Home for a month and School Days!

New Year's greetings from Loveland!
Tomorrow it will be a month since Mary, Marie Ling and I appeared tired and blurry eyed at the Northern Kentucky (Cincinnati) International Airport. What a wild ride this month has been! The good news is that we all started to or back to school last week. Marie Ling's life in X'ian was VERY structured, and the holidays were anything but structured. Starting school gave us all structure, time apart and a focus outside the house and we are all happier because of it! Monday - Wednesday Marie Ling went half days and Wednesday she rode the school bus for the first time. She loves both and went all day Thursday and Friday and rode the bus both directions! Thank you, God!! Her fist grade teacher is a sixteen year veteran of teaching primary grades and she has had two Mandarin speakers in her class in the past. The ESL (English as a Second Language) tutor meets with her once or twice a day and sometimes calls upon a forth grade Chinese student to assist her. Marie Ling's English is improving slowly yet steadily. I hear her trying new words almost daily. As we anticipated, her receptive English is better than her spoken English at this point.

We are all learning to get along. The two girls take turns being jealous of each other and the attention the other gets. At times, though, they get along great. This past weekend they spent a long time at the kitchen table cutting, pasting and drawing; Marie Ling was amazed by a set of 24 pairs of scissors that Magda has that cut different shapes and designs. They also love to dance and sing or even play princess. In the long run, it is developmentally appropriate for ML and fills in some missing experiences for Magda. Matthias is really stepping up to the plate in helping out. Today he started his daily duty of meeting Marie Ling's bus and giving the girls a snack when they all get home from school. This gives me or Mike a few extra minutes to get home at the end of the school day.

I am not sure how many people are still following this blog. If you are reading this and have a chance, shoot me an email at home or at school and let me know if you are still interested. I am happy to give occasional updates for a while longer if there is the interest.

Thanks for your continued prayers.
Michelle (for the whole Meyer family!)