My baby is growing into a toddler and his personality is developing rapidly. The re-introduction to school at the beginning of the school year was much easier, but I hope his health will not suffer much this time around. Today I had a scare when the school supervisor called me to fetch Robert because he [...]
Entries from January 2009
January 22, 2009
Yes We Can
The Web of Language dealt extensively with the Obama inauguration from a linguistic perspective, citing in detail the incident of the flubbed Presidential Oath.
In addition to the discussion around language and the hyper-correction instinct of the Chief Justice, which probably led to the hiccups of the Oath. There were a few facts that I found [...]
January 21, 2009
South African Cynicism
Our own Cape Times came out today with a full transcript of President Obama’s Inaugural Address, so now I have a record for it. Later I found a blog with embedded segments of the speech and its transcript, so I got to watch it, long after the excitement about the whole thing subsided, but I [...]
January 20, 2009
When I Missed the Man who Made History
I walked past a coffee shop in Sea Point in the late afternoon and they had their televisions on CNN broadcasting the inauguration of the first US President of African descent. I am one of the few people who are missing out on this historical occasion, because when I moved with my son to our [...]
January 19, 2009
Hard to Catch up with Time Speeding By
The first month of they year is more than half gone and “compliments of the season” is getting really old and ratty. I think it is time to can the phrase until next year.
I took Robert to daycare for his first almost full day today. He had the usual crying episode when I left him [...]
January 18, 2009
Sunday’s Fun and Follies
We treated ourselves to a predominantly lazy day today. Mom, baby and cat played at home for the whole morning.
I consciously try teaching Robert the ability to laugh at his own mishaps. Here he is acting out a funny incident that happened a few weeks ago, while we were playing with soap bubbles (the non [...]
January 17, 2009
It Puzzles Me
My ex has been nice to us in this past month, and as much as it is a relief for me, I am still puzzled about his latest incarnation as a caring father, when not too long ago he told me that I was not able to look after our son AND called me many [...]
January 5, 2009
Gaza
Whenever I think of Gaza I remember a cartoon I saw many years ago when I was still a citizen of the troubled Middle East. The cartoon could have been by the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al Ali, but I could not trace it on his official website. In the cartoon the Arab nation is [...]
January 4, 2009
Summer in the City
I did not plan to foot it all the way to Camps Bay today, but the weather and the scenery beckoned me along. I only wanted to avoid a desperate situation such as yesterday’s when I wasted so much time trying to get Robert to catch up on his daytime naps without success, so today [...]
January 3, 2009
The Amazing Development of Language
Robert is amazing me with his rapidly developing verbal skills. The development is very quick even on the pronunciation side.
A few days ago he pronounced bucket correctly; where he had been calling it bakkie so far (and this is incidentally Afrikaans for bucket). Maybe he is starting to grasp the idea of a final consonant, [...]
