Where going havo?

Slovak-American Christmas in Prague

2011-12-29T09:25:00.009+01:00

We went totally low-key this year. We stayed home, no visits to or from in-laws, so we just picked a few holidayish things we wanted to do and focused on them.

As always, we had Slovak Christmas on the 24th and American Christmas on the 25th, though we dialed down the cooking on the 25th from a full Christmas dinner to a more modest Christmas brunch. Less time cooking, more time playing with toys!

Earlier in the month we experimented with making pomanders out of clementines and spices, and K enjoyed it so much that I think we'll make it a holiday tradition. We made three separate batches and gave them away as gifts. We also made sausage balls and baked gingerbread twice and I think we'll make one last batch of each for New Year's. We listened to and sang Christmas music and K managed to learn Jingle Bells as her first (English) Christmas carol.

We also went to her preschool Christmas performance where the children sang (Czech) Christmas carols they'd been practicing since mid-November. Since K spent a few weeks singing "sanáčku, panáčku" [not at all the right words] I'm thinking it was a good idea they started early, since this was most of the children's first year to be learning the carols properly!

The baby was pretty much along for the ride this Christmas - as he is for most things. I'm pretty sure K helping to open his presents and stocking won't fly in future years! Also, next year we probably won't be able to wrap up a few toys and clothes we already had for him...he did get a couple of new things though. And K has hardly taken off her purple princess dress since she opened it on Christmas Eve.

A very successful Christmas! And without driving ourselves crazy with overly ambitious plans.

Birthday and language update

2011-12-29T09:24:00.003+01:00

K's birthday was on Thanksgiving this year. We took the day off school and work (I think we're going to try to do this every year - it would be a nice tradition) to spend the day together.

For the birthday fun thing we decided to go with the horse-drawn carriage ride around downtown. We didn't tell K what the surprise was until we were standing right in front of the horses, and she loved the anticipation as well as the carriage ride itself. The rides are 20 minutes long around the center of Prague and she spent the whole time feeling like a princess. I showed her how to do the royal wave. Lots of people turned to look at us, some tourists even taking pictures (because of the carriage, of course) and K wanted to know why. She accepted my answer of "Because it's your birthday" without question or surprise.

After we were done we went home, opened presents, at some point I made a cake, and in the late afternoon we went over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I took the cake and everybody sang K happy birthday. K's main present was a gold necklace from her grandparents. They have been wanting to give her a gold necklace since she was a newborn, but this was the first year that we allowed it. A chain around a baby's neck has never struck me as extremely safe, but four is a bit more reasonable age. K does love her beautiful necklace.

We did not invite any school friends over, which is good because we were actually all sick earlier that week and just barely recovered by her birthday. They did do a birthday celebration at school, including a cake, meaning there was no point in me bringing cupcakes as I'd planned. Overall I think K's birthday hit the right note of festive, low-key and fun.

It's hard to give an update on K's language progress because she's at that stage (which probably most of us know well...) where improvement is more subtle even though her knowledge and vocabulary are expanding all the time. She has trouble with some sounds in Czech - just like in English, actually - but most people understand her with no trouble and she can express pretty much whatever she wants. Her conversations with Apo are getting more complex (of course, this is as much due to age as anything else) and she has to resort to English less and less often. She still cracks us up sometimes with her language borrowing, though.

I'm noticing more Czech phrasings translated into English now, like "I have a truth" instead of "I'm right." Occasionally I notice that K knows something in Czech that she doesn't know in English, and I casually catch her up to speed. Sometimes she asks me herself how to say something. It seems to be working pretty well so far. K definitely adheres to the Apo-Slovak, Mama-English model, easily switching back and forth depending on who she's speaking to and sometimes translating what's just been said. English is still the sibling language but her dolls speak English and Czech both.

A speech therapist came to the preschool a few weeks ago and told me afterwards that she couldn't get anything out of K so couldn't make an evaluation. She wasn't really clear on whether K didn't say anything or she didn't understand what K said, but I know K has a tendency to clam up in front of strangers or get all shy and whisper, so I am imagining it was that. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if K found this particular speech therapist scary - I would have at that age.

I find it hard to be concerned at all, though, because I find the idea of speech therapy for four year olds a bit, um, premature. I think most children have trouble with a few of the harder sounds and almost all grow out of it by early elementary. Czechs are traditionally much more hard core about wanting kids to master all the sounds BEFORE entering first grade. I can't really get too excited about it.

