#34: Bilingualism and Italian Wiring
Ciao Nonni!
We had Raffy's parent teacher interview at her school this week. Honestly I think David and I were a bit apprehensive about it, as she's occasionally been quite a handful at home recently. We need not have feared though. We should have known she has been saving all her attitude for us, and at school she is as sweet as can be!
Both her teachers (she has an Italian and an English teacher) were very pleased with her progress. Her Italian, in particular, has improved significantly and she is now speaking confidently. One out of the four of us is better than none, I guess!
Speaking of speaking, I had a check up with the paediatrician last week for Leo. He is progressing well in almost everything - except for language. He is a man of (very) few words! The conversation I had with the doctor was incredibly interesting though, and has really made me rethink how we approach language with the children.
She was adamant that the greatest gift we could give our two children was perfect bilingualism. That they would learn Italian in their school and daily life, and English at home from us. And if we kept the distinction between the two, they would grow up speaking both languages without foreign accents (if you don't count Australian English as an accent).
Life in our new apartment is endlessly entertaining. The other night we made the mistake of trying to use our oven at the same time as the lights, and we managed to blow the main fuse. Italian wiring is truly insane.
I tried in vain to locate the tripped fuse with no luck. In the end I had to knock on the door of Signora Maria downstairs and apologetically ask for her help. Luckily she was up for the challenge and quickly rallied everyone in the building to help us search for the fuse. We had Signora Maria, her husband, and our two neighbours across the hall all peering with flashlights into every possible nook and cranny.
The primary concern held by all was that if we didn't fix the electricity, then there wouldn't be any heating for the bambini. Obviously that was unthinkable. I chose not to mention at that point that we and the bambini sleep in unheated rooms every night!
After a good 20 minutes of searching, Signora Maria called the previous tenant of our flat. He directed us to what I can only describe as a secret additional fuse, that was hidden behind a small door in a cupboard in the entranceway. The door was labelled with the name of the family who live diagonally below us. For this reason, it was the only one we hadn't tried. Lo and behold, it worked!
My other favourite moment so far happened earlier today. I had hung our washing on our drying rack, and positioned it in the sun in the courtyard out the front of the apartment building. Italians very rarely own clothes dryers, so it is very normal to walk down a street and see clothes drying in the most random of places in search of direct sunlight.
When I hang clothes on the rack, I don't use pegs. In fact, I don't even own any. And I'm yet to lose any items to an errant gust of wind. Today though, when I came out in the afternoon to retrieve the dry clothes, I found that someone else had put their pegs on our clothes!
Gorgeous Nonna Maria was so concerned about the risk of us losing one of Leo's tiny socks that she'd taken it upon herself to secure them. She is truly magical, and definitely also thinks we are completely hopeless!
Lots of love and hugs as always.
Kate
