X can be a tough letter! Sure, I could have gone with x-ray or xylophone (yawn!), or gotten cutesy, ala xciting, or xtreme, or even x-games or x-r a t e d.
Since I write about my kids a lot, I’m going with xi gua, roughly pronounced shee gwa, which is the Mandarin word for watermelon. How does this relate to my kids? Well, since B was over 2 years old when I adopted her, she was quite toddler fluent in the local dialect spoken in the city she lived. Watermelon, or xi gua, is a common dessert in China, or at least it was at many of the meals we ate there. She would dive at it, clamoring for xi gua the whole time. It was such a big part of our experience there, that I bought a print of a little girl eating xi gua. Over the next few months as B slowly lost her Chinese, xi gua was the one word she kept, and is what we all call watermelon in our house.
Here is a photo of my xi gua girl (the peasant print):
Beautiful print. I, too, love xi gua!