Even without a professional evaluation (which wouldn't take our circumstances into account anyway), I feel confident saying K's Czech is pretty impressive for only starting to speak it a year ago and her English is by and large indistinguishable from her American peers. Except for a few Britishisms and Czechisms here and there, of course.

Oh, and...I think K's going to be an early reader. She knows most of the alphabet and insists on stopping to read (name the letters) of any writing we pass outside, like the posters at the bus stop. She can read our names most of the time and the other day she wrote her name correctly without needing me to tell her which letters come next. It still needs a bit of practice, but she is self-motivated and determined to learn! I think by her next birthday she might be reading for real.

A Prayer for Melissa

2011-11-19T15:03:00.002+01:00

This is the post that I wanted to write on Thursday had my two beautiful trilingual children not chosen that day - and the days since - to be uncharacteristically screamy and less than obedient. And every moment not dealing with the fussing I've been trying to work on the translation due Monday that seemed like a good idea at the time.

(It's still a good idea. I'm going to finish today. Although it turns out googling "working at home with a newborn" does NOT give you the secret of what to do when the newborn refuses to nap at his accustomed time. Serious information gap there.)

Anyway, this is where my thoughts go this time of year...twenty two years ago

I hope to get a more substantial post up soon. As soon as I can keep my hands free and lap empty for long enough. (This post is brought to you by my right hand. The left hand is busy holding beautiful trilingual child #2.)

I only like your English

2011-10-28T14:27:00.003+02:00

This past Sunday night, my daughter and I had the following conversation:

"It's time to go to bed so you can get up for school in the morning."
"I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I'm not going to go there any more."
"Why not? You love going to school."
"I don't like my teachers or my friends or toys."
"But you like your teacher Lida."
"I do like Lida but not the other teachers."
"And you like your friends M [Russian] and L [New Zealand]."
"I do like M but not L. I don't want to be her friend any more. I bite L."

(K has claimed not to like L several times in the past several weeks, and actually did bite her at school a month or so ago.)

"That's not very kind, is it? L is your friend and we don't bite our friends."
"But I don't like L any more, because L speaks English and I don't want to speak English at school. I want to speak Czech like all the other kids. I don't like English."
"You don't like English?? But you and I speak English together."
"I do like your English, Mommy, I just don't like L's English."
"Well, that makes sense. You don't have to speak English at school if you don't want to, because everybody else speaks Czech there. Maybe you could tell L you want to speak Czech together."
"But L doesn't speak Czech."
"She does speak Czech actually - she just doesn't like to. But you know, even if L speaks English to you, you could answer her in Czech. You don't have to speak English if you don't want to, and if you want to play with someone else, just tell L that."
"I did tell L I want to play with somebody else, but she said no. So I bite her."
"It really isn't kind to bite people. Maybe you could tell your teacher if you want to play with someone else and L won't leave you alone, because you should be able to play with whoever you want."

---

I had suspected in the past several weeks that L might be more attached to K than K is to L, but I didn't know it was bothering her to this extent. I couldn't believe she was able to put into words at her age that it bothers her to stand out by speaking another language at preschool from the rest of her friends. It had occurred to me that she might feel that way (at least eventually), but I didn't want to suggest it to her by asking. I can't agree with her way of handling the issue - biting and telling L she isn't her friend - but I really can't fault the desire to use her languages in the appropriate contexts. That's completely understandable! After all, the rest of us get to choose when and where to use our languages. And I would hate for K to feel so self-conscious about it that she started to actually dislike English. Basically she is getting pulled into another child's language rebellion.

I brought up the key points from the above conversation with K's teachers at school on Monday, and they confirmed my feeling that L is more attached to K than K to L. They also added a new bit of information, which is that, in addition to preferring English, L is a bit bossy - always wants to choose what and how to play - and K is the only child agreeable enough to put up with it. K isn't a passive child, but she is obliging and typically doesn't insist on her own way, so I can see that dynamic existing. Being easy-going and adaptable is a good trait and evidence of a good heart, I think, but I don't want K to be so overwhelmed that she lets herself be pushed around until she feels the need to lash out in order to escape. Which seems to be what is happening.

We are reminding K regularly now (as are her teachers, once they found out how much it bothers her) that she can choose who to play with and what language to speak - she doesn't have to speak English if she isn't comfortable with it, even if L addresses her in English. And she doesn't have to go along with everything someone else wants in general, either. That's the trick, I suppose: taking charge of your own languages and your own life, and learning to stand up for yourself without biting people...

