My girls are sick with “the start of pneumonia” as the doctor described it. Luckily, we caught it early. It’s Lizzie’s first antibiotics - not bad for an almost 4 year old. Poor Rosie hasn’t been so lucky. That’s the fate of the younger sister who catches everything from her older sister. Heck, she caught her first cold from Lizzie when she was only a week old. At least I finally got to use my NoseFrida nasal aspirator.
The doctor prescribed granulated antibiotics twice a day for the next 5 days along with all kinds of syrups. Why can’t our antibiotics come in a syrup? My girls love to take syrups. It started after one very convincing episode of Miś Uszatek where he ate too many wisienki and had a stomachache. They love syrups, so much so, that I had to buy some vitamin syrup just to humor them. Whoever thought granulated antibiotics were a good idea was seriously misguided. We can’t get Rosie to down them. Not that she doesn’t try, but the granules do not dissolve, and she chokes on them, poor thing.
The girls have already been ill for about a week and it looks like it’ll be still another week. We’ve totally got cabin fever. What’s a mom to do? And my vampire books have not come in at Empik yet, grrrrrr.
Luckily, I fit in a visit with my friend and her little son last Friday before illness struck our home. Well, actually on the day illness struck - we had to go and pick up Lizzie from Pre-school because she got sick. As usual, my friend looked great, her son looked adorable and her apartment looked impeccably clean. We had a nice chat and I tried to remember what it was like to go out into the world and talk with people. You know, to just talk with them because you like them, and they are interesting, and it’s not your job to listen carefully for any grammar mistakes. Not that I do not have interesting students that I would not talk with otherwise, but it is a completely different mindset to have a freely flowing conversation with a friend than to have a “conversation” lesson with a student.
In addition to admiring my friend, her son and her clean apartment, I also admired her book shelves. Well, not so much the shelves (which are nice and take up the expanse of one wall) but the books on them. She and her husband have an impressive collection of books on a huge array of topics. I envy them that. If you check out our book shelves (well, shelf), you’ll find “The Doll” by Prus, Dostoevky’s “The Idiot”, Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” next to Playboy’s “Big, Little Book of Party Jokes”, “Microcosm” by Norman Davies, “Siomga” by Sofija Andruchowycz, “The Complete Book of Herbs”, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, three IKEA 2010 catalogs and about 200 teaching English books. The girls have their own books in their bedroom. I’d like to add some cook books to my sad, little collection and maybe something about gardening. I can put them next to my “Knitting and Crocheting for Beginners” which is getting quite lonely as nobody ever picks it up.
What’s on your book shelf?
12 comments:
Are you now going euurrghhh that's disgusting! Well wait until you hear the noise it makes when you're sucking bogies out and start seeing snotty bits going up the tube!! Did you hear about the battery powered ones? I LOVE CLEANOZ ASPIRATOR. I bought this product for my daughter who has had horrible time breathing when she gets sick. This product worked perfectly and was able to alleviate my daughters struggling to breathe. All I did was drop a few drops of Cleanoz saline preservative free in her nose to loosen up the snot, and then I used the Cleanoz. It was great. I had to use it a couple more times that day to help her keep breathing well. And the best part was that at the end of the day, I threw away the nozzle. I didn’t have to clean anything! The next day she was still a little congested and so I used a new nozzle piece, and it worked great again. She actually likes it now when I use the Cleanoz. She HATED the bulb syringe and I don’t want to use a disgusting mouth suction device…..
Hmmm, advertisement??
So, I spend the whole day reading and finally came to the end:) Love your blog!!! Is very interesting to read about your expiriences knowing that I went trough the same but "the other way":)) I already linked you on my blog, just to make sure, I have it handy.
I think, I should write more about my live from the beginning in US. It was less dramatic, because my husband (at the time) was here for one year, but I didn't speak a word of english:) Lots of fun!!
Thanks so much for reading. I'm glad that you like it and that you spent a very productive day today.
I also read your blog to see how you are surviving life in my cruel, cruel country ;)and also to read something in Polish.
You should definitely write about some strange or funny things from when you first moved to the USA. One of my friends said that when she first went to the States she was sure that all the toilets were broken because they had so much water in them (compared to Poland). Hee, hee :)
Looks to me like the anonymous comment is spam? Trying to disguise it as a comment...looks like advertisement. love your blog!
Chris, I love your country! No, US is my country which I love and can't imagine to live back in Poland. It's been 25 years and I don't remember lots of things, but I will try to write some. I honestly think I am more American then Polish. And as your husband will say "I do live in America". But I would like to get your permission to introduce your blog to my readers, I think I'll write a little note about your blog, as I did about my clients blog. Of course if you let me do it:)
Hi, Chris. Thanks for dropping by and leaving your comments. I returned the visit to find to my amazement that we share a profession and a number of children at home ;)My girls are ALWAYS ill, there's no end to it. Sometimes I find it very hard to believe they'll ever grow out of it. By the way, I started learning how to sew just a few months ago and found out it is really doable - no magic needed, truly, so maybe you should give it a go? After all, you've already got a book on knitting and crocheting, and that's quite close to sewing. ;)
Well, I'll visit your blog from time to time to read that perfect native speaker's English. I like the combination of beautiful English and Polish setting. Cheers. :)
Carol- That's what I thought too. When I wrote the post about "What stinks" I got an ad about some clothes washer freshener??? Thanks for reading!
Stardust-I've been knocking around the idea in my head about Polish-ness and American-ess. What makes me American? I was born and raised there but I have had a lot of major life experiences here in Poland. I have more and more in common with my friends here and less and less in common with my friends there. Ho hum. Of course you have my permission to introduce my blog to your readers. I would be most honored, blush, blush.
Jaghoda- That's cool that we have so much in common. I was looking for cooking and sewing blogs with the key word English and that's how I found you.
Me and sewing. I think my husband might just divorce me. And as for knitting...I only have the book, no yarn and no needles. The book is right next to another unopened book entitled "Chce mówić po polsku". Shall I put it under my pillow and hope for learning via osmosis?
Thanks for reading and keep sewing!!
Chris, I know is hard to read all the posts in my blog, but if I can recomend one for you, it is this http://bezodwrotu.blogspot.com/2009/09/cwierc-wieku.html
If you read this, you'll know what and how I got where I am now. I like to think that you and I have a very similar expieriences:) just on the other side of world. I made a choice and I choose USA to be my country, at the same time I do have polish roots. Sometimes I feel like my whole life I have to defend America against Polish people and Poland against Americans:))) Finding the excusess and trying to justify the obvious to the other side.
Is not easy to be an emigrant, but I like to think that I made the best of it:)
Now, thanks for your permission and I am going to write about your blog.
Hello,
Such an interesting blog it is. Thanks to Stardust (which I subscribe) I had an opportunity to read this.
I live in the States for 8 years. I recently got the US citizenship and I plan to spend some time back in Poland. I prefer to live in the US but the economy forces me to go.
Don't stop and write more about how you feel in Poland. It is a lot of fun for me ;)
PAS
slomski.us
Stardust-I will definitely read it as soon as I wash the kasza manna out of my hair and the baby snot off my shoulder :)
Przemo-Welcome to my blog and welcome (soon) back to Poland. Have fun!
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