English Chitchat, let's go!!

[sarleas7]

hi katreseke,

yes! irish names look mostly unpronouncable...but as you said, most are nice sounding. sarleas is totally made up though, not at all irish...i pronounce it sar-LEE-as

have you got triplets or did i misunderstand your post? i once spent a year in the U.S. as the AuPair of triplets...they were 1 year old at the time, 2girls and a boy.

i will have a day off today...going to see a friend and staying at her place over night! thank you hubby! but i hope his night will be ok, as puppytails has been waking up at night time quite a bit and he comes to sleep in our bed...and he jiggles

[katreseke]

yes! irish names look mostly unpronouncable...but as you said, most are nice sounding. sarleas is totally made up though, not at all irish...i pronounce it sar-LEE-as
have you got triplets or did i misunderstand your post?

I must admit you got me there with your name Sarleas sound very much like an Irish name and I thought it would be something like Searlait (= Charlotte) or Niamh (=Neve).
As for my 3 girls: I've got twins and a younger one with less then 1.5 years in between. At the moment the twins go to the "big Kindergarten" and the youngest goes to the "small Kindergarten".

[kara71]

@sarleas: welcome. Did i understand correctly that you're the swiss part of the marriage?

@katreseke: nice to read, that you had a good Time in Belgium. I've never considered Holland as a holiday destination so far. All I've seen of it is the motorway to Rotterdam, which is probably the dullest part of the country

@second pregnancy: I agree with sarleas, it is harder, because ther's less time to rest, but it seems to me as if time is going a lot quicker than the first time -. There's less time to think about being pregnant, because boy is keeping me busy. Kindergarten starts again in a week's time. Then I'll have a couple of hours in the morning, when I can rest (or tidy his toys away, which he leaves all over the house....)

[sarleas7]

thanks for welcoming me, kara! yes, i am the swiss part, although my husband is half swiss, too. only his mum is irish, his dad was swiss.
how far along in your pregnancy are you?

what language(s) do you speak at home and with your kids? if all goes well, and for nownit seems to work out that way, our kids will be growing up speaking 3 languages.

i am a bit clueless as to what to do this week, it's got awfully cold here and the weather sucks...any creative ideas?

good night everyone!

[katreseke]

what language(s) do you speak at home and with your kids? if all goes well, and for nownit seems to work out that way, our kids will be growing up speaking 3 languages.

@ Sarleas:
Which languages will your kids be speaking? English, Swiss-German and ???
We raise our girls bilingual (Swiss-German and Flämisch), but since hubby and me speak English together (we both used to work in Ireland ) they understand a lot of English as well and have started to occassionally try to speak English. And since there is a girl in Kindergarten which only speak "normal" German, they are getting pretty fluent in German as well. Somehow they like to speak German when they play with their barbies So little ones speak Swiss-German, normal German, Flämisch and a little bit of English, which suits us all fine
Where does your mother-in-law come from? I used to live in the south (and very unfashionable) part of Dublin, close to the Wicklow Mountains.
I wish you all a nice day ladies!

[sarleas7]

Which languages will your kids be speaking? English, Swiss-German and ???

it's a bit complicated. my husband and I speak English together. That is due to the fact, that when we met, he didn't speak very much German and my French was far from good...(he was born and raised in the French speaking part of Switzerland). so, our only "common" language was English and that became our family language, even though we all speak all 3 languages by now...

So therefore, our kids speak English when we are all together...when i'm home with them during the day, i speak German (swiss-german) and my husband speaks French to them when he is alone with them. As i am a full time mom, evidently they don't get as much French as they do German or English, but as we live in a French speaking area, that will somewhat take care of itself. My son started playschool in august and his French is coming along quite well...and then of course there are our local friends who we speak to...

We had a lot of "questions" and we were wondering how/if it would work out the way we had planned this language thing...but, the human mind is marvellous...we'll see how things work out with our daughter, she doesn't speak for now but we can tell, that she understands all 3 languages. Our son took quite a long time to start speaking properly (2-word sentences he did at about 26 months, proper sentences at 30 months) but he can choose what language he speaks, he knows what language he needs to use depending on the person he wants to speak to and it's happened, that he used a work say in English, that I didn't understand....so after a few tries of unsuccessfully getting me to understand what he wanted, he told me in German

he's listening to Globi at the moment, which gives me a little break....he begged me to let him go for a nap, but the hassle in the evening is too big...he just isn't tired enough in the evening to go to bed at a reasonable hour if he's had a nap in the afternoon.
Maybe we'll carve a pumpkin later....i bought a big one at a farm for next to nothing...compared to what they cost in the shop or at the market. are you "celebrating" halloween?

