Challenges

Well, it seems I may have jinxed myself in that last post. Maya decided last night would be a great night to be awake WAY more than usual. Starting at midnight and lasting until 5:30am, she would be awake in her crib for a bit, babbling to herself, then get fussy, then give us big smiles when we'd go in to see her. And after convincing her to take the paci, she'd promptly roll onto her side and spit it out. She did get SOME sleep in there, but it wasn't a whole lot... and when she was still awake at 5am, I tried putting her in her carseat. The thinking was that maybe she'd sleep better there because she couldn't roll over. Wrong! She just wanted to look at me and smile, as I sat on the floor half delirious from the sleep deprivation. Gus' alarm went off at 5:30, and I just decided to bring her into our room and let her hang out with me as I got dressed and whatnot. It was still too early for me to be up, but I figured I might as well. I got partway through straightening my hair when I looked over to see her conked out in the carseat. I ended up having to actually wake her up at 6:30 to feed her before I left! Aack! I just hope tonight is better!

At work, I encountered another challenge. For the first time ever, I have a student who speaks ONLY Arabic. She has just recently come here from Iraq, and knows only the very basic English words (yes, no, bathroom). She fooled me yesterday, seeming to listen in class. But when I asked to see her writing assignment today, I realized that she had simply copied my example word for word. And she had NO idea what I was asking her to do. Her English comprehension is basically nonexistent. She couldn't even tell me where she was from or what language she spoke-- I had to investigate! So I had to get creative. Even with lots of gesturing and pointing, she still wasn't understanding me. I thought, "Hey, I bet I can translate stuff on Babelfish-- that'll help!" Sadly, Babelfish does not do translations from English to Arabic. But a quick Google search found me another online translator. Throughout the day, I had to have her come to my computer and read over my shoulder as I typed messages to her. Thankfully, it worked. At least the translations appear to be pretty accurate, because she did what I asked. But I'm going to need to come up with a plan, ASAP. And she will definitely be getting pulled out of class for extra support from a specialist. But wow! I've had students before who spoke no English, but they have always spoken Spanish. So I could at least communicate with them. Today was so frustrating-- I can only imagine how hard it must be for her!

Anyway, I am just glad it's the weekend, and am hoping that our baby girl returns to her good sleeping habits starting tonight. In the meantime, here's a video I took this afternoon of my cute boy... His face is messy from eating dinner. This is something he's been doing for a long time now, but I still love it!