Little Teddy Bear
Gilwice, Poland - Wednesday, April 28, 2004
It is almost midnight and I have been awake since 3:00 A.M. Lying in bed, I woke up and started thinking about a few things. If we should name or rename the children so that that Americans can say their names but how to do it so as not to make them feel that there is something wrong with their names. I am generally not a light sleeper, but by 3:30 I knew that I was not going back to sleep. I am a believer that the lack of sleep is not as bad as the tossing and turning. So, I got out of bed and used the time to study Polish.
I put together a cheat sheet of useful phrases and words to use to communicate with the children. Slower, stop, enough, be careful, and a number of others. They helped and I was glad that I had spent the time. I intend to do such a sheet each day and use the phrases so that I really learn them. I am frankly surprised how much Polish I am now speaking and how much I am understanding. On this trip, we are here for another two weeks. Elaine and I intend to work really hard on our Polish every day.
Editors Note: We will only be referring to the children by their initials. “I” is the older boy, “D” is the little girl, and “M” is the youngest boy. In your replies, we ask that you use this convention too. Do not ask about names. We will let you know when we can. And since this forum is public, we want to protect their privacy.
We already can communicate pretty well in Polish. (Note from Elaine ~~~ Lawrence is understanding far more Polish than I am. However, “I” rolls his eyes less at me when I try to pronounce stuff.) Between our limited Polish and their quickness, we have enough to handle the basic care of the children. If we get stuck, we can even ask “I” how to say something if we show it to him. He is a very clever boy, and knowing that I do not know the word for girl, he showed me that the driver of a toy car was like Mummy and “D”. In other words, a girl. He also showed me that he has started to learn to count in Angielski (English). Some things I we don’t bother with the Polish. When we want them to clean-up we simply sing the clean-up song that “Barney” has made so popular. Little “D” has been trying to sing it too.
Little “D” continues to be very sweet with the cat puppet. She loves Kotek (kitten). NO! We are NOT getting a cat. We will happily visit those of you who have them. Thank you very much. However, she shows us every picture of a cat in any of the books. Today, she also wanted to play with the Angielsko-Polski Slownik (English-Polish Dictionary). She can’t read, but it is a picture dictionary and I name something in Polish and tell her the Angielski for it too. I try always to find some words that are the same so that they can see the similarity as well.
“M” came out of his shell today. As you read in an earlier posting, it is very typical for three year-old children to get very quiet as they take in the whole situation. Sister Francesca - who is the primary caretaker - told us that the children ask each morning when we are going to arrive and are very excited to see us. However, “M” has been the most reserved. He enjoys the games, but talks very little. Well, in the morning we did some watercolor painting books that Elaine had bought. The one that she had him working on requires very little skill. Just wet the brush and run it over the page. This brings out the color. She had gotten him a big brush. Well, he loved it.
In the afternoon, he was cuddly with her and then I was able to wrestle with him. I kept holding him like a teddy bear and he loved it. He had me chase him and we did it again and again. Then I started calling him Maly Mis (Little Teddy Bear). He loved his new nickname and we called him that for the rest of the afternoon. He proudly told the nuns what his new nickname is. I think that it will stick. For those of you playing at home it is pronounced “maui mees”. I expect you to know this by the time I get back. There will be a quiz.
It is all going so well that Sister says that the children can come soon each day to our suite at the hotel. This suite has hosted many such visits before. So, despite the funky décor, it really is a special place. The children will be with us from about 9:30 to 6:00 each day. We went to the large Wal-Mart type place tonight and bought some stuff in anticipation.
Around lunchtime, we got a chance to post some of the things that we have written and were very pleased to be able to do so. We count on the support of you all and it does us good to write these posts and get them out to you. Elaine not only read the livejournal.com menu in Polish, but was the one who read the sign in the store window saying that it had an Internet café. That is impressive.
While online, we were able to mail out a few of the photos that we took. Thanks to Marci we were able to get the photos posted. We e-mailed them to her and she took care of posting them. We already heard through the grapevine that people have viewed them.
While we are thanking people - and there are lots to thank - we wanted to thank the Freemans for taking Ross to soccer practice, Mike Harradon for taking Ross to his game on Saturday, Julie Brennan for baby-sitting him on Tuesday nights, Diane for taking him to Sunday school and most especially his Grammy Joyce for taking care of him the entire time that we are gone. This allows him to stay at his own home and keep his regular routine as much as possible. We couldn’t do this without her. We can’t thank her enough.