It's All Over

2011-10-24T11:28:00.002+02:00

So now it can all begin.

Marek Jákob was born last Tuesday, October 18, at 4.3 kg (9.5 lb). That's right. I had nearly ten pounds of baby inside. This may well have an impact on whether I decide to have another child or not...with a first child of 3.6 kg (8 lb), I don't really like the size trend I'm seeing! Overall this labor was actually faster and easier to recover from than the first one, though, so I'm not complaining too much.

We came home from the hospital on Friday and have been settling into our new family of four since then. K is loving being a big sister and only having mild behavioral (not listening, etc.) issues. (Although, after my last post, things actually got worse - she came down with an ear infection and we all got colds. Thus proving that excessive stress does not, in my case, bring on labor. I still had to go for induction.) The laundry we're simply adjusting for.

K came to see us in the hospital Tuesday evening when the baby was several hours old. She brought him a toy she chose for him a few months ago - a soft cow similar to the soft giraffe she sleeps with. We had also prepared a gift from the baby to her, which the Slovak smoothly put into the baby bed when K wasn't looking. She thanked the baby profusely.

The next day when they came to visit, the Slovak had prepared another small surprise for her (we have a small stash of goodies to bring out if we think she's feeling too neglected or overwhelmed over the next few weeks). So of course the day after that she ran in the room asking if the baby had anything else for her. I explained to her that the baby wouldn't give her a present EVERY day, and suggested to the Slovak that he may have inadvertently set the bar a bit too high. Haha.

Apparently the Slovak had to do some fast talking to get K to let him wash her "Big Sister" shirt instead of wearing it to school again on Friday, after having worn it Wednesday and Thursday. She begged me to bring the baby to her school so she can show him off to her friends and teachers, so I went with the Slovak in the car to pick her up. She was proud and her teachers were very admiring of her little brother.

I've managed to get out a bit each day (i.e. Saturday and Sunday) and have even got the hang of the baby wrap I got to try with this baby. We had a sling and a front carrier with Baby K, but couldn't make the sling work for us and the front carrier did get used but was really hard on the back. So far the Moby is a much better fit! My mother-in-law, who is visiting for ten days to be an extra body in case I gave birth in the middle of the night or similar, was shocked that we went for a walk so soon. My mother just seemed in awe of my Amazon-like stamina. :-D

Marek seems to be conditioned to obey K's voice already: the other day, I was trying to get him latched on and said, "Just open your mouth, sweetie." K repeated to him, "Open your mouth, baby!" And he did, but not enough, so I told him, "Now just a little wider." K instructed him, "Wider, baby!" And he instantly opened his mouth as wide as it would go. We're going to have to try to teach her to use her power for good instead of evil...

Also, the sibling language appears to be English at the moment. Of course, it's only been a few days at this point, and only one of them actually talks, so we'll see how things develop from here!

Buried Under a Mountain of Laundry

2011-10-10T15:11:00.004+02:00

...and the baby isn't even born yet.

On which point don't get me started (yes, due date has passed).

I never expected that the transition from three to four family members would be entirely stress-free, and I was definitely expecting some level of regression from K - AFTER the baby was born. I didn't realize that the adjustment and anxiety can start even before the baby is born, but...apparently it totally can.

I'd say it's been at least a month of increased wetting (from a child who NEVER wet), going from twice a week a month ago to twice a night last night. And then there's the daytime.

And then there's the increased clinginess and weepiness at pick-up and drop-off at school, although, interestingly, never actually during school. Presumably because the stress and changes are at home, not school.

And then there's the difficulty listening, which is what kicked everything off - back before I made the connection with the upcoming baby. Since I was expecting all of this more like now, not a month ago.

Generally we've been fielding a lot of emotional issues in our parenting recently. If you ask K, she is perfectly happy and not at all worried about anything. But then she tells a sad, sad story about being lost, alone in the woods, surrounded by lions (levs), tigers and spiders, having left the house in the night when Apo and I didn't hear her, and calling and calling us but we don't hear her so she gets eaten by the spiders. Alone. In the dark. And I think, could you tell me 'fear of abandonment' any more clearly?

I remind her that she's never been outside alone in her life, and she replies, "I know, it's PRETEND! And I was really sad about it..." I amend the story to say that nothing like that ever happened or ever will happen, but if it did, then we would hear her opening the door to leave and we would come to get her in the forest and protect her from the lions, tigers and spiders. She objects, "But we couldn't run away fast enough, so we got eaten." - "No, I picked you up and carried you while I ran." - "But your tummy is too big to pick me up or to run fast." - "Well, Apo came and found us and HE picked you up and rescued us both." She seems to like that ending, but it doesn't stop the stories entirely.

