Rachel goes to school

On Sunday my friend Kim said, "So, how's being a mom now that the semester's started?"

"It's a lot harder," I didn't lie, "When Andrew comes home, he's not home--he's still busy with homework and stuff."

"Tell me about it," said Kim, "Here I was thinking summer was difficult...and then reality sets in."

School is a necessary evil though. Rachel accompanied Daddy to school on Wednesday. Mommy wanted to take advantage of the progressive book sale on campus, so while Daddy attended class, Rachel and I looked at books.


It was pretty chilly outside, so Rachel and I went to the library first so that everyone could get a look at Rachel. Boy, did we strike out though. We got to school at 9:00 am, and would you believe no one we wanted to see was there! At least Special Collections was a happening place. A lot of my old co-workers came out to goggle at Rachel. It was fun to see everyone again.

After visiting down there we decided it was warm enough outside to dig though the massive piles of unsorted books.

I was so excited to find an Italian boardbook and a English/Spanish/French alphabet book for 75% off, as well as a Spanish/English book for 50% off and a Russian board book for 0% off. I also looked at Arabic books, but we have 5 at home already and all the ones at the bookstore were pretty expensive.

I'm hoping that if I read, sing, and talk to Rachel in all these languages, she'll be more willing to learn them in the future. Of course, it would be easier if we chose just one language to focus on.

Here, it would have to be Italian. It's the only language both Andrew and I speak and understand well, and even then I'm not so fluent.

If we move out to the Middle East, we'll probably focus on Arabic. I don't think that I'd be able to gain any type of fluency here, so it's kind of futile (I can hardly read board books with one word on each page...) Andrew does babble to Rachel with the foreign Arabic sounds in hopes that she'll feel comfortable babbling with them later. Right now all she can say is, "Oh, oh," and "Maaa," and "Waaa" though.

Andrew doesn't speak Russian (unless "Fsyo" and "Chitai" count as speaking. He can't even say, "I love you.") so that leaves that language out. *sigh*

My spoken French is terrible...and Andrew only knows what his mission companion taught him, but Rachel thinks it is a nice language. While we were at the library Annick, the French French cataloguer, was admiring Rachel, who started to fuss.

"Tu ne pas pleurez...Tu ne pas pleurz..." she repeated to Rachel while tickling her tummy.

It worked. Rachel started smiling and giggling at her.

Perhaps we'll all learn French together as a family. If it calms Rachel down without having to eat, I think it's worth a shot.