It is almost midnight and I have been awake since 3:00 A.M. Lying in bed, I woke up and started thinking about a few things. If we should name or rename the children so that that Americans can say their names but how to do it so as not to make them feel that there is something wrong with their names. I am generally not a light sleeper, but by 3:30 I knew that I was not going back to sleep. I am a believer that the lack of sleep is not as bad as the tossing and turning. So, I got out of bed and used the time to study Polish.
I put together a cheat sheet of useful phrases and words to use to communicate with the children. Slower, stop, enough, be careful, and a number of others. They helped and I was glad that I had spent the time. I intend to do such a sheet each day and use the phrases so that I really learn them. I am frankly surprised how much Polish I am now speaking and how much I am understanding. On this trip, we are here for another two weeks. Elaine and I intend to work really hard on our Polish every day.
Editors Note: We will only be referring to the children by their initials. “I” is the older boy, “D” is the little girl, and “M” is the youngest boy. In your replies, we ask that you use this convention too. Do not ask about names. We will let you know when we can. And since this forum is public, we want to protect their privacy.
We already can communicate pretty well in Polish. (Note from Elaine ~~~ Lawrence is understanding far more Polish than I am. However, “I” rolls his eyes less at me when I try to pronounce stuff.) Between our limited Polish and their quickness, we have enough to handle the basic care of the children. If we get stuck, we can even ask “I” how to say something if we show it to him. He is a very clever boy, and knowing that I do not know the word for girl, he showed me that the driver of a toy car was like Mummy and “D”. In other words, a girl. He also showed me that he has started to learn to count in Angielski (English). Some things I we don’t bother with the Polish. When we want them to clean-up we simply sing the clean-up song that “Barney” has made so popular. Little “D” has been trying to sing it too.
Little “D” continues to be very sweet with the cat puppet. She loves Kotek (kitten). NO! We are NOT getting a cat. We will happily visit those of you who have them. Thank you very much. However, she shows us every picture of a cat in any of the books. Today, she also wanted to play with the Angielsko-Polski Slownik (English-Polish Dictionary). She can’t read, but it is a picture dictionary and I name something in Polish and tell her the Angielski for it too. I try always to find some words that are the same so that they can see the similarity as well.
“M” came out of his shell today. As you read in an earlier posting, it is very typical for three year-old children to get very quiet as they take in the whole situation. Sister Francesca - who is the primary caretaker - told us that the children ask each morning when we are going to arrive and are very excited to see us. However, “M” has been the most reserved. He enjoys the games, but talks very little. Well, in the morning we did some watercolor painting books that Elaine had bought. The one that she had him working on requires very little skill. Just wet the brush and run it over the page. This brings out the color. She had gotten him a big brush. Well, he loved it.
In the afternoon, he was cuddly with her and then I was able to wrestle with him. I kept holding him like a teddy bear and he loved it. He had me chase him and we did it again and again. Then I started calling him Maly Mis (Little Teddy Bear). He loved his new nickname and we called him that for the rest of the afternoon. He proudly told the nuns what his new nickname is. I think that it will stick. For those of you playing at home it is pronounced “maui mees”. I expect you to know this by the time I get back. There will be a quiz.
It is all going so well that Sister says that the children can come soon each day to our suite at the hotel. This suite has hosted many such visits before. So, despite the funky décor, it really is a special place. The children will be with us from about 9:30 to 6:00 each day. We went to the large Wal-Mart type place tonight and bought some stuff in anticipation.
Around lunchtime, we got a chance to post some of the things that we have written and were very pleased to be able to do so. We count on the support of you all and it does us good to write these posts and get them out to you. Elaine not only read the livejournal.com menu in Polish, but was the one who read the sign in the store window saying that it had an Internet café. That is impressive.
While online, we were able to mail out a few of the photos that we took. Thanks to Marci we were able to get the photos posted. We e-mailed them to her and she took care of posting them. We already heard through the grapevine that people have viewed them.
While we are thanking people - and there are lots to thank - we wanted to thank the Freemans for taking Ross to soccer practice, Mike Harradon for taking Ross to his game on Saturday, Julie Brennan for baby-sitting him on Tuesday nights, Diane for taking him to Sunday school and most especially his Grammy Joyce for taking care of him the entire time that we are gone. This allows him to stay at his own home and keep his regular routine as much as possible. We couldn’t do this without her. We can’t thank her enough.