6:19 p.m. - 2012-04-09
three good things
Three wonderful things happened today.
1. I got back in touch with Remy, one of my wonderful Bangladeshi neighbors from when we lived in New Jersey.
2. Marley had a major breakthough with French.
3. I went to the dentist and didn't throw up, pass out, or have an asthma attack.
Remy turned 10 the year we left New Jersey so I guess she is almost 15 now. We e-mailed back and forth and she wants to talk on video phone or whatever it's called -- ha! I can't even remember what it's called and I don't know what it would look if I saw one. But maybe I'll get one. It's cool because a big part of the reason I lost touch with Remy and her extended family is that at the time we moved away they didn't have computers or e-mail, and between lousy cell reception and the language barrier it basically impossible to talk on the phone. (The other reason is that I didn't try hard enough...)
I've missed them so much and I am SO happy to talk to Remy again. I really didn't know much about Facebook until a couple of days ago, but it seems to me sort of like a virtual neighborhood; all of a sudden I know as mcuh about what Remy is doing or thinking -- the day-to-day silly things -- as I did when she lived next door.
I didn't ask her about her mom and her "aunt" Salma, yet, because I was so thrilled just to hear about HER, but I will. They need to get on facebook, too.
And ... Marley started understanding French. She didn't notice. She went to the bathroom and didn't wash her hands; I told her to get back in there and wash them; she did. It was lunch time. I told her to sit down and stop bugging her brother. She did.
Same stuff I say at least 50 times a day ... but she has always obstinately claimed she doesn't understand a thing and won't budge till I tell her in English. She says she can't understand and she doesn't want to speak French because it's too hard.
When we were all sitting at the table, with potato soup, I said to her, "Do you realize that everything I've said to you since you went into the bathroom to pee was in French?"
"I don't think so," she said.
"Well, it was. And you understood what I was saying. And you know what that means? That means you're learning French, and you CAN do it, and you're really good at it!"
So now she's all thrilled; she doesn't want me to speak English to her anymore -- at all.
MAJOR, MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH.
So happy!!
Cashy climbed on my lap today and started bouncing up and down and chanting, "Bisous, bisous!" No trouble with that one; he's like a little echo and it is SO much easier for him to learn new words than it is for Mar -- at 2-1/2 he's still an untouched ball of clay, waiting to be molded.
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