Seth growing up

Seth keeps getting bigger all the time and not just in size. He's a little boy now and it is fun to watch him discover and play with new objects. He even takes old objects and finds new uses for them.

Of course, with him growing up it means he is hitting the "terrible twos." He is already throwing fits and it is a good day when there is only one or two minor skirmishes. The one place that I am glad that he has given up fighting is bedtime.

It all started about a month ago when he discovered he could climb out of the crib. He always hated going to bed and would demand us to be there in order for him to fall asleep. Sometimes we could indulge him, but not most of the time. Once he could climb out, he could come fetch us and there was little we could do to punish him. (Plus we were a very frightened of him hurting himself.)

Laurie and I sat down to plan a new sleep schedule which includes 30 minutes of getting ready for bed followed by 30 minutes of play time/reading books in the bedroom only. He's not allowed to leave. Once his time is up, we pray together as a family, put him in his crib, kiss him good night, and turn out the lights. Seth really likes this method and has not given us any problems except for the first 3 or 4 nights. He's slowly becoming a big boy.

Chinese classes resume

Ni hao. Wo xue Han Wu. Han Zi nan.

I think this says: "Hello. I'm studying Chinese. Chinese characters are difficult."

Tonight was the first Chinese class after a long break (4 months). I've been trying to keep my Chinese current with a language partner, and I think it has paid off. I stepped into class without feeling that I've lost much and have added a few words of my own.

If there is a more difficult language to learn for an English speaker, I don't want to know it. I have my hands full because I have 4 things to learn for a word, unlike a standard 2 for European language. There is still the verbal understanding (what it sounds like with consonants and vowels) and the phonetic representation (pinyin alphabet), but I have to create an extra space in my brain for the tone and the seemingly unrelated character. Since it is 4 things instead of 2, it should only be twice as hard to learn.

No, it is 4 times as hard to learn because it grows exponentially. Learning just one extra (tone or character) would make it twice as hard as learning other languages, but learning both means twice that again.

It is a slow, arduous process. I hope to make it to (close to) fluent someday.

At least before I retire.