Rebekah's Insights

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Yes, it was my Birthday in September, like it comes every year. This year we are in a new location, thousands of miles from where we started. Back in the states, Bekah started having a "birthday dinner" for me. It was just another excuse for us to entertain friends and for me to dictate the menu, which is usually Italian with cannolies for dessert. This year turned out to be no different, even though we are barely into our new estate. The only difference is that we have made some new friends over here that shared in our birthday tradition. It was fun and yet the same as years past. People come over hungry, eat & enjoy the food, and then we all have some fun playing games. The fun lasted until late with much Wii fun being had by all.

Last week was Liam’s first week of Pre-School! (As I develop it, I am referring to the curriculum as “Pre-School I” since it is a very basic skeletal structure for introducing concepts and designed for very small bits of time. He is, after all, not even three years old yet, so there is no pressure with this “school time.” In fact, it is largely a purposeful expansion of our times devoted to reading and catechism instruction.) He is SO eager to learn about letters, numbers, and really anything I want to tell him about and since so many of his little friends started school last week, it adds to his confidence in becoming a “Big Boy, too!” ;)

With that said, the following is just a brief synopsis of our activities focusing on the letter “Aa:”

• We added words that begin with A to our “Aa” list throughout the week as we read
stories and looked around the house for the letter A. At this point, any exposure
to the sound associated with the letters is purely incidental, as my focus is on
letter recognition and a beginning awareness that there are big and little letters.
(A tip of my hat goes to Bill Martin, Jr. for writing Liam’s current favorite book,
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.)
• Liam “wrote” A’s on his own sheets of paper.
• We sang the “Alphabet Song” and Liam practiced matching with the “A to Z Zoo” from
Fisher Price.
• We enjoyed reading many new books, as well as old favorites, including Animalia, A
is for Angry, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, and The Big Red Apple.
• We introduced the fourth Catechism Question and learned about the first day of
Creation.
• Liam helped Mommy make Apple Crisp! He really did a lot of it himself…AND he helped
himself to a lot of the apples that were supposed to go into the baking dish. LOL!
He did a great job and Daddy agreed that the Apple Crisp tasted great, too.
• Liam counted out ten animal Crackers for snack.

William asks Liam every day what he learned about during school and Liam enjoys recalling our activities. He then often chooses books we’ve read as bedtime stories in order to “show” Daddy what we learned.

Aine also wants to “tell” Daddy about what they read and launches into an adorable little jibber-fest with recognizable words here and there. She is so exuberant! ;) Aine is saying her own approximations of several words, including Aine, Liam, doggy, kitty, water, cracker, COOKIE, (and thinks we should eat them at EVERY meal), juice, and of course, Momma, Dada, hi, bye-bye, and NO! She has taken to arranging books all neatly lined in a row, much like Liam has always done, although she is NOT inclined to LEAVE the books neatly arranged IF Liam has arranged them. The two play very well together at most times, however, and just the other day I overheard Liam teaching and encouraging Aine to roll the ball to him in the play room while I was washing dishes. :) How sweet it was to hear his little voice (made higher-pitched as he spoke kindly to her) saying, “Roll the ball to me, Aine! You can do it, baby!” And when she rolled the ball to the OPPOSITE end of the room, responded with, “That was nice, Aine. Now this time roll it to ME!” :0)

[I will endeavor to take photos THIS week to show some of the learning activities—especially the cooking, as I am using the Gold Medal Flour Alpha Bakery Children’s Cookbook for each letter, providing lots of great culinary and motor skill opportunities!]

Well, yesterday was a typical Monday! I say this, NOT because it went as every Monday always does, but rather that it went in a way that I could least have anticipated the night before! (I have concluded that Mondays will ALWAYS be this way, to ensure that I approach the new week (and each new day come to think of it) depending on God for strength, wisdom, and direction.) I had had great plans of reclaiming the house from the Football Get-Together we hosted the evening prior, starting exploration of the letter “B” and related topics with Liam, and doing several loads of laundry in our little, tiny washing machine. (No kidding! At full capacity, it fits a bit less than a typical American small load.)

