Useful kids

Over a long weekend we headed out to the Great Wall for a night. We stayed at a place recommended by a friend; a place which had an English website and thus was permanently busy with foreign guests. The family struck it lucky when 5 years ago some foreigners picked their little guesthouse to stay at of the ten in that village and hundreds in the area. Those foreigners went and made the simple website (www.greatwallfresh.com) which has led so many other foreigners to go there.

It's in a good spot for the wall with some fairly serious hiking available. It's not easy and it's not a particularly nice village, but it is close to the wall and cheap. We took Hannah up the wall twice on our backs, but the very strong winds at the top did not make her particularly happy. She seemed to have more fun walking around the apple trees and watching the family's animals. We then went to visit some Indian friends for lunch and spent a few hours in the park. We visit the park often when the weather is nice as Hannah is beginning to interact with other children so its a nice opportunity for them to begin to play together.

Hannah's language is coming along, but she's still not really speaking much. There are hints of words that sound like milk or apple, but generally most things are mer, ma, mem, da or something like that. I suppose there is sort of a mem for mum and a da for dad but it's not clear-cut.There is a great deal of pointing though and taking. So she gets what she wants, she is sort of feeding her self using a spoon too though she's not that good at getting food on the spoon she is good at getting the spoon in her mouth. We've found her quite useful though at picking things up, passing things to one or the other of us and so on. Who knew kids could be so useful!