I can count to...100
One other thing that I realised on the long journey is that our four year old daughter can count. With a bit of help from big sister (mostly to help with the tens after 30) she counted in Finnish up to 100. Don't know if she could have gone further, but she ran out of breath at that point. What I didn't realise is that she can also read numbers...
We had been at the christening of My wife's brother's first son (Funny how we had a phase of weddings, now it's christenings...) last week, which took place at their summer cottage on a Island near the town of Loviisa, which is about 80 km east of Helsinki. The sun shone, and it was wonderful, until we realised that we had to leave, in a hurry, so the Psychologist could get a train in Lahti to be back at work the next day. (Myself, the children and the Mother-in-law would continue to Tampere, so I could swap back to our own car, and the Kids could have a few days with Anoppi (mother-in-law)). It transpired that we had rather less time than we thought, so not many horses were spared on the journey. Route 167 through Mryskylä and Orimattila is a wonderful road, but not if you're in a hurry. Anoppi's comment after we pulled into Lahti, one minute after the trains scheduled time, but crucially one minute before it's actual appearance, was rather funny. 'You had to drive rather fast...', ' erm, yes', ' But you did it very well'.
We continued at a rather more leisurely pace to Tampere, and as we got onto the dual carriageway, a small voice from the back said: 'Daddy, it's a 70 limit!'. I looked at the sign and realised (unusually for Finland) that it was. I just assumed the big sister had done some prompting, so took notice of the speed limit, but not of the fact that the owner of the small voice might just have worked it out herself.
Yesterday, we were waiting for a doctors appointment outside room 234 in the local (large) health centre. The owner of the small voice looked at the door on the other side of the waiting area, and said ' That's room 237' - which indeed it was. I could say something about adding 2 and 2 and coming up with 5, but a small voice will probably say...
Not to be outdone, when I crawled out of bed this morning, big sister had completed this artwork.
She explained that daddy was reading, and mummy was watching her build a sandcastle. When I asked as to the whereabouts of little sister, she replied: 'Oh, she hasn't been born yet, she's still in mummy's tummy'. The legs at the bottom left are another sunbather, who wished to remain anonymous!
We had been at the christening of My wife's brother's first son (Funny how we had a phase of weddings, now it's christenings...) last week, which took place at their summer cottage on a Island near the town of Loviisa, which is about 80 km east of Helsinki. The sun shone, and it was wonderful, until we realised that we had to leave, in a hurry, so the Psychologist could get a train in Lahti to be back at work the next day. (Myself, the children and the Mother-in-law would continue to Tampere, so I could swap back to our own car, and the Kids could have a few days with Anoppi (mother-in-law)). It transpired that we had rather less time than we thought, so not many horses were spared on the journey. Route 167 through Mryskylä and Orimattila is a wonderful road, but not if you're in a hurry. Anoppi's comment after we pulled into Lahti, one minute after the trains scheduled time, but crucially one minute before it's actual appearance, was rather funny. 'You had to drive rather fast...', ' erm, yes', ' But you did it very well'.
We continued at a rather more leisurely pace to Tampere, and as we got onto the dual carriageway, a small voice from the back said: 'Daddy, it's a 70 limit!'. I looked at the sign and realised (unusually for Finland) that it was. I just assumed the big sister had done some prompting, so took notice of the speed limit, but not of the fact that the owner of the small voice might just have worked it out herself.
Yesterday, we were waiting for a doctors appointment outside room 234 in the local (large) health centre. The owner of the small voice looked at the door on the other side of the waiting area, and said ' That's room 237' - which indeed it was. I could say something about adding 2 and 2 and coming up with 5, but a small voice will probably say...
Not to be outdone, when I crawled out of bed this morning, big sister had completed this artwork.
She explained that daddy was reading, and mummy was watching her build a sandcastle. When I asked as to the whereabouts of little sister, she replied: 'Oh, she hasn't been born yet, she's still in mummy's tummy'. The legs at the bottom left are another sunbather, who wished to remain anonymous!
posted by the other cold one at 7:58 pm
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