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Just the facts (not the details)

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

We met LeeLee (aka Kailee) for supper on Saturday night. I’d spent lots of time trying unsuccessfully to think of a fun restaurant for dinner on Friday night and then it was easy as pie once I thought of LeeLee – Ethiopian it was. I had only to mention that we’d be eating with our hands for Reid to love the idea. The spiciness of the little piles of stew-like foods was also pleasing to her palate. Damien, who hadn’t been tempted by the other foods we offered, tried a few of the foods on the platter and especially liked the collard greens. Before supper came, LeeLee and Reid had the following conversation:

LeeLee: Where did you go today?
Reid: We went to a hotel.
LeeLee: Where did you go after the hotel?
Reid: To another hotel.
Me: Where did we go between the hotels?
Reid: The zoo.*
LeeLee: What did you see at the zoo?
Reid: Animals.
LeeLee: What kind of animals?
Reid: Zoo animals.

At this point LeeLee gave up, laughing. Reid is not usually taciturn. Ken – yes; Reid – definitely not

If ever you’re in Toronto, I’d recommend Lalibela at 869 Bloor Street West. The five of us shared two vegetarian platters, drank glasses of water and paid only $23.00 for supper. Kailee is going to take us to a Persian restaurant next time. I’m looking forward to it.

*I provided a few more details of our trip to the zoo.

Posted in Barbara's family, Food, Language skills | 141 Comments »

What’s in a name

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Visiting the Toronto Zoo in March is a MUCH different experience than a July visit. The crowds were non-existent, rather than starting before we’d even got to the ticket booth and the weather tended more toward frostbite than heat stroke. Okay, it was 3 or 4 degrees Celsius and frostbite was an exaggeration even though Reid was “so freezing!” by hour 3 of the visit. (Heat stroke in July was entirely within the realm of possibility.) Some of the animals weren’t on display due to the temperature – we especially missed the giraffes – but most were out and about and we enjoyed the ones we saw. Lunch was a bit of a challenge. Rather than looking for shade and a breeze, we were delighted to find that a Harveys/Mr Sub indoor restaurant had opened near the Beavertails outlet. I decided that the purchase of a coffee and tea would cover the “rent” on a table long enough for us to defrost and eat a bit of the food we packed. Another difference of note, though not necessarily related to the weather, was that the camel available for riding was a two-humped camel rather than the usual one-humped one Dylan and Reid rode in July. Unfortunately, for Damien, this meant that he had no buddy for his debut camel ride and it wasn’t an adventure that he wanted to embark on solo. Fortunately, for me, the fellow at the ticket booth was willing to refund me the cost of Damien’s ticket.

Damien and Reid each had a bit of trouble with the name of an animal while we were at the zoo. Damien was enchanted by the 6 Zebarbaras that we saw. Aunt Karin used the proper name when speaking to him about them afterward but not me! Reid was excited by the “eagles” on the ground and flying around at the zoo entrance but it was my sad duty to explain that they were, in fact, seagulls. So close in sound, so different in appearance. On Friday, Reid had referred to some pigeons as “hawks” but I think that might have been because her dad has a not-so-pleasant nickname for them that contains a unintelligible first syllable and a clearer second one. We’ll have to put a visit to a wild bird aviary on our “places to visit” list for this year.

Aunt Karin saw some goats bumping heads and she told Reid to look at them “head butting” one another. Reid giggled and worked at wiggling her head and butt as she talked about what Aunt Karin had said. Potty humour is alive and well in our family.

Posted in Barbara's family, Language skills, Pastimes | 116 Comments »

Words that I’ll need to remember

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

At a hockey game in Wheatley over Christmas, Aunt Sue (who is not, of course, my aunt or Reid’s or even related to either of us) offered a bit of wisdom that I’ve decided to adopt for my own: “You’ve got 2 feet and a heart beat. You can walk.” Reid hasn’t embraced this nugget of life advice as enthusiastically as I have. When Ken and I are around, she prefers to move around by parent-power. She seems to have grown so tall lately that it seems her toes should drag on the ground when I carry her but they don’t. I’d better break her of the habit before they do. It’s good to have incentive, eh?

