Back by popular demand

Greetings from the Old World!!!

I have heard that there is interest in me updating my blog. I apologize to my avid readers, all three of you, for my laps. Sadly, life has gotten in the way of my complaining. =) No, not complaining…lets say colorful observations about life in Jolly ol’ England.

It is hard to know where to start. I guess an update on the status quo would be a good place to start. It will give a snap shot of what is going on. Along the way I can insert commentary.

Emily goes back to school this coming Thursday, 6 September ( I have to practice writing the date like that. I swear sometimes I have to read things a few times to figure when exactly something is going on because I look for the number after the month and then have to back track) There will be much rejoicing in the Lecea household with the start of the school year. Just like my mother and I get along better now that we no longer live in the say house, those 4,000 miles and Atlantic Ocean are helping a bit as well =), Emily and I do better when we are separated from each other for a few hours everyday. She will be in Year 1, which is sorta like 1st grade. They are going the same work, plus a little, that the kids back in Michigan are doing. I find myself asking my friends frequently, “So, what is (fill in the blank) doing ?” to make sure Emily is not getting behind or anything. At the end of the last term she got quite an extensive report card. I did not realize that she worked with so many other teacher in addition to her classroom teacher. For each subject there was a write up on what they were suppose to be learning, and then the teacher wrote a narrative on how well the child has progressed. They all had good things to say about her. They say she is hard working, helpful in the classroom, etc. I just wish I knew the kids they described. How is this the same girl who complains that she is too tired to chew? Or the same child that tells me she is too busy if I ask her to pass the salt?? Anyway, the swim teacher did kinda imply that Emily wont learn to swim if she does not relax a little and be willing to get her face wet. That child I know. Emily is convinced that there is a danger of her drowning in the shower and doesn’t want to go under the spray. There weren’t any grades or even the progressing, mastered, etc that they have back home. The report card folder included a write up by the headmaster. It said that from what he has heard she will be successful in Year 1. So I am using that to basis my assumption that she passed Reception and is moving on. Plus the invoice they sent us for the Autumn term listed the price for Year 1. I am just glad that they only send up a copy of the invoice and send the real “bill” to Ford’s representatives.

Anyway, we will be very happy when school starts and Emily can see her friends daily again. Samantha and I just don’t provide the same level of companionship. She’ll develop more of an accent, it didn’t take long for it to start in the first place. My mom and sister think it’s adorable. My nephew Casey demanded that we move back to Michigan when he heard Emily say “water” in a very British way. It comes out more “war tah”. There are coming to be more and more words that she emphasizes the “wrong” syllable or the vowels come out wrong, or part of the word are just left out. It is very common her for syllables to be dropped. They can take a 15 letter word, and turn it into a single syllable.

With this in mind, recall that Emily began receiving speech therapy when she was 2 and half and has dysphasia. Her problem is that she had difficulty producing some sounds and sound sequences. If v and l are too close together in a word, she has a heck of a time getting her mouth to make the switch of position to make the sounds and she ends up dropping parts of the word. So, with this being an accepted norm, they don’t think she is doing anything wrong. And substituting ’f’ for th ( wif instead of with) or d for th (da for the), is just part of some accepts around here. So, even if I could find a speech therapist to work with her, and that has been on big pain in the ass (or as they say arse), they might not think she is doing anything wrong. I guess we might just have to hope that when we go back people think it’s part of her accent. There are a couple Americans in her year at school. But they have accents too. I have heard that the teachers at he school will actually correct the children if they pronounce words the American way, just like if a child with a French accent mispronounced a word. I guess it makes sense and they’re just trying to get the children to pronounce words properly. It just kills me that I spent three years trying to get her to speak clearly, enunciate, and pronounce sounds correctly, and now some of that is being unlearned.

Well, I didn’t get very far reporting what is going on here. I guess I will continue this another day. I'm getting tired and I get more so, my typing and spelling get worse. And that is pretty bad since neither are very good in the first place. Hopefully I'll write again soon. I’d like to mention Samantha next time. =) And I really have not provided much information. But hopfully I did provided a laugh at two.

Til then