Little Man Mondays

In case you haven't noticed, I've scrapped Weigh-In Wednesdays. #1: Because I've sorta reached my goal, hovering between 69ish and 70ish with weekly exercise and #2: Because I'm tired of focusing so much on my pant size. But that said, I may resurrect it one day ;-).

So to replace it, I'm launching Little Man Mondays! Just a way for me to more actively journal my four year-old's growth, my parenting, etc so I can look back in years to come. Wish I woulda thought about this sooner but since I'm not-so-good at the keeping his Baby Book up-to-date, this will be my little place.

He wanted to go to the library this weekend, so off we trotted to Literary Land, where the basement is reserved as a NO QUIET zone complete with toys, costumes, book reading nooks, tears, breastfeeding, snot, screaming and well, you get the picture.

Some little boys are into cars. Others into dolls. Mine LOVES animals. The front of the librarian's desk is actually a whole bunch of drawers. The minute we arrive, he's yanking them open to discover where the plastic animals (of which he has zillions at home already) are hiding. It always turns into a lesson of sharing as he hoardes them and polices their use when unfortunate toddlers come bounding around in hopes of snagging one or two.

 "Mommy, what do anteaters do?" I can't count the number of Google searches I've done trying to figure out what X animal eats, where it lives and sometimes, what it looks like. We left armed with enough animal ammunition for a couple of weeks.

Lately I've noticed little man is "playing in Swedish". And to my surprise, when I joined in the other day, he didn't stop abruptly and scold me for speaking in his language. So we played along, me the Swedish camel, him the Swedish crocodile. He's the best teacher really. But that's really where it ends. And that's fine by me.

His English skills however, compared to native English speakers his age, are behind and understandably so. He has difficulty expressing himself fully in English and translating from his school environment to his home environment. When I ask him about his day, he finds it hard to respond. The words are all there but they're in Swedish. Though we had a little breakthrough the other day. As we were driving home, he said in a low voice, filled with pride, in Swenglish, "I bakad bröd today." Translation: I baked bread today. I think he was proud of both what he had done and that he was able to tell me. I was so excited for him on both counts.

They have a program in Sweden called "Home Speak" where he can meet once/week with other English-speaking children for a few hours of English play. I will be signing him up so am hoping this will help him.

I signed him up for a "sports academy" here in Uppsala. It sounded perfect: a club that introduces young children to a variety of sporting activities that meets once/week for an hour. He doesn't like it. Maybe it's because I signed him up for Mondays. After a relaxing weekend, Monday is the first day back to a full day at school and he's likely pretty tired to be rushed through supper and out the door for 6pm. Maybe it's because the kids spend more time standing around than actually doing anything. Maybe it's because the class is too big with only two "leaders". Maybe it's because the leaders spend most of their time shushing the kids. Maybe he's too young. It seems like  waste of 798 SEK but I will drag him there again tonight and if he wants to leave, I'll take him home without a fuss.

Well off to pick up the little man soon and tell him we're headed to sports class tonight. Poor kid :-(.