Speaking of Surprises

Springtime is supposed to be a time of renewal, so I'll (try to) renew my blog. Wish me luck and thanks for checking in.

Bug's language skills got off to a slow start. She started saying "mama" and "dada" a few months after she turned one and we thought she was the most brilliant child on the planet. Except for the addition of "dis" and "dat", that's pretty much where her vocabulary stopped for six months.

Just about the time I was getting worried about her, (Googling "my 22-month-old only says four words" and nearly fainting at the tales of woe and nightmare diagnoses) she let loose with a torrent of words. "Bus! Ball! Hat! Blueberry! Car! Daddy's car! Daddy's car is silver! Mommy has a blue car!" She went from four words to 40 in a couple of days. Our assessment of Bug as the World's Most Brilliant Child was proven, in our eyes at least.

Dosey is now 27-months old and still says just a few words. Her chosen way to communicate most things is to point and scream. Loudly. She can say "cookie" and "no", the important stuff.

She has also picked up on the words "die" and "beer." I can explain: Dos loves to drink out of our glasses and when she goes for a sip of Corona, we tell her "That's beer, you can't have that." "BEER!" Dos says.

Also, Bug is a daredevil. We don't mind her stage-diving off the couch and scaling the climbing wall at the park, but when she tries to use the window screens as vertical trampolines, that's when we step in. Simply saying no doesn't stop her. It has to come along with dire warnings of "If you do that, the screen will give way, you'll fall out the window, crack your skull on the driveway, your brain will spill out on the pavement and you'll die." "DIE!", Dos cheerily cries.

Your kid's first words may be please and thank you, ours is "BEER! DIE!" We're quite proud.

At her two-year check up, the nurse practitioner commented on Dosey's language skills, or apparent lack thereof so far, and said, "I wouldn't worry about it, but if it's getting frustrating for you or her, then give us a call and we can talk about ways to get her talking more." GETTING frustrating? Lord, honey, it's been frustrating for a long time, now.

Little Dos wants so much, wants to tell us so much, and just can't get it across sometimes.
"Dubbadoo?" she asks, sincerely, pointing to a book.
"W?" I ask.
"No! DubbaDOO!"
"Dubbadoo?" I ask, hopefully.
"NO! DUBBABOO!" her eyebrows scrunch, her cheeks redden and her voice goes from childish purr to siren-like wail.

Frustrating? Hell yes.

Words are coming slowly for her. New favorites are puppy, hill, pie, night-night, up, needle, boo-boo and boobie. Yes, boobie. More on that later. Know this: I've tried to correct it to "breast", but it just cracks her up. Whatever. Let's just get her talking, we'll work on proper terminology later.

I turned 41 last month. Holy crap. That's just sinking in. 41. Jay-sus. ::deep breath, exhale:: I turned 41 last month and Grinch surprised me with cake and presents. Dosey surprised me by repeating, as best she could, "Happy. Birfday. Mommy. Love."

That's the best surprise ever.

!Buenos Tag!

In high school and college, I took a lot of Spanish classes. By the time I was done, I could carry on a half-decent conversation in Spanish without much effort. After graduation, though, I barely spoke Spanish at all so over the years I've forgotten most of my grammar. Now I worry too much about tense and pronouns and posessives to say much more than "Dos margaritas fresada sin sal, por favor." and then I do so rather self-consciously.

I got suckered into a couple of French classes here and there. It just wasn't my thing. The language itself sounds beautiful, but I felt pretentious just learning it. The best result of those classes was the laugh I got when a college French teacher implored a very tight jawed fellow to "open your mouth. Open. Your. Mouth!" He muttered to her though his clenched jaw, "That's as far as it goes."

I've tried half-heartedly to learn German to impress the in-laws. But, hello? Could it be any more difficult? Die, du, deine....I'm already starting to feel light-headed.

For many months after the bug was born, I faked my way through her German books, stuttering "Schneewitchen und der sieben Zwerge" and I thought I was doing a pretty good job. But a few months ago, as I blathered on about "...Julia's dreirad, und teddy ist immer dabei", Bug put her fingers to my lips and said, "You don't read German, Mommy. DADDY reads German." Kaput.

Still, old habits and old languages die hard. I give the bug instructions and finish with, "Entiende?" I pat mis bolsillos, muttering, "¿Dónde están mis llaves?" and ask the bug for "Eine moment, bitte." I take things from little hands and scold, "Das ist nicht für dich."

Sometimes the languages collide and I end up using Spanish and German in on sentence. "Necisito una Löffel." "Este juguete ist kaput, schatz." I don't know if I'm the best language model for young ears, but I'm trying.

I do know this: if my girls ever need to send back their meals at a German restaurant in Spain, they can fall back on their mother's example and implore the waiter to "Vaya rápidamente, mach schnell!"

Translating Bug

My parents have happily been spending my inheritance by visiting every corner of the world since their retirement. I'm cool with it, really, except for the fact that they insist on bringing me t-shirts from all these places. I have Hard Rock cafe t-shirts from Helsinki, Cairo and Costa Rica. Have I ever set foot in these places? Not even close. Do I even LIKE Hard Rock Cafe? Not really, no. But my pleas of "No more t-shirts!" fall on deaf ears each and every time.

In between their world jaunts, they have taken to hosting international visitors. They started doing this when I still lived at home and, because my parents absolutely SUCK at hosting guests, I often spent a lot of time carting people around town, taking them to do touristy things and helping them find the right geegaws to take back home to their family and friends in Whereverslavia.

Sometimes, we were lucky and the guests were fairly good English speakers. One Russian guy spoke no English at all. Somehow, we managed to surmise that he liked basketball and I was able to arrange for him to go to an NBA game and meet a Russian player. The player translated stuff the poor guy had been holding in for days: "My room is hot as hell and the sheets smell. I hate cold tea, please don't make me drink it. I want Coca-cola. I want to buy camera and Nike sneakers, size 12. I have two kids and they want Mickey Mouse dolls." What was never explained was why this guy disappeared for hours on end every night. He SAID he was just taking walks. We suspected he was hustling men in bars. It made for a good story, anyway. "This is Alexi. He doesn't speak English. In Russia, he works construction. In America, he is prostitute."

Even the best English speakers still had little problems here and there. Asking questions and putting the words in the right order were the hardest. It's something that, strangely enough, I hear the Bug do a lot. In her best Russian syntax, she'll ask, "What this is called, please?" or when talking about herself, saying, "You would like cookie, yes."

Despite my best translation skills, her oddly translated statements and questions still confuse me sometimes. For instance, pulling her chair out for her, I hear, "You will not pull out the chair."
Right, Mommy will pull it out for you.
"Noooo. You will not pull out the chair!"
Right, gotcha. Mommy did it.
Tears welling in her eyes, "NOOOOO! You will NOT..."
Oh! Yes, I understand! Mommy, don't pull out the chair. I see now! Don't cry!

You ok?
"Yes. She is YOUR chair. NOT Mommy's."
Whuh...nevermind. Eat your dinner.
(Pointing to couscous that is shifting on her plate) "This is doing what, please?"
What?
"This is doing what?"
What.
"Yes."
Huh?
"This?"
Yes.
"It is doing what?"
I....uh....darlin', you got me. I don't know what you're saying.
"THIS!"
YES!
"IS DOING WHAT?"
MOVING!
"YES!"
YES!

And that's when, I'm quite sure the Bug and I are thinking the same thing: "God! Where are the Russians when you need them?"