Learning to speak American in 24 hours

Each morning, the girls eat their porridge, drink their juice and enjoy their yogurt drinks (No, mummy! Not 'yog-urt' but 'yo! gurt'). They head upstairs to brush and floss their teeth, put bands or barrettes in their hair, and then get dressed. They wear underwear (They're not called pants, mummy, pants are trousers now), jeans and sweatshirts (mummm-y, it's not a jumper anymore!). Depending on the weather, they put on their sneakers or snow boots. Neither one has shoes and trainers are something that Maya will start to wear in a few years' time when her body changes shape. Fortunately hats, scarves, coats and gloves are the same in both languages, which saves us valuable minutes before we scamper down the sidewalk, use the cross-walk through the intersection, and stop at our bus stop for our much loved yellow school bus and equally loved bus driver (who is baffled and delighted in equal measure by Maya and Iola's accents).
Early on a Monday morning, Nathan puts his cases in the trunk of a cab (boots are something you wear on feet) and rides to the airport where he catches an airplane (there are no aeroplanes, not even paper ones) to his latest work placement. His irony is being carefully policed by his colleagues before it causes clients to take possible offense and he relies heavily on the American spell-checker on his computer. It's easier for me, I fluctuate between American English and English English in my novel - consistency can come later!
Maya and Iola like school and both have settled in well to their new classes. Iola particularly likes recess (not playtime, mummy, we're not babies!) and gym (it's just gym, mummy. Yes, even if we are playing ball sports on the school field). Maya likes math, which has lost an 's' and gained a whole new system for long division. She isn't so keen on cursive, and complains that it is the fourth type of handwriting that she has had to learn to do (each school she has attended has had different required letter formations... fortunately the computer keyboards all look the same). She has easily mastered the new spelling system with its lost 'u's and its preponderance of 'z's. A 'z' is now a 'zee', not a 'zed': I have learnt that the hard way from the baffled looks I received whenever I tried to spell out my name in our first few weeks here.
I work on my novel, go for walks, clean the house, and buy the groceries. At the supermarket, I have been known to accost passers-by and ask them to name the vegetable that I'm holding (fennel is giant anise, aubergines are egg-plants, courgettes are zuchini, coriander is cilantro, spring onions are scallions, and chillis come in 12 different varieties).
The girls both have homework to do when they get home and we lay out our books and pencils on the dining room table. We have erasers in case we make mistakes (rubbers are something that Maya has been shown in her sex education class).
After homework, it's tea-time. The girls drink cider (apple juice) or soda (fizzy pop, not fizzy water). I prefer coffee, which is sometimes easier to make at home than to spend time navigating the long list of possibilities at the local coffee shop - half-and-half, 2%, skim, almond, rice, or soy milk? Dark, light or medium roast? Drip or Americano?
At nearly-but-not-quite-10 years old, Maya is allowed to walk alone to the local store. She knows the rout by herself (pronounced 'rout' to rhyme with 'shout', there are no roots in this area). Iola begs her to buy crackers, candy, or cookies. She no longer wants sweeties: a 'sweetie' is something that her class teacher calls a child when they have said something cute, and neither of them have any desire to eat biscuits: around here, biscuits are something that you eat with gravy. As the evenings get lighter, we sometimes all go to the tot-lot to play on the swings. It's not that different from the play parks back home, it just has fewer letters.
By the time it's nearly 7 o'clock, the girls are heading up the stairs to bed. Iola is appalled if I remind her to use the toilet (mummy, I know myself when I need to go to the bathroom). We read stories and sing lullabies, and I feel great about how well the girls have adjusted to being American kids and then Iola announces, 'Mummy, it's not that I'm physically tired. It's just that I'm aubergine tired.' And I have no idea what she means. Period.