Giggles came to my bed shortly after 6 am for a short snuggle, then said she'd go back to her and Poppet's bed so he wouldn't be scared. But he was also awake, so they both came to me for some morning cuddles. I tried to convince them that it was still night and they should sleep some more, but they would have none of it. So they went to Laolao and Laoye's bed and engaged in some morning gymnastics.
After five or ten minutes I decided I wasn't going to sleep any more anyhow, so I might as well join them. We had a family playtime in bed for about ten minutes, then it was time to start the day for real.
While Laolao fixed breakfast, I got the kids and myself dressed and we all had a few more minutes of playtime. We started off the New Year with bacon and eggs, toast and jam. Poppet ate fairly well. After breakfast we brushed teeth and had fifteen minutes of sun and play outside before beginning the schoolwork routine.
Today's schoolwork did not go nearly as well as yesterday's. For one thing, there was the distraction of a little brother to contend with, and the fact that he did not have schoolwork to do. For a few minutes he sat at the table opposite Giggles and Laolao helped him write the alphabet (which he'd done numerous times at the Transition House, as evidenced by the school notebooks they gave us with page after page of alphabet filled in). But Giggles complained that he had such easy work to do and wanted to do that too. I told her that she did that kind of work when she was four, but now she is seven and she knows all that stuff; it would be far too easy. I told her that when he is seven he will have to do the kind of work she is doing now. But of course when you are seven and have never had a little brother before, all that is just blah-blah.
When I had first taken the day's work out of the folders and laid it on the table, I had thought "Oh, that isn't so bad. We should be able to get that done easily in less than three hours." But after half an hour at the table, Giggles had not yet completed even one page of phonics, which she normally can do in about five minutes (or less). Laolao took Poppet outside to play, so his presence wouldn't be such a distraction, but we could still hear them playing ball. After 45 minutes Laolao slipped me a note – she and Laoye would take Poppet out shopping, to go to the department store Laoye had found two long blocks south on Bole Road, to buy him some shoes that fit. I nodded okay; they departed and we plugged on. After an hour Giggles had managed to do two pages of phonics.
And so the morning went. We slogged; we took two breaks; we slogged some more. She finished the phonics pages and most of her reading; we did her one science worksheet and a bit of Smarties math. The final task was to do some math exercises; I had planned for two pages but one was all that she could handle and after almost four hours of frustration, cajoling, and complaints, it was all I could handle, too.
During one of the two breaks we took, Giggles chose to spend half the time preparing an alphabet sheet for Poppet – she wrote the letters and underneath drew a picture to represent each letter. It was quite sweet, really. At the halfway point I persuaded her to take a real break playing outside otherwise we'd have to start our next round of schoolwork and she wouldn't have had any fresh air. So she did. I do hope she finishes the alphabet sheet; it was a nice thought and a nice gesture on her part.
In the end I was mostly pleased with the way she was working hard and doing a pretty good job, though it would have been nice to start out the same way. However, once again I am left thinking that the paper-based exercises they give for homework just don't work for her, and it pains me to feel obliged to force their completion just to be able to hand in the stuff to the teachers. Especially in math. Math is not her forte.
So for the morning I had little chance to interact with Poppet except during the couple of breaks we took, when the three of us played outside (once they were back from the shoe-buying expedition). We ate a light lunch, then Laolao and Laoye headed off once again, this time with Giggles for an ice cream while I stayed home with Poppet for naptime.
It quickly became apparent that he was having none of this! (I seem to be spending the day trying to get kids to do what they didn't want to!) I had wondered if he truly napped any more. When Giggles came, we were told she was still napping, but after a short nap the very first afternoon in our hotel room, she didn't nap again. I suspect the Transition House enforces nap/quiet time. Even if the children no longer sleep, they are expected to be quiet in their beds. Poppet wouldn't even lie down, and didn't seem to want to sit with me to play on the bed or to look at books. After having seen him watch the television with interest last night for the few minutes we had it on, I figured he'd like the computer – and I had brought along a few simple software games for toddlers. (He may no longer be a toddler, but with no English, the toddler level will be enough until he understands more. It took Giggles a few months to move beyond the toddler and into the preschool software.)
Sure enough, as soon as I had fired up the laptop and loaded the software, he was off. The only real computer skill this particular software focuses on is mouse control; as for learning, it focuses on matching, colours, numbers, letters and shapes, as well as some basic vocabulary. After half an hour I shut the 'puter down and tried to interest him in books again, but he wasn't buying it. Seeing as I'd been up rather late last night, I could have used a nap, so I lay on the sofa (after locking the house door and removing the key so he couldn't get out of the house in case I did fall asleep). I thought he might be enticed to snuggle with me, but again, no. However, he did turn on the television and watch until Laolao, Laoye and Giggles came home a short time later.
This is another indication of his good learning capacity. Last night the landlord's son, Abraham, came and showed us how to turn on the television as we'd not managed to get anything but static before. Poppet was watching and after seeing it once, he knew how to do it again. Similarly, he'd found Laolao's camera and Giggles had shown him how it worked; that one demonstration was enough for him to remember how to turn it on and work it again. On the one hand, this augurs well for his learning capacity; on the other, I'll have to watch out as he may pick up more than I want him to!
With the other grownups at home, I did go lie down for a bit of a nap while the kids played. (Never has it been so easy to get Giggles to play without me. Little brother is good for something already!) Then Laoye headed out on his third trip of the day, this time accompanying me to the internet café and buying a few things forgotten on earlier trips, while Laolao stayed home and made supper while the kids played in the yard with a ball purchased during the morning's expedition. (BTW, internet in Addis and the south is a quarter the price as it is in the north – 1 birr for 4 minutes, or 15 birr ($1.65) an hour. Still slowish, but much less expensive.)
Poppet ate heartily at suppertime. He hadn't eaten much at lunch, though he'd comsumed two bananas during the afternoon. Now he downed four meatballs and a good-sized ball of mashed potatoes, along with some juice. He's not into milk at all; we'll need to work on getting him to consume milk once we get home to Canada. I recall a similar challenge with Giggles!
Bedtime routine went much better tonight. I started off by reading a chapter to Giggles in the living room before teeth time, while Poppet played with Laoye and leafed through storybooks on his own. Then I paged through an Encyclopedia of Animals with him as he lay on the sofa, naming the animals as we went. He would repeat the names; I would make commentary about them or imitate their gestures; he also made some commentary in Amharic and I would nod sagely and say "Yes, of course." While we did this, Laolao read to Giggles. Then we all brushed teeth and the kids got into jammies. We all lay in bed; I asked Giggles to stay in bed resting quietly as I thought this would help Poppet fall asleep more quickly; then she could come out to the living room and watch a bit of TV and snuggle with me. The ruse worked; Poppet fell asleep within ten minutes. After 15 minutes of TV and snuggling, and another ten minutes of whispered conversation in bed, Giggles fell asleep too, leaving me free to do some more blogging and get to bed earlier.
(Continue to 2 January: Swimming in January)
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