New direction!

You cna find me at my new digs at : http://goofyby50.blogspot.com/

Words and what they mean

I have an autistic child. He's 9 now and he's the most concentrated child you will ever meet. He can look at bugs for, well, ever and talk about what he saw for hours.

When he was 4 he didn't talk. He only had about 20 words he would use over and over. They didn't mean much, they were out of stories we read to him or TV shows he loved. We had many therapists we were seeing to help him out of this world of his and into ours. We speak French at home. My husband and I are both from French speaking parents but, for some insane reason, English was my prefered language growing up. We had English speaking neighbors (it was forbidden to talk to them as they were not Roman Catholic) but the little girl next door was my age and we both liked to skip rope. So we first started communicating with sign language and a little gibberish but easily moved to words and sentences and what do you know? I could speak English!

Well, fast forward about 30 years and here I am with this kid who won't talk. Suddenly It dawned on me, French is the language of therapies, school, demands and requests. Let's make English the language of fun and play and just fooling around. So here I am, on the floor with him trying to get him to engage in play (floortime) and I just blurt out : I'm a little tea pot short and stout, here is my handle and here is my spout. And I get this look of amazement and bewilderment, just like the look of a deer in headlights. Now I sing to him in French all the time, this is not the first time I sing to him. And he just says : ENCORE! (MORE) So I say : you want more song, yes? and he answers : YES! Sooooo. I admit, I created this monster. He now speaks English with his friends (he has friends!!! When he speaks English, he's much more concentrated and easier to understand, the sentences flow more and well, let's face it FART is much more fun than PET. And little boys whoever they are love farts.

And so does this mom.

No French lesson today. I didn't run in 2 weeks, my back has been in spasms and, well, I have to rest for now.

Hope you are all running strong, talk to you soon!

Heat wave!

This is singular and almost unprecedented (well once in 1946) we’re experiencing a very brutal heat wave here in Montréal. Now, I know this is probably a walk in the park for most people living south of where I do but for us, well, were cooking. The temps have been hovering around 300 Celsius – 850 Fahrenheit with a heat index of 950 on most days this week. It’s very warm in the morning and in the evening also. We’re used to this in July for a week or two but not at this time of year. Heck, school started and they don’t have AC. The kids are hot and bothered and the teachers aren’t doing any better.

The weather lady says it will cool on Saturday and, truth be told, I can’t wait. I know I’m going to bite my lips this winter when it’s -350 Celsius but I’m just not a good runner in the heat. I’m slow, sweat buckets and I get really upset about my times.

AND, we have the Montréal Marathon on Sunday (I’m not running it this year) it supposed to be cooler; I sure hope so as I know a few people running in this event.
On the other hand, I found a real race to do the half marathon in the World Wide Festival of Races. This is the first time I’ll run a real race for the Festival! I’ll be going to Ottawa for the Ottawa Fall Colors Marathon, where I’ll be doing the half. I’m also planning on doing a race report. This is also a first for me.

Now, for our French course.
Can you say :

I’m hot! J’ai chaud!

I’m really hot! J’ai vraiment chaud!

I’m dying in this heat! Je crève de chaleur!

À la prochaine!

Long run thoughts

While I was out on my long run on Sunday (I did 17.38 kms) my brain got a little fuzzy and thoughts that sound like this started bubbling to the surface: “You can’t do this, it’s too long, it’s too hot” “what were you thinking taking this route, it’s way to hilly” “Did you stop breathing, cause I can’t hear you” “AAHHHH come on, only 5 k to go, this won’t take more than 30 minutes” “Do you remember the time when everyone called you fat? Think they can run as far as you today?” “Now, what’s in the fridge that would make a good post-run recovery meal? Eggs… maybe, bread… naw, tomatoes, red ripe tomatoes and lettuce, yeah and cheese oooohhhh, now we’re going somewhere… Wait, do I have mayonnaise, ‘cause I can’t make a tomato sandwich without some…. (Here I’m mentally going over the contents of the fridge, pushing and tossing things to find the mayo in my imaginary fridge) BINGO! We have mayo!!!!
Oh this sandwich is going to be sooo gooood…

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t even see that I had passed my house and thus the 17.38 k. Now, this is becoming a favourite activity of mine on long runs. When I see that I have about 5 k to go, I start picking the mental fridge apart for something good to eat. Sometimes it works, well, most times it works. I love to run for food. Well, this should be the other way around actually, I love to eat therefore I run to keep the weight off.

Now, you ask, what’s with the title? Well, since I live in Montréal and speak French most of the time, I thought I could pepper in a little French here and there. Basically, I’ll end each post with the French translation of a few sentences I just wrote. Have fun practicing your French!

« AHHHH, allez, il ne reste que 5 kilomètres à faire, ça ne prendra même pas 30 minutes »(did you notice, even the quotations marks turn French)

« Des œufs, peut-être… du pain, non, pas vraiment… des tomates, des tomates juteuses et mûres à point et de la laitue, ah oui et du fromage, làààààààà on s’en va quelque part. Attends, est-ce que j’ai de la mayonnaise, je ne peux faire un sandwich aux tomates sans mayo »

À la prochaine!