"My Nae-nin"

Sophia loves Nathan.

She calls him "my Nae-nin".  "Where my Nae-nin go?" is a common question, as she tries to follow after him.

I took today Friday and went to watch them at the gymnastics classes.  Sophia loves her teacher and her class, but she still wanders off to go talk to her Nae-nin and has to be rounded back up.

I can't tell you how many times I've found them playing together outside, with the hose turned on high and Nathan spraying her down and Sophia laughing her head off.  Whatever Nathan wants to do, she's all in.

In that last video I posted (Sophia spinning in front of the fireplace), she says her name as "Zeh-fee-AH".  Her Chinese name is "Zifei" (which she says as "Zeh-fee") and so the first family that adopted her named her "Sophie" because it was close to the original Chinese name.  An old family friend looked over the Chinese paperwork we have and he says her name, Zifei, means "to flutter", and that's very fitting for our happy little bug. Who doesn't feel better while watching a butterfly? And I guess there really isn't a word for "lights up room with her joy", but that's what she does.  She lights up.

So, the night before that video was taken, I was rocking her to sleep and talking to her.  We named her Sophia, but she still calls herself "Zifei", so I asked her if she wanted to be "Sophia" or "Zefei".  Without hesitation, she said she was "Zeh-fee-AH".  So for awhile there, she was adding that "-AH" to everyone's names.   "Daddy" became "Daddy-AH", and "Mama-AH" and "Nae-nin-AH".  It was as if she was trying to explain that she knows we belong together as a family.

In our early days together in our nighttime routine, we've talked a lot about her family and I use her fingers to explain that we have 4 people in our family and I'd pick out "This one is Daddy, and this one is Nathan, etc." She loved that image, and she's "carry" her family around with her on her little hand.  She often stops what she's doing and says, "This one's Nan-nin, and this one's Daddy..." and I've noticed that she always picks the little pinky finger as "Sophia".  She likes being the baby sister.