Have a good one,

Sarleas

[Mrs. Bee]

Hello Ladies
Just a quick hello - off to bed soon. I'm not running on all burners today so I guess some sleep should do the trick. I hope!

Halloween: no, it's no big deal here. Some kids are trick and treating, but it just doesn't fly. I don't mind - we have enough celebrations for my liking, so don't need more.
We're longing for Samichlaus though: When does Samichlaus come? When it snows. When does it snow? Not for a looong time... Reason: One saw the Lego catalogue and has a million wishes of things he wanted to take home from the shop. Naughty mum said no, can't do. We'll ask Samichlaus if he'll bring you some. And since then it's Samichlaus this and that twice a day. Gaaah!

Take care, get back to you soon
Have a nice evening
Bee

[sarleas7]

hahaha mrs.bee!

every morning for the past 6 weeks, my son has been asking the same question: "mommy, is it winter?" - "uuuuhm, no..." - "whyyyyyy?!?" - "because its autumn." - "when is it winter?" - "when it snows" (given the altitude, its likely to happen before xmas)...
puppy: "oh and when its winter that means santi will come and give me presentsssss!" (mickey mouse told him that on a dvd my mother in law bought him...mickey saves santa clause )

aaanyway...he also has a xmas wish list so far consisting of an electric drill and a fire engine with BLUE sirens...the one he has is outdated as it only has red lights.... i told hime i'll tell the samichlaus to bring him that truck if he gives him all his soothers...we'll see

we dont really do halloween either...some people do though, i tend to have a few sweets lying around. last year it sucked though, a bunch of teenagers came trick or treating and they weren't even dressed up

good night ladies

[Mrs. Bee]

Wish list - oooh yes. So far: 2 helicopters (1 apparently isn't enough), 1 fire engine (like we don't have 2 already...), 1 car, 1 train, 1 plane, 1 lorry, 1 police car, 1 garage. And that is just from 2 catalogues - the others aren't here yet. So much looking forward to Christmas... It's not that little man hasn't a load of toys already. Oh, and today he saw a plush dragon that took his fancy. Gaaaaah!

[katreseke]

And what have we learned from all this ? Never give your child catalogues

[Mrs. Bee]

Katreske - I was desperate! He had a tantrum in Migros because they had all this lovely Lego out already and the catalogue was a distraction to get him out of the shop... but yes, I better throw them in the old paper bin before he gets his mitts on them

[kara71]

It's all in the detail. It matters enormously, whether the lights on a fire engine are red or blue or what colour helmets the playmobil firemen wear. And the marketing is quite clever. You can usually only get the most desirable items if you buy the biggest box

Boy picks up lego and playmobil catalogues every time he gets to a shop and he studies them intensely. He even starts writing the numbers down if the things he likes it's not like he needs any more toys. You can't walk anywhere in our house without tripping up on them and I'm finding it a bit of a struggle at the moment tidying them off the floor. Anyway, he's 'ordered' his christmas present (adragon) from his english grandmother already and has given me some instructions on what's to go in his advent calendar. Ok, I kind of started him on that, because I'm starting to worry about how to organise things with the baby due at the beginning of December. At least the english relatives aren't planning to visit at christmas.

[swissalicious]

Hey ladies.

hope all is good in switzerland.

we're good and enjoying the autumn in prague.
Halloween coming up and it's a big thing here but hubby and me are both no big halloween fans, so we will try to avoid it as much as possible. and also as the 31st is our wedding anniversary we have a reason not to celebrate halloween lol

Kindergarden: many people are asking if emily is in a kindergarden yet... when I say no, she's at home with her daddy, I get odd looks as it's so normal for kids to go to nursery as soon as they're off the breast (bitchy me speaking lol) all week and then preschool....they all speak at least two languages and if not then they already play an instrument at 3 years old. Emily got the 2 languages for free and instruments she can learn later on, flute and piano as this is the only once i know how to play. she loves to sing tho. every time we go out she doesn't talk or ask, she sings everything she says lol. sometimes with the twinkle twinkle melody or alli mini äntli
really cute.

nursery is really expensive over here so we're just trying to keep little one happy with the dog and the many many playgrounds... she hasn't made any close friends yet but plays nicely with the other kids in the parks.
It's not always easy but slowly but surely things are getting sorted (like child benefits for example, bloody hard work that was)... i'm joining a group of women every tuesday and hubby wants to play in the local darts team.

so far so good.



