Wednesday 1 September 2010

Ask not for whom the bell tolls...

I'm running scared of the resumption of my Russian classes with Ludmilla. The first one has not been scheduled yet but, as sure as I'm going to not have lost any weight on my 'thinking about dieting but doing precious little about it' regime this week, I know it'll be soon. As a result I'm trying to reverse some of the damage that a summer of being out of Russia had done on my already negligible command of the language, and to that end have resurrected my dusty copy of 'Learn Russian with Rosetta Stone'.

I am now having great fun providing free entertainment for our neighbours (who can see straight into our uncurtained dining room where I do most of my computer-based stuff,) as I sit here with headphones on, shouting at the laptop along the lines of 'That's what I said, dammit! I said 'yellow bicycles', you bloody machine!' and frying my brain for as long as I can stand when Husband is out for the evening...

This does mean however that the hours between the Boy's Bedtime and my own, when I was previously free to witter at will into the ether, are now somewhat curtailed hence the lower frequency of posts.

Something tells me you'll live.

In the meantime though, here are some of the highlights of Boy #2's first couple of days at school:

Running full tilt down the corridor outside his class with outstretched arms, and hitting his rather round teacher in her rather well-padded stomach. Not the best impression to make on your first day of school - although I do think she could have taken the whole thing slightly better...

Saying to me, as we left together after his lunch time pick-up (a little first two week 'present' the school gives the parents) and I tried - unsuccessfully - to take his hand; 'The children here don't hold their mummy's hands, mama.'

Ah well. It had to happen sometime, I suppose...

(I'm comforting myself with the fact that on the other hand, Boy #2 has now stopped giving wet sloppy raspberry kisses and has started to give proper ones, along with hugs, when we say hello and goodbye to each other at the door of his classroom. It's a fair trade, I suppose)

7 comments:

  1. Your computer experience sounds a bit like me when I try to answer those robotic Customer Service questions with an English accent. Gah!

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  2. I always wondered who bought those Rosetta Stone things....it's you! x

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  3. So he calls you mama, not mummy? Is that the Russian influence?

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  4. Mama is the Dutch influence, isn't it?

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  5. EPM, really? Do you have to speak 'American' when you use them? Wow.

    KM, yes, it's me; guilty as charged...

    Iota, no, it's the Dutch thing, because...

    ...Nora, you were right!

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  6. Oh, that's a very poignant moment with the hands. I still attempt to hold my childrens' hands automatically when we cross roads and they just as automatically bat me off. I do get a hug now and again though :)

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