Okay, you can't tell ME this kid can't read English yet. I think he's just not lettin' on....
I took him to Borders bookshop tonight to get him some picture dictionaries and flash cards to help with vocabulary building. We had a great time looking at all the kid's books.
Then on the way out, I took a detour through the cookbook section. The selection of Chinese cookbooks at my local library was somewhat limited, and I didn't particularly care for what I had found. I'm rather particular about my cookbooks--I like to have a picture of nearly every dish in it.
Once I found the right section, Charlie realized very quickly what I was up to, and he started at the far end of the Chinese section from where I started, looking through every cookbook to see if his favorite recipes were in there.
He finally found the one he thought I should get and hands it to me open to a recipe that he was particularly excited about. I didn't particularly care for it, because it had nearly no pictures, and I shut it to stuff it under my arm so I could talk with my hands. As I started to explain to him, I realized that the color combination on the front of the book was very distinctive, and I looked down at it again.
No one understood why I was doubled over laughing in the middle of the cooking aisle at Borders.
I guess this is Charlie's way of protesting my cooking skills.
Charlie started at the Maryland School for the Deaf today. I followed him to the bus stop and got a picture of him getting on his school bus, and then got a photo of him in his classroom at school. He looked delighted to be surrounded by other deaf children. I'm planning to send the photo to the directress of his orphanage so she can see him happily ensconced in an American school. This is what he's wanted his whole life--to go to school so he can own his own business. He's convinced he's going to college. So am I.
There was a tear in my eye as I headed back out to the car, but I am convinced (and you can't persuade me otherwise) that it was there because it was 9 degrees outside with a wind chill factor of -4. That was enough to bring tears to anyone's eyes, right?
I got an e-mail from his teacher later in the afternoon with an update that he had had a great first day at school, and that he had eaten all of his lunch (hamburger, veg soup, apple, and milk) even though he told her he didn't like it.
Good thing I got that note.
We went to Pizza Hut this evening to celebrate the first day of school, and he spent most of dinner trying to convince me that he had had only one bite of the hamburger and that the apple had been drawn and quartered and rationed out so that he only got a thin sliver of it. He admitted eating the veg soup. Then he tried to convince me that she told him it was okay if his mom wanted to cook noodles and rice and let him bring them to school with him for lunch so he didn't have to eat what they gave him.
Uh-huh. I knew orphanage behavior would start showing up at some point. Let the fibbing begin....
They did send home some number flash cards and a color worksheet and some math homework. We did the math first and got that outta the way. He managed to learn the words and fingerspelling for the numbers 1-6 while we were waiting for our pizza. I decided that was far enough, when he starting mixing up the spellings for four and five. Tomorrow is another day, and I think he's had enough excitement for one day.
Okay, I have to put in a plug here for a really sweet guy. My ex-husband, Ted, is starting the free sign language class tomorrow night that is offered at Charlie's school because he is over at my house often with my older son, Rick, and wants to be able to communicate with Charlie while there. Is that cool, or what? Seems like Charlie is just inspiring all kinds of people to enter the Deaf scene--Jen is thinking about adopting a deaf child, Rick is now in the sign language interpreter training program, Ted is taking sign classes, and I have even caught my parents trying to sign a few things to him. The kid can't help being lovable.