Despite the somewhat increased defiance and refusal to listen, K is actually still pretty sweet and affectionate - in between non-listening episodes, which seem to frustrate her afterward as much as they do us. Like she can't help herself. And the wetting isn't defiant; it seems genuinely involuntary and distressing/embarrassing to her. It's almost enough to make me think it's a physical rather than emotional issue, but the timing seems too coincidental to be a random infection at the same time as a major change at home.

I've tried to dial up the affection and reassurance and dial down the frustration, but it isn't easy. Especially knowing that the baby hasn't even been born yet, so we have at LEAST another several weeks to few months of this ahead. Our mattresses, and possibly our nerves, may never recover.

I want to go there! The far east edition

2011-10-03T15:42:00.004+02:00

My daughter loves to travel and see new places. Sometimes the places she wants to go are easily accessible, but recently she's been really agitating to New Zealand and China. Kind of hard to get from Central Europe.

I can't remember if I wrote about it here or not, but K has still been continuing to process our move from England to the Czech Republic - which happened a YEAR ago - in recent months. She asks repeatedly, most recently the day before yesterday, "But why did we move to Prague? Why don't we live in England any more?" I explained (the first time it came up) that we moved because of Apo's work so that we could be with him, that the move to England was never intended to be permanent, and that we might move again someday, too. K was upset at the idea that we won't go back to live in England (we spent so long living between the countries that she thought we were just on a particularly long visit here, I guess), but excited at my suggestion that maybe we will go back for a visit someday.

In the same conversation, I think, she wanted to know why not everybody speaks English in Prague, and why we do speak English. I talked about different languages spoken in different countries. She also wanted to know why her friend from New Zealand speaks English but the other friends don't. I said that New Zealand is a country far away where they also speak English, like in England and America. Her eyes lit up and she asked if we could go to New Zealand, please.

Then during the part of the conversation where I explained that if/when we move again someday, we'll have a new house, new school, new friends (...), she instantly joined the two topics by asking if we can move to New Zealand. Since then, the idea of moving to New Zealand has come up with surprising regularity!

And then, just to add to the list of places we can't actually feasibly go, K has had a slowly growing fascination with China in the last several months. We have some family who lived in China for several years, and on a visit they gave her a little doll and explained it is from China. K doesn't play with the doll really, but she started to mention China occasionally after that. Then recently we were looking at a children's atlas and she was very interested in the map of China (K loves maps in general, in fact).

And THEN she started to watch episodes of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan in the mornings before school (it and Dora come on back to back at about the time K wakes up), and now she keeps asking me things like, "Mommy, how do you say ___ in Chinese?" To which I have to answer truthfully that I haven't the faintest idea. If she were interested in Dora, I could actually help with Spanish vocabulary, but it seems K is only interested in repeating the phrases in Chinese. It's kind of funny.

I suppose if I were really on top of things I would actually find some materials to teach K some basic phrases in Chinese. It is pretty sweet that she is developing such an awareness of other countries and languages and interest in learning about them.

And now...she wants to visit China. I've had to tell her it is unlikely that we will go to China in the near future, though maybe we can someday. Like, it would be much closer to fly there from New Zealand once we move there. Sigh. :)

It does occur to me that New Zealand and China are possibly the only places K knows something about where she hasn't already been, so maybe I just need to increase her exposure to places like Vienna. Or Rome. You know, places on this continent.

Once we get back on our feet enough post-baby to contemplate taking a real vacation again, I think K would totally love somewhere like Paris or Rome. And China, well, maybe we'll make it there eventually, too.

It's All Downhill From Here...

2011-10-02T17:37:00.002+02:00

My daughter used a Czech phrase this weekend that I didn't know.

Actually, she's been using this phrase for a while and it was only this weekend that the penny dropped: on Friday I learned the phrase myself, when her preschool teacher used it in front of me, and on Saturday K used it again and I realized, "THAT's what she's been saying all this time!"

The phrase is "mít kozí nohy" - having your shoes on the wrong feet. Obviously something that comes up regularly in a preschool environment. Literally it means "having goat feet." K's version is more like "Mám kože nohe?" so maybe I can be forgiven for not recognizing it - not that I'd have known what it meant if I had. Sigh.

I comfort myself with the fact that the Slovak had never heard this phrase either. