snapshots: a photograph (or several) and an isolated observation (or several) about the past week (or so)
Conversation with my almost two year old.
Me: Would you like me to tell you a story abou–
A: Yes! Story!
Me: Once upon a time, there lived a ba–
A: Babushka! (Grandmother)
Me: And a de–
A: Dedushka! (Grandfather)
Me: And they had a chicken and her name was–
A: MEAT!
Cesspool of
Horrible
Icky
Leisure-threatening
Disease
Who wants to take bets on how long it will take until I am stricken with preschool plague?
snapshots: a photograph (or several) and an isolated observation (or several) about the past week (or so)
It was the little things.
I started noticing the way Aliza says good morning to every single person in the grocery store.
How she asks to see people by name, Asho an Bitney? Dawn an Juweya? Tetya Kewie?
How she goes off to play on her own at playdates when just a few months ago she clung to me and burst into tears if I so much as went to the bathroom without her.
I noticed things in myself, feeling like an hour or two to myself wasn’t enough anymore to re-charge and to be fully present for her all day. I was losing my temper, losing my sense of self, not being the best parent I could be.
So I listened to what she seemed to be saying to me…I’m ready to move on, are you ready to let me mom?
I made a phone call and put her on a wait list for a place I adored. A wonderful place with caring staff, a lovely environment, philosophies that align with our personal ones.
After several weeks of observations, and forms, a test run and getting her new backpack packed and re-packed…
She started “school” last week.
We are both boldly going where we have not gone before.
Wish us luck on the journey.
snapshots: a photograph (or several) and an isolated observation (or several) about the past week (or so)
There are so many neat things about raising a bilingual kid. They can ask you for a cookie in Russian when you’ve just said no to her request for cookies in English, for example.
She mixes her languages in odd combinations that make sense only to her, adding an “s” at the end of a Russian word to indicate possession or plurality, producing sentences in which one word is in Russian while the rest are in English.
It’s all weird and fabulous and adds a whole other dimension to “kids say the darnedest things”. Combine that with her emerging sense of self and empathy and she makes me giggle all day long.
“Mama, yummy vkusno?” (vkusno the Russian word for tasty) she asks me. I guess she really wants to make sure I’m enjoying my meal as much as she is.
I bet if she just got to spend more time with these people she wouldn’t be as adorably confused…
Welcome! My name is Yuliya (it rhymes with Gulia), and I'm Ukraine-born,
San Francisco raised and (currently) struggling to stay sane in the suburbs
of the Biggest Little City. My blog is a sassy chronicle of the 'struggles' in my life as wife of an android & as a
semi-crunchy mommy to two babies: one human, one canine.