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Pretty please with a …

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

I discovered – okay, allowed myself to acknowledge – yesterday that naps don’t happen at March Break camp. The effect of 3 consecutive no-nap days for Reid wasn’t pretty. She was just at the end of her rope. Being the mama, I had to take the hard path and cancel a trip to the Dollar Store for Easter art supplies in favour of a quick supper and bed when Reid was too tired to stop crying.

As we drove home, Reid kept telling me that she wanted, really wanted, to go get art supplies. Reid has started to try to improve on the power of the magic word. Mostly we’ve been hearing, “Pretty, pretty please,” with a plaintive tone to enhance the “pretties”. Finally, I suggested, “With a cherry on top”. Reid has taken this concept and built on it. By the time we were turning onto our street last night, she was pleading, “Pretty, pretty, please. With a cherry on top. And a banana. And. A. Cookie.” Reid definitely knows my weaknesses. But being a mean, mean mama, I still said, “no.” She might have kicked and yelled, then. And maybe she even cried. Some would say she threw a full-fledged, no holds barred tantrum but I won’t say those things because Ken is already feeling bad about being away. Instead, I’ll just that Reid decided to stay in the car while I fed the cats and hoped with all my might that the neighbours wouldn’t decide that Reid was in actual distress. A cuddle on the couch put the matter to rest as Reid told me that she had to run, skate and play too much at camp and she was tired. Too true!

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A birthday acrostic

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

To keep things interesting, I’m going to offer Roger an acrostic for his birthday.

R – Reliable – Roger is one of those people that you can count on to come through for you.
O – Omniscient – Okay, Roger isn’t omniscient but he definitely has an answer to – or a strategy to find the answer to – just about any question that I ask him and I ask a lot of questions.
G – Grin – Roger has a crooked smile (that matches Reid’s I might add) that he’ll offer when you tickle his dry sense of humour. I seem to have a knack for making suggestions and statements that meet the criteria
E – Engaged – Maybe this is a government word but I’m a public servant and so it works for me. Roger has remained actively engaged with me despite my 20 years away from Wheatley. I’m glad and grateful for this.
R – Right – Often Roger is right, though I don’t want to emphasize this, too much. His ego doesn’t need it ;+)

It’s too bad Roger wasn’t named Somerset because I could have used “super”, “sensitive”, “marvelous”, “terrific” and on and on.

Happy birthday, Roger! I hope it’s been a great day.

Posted in Barbara's family, Holidays, Language skills | 1 Comment »

We don’t ever say those words at school

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Reid’s been speaking more French at home lately, full sentences and in the right context, which makes sense given the feedback we’ve had from the teachers since January. Last night Reid demonstrated that she not only knows French words but also has a good accent AND control of her tone. Especially tone.

On the way to school this morning, Reid and I were talking about seasons, mumpfs (months) and days of the week. She assured me that winter/hiver and autumn/automne were easy to remember because they were the same in both languages. I agreed about autumn but questioned winter. The fact that they both end in “er” was enough for Reid. Reid still mixes up the order of the days in the week in English although she can track what happens on each day once I’ve supplied the day. I asked Reid if she knew the names of the days in French. She responded quickly, “lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi.” When I prompted her for the weekend days, Reid exclaimed, “We don’t say those words at school!” Oh my, I didn’t know that.

Posted in Language skills, Mama | 1 Comment »

If my name were “Bookmark”

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Reid and I watched cartoons yesterday morning. Ever since we put the television in the basement watching tv has been a rare event. One of the shows that we watched was Super Why. For those of you who didn’t know who Daniel Cook was, I’ll explain that the show involves four little kids who each have super powers, like spelling, sounding out and reading. It’s the little guy, the star of the show, who stands on letters that spell “READ”. This guy, for obvious reasons, is Reid’s favourite. Not surprisingly, since Reid doesn’t read, she is not troubled by the incorrect spelling of her name.

At one point, when the characters were encouraging the kids to associate sounds with a letter. I joined in saying the sound and was reprimanded promptly. “If your name was ‘Bookmark’, you could do this show but your name is Barbara. My name is “Read’.” Put in my place, I stayed quiet since my name definitely isn’t “Bookmark”.(I’ll have to speak with her about the use of “was” versus “were” in the conditional tense.)

