Top: Bee with me in our kitchen. Bottom: We had dinner at our pastor's house Sunday night and they gave the girls a hamster! Here they are with our new addition, Genny (g as in "get").
Hello, all--
Hurray! Three whole weeks of homeschool are under our belts. We continue to have a great time. I have to brag on my girls a little. Today we had just started school when I received a call from Duc asking me to take care of an urgent matter with the webmaster. I had to make a call right away, so I left the girls doing some puzzle papers and went to the office, which is next door to the school room. Of course, the "quick call" took longer than I anticipated, so I was gone for 20-30 minutes. When I returned, the girls had finished the puzzle papers, and had gotten water color paints, brushes, paper, and all the necessary supplies. Anna Mei had cut "head and arm holes" in trash bags to make painting smocks and they all sat down and painted a couple of pictures. No arguments, no spills, no problems! They even cleaned up! Wow! What a happy way to start the day!
I thought of a few other interesting or amusing things about daily life here...
First, I am learning the days of the week, and months, how to say money amounts, etc. in Vietnamese. On the days and months, for the most part, if you know the numbers, it's easy. For days of the week, you put the word "tu" in front of the number of the day. Sunday is the exception. It is called "the master's day." Then Monday is "tu hai" (pronounced "too high"--hai is the word for the number 2), Tuesday is "tu ba" (ba is the word for 3) and so on. Isn't it interesting that even here, Sunday is different...the Master's day!
Secondly, I went to the bookstore of the barking cat today. It is on the third level of a building that will eventually have other businesses on the first two floors. Right now, there is construction on floors one and two. There are two narrow escalators as you enter the building. The left one goes up, the other side is down. The first time I visited the building, I thought the escalator was out of service because it was not moving, but after stepping on, it started its ascent. Today I realized there is a sensor as you step up to the escalator that turns it on when someone approaches, much like a motion detector. If no one is there, the escalator stops, thus saving electricity (I assume this is the reasoning for it).
After the bookstore, Linh and I made a stop at Big C to buy juice and tea. I had gotten some money from an ATM, but it only dispenses bills in one denomination. Since I wanted to give the girls an allowance when I returned home, I was looking to get some change. That turned into a major effort! Wherever you shop here, the clerk always asks for the most exact denominations that match the purchase. They do not like to give change. I have had more than one clerk grab my billfold out of my hands and look for a smaller denomination. When I asked if I could change a bill (and Linh and I asked at 4 places) the answer was no. In the end, we were able to get change at an arcade! It was great for the allowances, since the girls like the sound of the coins going into their banks.
So, in the end, I have to say it has been a very good day. Two very special "little things have made my heart especially light. The first is an email I received from Elizabeth (our 1st grader). Even when we are in the same room, she likes to type me notes! This one is a keeper. I copied the entire message here:
hi
mom i love you it is fun to be your kid
hi
mom i love you it is fun to be your kid
The second "little" heartwarmer happened after the girls had painted this morning. I took the pictures to the laundry porch to dry in the sun. I had intended to clip them to hangers to dry, but a couple were too wet and the paint was going to run. So, I clipped the top of the paper to one hanger and the bottom of the paper to another, so the paper laid flat, facing up. Anna Mei was helping me. She nodded in approval. "You know, Mom, I think you're pretty clever." I laughed, "Coming from you, Anna Mei, that is a very big compliment!"
Thank you, Lord, for these gifts.
Charles Dickens said, "It is no small thing when those who are so fresh from God love us."
Grace and peace!
PS I am happy to say that Anna Mei was well-behaved (for the most part) during my absence on the errands today. There was only one brief episode of frustration for Bee when Anna Mei discovered she could shoot rubberbands from the third floor balcony with enough accuracy to hit her sisters in the courtyard on the first floor. Of course, a couple shots from above and they simply moved inside, and that was the end of that.
