8.20.2003

Mi Cerebro Es Como Un Tamiz

This eejit's fourth round of Spanish I began tonight! This time I swear I will pay attention to where the accents go and why.

Spanish I four times, you say? Well:

Round I (college, 1990): Took Espanol I because I thought I was going to have a solely Spanish-speaking mother-in-law. Halfway through the quarter I decided that no, in fact, I was not going to spend my life chained to that woman or her son, changed the grade to Pass/Not Pass, and stopped paying attention. Scraped by with a P. Retained phrase: "Tengo un gato muerto."

Round II (community college, 1996): Plugged along nicely until a pesky ectopic pregnancy slapped me with emergency surgery and then bed rest for two weeks. I was too hazily happy to remember to call in my excuses to El Profesor (go Vicodin go!). My butt got dropped from the class automatically.

Round III (extension course, 2000): Paid enough attention to go at real-world conversations like a monkey with a machete. Can now converse with Spanish-speaking individuals, but they spend the entire exchange wincing, or pleading "En Ingles, por favor." Ignored those accent rules again, so start relying on an online translator for written communications. Horrible misunderstandings result.

Round IV (community college one more time, 2003): Iz is going to start bilingual kindergarten in one year, so this is my last chance. Now or never. Otherwise our girl will be muttering "tonto" at me under her breath within three months of starting la escuela.

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Some good Leelo news today! Definitely some cognitive leaps:

-If I start to sing, he yells "No!" at me. Eventually it becomes a game, with him yelling/laughing at me by note #3. This is some serious interaction from our boy, and totally self-initiated--this behavior was neither modeled nor prompted. He'd just had enough of his tone-deaf mom and her show tunes, and realized that it was in his power to make the pain stop.

-The refried beans I was supposed to make last week finally happened tonight. I tried to get him to eat them: "Look, Leelo! Mmm, beans! Yummy, yummy beans!" He looked me straight in the eye and said "No beans. Bye-bye, beans. Beans are all done." Yes, I know those are called beans; no, I'm not going to eat them no matter how much you prance about; get those things out of my face! Again, spontaneous language, and most importantly throwing back in my face a word I was in the process of introducing to him.

Tiny, teeny, glimmers of hope! I'll take them all!

He's had serious liquid stench bottom, though. Dr. Prattle thinks he might be reacting to the NutriBiotic grapefruit seed extract part of the anti-yeast program, so we'll take him off that and see what happens. Tomorrow is his last day of Diflucan anti-yeast medication. That means by Friday he'll only be on Lactobaccilus, Nystatin, and DGST powder. Any reduction in the complexity of his routine is good.

We are off to the dreamy, happy, agri-hippie, nuclear-free zone that is Sebastopol. Back in four days.

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