Tell Us Some Funny Stories!!

I am asked often to tell stories about the girls. I am going to admit here that some of the stories told are not so funny to me now (but will be years from now). Some of the more memorable stories have to do with lack of knowledge in the English language. So here are a few stories that I can share here with you.

I call this one - "English"; We had a visit from our foster care rep, Joyce, and we explained to her that the girls have a problem with appropriate hugging (they attach easily to strangers) so we asked that she not have direct contact with the girls. We had the girls sit in the living room and we met in the dining room. We had also spent the week reminding the girls to use their English words instead of Chinese for the words they knew. Joyce told us that she had spent several summers in China and thought she would try it out on the girls upon leaving. She said, Zi Jian (good bye). Anna told her "Wo bu dong", which means I don't understand. And then she said, "English". Maybe we over did it a tad! We then had to explain to Joyce that her Chinese was very good and the girls are suppose to say English words for the ones they know.

I call this one - "Break Time"; Anna is often frustrated and gets upset easily when doing homework, so we thought we would add a few "breaks" to help her regroup. The first time I told Anna that it was time for a break, she jumps up from her chair and yells, "Anna no break! Anna no break". I explained to her that no she didn't break anything that I just wanted her to relax.Sometimes break is a good thing.

The girls often laugh at certain expressions and will repeat them over and over again and laugh. Some of these phrases are; What did I say? Be quiet! Remember?
You can clearly see a pattern here. We give them an instruction and they still think it is funny. Not so funny to a parent. While we were in China, the girls thought the word NO was hilarious. They must have thought that no meant do what you want to.

When we go to church the girls have to have their own book to follow along. The Catholic Mass can be confusing for an English speaking person and difficult to follow the flow of the Mass in the book, but they insist on being on the same page as we are on. They can't even read, why do they need a book? Before Mass starts, the Rosary is said and the girls will say out loud what they think we are saying. They aren't trying to be funny but serious here. They are very reverent at church.

Another thing the girls will do when telling us the letter for the alphabet is to say the word that starts with that letter. For example; A will be alligator and Z will be Zebra. They will still do this on occasion. Funny? They think so.

While shopping at a grocery store the girls will pick up things that they think they will like, such as gravy packets or flour. Then get upset when we tell them no. Really?

Do the Hoky Poky - When singing along with this song it comes out - put you left foot een put you out,  put you left foot een and theen shake it shake it, do da huggy poddy an ya tun yousef awound, dat what it all abut. Love it, love it, love it!

We did take the girls to Monkey Joe's for the exercise and experience. They loved the slides once they came down. It took Mia a few minutes after Anna did to come down the slide. After they did it once they went over and over again. It is like watching a small toddler for the first time. We have a lot of "firsts" with the girls, even though they are 9 and 11.