The Mandarin Fix

Learning a new language is hard work and I think that's one of the reasons Abigail clocks in 12 hours a sleep per night. She gets pretty tired by the end of the day.

We're using various methods to introduce her to the English language. Besides the rather obvious one of just being immersed in an English speaking household, Deb reads to her during the day, she plays Bingo with Abigail to teach letter and number recognition and pronunciation, she works with Abigail in telling time using a hand clock, and several other formal and informal ways.

So after all this hard work, Abigail has really enjoyed her break, her "Mandarin Fix", a CD with the story of the Shepherd of Qinghai, a Chinese story published by the Back to God Hour. A half hour of this, snuggled under a blanket, listening while it plays on the computer, gets her full attention.

And for a half hour, the house is quiet.