Posted in Books, Language skills, Mama | 11 Comments »

Uncle Roger knows his letters

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

On Saturday morning while I was making waffles (mmmm, yummy waffles!), Reid and Uncle Roger were playing school. My theory on this is that Reid likes to be bossy and being the “teacher” in this game let’s her indulge her inner dictator. She had a ruler and a placemat with upper case letters on one side and lower case letters on the other. As Reid pointed with her ruler, Uncle Roger first provided the letters of the alphabet in English and then in French – all of those years as the parent of a daughter in French school have paid off – while Reid dispensed appropriate praise. She then flipped the placemat again and said that Uncle Roger needed to close his eyes and try again. Not that he was to recite the alphabet without looking. No, Uncle Roger had to wait until Reid had pointed at each letter with her ruler until he named the letter. He did pretty well except for when some background noise mimicked the sound of Reid’s ruler taps. She didn’t miss a beat but said, “No, not that one yet.” Or “Wait for me to point to it.” Uncle Roger would wait for the next tap of the ruler and try again. Luckily for him, Red decided that Uncle Roger didn’t need to – or maybe she didn’t think he would be able to – repeat the eyes-shut version of the French alphabet. Dr Seuss has a book entitled *I can read with my eyes shut* but I don’t think any of the characters actually do read with their eyes shut but I bet Reid could teach Uncle Roger how to do it.

Posted in Barbara's family, Language skills | 1 Comment »

La fin

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Reid has been speaking more French lately, though generally not to Ken and me. It seems that she spent September to December listening and learning and she is now putting what she learned to use. This morning, at our parent-teacher interview, her teacher said that Reid was in the midst of a “word explosion”. She also said that Reid’s accent is good. I suspected as much since Reid had been putting a lovely French accent on the English words that I asked her to translate for months.

I suspected this was happening. Last week, Reid corrected my French. We were reading before bed and at the end of a book that didn’t have “the end” written in it, Reid suggested we could say “the end” anyway and so we did. Then, she asked how to say it in French and I said, “Le fin”. Immediately Reid said, “La fin” in her snooty, perfectly-accented French. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly snooty or even perfectly-accented but it was a good accent and Reid was correct. My days of speaking better French than Reid are numbered. Nous sommes à la fin de cette époque. But I still know more words than her. I just don’t always know if they’re masculine or feminine.

À la prochaine.

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Follow the thought process

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

As you may know, Ken was scheduled to testify at a court martial the first week of January. Just like on tv, his credentials were entered into evidence and then the lawyers debated his standing before the judge accepted him as an “expert witness”. He must have been convincing since he was allowed to come home earlier than predicted.

With the added challenge of getting around a city in the midst of a transit strike, I was a bit nervous being in charge of picking Ken up at the airport at 5:00 pm. I was more afraid of him trying unsuccessfully to find a taxi and the eventual cost of a rush-hour ride home. As luck would have it, his plane was early but Border Services was short-staffed and Reid and I had time to buy a treat and get to the doors Ken came out of with time to spare.

Reid had had her heart set on a popsicle even though it was wickedly cold outside and wasn’t the least bit tempted by the chocolate bars that I pointed out. Since *we* weren’t outside, I decided that no lasting harm would result and paid for the gigantic 5-stripe LifeSaver Frozen Snack that Reid wanted. To the best of my knowledge, Reid has never had a regular LifeSaver candy because I’m paranoid about her choking on one and so I told her about the existence of the candies. (If she has had one, please don’t tell me about it and don’t give her any more.)

After a couple of licks, Reid asked, “Where is the switch to make it light up, Mommy?” I was puzzled and Reid noticed. “Lightsabers light up,” she said, stating the obvious. I remembered all of the little Star Wars characters at her school’s Halloween party and figured out the connection. I told her that it was a “Life SaVer” not a “Lightsaber”. Please note that while the “b” and the “v” sounds are often interchanged when Reid speaks, I keep them distinct. By the time Ken appeared, Reid was chattering about her flashlight. I tried to explain Reid’s thought processes to Ken simply, since he’d been in transit all day, but a flow chart would really have helped or at least one of those bouncing balls that help people follow the text on videos.

Posted in Daddy, Food, Language skills | 55 Comments »

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