The accent started the second full day in England. Mike and I left the boys with Babette at the Wokingham Hilton to go on our Ikea odyssey. There is a very handy Wii game near the lobby and when we returned late in the afternoon Michael was yelling that he wanted to "thraaahsh the computah!" Wow, I thought, that was fast!
The first two weeks I heard them playing with the accent many times. They seemed to enjoy the challenge and novelty of it. I imagined that starting school might rip their American accents away, never to be heard again for two years. So far they sound like they live in Tucson. Will they? Won't they? I dunno.
What I do know is that we are tired! Late last week it hit, while grocery shopping at Tesco. I suddenly felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. The adrenaline I have been flying on for 2 months is wearing off. I notice it when I have to do something slightly to very stressful. Yesterday I drove with Babette to Costco in Reading, to get my new computah. It required me to drive on the M4 for the first time, 70 mph with "Cartrina" our "sat nav" telling us how to get there, "at roundabout take...5th exit..." When we got there I felt like I needed to take to my bed for a week, and we still had to get home. This applies to lots of other things too; we are taking the boys out of school tomorrow for a day to spend the weekend in London. When I picked up Dominic this afternoon I mentioned to his teacher that he wouldn't be there tomorrow and why. "Oh!" she said, "Well, you will need to apply for permission to take him out of school, and the Head Teacher will most likely not give it to you, it's the law."
What??
I felt like crying.
I want to be here, I want to be doing this!
When I see people in the grocery store with sure signs of being recent immigrants: looking lost and bewildered, often speaking something sounding like Chinese, I want to grab them and hug them and say, "Oh my God, you are so brave and daring!!" Can you imagine the stress of the pilgrims? People made that voyage with children, months at sea, to arrive in a place with no Ikea to speak of. Yikes. All to get away from this place. Sometimes I look at the people that are from here and wonder why their ancestors stayed, and why mine left.
So I want to visit the town of Longton and see Wales from where my mother's father's family, the Harlans, fled. Visit Normandy, where I believe I have Viking roots. Doesn't my dad seem like he was Viking material?? We want to go to the tiny town of Prezza, Italy, where there are Spacones on every corner, to Germany where we both have roots, gotta find the Kesslers, Adams, Katters and Kotters.
But first I need to ask permission to pull my boys out, and by the way, Michael fancys a girl in his class named "Heathah".
The first two weeks I heard them playing with the accent many times. They seemed to enjoy the challenge and novelty of it. I imagined that starting school might rip their American accents away, never to be heard again for two years. So far they sound like they live in Tucson. Will they? Won't they? I dunno.
What I do know is that we are tired! Late last week it hit, while grocery shopping at Tesco. I suddenly felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck. The adrenaline I have been flying on for 2 months is wearing off. I notice it when I have to do something slightly to very stressful. Yesterday I drove with Babette to Costco in Reading, to get my new computah. It required me to drive on the M4 for the first time, 70 mph with "Cartrina" our "sat nav" telling us how to get there, "at roundabout take...5th exit..." When we got there I felt like I needed to take to my bed for a week, and we still had to get home. This applies to lots of other things too; we are taking the boys out of school tomorrow for a day to spend the weekend in London. When I picked up Dominic this afternoon I mentioned to his teacher that he wouldn't be there tomorrow and why. "Oh!" she said, "Well, you will need to apply for permission to take him out of school, and the Head Teacher will most likely not give it to you, it's the law."
What??
I felt like crying.
I want to be here, I want to be doing this!
When I see people in the grocery store with sure signs of being recent immigrants: looking lost and bewildered, often speaking something sounding like Chinese, I want to grab them and hug them and say, "Oh my God, you are so brave and daring!!" Can you imagine the stress of the pilgrims? People made that voyage with children, months at sea, to arrive in a place with no Ikea to speak of. Yikes. All to get away from this place. Sometimes I look at the people that are from here and wonder why their ancestors stayed, and why mine left.
So I want to visit the town of Longton and see Wales from where my mother's father's family, the Harlans, fled. Visit Normandy, where I believe I have Viking roots. Doesn't my dad seem like he was Viking material?? We want to go to the tiny town of Prezza, Italy, where there are Spacones on every corner, to Germany where we both have roots, gotta find the Kesslers, Adams, Katters and Kotters.
But first I need to ask permission to pull my boys out, and by the way, Michael fancys a girl in his class named "Heathah".
No comments:
Post a Comment