good morning!

Bonjour! I thought I would post since I have a little time, and not much to do - Mathilde is at school, and Malko is playing with the neighbor. It is such a great neighborhood here; there are so many children and not much traffic. Everyone is friendly, and so helpful. Anyway, I think I'll talk about the children a little bit.

Mathilde is wonderful. She is like a little mother to Malko, and is constantly taking care of him, helping him, and babying him. She loves him so much and loves to include him. She loves me a lot, too, and is sure to tell me everyday. It's so hard because I desperately want to communicate with her, but I am slowly but surely progressing with my French, so hopefully someday soon... She is full of personality, a little bit of a spit-fire (but very obedient), and is quite a talented musician. She has amazing tonal memory - anything she hears, she repeats, right on pitch. She and Malko are taking a music class this year with a popular local children's musician, Sonia Grimm. But while being a musician, she is also terrified of failure. But she's recently overcome a lot in her young life, and she is gaining quite a bit of confidence. At dinner last night, Ivana told me quite a bit about her, and she had a lot of infections and medical problems when she was younger. But now she is healthy and strong.

Malko is funny. The best word I can use to describe him is "ham". Seriously, what a little performer. He is so funny. He loves to talk, sing, capture everyone's attention, and speaks to strangers like it's nothing. He loves to play alone, and with Mathilde. He still is quite reserved around me, but it's slowly wearing off. Especially since yesterday, he was pretending his stuffed bunny was going down a ski slope, so I made some crashing noises when he hit the bottom. He loved it. He thought it was the funniest thing. He definitely warmed up to me a little after that. He's an odd little boy, and I don't know how to play with him, because he loves barbies, and purses, and pink, and yesterday he asked Ivana if he could wear make-up like her. Not trying to judge or anything, but I'm not used to little boys like this... Cole, the 4th grade boy I worked with last year, was obsessed with being "a man", and having a mustache and a gun, and being a pirate, and punching bad guys. Not really Malko's style. Eh. If he wasn't scared of the dark I'd make him watch Lord of the Rings and tell him to go kill Orcs. I think it might be a little scary for an almost 4 year old who spends his time with Barbie and Ratatouille.

I was going to post on Yvoire, France, but maybe later today... Mathilde only has a half-day of school today, being the first day and all, and I need to go pick her up soon, and make lunch. Malko starts school next week, and when I get settled into the real routine, I think I will feel finally settled.

Au revoir!