little kid screaming and crying on the plane...looking back to give his parents an irritated look only to see a little red headed boy! Actually, I didn't really notice any annoyed looks. I've said it once, I've said it before, Chinese people love children.

We went over to our friend's house last night. They made chicken curry for us for dinner. It was so good! (They even gave me some of the spices they make it with!) The kids played together nicely, even Zuri decided he was a kid and didn't want to be with the adults.

I register for school on Friday. I'm ready to go back.