To a child, housework is fun! ~ Sara

Cinderella, I mean Li Lin loves to do housework. Yay!  It is really interesting but she seems to enjoy it.  Hudson had the vacuum out as part of his weekly chore to keep the floor by the hamster cage shavings free.  It takes him about twenty seconds to vacuum but he does it without complaint and for that I am thankful.  Putting the big bulky hose away is tough for him so he usually leaves that for me.  I hadn't gotten around to putting it away yet when I saw Li Lin putting the hose back in the suction receptacle and start vacuuming up specks of dirt on the floor of our dining room, stairs, and kitchen.  The hose did not have any attachment on it at the time so it was nice and light and apparently very fun!  Tonight after dinner she also tried to start washing the dinner dishes.  She pushed a chair up to the kitchen sink and started trying to clean the dishes.  Along with loving to wring out wet cloths, and folding tissues neatly we seem to have ourselves a very housework-loving child.

So yeah, things are going very well...LOL!  Actually, she is doing fabulously.  She is an absolute joy to have around the home.  Today I took her to the zoo again.  She has gone there three times already and totally adores the animals.  Her favourite animals are the white lions.  Tonight when I was putting her to bed she asked me if the lions were going to sleep now too.  Unfortunately it took me a minute to understand what she was saying because I was assuming she was speaking to me in Mandarin but she threw in the word "lion".  This sounded to me like she was saying the word for "came" in Chinese.  It's so cute to hear her using a few English words.  It is also priceless to see how thrilled she is when I say her bedtime prayers in Mandarin and pray for her nai nai, ye ye, and di di.  She just loves that we pray for them.  We also pray for  "zhong guo parents" (Chinese parents).  She has no  idea what we are referring to her birth parents yet, but someday she will.

This brings me to another thought.  As I was lying with Li Lin in her bed, waiting for her to fall asleep I thought, wow, somewhere half-way around the world some dear woman carried her for nine months, gave birth to her, and then had to make the heart-wrenching decision to give her up. I wonder how often this dear mama thinks of her daughter, cries herself to sleep thinking about her lost child, and wonders if her dear daughter is loved.  I wish there was some way to reach out to this woman and let her know her child has been adopted and is very much loved by her adoptive family.  Although she is a Canadian now, we will never take away her wonderful Chinese heritage.  Just today I was reminded how much China is so a part of her.  I walked into a Chinese grocery store with Li Lin and we were immediately inundated with the smells of crates of dried seafood, dehydrated mushrooms, dehydrated tofu, etc. She took a deep breath, sniffed the room and said, "Aaahhh."  It was something akin to what I might do if I walked into a cookie bakery.  I asked her if it smelled like China, and she just smiled and nodded.