late, hot, summer night...............

it's late, on a hot, summer night. all is quiet, as everyone is fast asleep. another whirlwind day in the life of this household, with soccer, catching up on math lessons, (math in the summer, hopefully the last year for alex), tae kwan do, and a before bed, mario kart match between john and dani.
this is the first week that dani has observed john participating in tae kwan do. it is clearly evident that this has quirked her interest. she seems to understand our conversation that one has to be five to start tae kwan do, and lo and behold, she is five. she is a child that will try anything!
dani and i visited the soccer office today to sign her up for soccer, another thing she is excited about and talks often of. or in our case, the talk consists of some english, and lot's of body language.
she is learning new words daily and it is fun to watch. as she learns the english, i am starting to find it easier to ask dani for the words in mandarin, and she seems more agreeable to share. what i had experienced with her is a playful evasiveness, or a lack of understanding perhaps, that i was interested in knowing a word in mandarin. when asked, she would spout off with words that i am fairly certain are probably not appropriate, gathering from the amount of laughter coming out of her.
dani is definitly a handful, and is keeping life hopping. she is cheerful, happy and outgoing, with an unpredictable nature to throw in an occasional tantrum, preferably at the most inconvenient moment. the root of the tantrums lie two ways, i believe. one is a lack of understanding, language wise, as to what is going on in the moment, or what's going to happen. the other is strong will, of which she has plenty, and she does have the gift of "poking the bear".
the last interesting topic is the relationship that is developing between john and dani. i have noticed that they are playing together at times, lot's of imaginative play. dani is loving teasing john, probably a good thing again, not knowing what she is saying to him. i also see that john is starting to be observant in watching over dani when we have been out and about. life changing moments at hand.........