Winter Tigers and Stellas

Tiger has now been home for two weeks.  Although I do miss my quiet mornings and my walks among the Woluwe Parks I have never had a more confident feeling about making the right choice.  My relationship with my son has gotten better, which I didn't think was possible, we were doing well.  The new added attention he has been getting has helped in every way from being a picky eater, being less confrontational in his pretend play, his attention span, the way he plays and reading.

Oh, boy, the reading.  I wrote before that I had started working with him and I was shocked at how much he knew.  Let me say this, I am shocked and horrified.  The boy can read not just simple words, he knows when to do long vowels, short vowels, how the e changes a word that end.  He is a sponge, and while he cannot sit still during singing time at church when it comes to reading he will sit with me for an hour and read.  I love my little boy and I am so glad that I was able to figure this out now so I can help him develop this talent.  I just realize how important this time is and I am glad that I am seizing it, even if all the locals think I am cray-cray.

For the grandparents and relatives and other voyeurs, here is Tiger reading with me this morning.  This is the first time he had seen this story and I thought he did a great job.



With Tiger staying home and the gloom and doom of a move that is already giving me restless nights (we are going from a five bedroom home to probably a two bedroom and who knows what is in our storage unit), I decided to quit French.  Or should I say, French quit me.

I was willing to continue on as long as I could but after my oral exam my teacher told me she thought I was doing well with my spoken French but my written French was atrocious and I needed to work on that more and she thought a different class would help me out better than the one I was in.  I was happy that this conversation happened before I took the written final exam because I was already on the fence about continuing on and this was just what I needed to push me to the quitter side, without having to kill myself by taking a giant exam.  So... I am done with French.  It is a huge relief and at the same time I feel sad that it is over, I liked the challenge, even if I didn't study much, I liked having something that was mine and mine alone.

 Learning a language is hard.  This whole experience, living in a foreign country, dealing with local public schools and local bureaucracies has giving me a deep respect for immigrants in America.  It has also caused me to have an audible eye roll when people start shouting about how everyone needs to learn English.  If only it were that easy, you have no idea what you are talking about, it is so so much more complicated and I only have empathy and respect for those that try.

In other news, snow came in large quantities.  Stella has a new passion in life now, it is called snow worship.  She wakes up, gets dressed, eats breakfast, goes outside and sleds and then pulls her brother around on a sled until her bus comes.  All before the sun rises.

Then she gets home and sleds until the sun sets.  It is a lot of fun.  Those two kids have so much fun together.