Exciting news: Gustav said "working" today!!! He had misunderstood the question that I asked him, but he used the word in the right context. He was upstairs in his room playing with his new fire station while Esther was downstairs baking cookies. He was calling for her to come help him, but she couldn't, so I went in to see what was wrong. He had the same look on his face that he gets when something isn't working right, so I asked him, "Is there something that's not working?" He thought I was explaining why I was there and not Esther, so his reply was, "Nein, Mama ist nicht working! Sie muss heute nicht arbeiten!" He used both the German and the English word for working, so clearly he knows what it means. I told Esther and Olaf about it tonight at dinner, and they were really excited. Esther complimented Gustav on how much English he's learning, then asked him what the English words for ja and nein were, and he correctly said yes and no. He couldn't remember the word for Auto, but he did ask what the word for Reifen (tires) was. He's definitely starting to take more of an interest in learning now, as opposed to before when he used to just yell "Nein!" and try to correct me, or just ignore me. I've also been able to get Pauline to say apple and horse, though only when I ask her to repeat after me. She's still learning how to say things in German, so I don't expect her to start spewing English at me. But they're both making progress, and I
still haven't been here for a full 2 months. Eshter told me tonight that they're starting to wonder about how hard it's going to be for the kids when I leave. They didn't have that problem with the last au pair, but the kids have already sort of latched on to me.
I also made a painting today. I was planning on doing a lot of nothing toda
y to just rest up and try to get rid of this freaking cold. Esther was going to a painting class with Britta from across the street and Stephanie from a few doors down (Big Jonathan's mom) and a few other women, but one of them wasn't going to make it because she's sick and they asked me to go along instead. It wasn't really a class, it was more like a bunch of people who feel like being artsy getting together in some woman's paint studio/garage and attempting to paint. Most of us had absolutely no idea what we wanted to paint when we got there, so we had to look through a bunch of books and pictures that the woman (her name was Gabi) had to give people ideas. I'm not too big on abstract art, and anything involving people is too complicated, so I chose a picture of cala lilies. It seemed simple enough, and it matches a lot of my things. At first they were worried that I wasn't going to be able to finish within the 3 hours because it was a little difficult/time consuming, but I finished just in time. It's not my favorite painting (and I've only ever done 3) but it's not bad. Now I have to finish the picture of Brauweiler that I started so that it doesn't sit unfinished in the corner of my room.
y to just rest up and try to get rid of this freaking cold. Esther was going to a painting class with Britta from across the street and Stephanie from a few doors down (Big Jonathan's mom) and a few other women, but one of them wasn't going to make it because she's sick and they asked me to go along instead. It wasn't really a class, it was more like a bunch of people who feel like being artsy getting together in some woman's paint studio/garage and attempting to paint. Most of us had absolutely no idea what we wanted to paint when we got there, so we had to look through a bunch of books and pictures that the woman (her name was Gabi) had to give people ideas. I'm not too big on abstract art, and anything involving people is too complicated, so I chose a picture of cala lilies. It seemed simple enough, and it matches a lot of my things. At first they were worried that I wasn't going to be able to finish within the 3 hours because it was a little difficult/time consuming, but I finished just in time. It's not my favorite painting (and I've only ever done 3) but it's not bad. Now I have to finish the picture of Brauweiler that I started so that it doesn't sit unfinished in the corner of my room.
