From Russia with Love

Love the Russian way.

Since the beginning of this year I have learned with my children how to say ‘I love you’ in several different languages. This was the first time we had tried a language where the written version included symbols/letters I had no idea how to pronounce. We watched a you tube video so we could hear the sounds in each word.  I enjoyed trying to perfect the Russian way of expressing love.

The Russian language fills each syllable with richness and heartfelt meaning. It’s almost as if I can hear Sean Connery speaking them himself to Tatiana Romanova. Er, come to think of it I don’t think any Bond ever whispered those words to his love interest.

Я тебя люблю.

pronounced yah tee-BYAH lyoo-BLYOO

I love you.

From Australia with love.

Image from: here.

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Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Only space for a little love today.

Today I had only a little space reserved for love.

The parking lot in my heart was full.

My head was at work today while my heart was full of love for my boys. That only left a little for all the mini peeps. My heart kept leaping back to the fact that my preschooler will officially be in Preschool next year.

You see today I stepped out of my Loading Zone where I happily go about delivering packages of learning. When I relief teach (sub) I normally teach primary school aged kids (5-13  here is Australia). Today, for the first time in 19 years I taught Kindergarten kids.

Wow! What a jaw-dropping, eye-opening experience. It was not dissimilar to having 30 clones of my little guy. The only differences were some were wearing frilly stuff and I didn’t have to wipe one single bum.

Today I got paid what most would consider a tidy sum to push swings, paint, sing songs, amuse, read, do puzzles and play. Hey, isn’t that what I do at home every other day for a big fat zero? So why did today go so slow and all the days at home whiz by like a police car chase scene? Today was a No Standing Zone exactly the same as any other.

I have no clue. I’m still trying to work out if it’s the best or worst part that I get to do it all again tomorrow and Thursday.

So this post resembles a beat-up old Vee-Dub or the Mini that may not be able to fit everything in that I’d like to.

I hope the brakes are fixed by tomorrow night though because it’d be nice to be able to stop.

Please note the RESERVED signs where only my boys are allowed to park.

Image from: here.

I Love You in French

French was on the language menu for my eldest today.

It was quite hot so we spent the better part of it inside. We did numerous jobs interspersed with fun activities. My daily post is always at the back of my mind and I was contemplating what to write today when I decided that my son and I could use the laptop for something other than blogging or playing games.

I thought it might be interesting to learn ‘I love you’ in another language. I chose French for obvious reasons-it’s the language of love and Paris is supposed to be one of the most love-filled cities in the world. We’ve already covered German so I thought we wouldn’t travel too far from there.

We looked at where France is on an interactive globe we have here at home. We listened to the pronunciation and wrote it down once we’d looked it up on Google. We practised drawing heart shapes and then coloured them in. We used it in conversation throughout the day instead of our customary ‘I love you’s’.

It was fairly basic stuff but he really seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed it too-connecting with my No. 1 today and learning something together.

Un grand ‘baiser français de air sur les deux joues de moi à vous (A big French ‘mwah’ air kiss on both cheeks from me to you).

Je T’aime my beautiful boy.

Image from: here.

I Love You – No Words

Auslan sign ‘I Love You’

Words cannot express the love I feel for my children. They remind me daily of how lucky I am and how precious they are.These holidays I have already taught my 5 y.o. to say ‘I love you’ in German. Today I decided to learn with my son how to say ‘I love you’ in sign language.

I love those lightbulb moments and the ‘ah-ha’ as their sponge soaks up some new information. It’s magical to see that twinkle in their eyes when they realise how clever they are. I love learning with my kids.

American sign for love (informal)

Photos from: here and here.

I Love You In German

Today I taught my eldest to say ‘I Love You’ in German.

He started learning German this year at school and knows numbers, colours and some songs in German already. I thought it would be great if he could return to school and show his German teacher that he has learnt something new over the school holidays.

I also thought that because he hears the words ‘I love you’ so frequently it might make a nice change to be able to say it so it means the same but sounds different. After he learnt how to say it he asked how it was spelt so that he could write it down. After that we made a poster together that he wants to take to school to show his teacher when he goes back.

I really enjoyed this simple but fun activity that we did together. Now we can say ‘I love you’ to each other in a new way. I might teach him how to say ‘I love you’ in some other languages and that way we can learn some new things together.