Sunday, April 29, 2007

Pronunciation...

Julia is finally starting to pronounce her words more clearly - phew, we were getting worried that no one would ever grasp her English-Luxembourgish-French dialect (including us!)

One hold out though were her "L" sounds... they just weren't coming out clearly.

We have just learned that she can pronounce an L though.

She's in her bed sobbing and crying out in a most pathetic manner:

"I don't want to be ALLLLOOOONNE!"

Very clear on the L.

Friday, April 20, 2007

The final straw

We have had construction in front of our house for the past 3+ months.

I've tried hard not to complain.

About the CONSTANT noise.

About the huge hole that they will dig one day and then not touch for two weeks.

About the tools left haphazardly in front of my front door (safety standards in this country shock me on a regular basis).

About the screaming Portuguese workmen outside my house all day every day (or so it would appear).

About the vibrating walls.

About not being able to park in front of my house for 3+ months and having to schlep the kids and the groceries almost 400m every time we go out.

About fearing for my kids' lives everytime they open the front door, because there may be a huge hole, or something else waiting to swallow them whole if I am not quick enough.

About the bruise the size of a grapefruit on my leg from where I fell in a hole covered with a broken wooden palette (so you couldn't see it was there - however I saw afterwards that they had put up some red and white ribbon in the vicinity for the weekend - apparently we weren't supposed to walk there).

HOWEVER, the thing that is going to be the final straw, the reason that I go out there and scream and throw things is none of the above.

IT IS THE MAN WHO IS SINGING FADO AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS.

That is the straw too many.

A little bit of EFH

Stuart and I have a bedtime routine - after story and lights out, we lie in bed and talk about our favorite parts of the day. It's an important part of our day, one that we both look forward to.

So I was a little surprised the other night when Stu said "Mum... before I go to sleep can we do" (and here I expected him to say favorite parts of the day)"MATH?" he says with excitement.

This is a new thing with Stu - he's obviously going through a mental jump, learning to read and write and... do math. I love how exciting it all is to him.

A few weeks ago he asked for math flash cards when we were at the air force base. He loves them. He's forever throwing out questions like "Mum, what's a thousand thousands plus ten?" You can almost see the wheels turning in his head.

We've bought him some exercise books that have math and reading exercises and he's thrilled to do them - we've even bought him a desk for his room for him to do his "work" at. At his request - he needed a desk he told us.

As we lie in bed and he peppers me with thousand thousands plus 2 and I watch him figure out what 6 plus 3 is and I think "My dad would have loved this."

My dad thought you were never too young to enjoy math - and enjoy it he did. There wasn't much that couldn't be reduced to an equation to him. He would have been thrilled to see the interest in his grandson, would have delighted in the glee in Stu's voice when NUMBER JETS was on cbeebies last night.

So Dad, Stu's definitely got some of your genes...