Sergeant Coco

Zack has been with us for a little shy of 3 months.  When we showed up at the Taiyuan Social Welfare Institute on August 27^th, I’m pretty sure that we were the first English speakers that Zack had ever encountered.  One of the most common questions people would ask us in response to learning we were adopting a child from China was “does he speak English”…sometime followed by “are you going to teach him to speak English”.  Here’s your sign.  Yeah.  Now we get asked a lot – “How is Zack’s English coming along”.  Well, here is your answer. 

Fact:  most people in China do not speak English.  Zack is from a rural and pretty remote part of China.  We were not able to go to Yuncheng City while we were in China, but I would venture to guess that you’d have a pretty hard time finding anyone who spoke English.  On “Gotcha Day”, Zack had quite a bit of language and was speaking in sentences…not that we could understand any of it.  He quickly figured out that we did not understand his words and started to use sign language/motions to tell us what he wanted.  He kind of looked at us with an expression that probably meant “what kind of dummies did they stick me with, anyway” and then he’d take me by the hand and lead me to whatever he wanted me to see.  If he wanted to go outside, he would bring me my shoes and point to the door…stuff like that. 

His receptive language took off almost instantly.  By the time we left China, he understood about three quarters of what we were saying to him.  Now at 3 months home, he is talking quite a bit.  His favorite word seems to be “NO” at the moment…I mean, come on…he’s 2.  Over the past couple of weeks, he has started to say yes and nod his head.  He will tell us when he is hungry – he will say “eat” or “wa-wa eat”….he still does refer to himself as “wa-wa”, which is Chinese for baby but when asked where Zack is, he will point to himself.  Occasionally, he will see a picture of himself and say “Zack”.  When hungry, he will ask for a banana or yogurt or go to the cabinet where I keep the oatmeal and tap on it and say “eat”.  He calls Henry “Henry” or “kitty” although that is a little hard to understand.  All drinks are “water”.  He says apple, orange, cookie and cracker pretty clearly...banana for whatever reason is.  He says “mama, daddy (although he still mostly calls Lee baba) and sissy, of course.  Most little kids are “wa-wa or baby”.  He points to his nursery school building and says “school”.  He can say and identify a variety of animals (including Elmo and monsters) and makes the noise that goes along with the animal.  He says “big mess” if he gets food on the floor or drags a bunch of toys out.  He says bed, night-night, bath and “brush teeth”.  He can point to most of his body parts when asked to identify them and has taken to pulling his shirt up and saying “belly”.  He’s started to speak in simple sentences…he pointed to our bed the other day and said “mama/baba bed” and when I asked him where Zack’s bed was, he ran in his room and pointed to his bed and said “wa-wa’s bed”.  The other night at dinner, he pointed to me and said “mama eat”…it actually comes out as “eateeeeeeee”.  It’s cute.  Today, he told me that Coco (his stuffed bear) is in the Air Force.  When I was on adoption leave after we brought him home, he’d always ask where Lee was in the morning and I’d tell him “daddy goes to work in the Air Force”.  When we drive on base, I tell him “Air Force”.  Coco slept with us (yes, sigh, all of us) in our bed last night and for whatever reason, Coco was out of favor this morning.  Zack chucked her across the room (the whole throwing toys things is something we have to work on) and said “Coco Air Force”…which I think meant that Coco went to work.  At the very least, she was removed from our immediate presence. 

Zack knows lots more nouns – potty, TV, trash…and some concepts such as sleepy; stinky; clean up and around and around (or as Zack says roundy round).  He says “pew pew” and wrinkles his nose if something smells bad.  He’s also very cognizant of what stuff belongs to who in the house – which doesn’t mean he’s learned the boundaries as far as what not to touch.  When I am folding laundry, he will tell you what articles of clothing belong to which member of the household.  He will point to things that he knows he is not supposed to touch and say “mama’s”…doesn’t mean he won’t touch them. 

Also…Zack will play by himself now and is not fixated on having one of us attached to his hip at all times.  He will play in his room while I am taking a shower and will watch TV or play with his downstairs toys while I’m in the kitchen or the dining room.  For short periods, anyway.  If we linger too long in another room, he will come and check things out.  This is a good thing…he’s secure enough to know that just because he doesn’t have eyes on us every moment does not mean we have left him. 

So that is a quick update on Zack’s language development and a couple of other tidbits.  We were in the hospital earlier this week – another story I haven’t written yet – and one of the med techs was carrying Zack’s Thomas the Tank Engine backpack for us as we went from the recovery unit up to orthopedics to have his cast put on and she said “oh, he probably doesn’t really understand who Thomas is, does he?”  Yes, Zack understands who Thomas is…and Elmo and Mickey.  He is doing just fine.  Cheers!

Almost forgot - cuteness of the day!  Enjoy!

Coco is eating...

This is the face I get when I ask Zack to show me his teeth...what a chees-er!

 

Jill