whatMsg?

whatMsg? 2.0 “Raising my children bilingually”

May 9, 2008
On the eve of the eve of Mother’s Day, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to change the focus of my blog. Reading is very much a part of my life, but I don’t have much time for it these days as is evident from my May 8th posting. Instead, I will focus on another goal and part of my every day life, raising my two children bilingually. I couldn’t escape writing about my children after all since other than reading and gardening, raising my children is what I spend most of my time doing and raising them bilingually is something I struggle with daily.

Me
I am a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother. You can call me “Emmi” as my kids do. My husband, “Daddy” is a year younger and a mid-level manager at the largest public company in the world. Daddy travels a lot for work and often I am parenting solo during the weekdays. While this is it’s own challenge, it allows me to be a stay-at-home mother. Which, well, that’s a challenge of a different kind that I keep telling myself I am extremely fortunate to be able to do. Most days I even believe myself.

The Kids
“K” is 2 and a half and quite a rambunctious little girl.
“A” is 15 months old and a little frustrated by having to be the little sister. It’s not easy being little.

Where
We live in a suburb of Seattle, WA in a typical middle-class neighborhood that I’ll call, “Happy Valley.” We have a generous backyard, lots of neighbors and a park across the street. Just so you truly appreciate the environment, we have so many kids in our neighborhood that there are 2 elementary school buses that stop to pick up kids at the park bus stop. Just at this one bus stop, they all couldn’t fit onto one bus. LOTS of young children. We have a shopping center that is close enough to walk to with a large Safeway, McDonalds, 3 dry clearners, a dozen nail salons (exaggerating, but it sure feels that way) a few hair places, a hardware store with nursery and many other little shops and more importantly, a Starbucks. Anyhow, we clearly live in, as a friend jokingly refers to it as, “Happy Valley.”

The Languages
English of course, and Estonian. I was born in the US but raised in an Estonian speaking household as my parents are both from Estonia. I am fluent in the language though I speak it better than I write. My husband is not Estonian and is in charge of the English language in our household. I’m responsible for the Estonian. Check back soon as I try to fill in the blanks and get you up-to-date with where the kids’ language skills are today. I hope you’ll find the journey as interesting as I have.

Here’s what this blog USED to be about…

What the Kindle Has to Do With It

As someone with a pre-Kindle Kindle obsession, I decided to write a blog to help me sort out if, I mean, how the Kindle will change my reading habits. You can expect me to write about what I read on a given day day, what medium, estimated time spent reading, commentary on the content, and observations on all manner of things. It’s been awhile, so we’ll see how scholarly I get and what conclusions I am able to draw. As with any written work, read the “Introduction” for more details. Thank you for joining me!

What Marshall McLuhan Has to Do With It

As a student of communications theory and technology, McLuhan is a theorist that offers interesting points to frame a discussion.

“whatMsg?” is a reference to McLuhan’s well known title, “The Medium is the Massage” which has an an underlying notion that a message is impacted by the delivery system.

My “Quote of the Moment” will generally contain McLuhan quotes, again as way of framing a discussion.

About the Author, Me

In an effort to keep this low bias, I’m going to keep personal details to a minimum though here’s what I will share:

• MA Degree in Communications, Temple University
• BA Degree, Drew University
• Professional: Marketing and Quality Management positions in various large telecom companies
• Reside in Washington state, outside of Seattle
• An avid gardener
• An occasional geocacher
• Have been online steadily since 1989, 19 years
• Other details can be serendipitously uncovered in my post entries

Finally, you can read all about my other hobby here: LeafNotes.whatMsg.com