No News is Good News

At least it is in our case. The integration of Neti and Meke into our lives has been an amazing thing. Not completely flawless but much closer to flawless than we ever expected. Apprehensions have completely disappeared. Everyone seems to be settling into their new roles well (at least the roles required to this point). The older and younger girls are acting like sisters.

We're amazed at the speed in which Neti is picking up English in the last 2-3 days. Less than a week ago she was a one-word communicator. Today I patted my stomach before sitting down to dinner. In response Neti said, "Daddy big tummy." She's been independently stringing correctly constructed phrases with 3-4 words on a fairly regular basis.

And somehow she even knows how to read - I think. Actually, I don't know what to think. Yesterday morning she picked up a spiral bound book and said, "Nose," as she pointed to the cover. I took the book expecting to see a picture of someone's schnoz. Instead, her finger was pointing to a word. The word? "NOTES". Pretty close.

I asked all the English speakers in our family. None of them have ever showed the book to her. No one taught her to read or write the word "nose". Not sure what to think about it. Either she's extremely gifted in language, extremely lucky, or has some background with English letter sounds.