19 month update

Here we are at the park. Self portrait of father and son.

He looks like he's disco-dancing here

Here's a brother-sister combo that enjoyed meeting Sam and wanted their picture taken with him.

Today was a notable day so it seemed worthy of a post. I realize I am slowing down lately on the blogging, and I think the challenge is that I am now putting my time more directly into family, Chinese, school, church, etc. The blog is a good way for me to think things through and file away memories, but I have trouble keeping it up when time is flowing more quickly.

Yesterday was our two month anniversary of life in Taiwan. We are still going strong. We should be out of or moving out of the honeymoon stage, but I don’t think we’re feeling any strong negativity. The next few weeks will bring more showers and cooler weathers and the transition to fall or winter. It helps that the sun still shines here and we can spend time outdoors and explore and enjoy new things.

We still have a visible sense of progress in our lives. Today Sam turned 19 months and his teachers report that he said two Chinese words “open” (kai) for some food he wanted to eat and “come here” (lai / laile) to a teacher or classmate. These are probably words he hears a lot. It was an encouragement to us. Sam’s very verbal, but even in English he has a few words he says a lot (momma, dada, car, no, again, all done), some sounds he’s made regularly (for pigs, dogs, and dinosaurs) and other words he’s said only a handful of times (water). We’ve never really worried about him, but it’s a relief to know that his brain has been working hard on Chinese also. We feel lucky to have brought him to Taiwan at this age: he doesn’t fear anyone, he isn’t frustrated by the language gap because he doesn’t know it exists, and he’s not alienated by new tastes and experiences since they are pretty much all new to him anyways. He loves fish, which kind of baffles us, and will eat pretty much anything. He is through his first few colds, which were a challenge this last month. I think Emily has also stayed pretty happy. I can tell her Chinese is really improving rapidly and she’s managed to stay on top of all of the transitions and challenges (including periods of sick husband/kid).

All in all Sam seems happy and that means that our life is generally happy also. I feel like we’re holding our own on language, acclimation, and set up, and that we need some more work on communication with folks back home (especially churches), doing our own academic work, and buying the things we’d like to keep us organized the next few years. It’s still all peaks and valleys, so it can sometimes be hard to get objectivity about how we are doing.

Many new pictures are posted online here. I’ll try to be a better correspondent.