Tag Archives: kids

Making beach days easier…

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I love being at the beach. However getting there and getting back to the car can be a real drag with two, now three (we have a house guest for 7 weeks) kids in tow. Another pain is unpacking and packing up at home. It seems no matter how hard I tried something was always forgotten somewhere. And even though I was always doing the yeoman’s share of the work, it somehow was always my fault. I needed a plan. And that plan involved getting everyone to take care of themselves.

Two days ago I went to the sports shop and bought each child a 5€ backpack. With all the kids activities packing and unpacking for a sport ALWAYS leads to a situation where some critical thing is left behind at home. It might sound a bit lavish, but I have realized this year that it’s best to have a bag for each activity. Lana has a pool swim bag and a music backpack. Nuno has a small soccer pack, a music pack and a pool bag that he shares with his mom. And now they each have a beach back pack.

Yesterday was our first day trying them out and we all loved them. They each had their own towel, cap, rash shirt, book/magazine, healthy snack and water bottle. They each grabbed their bag and a board an off they went. Bloody brilliant if you ask me!

 

 

We’re off!!!

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On Friday morning the kids & I took off for our American holiday. No sooner did we arrive at the airport did the party get started. Since we were on Delta’s inaugural flight from Sydney to LAX they were celebrating. There were balloons and a bongo player. We were even treated to an assortment of drinks and pastries all gorgeously presented and served to us by waiters as we entered our gate. There were also television news crews. They filmed us, while we photographed them. Although it was a decent flight, I am still a bigger fan of Air New Zealand for this long haul. They just have more practice I suppose.

After hauling butt through LAX (we had 1.5 hours to make our flight) we made it to our connecting flight back to NYC. Since the kids had barely slept on the first leg, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Fortunately they both passed out and slept though most of the flight.

We were all so excited to be home & we hit the ground running. Ti Ze & Vôvô picked us up and Fabiana had made us a gorgeous meal that was waiting for us when we arrived. Carlos had made some bread. (I am happy to report that his baking is coming along. He’s really trying to get as good as his little sister at baking.)

The kids were thrilled to see Du…AND a young lady who is almost family. The kids were having such a great time that it rolled into a sleep over because that’s how we roll!

 

 

 

..and then she asked me to buy her a rubber

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On my birthday, Lana came home with a card that she had made at school. It was a very cute card with a picture of her & me inside. The thing that struck me was that on the front was written, “Happy Birthday Mum.” I could however make out that she had first written mom, but that it had been erased with MUM written over it.

Since my birthday was in February, she had only been “exposed” to Australian kids for a month. This surely was not enough time for her language to be corrupted influenced by her peers. Well, it ends up that she had made me the card and her little friend I.L. in seeing that she had misspelled ‘mom’ erased it and ‘correctly’ wrote out mum. At that moment I knew Lana & I needed to have a mother to daughter chat. I explained to her that I liked her saying ‘pardon’, rather than ‘why’ and that I could accept her calling ketchup, ‘tomatoe sauce’, but that I drew the line at mum. I told her (and her father who quickly saw this as a weak spot) that no matter where we were living, that I would always be her MOM!

A few weeks later, we were in a very cute stationery shop. As I looked around, Sophia approached me and asked me if I would buy her a rubber. My immediate response was, “Hell no! You’re six,” but as the words came to me, I saw she was holding up a cute little pig eraser.  I’ve had to capitulate and allow her to use that word as it’s difficult to explain to a six year old why that word does not sound right to this mom’s ear when spoken by a child.

Since our arrival in Sydney, all of us have had our language impacted by this experience. Just yesterday in LAX I was trying to sort out where to retrieve my pram. After being asked what a pram was I said, “You know a push chair.” It was only on my third try that I remembered that it’s called a stroller.

Our neighbor and Lana collaborated on some videos that highlight some of the differences between our languages: clothes, school words & school words 2.  (I apologize for how quickly they fly through the reading of words, but I can only load up short videos.)

I am not sure if you noticed that ‘er’ at the end of words sounds like, “ah”. For example, rubber is pronounced /rubbah/. The weekend after my friend and fellow American Jenny pointed that out to me, Lana had September as one of her spelling words. As she read them over I almost dropped the plate I was holding when she pronounced it /septembah/. When I screamed that she was turning into an Aussie she quickly responded, “Would you prefer I say SeptmebER?” It’s so interesting to see how aware she is not only of her speech, but mine as well. She is always the one who notices when I say Gar-ahge or when I offer the kids TomAtoe sauce.

Rather than fight the ‘Australianization’ of my kids English, it’s something we chuckle about. Yet once when we were discussing my hesitating to use Australian English she came backat me with something I told her in Portugal. “When you’re in another country you should respect the native language, by trying to use it.” I guess she got me there.

Sponge Bob at the Sydney Aquarium

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One of the things that we are really enjoying about Sydney is that there is so much to do. So much so, that we always seem to be exhausted by weekend’s end. Yet somehow, we have only scratched the surface of what there is to do in this city.

The last time we went to the Norwalk Maritime Aquarium they had a Sponge Bob ride that Lana loved. This was reason to head into town and check out Sponge Bob’s visit to Sydney.

There was no ride, but they had a scavenger hunt that the kids really enjoyed. As we walked through the aquarium the kids had to seek out the characters from the show within the displays (see pictures here) and answer a few questions. They loved it, but I think they were more interested in the cartoon cutouts in the tanks than the marine life.

There were however a few cool things. One was the dugong that was following Nuno as he walked along:

Another was the sleeping turtle. We thought Chelsea would have loved to see it:

Overall, it’s not my favorite aquarium, so sad really, but it’s such an easy place for us to get to and we do manage to learn something every time we are there…so we’ll be back.