The day after

We had, at last the birthday party that Lili was so much anticipating. It came to be a fine event. Lili had a wonderful time and I think some of the other children did too. Or maybe most of them, eventually. The funny thing is that it really was three parties rather than one.

The participants:
Lili’s Päiväkoti friends
Lili’s friend from Australia whom she met here in Oulu
Some of our brand new or not so brand new Hungarian friends also known form Oulu.
The ‘Hungarian Fathers Club’ as Jen branded most of the parents who were here. The girls known from Päiväkoti were just thrown in the door, the parents didn’t stay.
Dan was a bit left out with Jen

The non participants:
All imaginary friends and house dragon(s).

3 Parties
After everyone came, Lili settled to hang out with the only other girl who spoke English, the Finnish speaking girls were another click and the Hungarians the third. Individually she would have managed any of these cultures without problem. She can and would fit into either of these cultures but she is as yet unable to bland them well, to interact in the 3 simultaneously. I think we will have to wait around 3 years for that to start taking place. And it will be amusing to watch, the level of intercultural competence she will have acquired throughout the years.


My baking went down well, so did Jen’s. From leftover we had a charity dinner for the neighbourhood (all of northern Finland).

The imaginary friends disappeared for the day. When they saw the list of invites - for they were helping me with the preparations a lot (although often with holding me back rather than…) - they decided to stay away. I guess they were competent enough to judge that their intercultural competence was just no match to the occasion. Or they just wanted to make room for the real people. Don’t know. But they had a nice gesture sending some flowers to Lili. They guessed fairly well that she would appreciate them. They are back now. Even Tobi. Which means that the left over cake that we still have some of will be gone in another 3 hours. Top.

On the way back he took the train. So I guess he is learning something from arguments and my shouting. And he is learning something good. But I promise I will not take it as a guidance to my teaching ethos.

This is it, I still haven’t rested enough to be rested after all the events of the week.

There is reference to Tobi in the Honouring the Wolf Blog which you can find on my profile or at:
http://honouring-wolf.blogspot.com/
There is also a short short story that has gone up on several sites:
http://valkokoivu.wordpress.com/green-flag/
http://gaborwrites.spaces.live.com/
There is link to it on my profile as well


One more thing… I don’t know while, but I like crunching my teeth. Jen sometimes wake up early in the morning, by which time Lili has crawled into our bed. She wakes up to the sound of both Lili and I crunching our teeth in our sleep… spooky.