I always read your posts, just don't hae much time to write...

take care

[katreseke]

Kindergarden: many people are asking if emily is in a kindergarden yet... when I say no, she's at home with her daddy, I get odd looks as it's so normal for kids to go to nursery as soon as they're off the breast (bitchy me speaking lol) all week and then preschool....

Hi Eva-Christina
Glad you are settling in well in Prague (is the language not very difficult to learn?)
As for sending children to a nursery at a very young age, well, that is not such an exception in other countries either. Most Belgian children go to the daycare/nursery or to a childminder from 3-4 months because most mothers go back to work after their maternity leave. And preschool (Kindergarten) starts at 2.5 years old. It's not obligatory of course, but most children start going between 2.5 and 3.5 years old. There is not much difference betwee the nursery and the first years of preschool. And to the Belgians, this is normal. I got odd looks for years from family and friends when they asked how the twins are doing in preschool and I had to tell them year after year (twins started just before their 5th birthday) that, no, they are not allowed to go yet in Switzerland ...
Anyway, both systems have advantages and disadvantages. I could just never stand the look of horror on some of their faces when I told other mothers that Kindergarten starts at 2.5 in Belgium. As if that would be some kind of torture and "no way those children turn out ok" and "poor little ones". Sorry, I don't want to start a heavy discussion here, I just had to get it off my chest

[swissalicious]

@katreske
Glad you understand what it's like
I'd like Emily to go to a nursery or playgroup but they are either expensive, the playgroups are just for women and kids. As I'm the one working it makes things so much more complicated....there's no playgroups out there for men... I did suggest to hubby to set up one but seriously: who gives their child to a man in daycare?
It's highly unlikely.

Anyways question for ALL of you: I have some RekaChecks which were given to me back in CH. but they are no use for me here....and when we go on holiday in CH we don't really need them as my family has cars and we can live for "free" with family and friends. So if any of you are interested, let me know. they're worth 150 Fr. I'd give you a discount on it, you could have them for 125 Fr.

Let me know they're better off with someone who really uses them...

[katreseke]

@ Eva-Christina: it is indeed less likely that a lot of mothers would jump at the chance to give their child to a male childminder But it is a lovely idea I think and it's a shame not more men work in nurseries.
Good luck with getting rid of your RekaChecks (not ironically meant).

Is everybody keeping warm in this arctic cold? Normally I prefer the winter to the summer. I can't stand anything over 28 degrees, get terrible sunburn and have generally too warm instead of too cold. But these sudden freezing temperatures are a bit too much, even for me. Last year we had a very warm october and now we have snow and it freezes at night. Bloody weather!

[katreseke]

Goodnight ladies (before our topic falls completely asleep )
I hope you are all having a nice week!

[kara71]

It is indeed very sleepy here. But then, I'm usually too tired to write anything. Boy still won't walk to kindergarten on his own, so I have to take and collect him still. At least he doesn't cry anymore in the mornings and seems to enjoy his time with the other kids. Hubby has finally realised that we'll need a room for the baby before long and has started stripping wallpaper.

[swissalicious]

Hey

nothing new here either. Busy at work. Hubby trying to convince our landlord that he can renovate the flat in return of a lower rent. It's not that we don't like the place and I guess for the location the rent is ok. But when they painted the doors and windows last (probably a few years ago) they didn't sand down the old paint. And now with damp and heat and cold it's just all peeling off.
Nice. Not.

So we were thinking of hubby stripping it down and painting it new, but in that time we wouldn't be paying the full rent....let's see what they say. Coz as it is now, there's just peeled off paint on the floor everywhere, after everytime you touch the doors or windows. That's ridiculous.

[Mrs. Bee]

Hello Ladies

Haven't forgotten about you!! Just been rather busy; Hubby is away on business (again!) and I'm dealing with the little brat on my own. Oh the discussions... Nothing new to all of you, I know. It's just a phase, it's just a phase...

Been good: doing 15 minutes Pilates every evening now

Are you looking forward to Christmas? We'll be here for a change

Kara: Not long to go now... you feeling good?