Christmas?!

[ailbhe]

Oooookay. The gifts are mostly bought, four of them are even wrapped, the cards are mostly bought and many of the envelopes are addressed (but no cards written yet!), and we have... I am almost but not quite entirely unashamed of this... decorations up.

"Bawboo NEA!" was too cute to resist, so up they went - a row of baubles at the top of the curtains, and a row over the chimneybreast in the library, over the painting which hangs over the... radiator. We really need an open fire in this room. It's some kind of cosiness crime not to have one.

I want to know what's happened! It's hardly half-past-Samhain (Gamhna, gamhna, bainne na Samhna, thugamar fein an Samhna linn) and I've gone all Christmassy.

Perhaps it's the horrible, horrible flu we've had, with coughs and sore throats and rotten sinuses and violent stomachs. Linnea was in so much pain yesterday she wouldn't swallow her medicine to make her throat better. This evening she was having so much trouble breathing I sat on her and forced her to hold her head still while I syringed it into her cheek. It was horrible. She enjoys having Vicks rubbed onto her chest but inhalants just weren't cutting it; she was choking on snot. Very upsetting.

But when I carry her into the library and turn on the lights, she cries "Bawboo!" with glee and points at them, glittering and round and red on the wall. And after her medicine she could breathe enough to have milk.

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

What's your first language - Irish or English? Are you bilingual?

I vaguely recall something which indicates that the answers are "Irish" and "yes", respectively, but wasn't sure.

[ailbhe]

English and yes. I didn't learn irish until I was 3, but all my schooling was in Irish, so a lot of my socialising was too. My parents had very little Irish really, so couldn't use it habitually at home.

[pne.livejournal.com]

But by now you feel about equally comfortable in either language?

I find that sort of thing very good. (That is, I think bilingualism(?) is a worthy goal for its own sake, and if either language actually confers a tangible advantage, then so much the better!)

What language(s) do you speak with Linnea? Swedish? English? Irish?

[ailbhe]

I haven't spoken Irish on a daily basis since I was 17 so no, I am not as comfortable in it as I am in English right now. It would take me a couple of hours to get that far I think.

We speak to Linnea in English, unless reciting specific nursery rhymes, singing specific songs, or making particular remarks. It's unlikely she'll end up monolingual, really, though she may not be fluently bilingual as young as I was. Rob is not bilingual though he does speak enough Swedish to get by; his mother was told not to speak Swedish to him as a baby as it would slow his development. He learned his Swedish from his grandparents.