3-year old sibling rivalry

"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...
In y8cub.7501$iS6.1427@fed1read04,
Circe wrote:
*Well, I *have* a wife. Actually, I have a *new* wife--my former wife (aka
au
*pair) left for New York this morning, whence she'll fly back home to
South
*Africa. My new wife, Judy, started work last week with Ninian showing her
*the ropes. (That was sort of interesting, since Judy's English is a bit
*weak--she speaks mainly Spanish--and Ninian has no Spanish at all, but it
*turned out fine.) Anyway, I don't know what I'd do without my serial
wives
*g!

Hee hee. I never thought of the girls in quite those terms before! I'm
curious, did you know about Judy's language difficulties before she showed
up?? Or had she "hidden" them from you?

Oh, I knew! She's not an au pair; she's our gardener's wife and has stepped
in to take on the nanny duties as a live-out. If it had been completely up
to me, I would have gotten another au pair, no two ways about it. But my
husband was really feeling the need to have the house back to "just us" (I
joke that he wants to be able to walk around naked whenever he feels like
it, but the truth is that he is a more reserved person generally than I am
and having a live-in crosses his privacy boundary more than he likes).

I don't have a problem with the fact that she speaks mostly Spanish. I have
*some* Spanish and she has *some* English (both of us understand the other
language better than we speak it), so it's not like we can't communicate at
all. It's a little tougher for the kids right now, I think, since they don't
speak any Spanish, but I view this as a really wonderful opportunity for
them to start learning some Spanish--it's certainly not going to get any
easier as they get older and given their ethnicity (my husband's family
hails from Mexico two generations back) and where we live (Southern
California), it's really to their advantage to learn. It's also a great
opportunity for Judy to improve her English. In addition, she has a 2y7m son
whom she brings with her, so he will be learning a lot of English from my
kids before reaching school age that he wouldn't otherwise have a chance to
learn.

Good luck with Judy and the transition, though ,

Thanks. So far, so good. Vernon's taking to her remarkably well. She was a
little apologetic yesterday because he kept coming to me, but I told her
since she's new, I really expect *all* of the kids to bother me a bit more
than usual for a while. Today, though, the kids have hardly been down here
at all!

and here's hoping Ninian has a safe trip.

Yes. I look forward to hearing from her when she gets back. I told her about
your Colleen and specifically admonished her to be extra careful when she
gets home!
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [20mo] mom)

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
"Rejuvinate your skin." -- Hydroderm ad

Daddy: You're up with the chickens this morning.
Aurora: No, I'm up with my dolls!

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
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fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...

Back when we were still
interviewing people from other countries like Czech Republic or whatever,
these girls would pretend to speak English but you'd catch them by asking
detailed questions that their canned answers didn't make sense for... it
was very annoying.

Well, some girls even from the Czech Republic do speak decent English
(knowing one pretty well). By the way, isn't Circe's DH Hispanic? If so, I'd
think of it as an excellent way to expose kids to Spanish early on. They
will be happy to know it later, and most likely would be even if her DH is
not Hispanic.
My nanny is Czech, btw, and I wanted it that way. It helps G to learn both
languages by being exposed to them from birth. DD still speaks mostly
English, but has a number of Czech words and understands everything you say
to her in Czech, even if she mostly replies in English.
My nanny does speak very good English as well which I wanted as I did not
want her and G to be isolated. The opposite happened, btw, she's one of the
most outgoing people I've ever met, and knows far more people in the
neighborhood than I do. I also really like having someone to speak Czech to
myself.

Alena

Ericka Kammerer wrote:
I'd just pick
up the baby and leave, cooing over the baby and lavishing
her with concern and attention without a single backwards
glance at Erika.

Sure, she probably *does* like Lindsay very much. This
isn't about liking or disliking Lindsay.

I want to give a warning about how LINDSEY will respond to this. I tended
to react the way Ericka K. says to: lavishing attention on the baby so the
six year old would know his behavior wasn't appropriate. But guess
what: the baby is a person, too! And he quickly caught on to how much
loving and cooing he could get if he picked a fight with his brother!

Now, four years later, part of the dynamic I can't stop is that the four
year old yelps, screams, cries dramatically, etc just to get his older
brother in trouble. And this makes the older brother DISLIKE the younger
brother - with good cause!

I've seen the four year old roll on the floor with the 80 pound dog, I've
seen the four year old haul off and punch his 10 year old brother... I'm
starting to think that the four year old is the most aggressive one in the
family. Just be careful that you don't turn Lindsey into a monster!

Wendy

Wendy wrote:

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

I'd just pick
up the baby and leave, cooing over the baby and lavishing
her with concern and attention without a single backwards
glance at Erika.

Sure, she probably *does* like Lindsay very much. This
isn't about liking or disliking Lindsay.

I want to give a warning about how LINDSEY will respond to this. I tended
to react the way Ericka K. says to: lavishing attention on the baby so the
six year old would know his behavior wasn't appropriate. But guess
what: the baby is a person, too! And he quickly caught on to how much
loving and cooing he could get if he picked a fight with his brother!


