connected

I’m on my laptop at Cool Beans, a coffee shop near the horseshoe at the University of South Carolina that has free wireless access. We have finished classes for the day and I’m working on a few things that I need to get done by Thursday.

Here is an interesting story about Callum. For a few hours each morning Callum is looked after by a couple from Shanghai that live upstairs. As they do not speak any English, they speak to him and play with him entirely in Chinese. What is neat is that the other day I went upstairs to get Callum and they showed me a new trick. When they say the word “ear” in Chinese, he will lean over and grab your ear. There are two funny things about this – the first is that we never taught him the English word for ear – we taught him nose, and feet, and hands, and belly among other body parts, but not ear. The second funny thing about this is that before they showed me this trick, I didn’t know the Chinese word for ear. So for a few days Callum knew something that Yvonne and I didn’t know. Not bad for a little guy. He also knows several other words in Chinese – finger, belly, candy and goodbye to name a few.

Yvonne and I spent most of Sunday painting walls. As previously mentioned we got a new place just south of Five Points that we are fixing up. We painted the walls a nice neutral beige color and will be getting new carpet Friday morning. By the end of Sunday I could hardly hold a cell phone to my ear – my arms felt like they had atrophied. We will also be getting some new appliances for the kitchen since the current ones are in poor condition; it will be nice to have a dishwasher and a washer/dryer again. The townhouse is looking great – we are very much looking forward to moving our belongings there next week. If anyone is in the area you will have to drop by for a visit when we have set the place up.

Finally, here is an update from Yvonne with whom I just spoke on the phone – Callum is currently sticking smurfs in his pants so that they fall through his pants and out one of his pants legs. I’m not quite sure what to think about that!

7 thoughts on “connected

  • July 20, 2004 at 5:55 pm
    Permalink

    lucky bastage. I’ve always wanted to hit the net from a cafe via a laptop…

    Reply
  • July 21, 2004 at 5:45 am
    Permalink

    I’ll have to see this place. The idea of Carolina having a coffeehouse close to the Horseshoe, let alone one with wireless access…just blows my mind.

    Reply
  • July 21, 2004 at 6:11 am
    Permalink

    Yeah, why am I not surprised that a child can retain the word for candy in several languages?;)

    Reply
  • July 21, 2004 at 8:41 am
    Permalink

    Callum is currently sticking smurfs in his pants so that they fall through his pants and out one of his pants legs.

    Like father, like son, that’s what it sounds like to me! 😀

    Reply
  • July 21, 2004 at 4:44 pm
    Permalink

    I’ve always found it fascinating how fluidly kids below a certain age can pick up new languages. Very cool!

    –riney

    Reply
  • July 28, 2004 at 10:05 am
    Permalink

    Dude,
    Post some more baby pics! I am going through withdrawal here!

    Reply

Leave a Reply to seebar Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *