Archives for August 2006

‘Itahyan’

August 15, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

I got JJ out of his bath last night and as he landed on the bathmat he yelled out ‘Itahyan’.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Itahyan’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve been learning Italian at school.’

I knew that Italian was on the curriculum but I didn’t know at what age they started teaching the kids. Obviously they’re getting when they’re young which is the best time for a new language.

He’s never mentioned it to me before, so I asked him if he could tell me anything in Italian.

‘Bonjour’, he said.

‘Oh, you mean Bonjourno. That’s excellent. Do you know any other words?’

‘No.’

It’s funny when these little snippets come out of his mouth. I’ll ask him till I’m blue in the face about what happened at school and he might divulge something but of course I never hear absolutely everything that happened.

I just have to use my detective skills like noticing that he’s started to leave the toilet seat up. He’s predominantly been a sitter so the seat hasn’t needed to be up but at school they use the urinal. This was one of the things I was freaking out unnecessarily about before he started – him and toilet visits.

When I was in grade one a boy frantically put up his hand and asked to go the toilet and the mean teacher wouldn’t let him so he wet his pants. I had visions of this happening to JJ because he was too scared to go to the toilet by himself or too busy playing at break times to bother going but he’s obviously been managing quite well and perhaps practising some Itahyan while doing a wee.

Dressing up as a fairy

August 14, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

On the weekend we went to a five-year-old birthday party. We were told it was a dress-up party and that a fairy was going to come. As it was a girl’s birthday party and a bit of a fairy theme I asked Jules if he wanted to wear his fairy wings or his batman costume.

He decided on his fairy wings. He also wore a light pink t-shirt he was given for his birthday as he’d told the present giver that pink was his favourite colour.

I didn’t have a problem with him being the only boy there dressed in pink and fairy wings, not that I expected any other boys to dress this way. The two other boys who dressed up both came as Batman. Otherwise there was a predominance of pink, and fairy paraphenalia worn by the girls.

When I told mum what JJ was going to wear to this party she asked me why didn’t I dress him as an elf. My reply was that, he has the fairy wings, he likes fairies and we don’t have an elf costume.

He doesn’t care that his outfit is seen in our society today as something girls wear, not boys. And he ain’t going to learn that from me. Nobody said to him or to my face at the party on Saturday, Why did you dress him up like that? I’m not worried that wearing pink now will make him gay. I’m actually seeing more straight men wearing pink these days than I ever have but by the same token there’s not much in the way of girls clothing that is not pink. I also wish that I could buy more in chain store boys clothing that wasn’t blue, brown or black or covered in pictures of skate boards and surf boards.

Like Hansel and Gretel

August 10, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

In the mornings before breakfast I take Monty for a walk at the local oval. There are two other people and their dogs that walk at the same time and we all walk together.

Monty is very used to this now and has decided that I’m being looked after by these people so she takes the liberty of sniffing around way over the other side of the oval which doesn’t sit well with me because if she sees a cat across the road she has absolutely no regard for traffic that might be coming. She has nearly been run over before because of this. The thing is if it’s only me and her she’ll stick to me like glue being oh so protective.

Lately if she does the wandering, when I’ve finally caught up with her, I’ve put her on the lead which defeats the purpose of walking around an oval where she doesn’t have to be on the lead.

So, this morning I went armed with a little bag of dog biscuits and every time she so much as looked like she was going to wander too far away from me I got out a tasty treat and she came over and took it. By the end of the walk my fingers were yukky from her dog dribble but she stayed near.

UPDATE: I’ve done the Hansel and Gretel dog biscuit thing ever since then – I know it’s only a few days really – and I’m bribing her with less and less biscuits and she’s staying near.

Just a hint of spring

August 7, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

The end of winter is drawing near – well actually there are three weeks to go but we’ve a hint of the finer weather to come.

It’s still cold in the mornings with a scarf, beanie and gloves needed for the early morning walk with the dog. I notice the sun is rising earlier because the sun is well and truly up by the time I get home from my walk and I will need to start taking my sunglasses again.

But when the sun does appear, it’s bringing more warmth with it and the winter coat has made a temporary hibernation into the wardrobe just in case it’s needed before it can be packed away until next year. The sun is also setting later and it’s still light when we get home after work.

Unfortunately the rain hasn’t made much of an appearance this year and the farmers are praying for it and us city folk with rainwater tanks are worried that they will run dry and we will be stuck drinking dreadful Adelaide water. Perhaps spring will bring lots of rain with it.

Pedigree doll

August 3, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

My nana used to say to me that when I was a little girl that our local priest said that I was like a doll, a pedigree doll. Gotta back up this statement with the evidence.

His first reader

August 2, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

JJ read his first book to me last night, ‘The Farm’. It was very exciting that he put his finger on the words and read the words to me. Then I had to read it to him and he read it to me yet again a few times. Woo wooo… It’s his first foray into the exciting world of books and print when it’s not someone reading to him. I do acknowledge he is doing this from memory but I guess that’s how we all start reading.

I don’t really remember the process of learning to read but I do remember in grade 1, forming sentences out of words printed on cardboard. I must have embraced the reading thing because I remember the smell of bookshops whenever we used to visit Adelaide and I knew that these bookshops held all sorts of different worlds and new ideas within the books they contained. I also used to look forward to when I’d ordered new books through school. When they finally arrived (it took so long) I couldn’t wait to open them up and read them.

These days buying a brand new book is a luxury so I get my fix from the library but the library just doesn’t have that lovely new book smell of bookshops.

Sooner rather than later JJ will be reading whole sentences to me because he can actually read the words. Maybe he can start reading me bedtime stories.

Envy

August 1, 2006 by Jen at Semantically driven

The weekend just gone I stayed away from my computer as I knew I would be drawn to read the BlogHer live blogging and see what was happening at the conference. All fluff aside, I’m can see there was lots of inspiration to be had.

I think that it is a fantastic networking opportunity, both personally and for business and fortunately it doesn’t just end at the conference. It continues.

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