I think this is a very legitimate concern, though
not at the age of the OP's baby, who's a bit young to be
picking fights ;-) I've learned well to reserve judgement
with older kids unless I've seen the *WHOLE* process!

Best wishes,
Ericka

In ,
city girl wrote:

*
*"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...
*
* Back when we were still
* interviewing people from other countries like Czech Republic or whatever,
* these girls would pretend to speak English but you'd catch them by asking
* detailed questions that their canned answers didn't make sense for... it
* was very annoying.
*
*Well, some girls even from the Czech Republic do speak decent English
*(knowing one pretty well).

Yes, of course that is true. I apologize profusely if my offhanded comment
was offensive to anyone of Czech descent (or anyone at all for that
matter). The fact remains that the specific pool of au pair applicants
from the Czech Republic with whom I spoke personally did NOT have a good
command of the English language, and I just wasn't up to the task of
taking on an employee/family-member-type person without very good English
speaking skills. This is a personal problem of mine. I have difficulty
understanding very heavily accented speech, and I also had a very high
level of concern about leaving a three month old (at the time) with
someone I couldn't be perfectly certain understood all of my instructions.

*By the way, isn't Circe's DH Hispanic? If so, I'd
*think of it as an excellent way to expose kids to Spanish early on. They
*will be happy to know it later, and most likely would be even if her DH is
*not Hispanic.

I agree that it is an excellent way to expose kids to a foreign language.
I have asked all of our au pairs who spoke a foreign language to read and
sing and sometimes talk to the kids in their language. Jacob can sing
"itsy bitsy spider" in Finnish, and say a few Swedish poems. He used to
babble in Afrikaans but has of course forgotton that. My ILs sometimes
sing and read to him in Hebrew but for some reason Jacob doesn't really
like Hebrew. He also doesn't like Spanish for some reason - when our
Colombian cleaning lady talks to him in Spanish, he says "I don't like
Spanish," which drives me absolutely nuts of course, not only because hey,
it's not polite to say that, but because it's so darned irrational!

*My nanny is Czech, btw, and I wanted it that way. It helps G to learn both
*languages by being exposed to them from birth. DD still speaks mostly
*English, but has a number of Czech words and understands everything you say
*to her in Czech, even if she mostly replies in English.
*My nanny does speak very good English as well which I wanted as I did not
*want her and G to be isolated. The opposite happened, btw, she's one of the
*most outgoing people I've ever met, and knows far more people in the
*neighborhood than I do. I also really like having someone to speak Czech to
*myself.

That sounds like a great arrangement. I would really have absolutely no
problem hiring someone who spoke Czech AND English. I just didn't want to
hire someone who had extremely limited English, and for whatever reason,
this agency's Czech applicants (I spoke with about five of them) had very
limited English, and it just became a simpler and more streamlined process
when I asked them to limit our applicant pool to countries like Sweden,
Norway, South Africa, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, etc where people
generally grow up learning English and using it on a daily basis.

Again, I'm really sorry if my comment came off as offensive to you.

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...

That sounds like a great arrangement. I would really have absolutely no
problem hiring someone who spoke Czech AND English. I just didn't want to
hire someone who had extremely limited English, and for whatever reason,
this agency's Czech applicants (I spoke with about five of them) had very
limited English, and it just became a simpler and more streamlined process
when I asked them to limit our applicant pool to countries like Sweden,
Norway, South Africa, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, etc where people
generally grow up learning English and using it on a daily basis.

Again, I'm really sorry if my comment came off as offensive to you.

No, I was not offended at all. It just bugs me a little that the few times
my home country is mentioned here in the US, the context is almost always
negative.
But I totally understand that you want someone speaking good English, I do
as well. And hey, sounds like your kids get exposed to more languages than
mine (G does also get some Spanish from the doormen and porters on daily
basis, but not much).

Alena

In ,
city girl wrote:

*
*"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...
*
* Again, I'm really sorry if my comment came off as offensive to you.
*
*No, I was not offended at all. It just bugs me a little that the few times
*my home country is mentioned here in the US, the context is almost always
*negative.



Well, FWIW, my friend Mike went to the Czech Republic (um, I am not
sure if it was in fact the Czech Republic then! It was probably
around 1990, I think IIRC this was BEFORE it stopped being
Czechoslovakia??) while we were in college. He snuck across a border or
something, I don't remember the whole story, he'd had his passport stolen
on a train, it was a very convoluted thing. But ANYWAY, he went there, and
had a FABULOUS time. He loved the people, he loved the food, he couldn't
stop raving about it.

So, there is a positive statement about your country!



*But I totally understand that you want someone speaking good English, I do
*as well. And hey, sounds like your kids get exposed to more languages than
*mine (G does also get some Spanish from the doormen and porters on daily
*basis, but not much).

Well, it's not like a contest or anything

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large