All of my plans changed when we were awakened before 6:00 AM with Liam screaming and crying and eventually explaining that his neck hurt when he moved it. This foretold how the rest of the day would ensue—with much crying and the needing of Momma’s time and comfort. Aine also seemed to be under the weather—and working on a new tooth was not helping matters. So up went my plans in a cloud of smoke as I spent most of the day holding a sobbing child in each arm, in search of that elusive SOMETHING that would make each feel better. As I began to lament to myself over all I would NOT accomplish, it occurred to me that one day the children will manage being sick more independently and what ails them may not be so easily remedied by my rocking them and singing songs. So I treasured the time holding my little loves and committing to memory each little look of rest and relief as FINALLY something I tried seemed to help. Overall, it seemed that just being there for them and patiently trying to comfort them was what was most needed—AND for some reason, nothing all day brought delight to their faces the way some sweet little tangerines did! Go figure!

So I stayed up a little later than I had wanted, to finish less loads of laundry than I had wanted and the house is not as “spic-and-span” as I had envisioned, but we had three meals to eat and we read books about BEARS and ate BANANAS! Best of all, my heart has tucked away the priceless memories of the tender hugs I received from two little sets of needy arms and a spontaneous “I yuv you, Momma!” It was not an EASY day (especially for my little loves,) it was not the day I PLANNED, but it was still a GOOD day and I thank God for it!

Incidentally, I have also decided to keep tangerines around at all times---just in case! ;)

Thankfully, they both seem to be in good health and spirits upon awakening this morning! :) Later, I will try to update anyone interested on what we did in Pre-School last week. Liam loves telling Daddy about what he does in school each day!

Have a joyful day!

The funny thing here is that I have yet to go to my office which I will be working in during my first week here. The first few days were primarily for in-processing paperwork and then we have been searching for a place to Let. Thursday morning I came down with a fever of 101 and was less useful than usual. My fever lasted until sometime late on Friday. So, I called my boss and told him that I wasn't coming in. I think he understands. If he doesn't, then it will take him more than 6 months to find a replacement:) I was able to bring down my fever with some Ibroprofin that we had and went out for a couple of hours on Thursday to look at more houses for Let/rent. We found a place that, in principle, we agreed to let from the owners. The contract was drawn up by our housing office on Friday and I will have the owners sign the lease on Monday. It is a great place with 5 bedrooms and four baths. It is a little too big for us (without a few more children), but it is in a great location and two of the bedrooms are on a third floor, which we can quarantine off for heating purposes. It gives us a great place for guest to come and stay. It will be like a little guest suite.

We have to pay some money out of pocket for the utilities, but it was designed toward Americans in mind. Uk homes remind me of the old farm houses back home, with small bedrooms (big enough for a bed and dresser) and New York City sized kitchens. The place where we are going to let has American sized rooms with a great sized kitchen. Bekah loved it when we went through and I didn't see any problem with paying a little more, since the house will be essentially free. She will be there all day and will make life better while in this country if she loves her home:)

The place is in a converted barn. Around here, a lot of farmers change their barns, which are solid stone buildings (I think the walls are about two feet thick), into living quarters for people. They primarily rent out to Americans, since there are so many wanting to rent places and design the features with that in mind. The only downside to the converted barn is that there are a bunch of units in a little farming area. In ours, there are about 6 units. The great thing is that there are not any more housing around for quite a ways. The rest is a beautiful reservoir (I would call it a lake) and pastures with mostly sheep. I will try to put up some photographs when we are in, which should be the week of July 23rd.

The Schermers have landed in the UK. Our trip was quite fun:) Our check luggage was lost, the kids didn't sleep most of the night, and we are both sore from lugging around all of our bags. I would have to say that the whole experience was positive. Nothing went terribly wrong (we had some clothes in our carry on bags and toys for the kids). We made it safely and did not lose any of the family members. We also learned a few things about taking kids on international flights. Taking their share of carry on luggage was a little mistake, because it was hard for two of us to carry two kids and 4+ carry on bags. Luckily the flight attendants were nice and some passengers helped us out:)

Our sponsor here in the UK was very nice and showed us a lot of places. Being sleep deprived, I don't remember where many things are. I do know that we found a fish 'n chips place. Erik was right when he told me they were great! The fish 'n chips are about a block away.

So far, all of the people in the UK are nicer than your normal Baltimoron.