Last week Malachai's teacher, Clara, asked us to make a list of ways that we celebrate Christmas in the United States so that the class could learn about Christmas in other counties. So we made the list, AND
Last night Malachai and I made gingerbread men to send along with the list.
As we mixed and rolled and cut, we chatted; he was so cute! he was giddy - - telling me he couldn't wait till the other kids tasted them - - that they would say to him "
oh Malachai! que buenos!" and we also practiced:
"what are they called in Spanish?" - -
hombres de jengibre"what if someone says 'yuck! this is disgusting!' ?" - -
no pasa nada!
I listened to Malachai pray with Joshua tonight, and I heard him say "thank you, God, for helping me to remember to say '
no pasa nada' (no big deal) to Andy today when he said that he didn't like the cookies"
I'm glad we practiced; I'm glad God reminded him!
we had our first snow flurries last night; for some reason this strangely excites me (is that just because I have always lived in snowless Mexico, Texas and California? or does that happen to even regular snow dwellers?) And this morning, all snow vanished, we took a family trip to the Malachai's school to make up the parent teacher meeting that I completely forgot about last week (ummm . . . the one in which I was planning to apologize to Clara for slacking in so many of my parent responsibilities this school year). Clara expressed some concern that Malachai was having a hard time sitting and finishing his class work, and she wondered if maybe this was the result of him not attending class in the afternoon. have I mentioned this before? Although most Spanish children attend class from 9-4:30 (with an hour and a half break for lunch), Joshua and I have decided to send our boy to class only in the mornings - - a decision that, although scandalous among teacher and parent alike, the school has permitted us since legally, a child is not required to be escolarizado ("schooled") until he is six years old. Clara has been nudging and prodding towards us bringing Malachai in the afternoon for a while now, and although we still think it best to have him home with us in the afternoons, we did assure her that we will be working with him at home with some more structured activities. This seemed to satisfy Clara . . . and she was gracious about the missed appointment.
