Christmas Vacation

After my last message, I decided to push myself a little bit and actually do something besides relaxing. A few days ago I bought cream cheese and peppermint extract, and yesterday I made peppermint cheesecake brownies. They are very tasty indeed and I have to keep myself from eating too many of them!

Yesterday I also got the chance to practice my Spanish. My mother works with deaf and hard-of-hearing children, and yesterday she went on a home visit to one of their houses. Little Fani's parents don't speak much English, which makes for an interesting problem for her and my mother. At school and with my mother, her speech therapist, Fani speaks English, but at home she is surrounded by Spanish. Since she couldn't hear until age four, when she had an operation and received hearing aids, she is already behind other children in language development. My mother thinks that, added to this delay, she is also experiencing language confusion by learning three languages at once (English, Spanish, and American Sign Language). But when I met her yesterday, she didn't seem to be doing so poorly! She could say "Where is..." and "Donde esta...", and play little listening-comprehension games. It really made me think about how lucky I was. Even if I can't always pronounce French correctly, I can hear the difference between the words. Little Fani has problems hearing the difference between "kite" and "nine."

I was embarrassed to hear how my Spanish has declined since learning French. I couldn't remember simple words if they weren't similar to French--I even forgot how to say "Christmas" which everyone knows if they listen to Feliz Navidad! But I think that Fani's mother was happy that someone could explain even a very little bit to her.

Today we are headed into town to go to a store called "Chocolatier." They are giving out free homemade chocolates and giving a discount on prices! We might also play a little bit of Scrabble, since today is my mother's last day at work and can stay up a little bit later. Now I think I might go get a brownie...