We moved from a French environment to a completely English one when Emily was 5.

She started kindergarten in English in our new town.

My education was in French with some basic English.

I didn’t know the Oh Canada in English, only in French…. Words don’t rhyme the same in both languages… My husband was making fun of my inability to rhyme properly.

I was failing my daughter miserably.

Kindergarten was hard… for me.

One afternoon Emily came home singing and moving her hands in a really strange way… She was really excited to show me this new song she knew…

I had absolutely no idea what she was doing… She was getting annoyed… I still had no idea what she was doing… Eventually Jon paid attention to what was going on and saved the day!

“It’s the Itsy Bitsy Spider right Emily?”

Daddy knew what she was doing, they both looked at me like I was some sort of alien who didn’t know the Itsy Bitsy Spider..

I’m FRENCH!!!

And I don’t like spiders!

Over the following weeks, months and years… I have worked really hard at learning the languages, the nursery rhymes, the stories, tv shows, the culture and more.

I’m still struggling but getting better with every grade Emily passes…

I still don’t know most of the tv shows my husband knew from when he was growing-up and from time to time, I have still no idea what Emily is learning…

This school thing for Emily is like me re-doing my years of school but in a foreign language.

One day I will be bilingual!

But in the meantime, I will continue learning with Emily.

There is no end to her desire to
Learn and grow so I’m in no position to complain about this… I will continue to learn and grow with my family.

Maybe next we should move where they speak another language and try to pick it up!

Where do you think we should go?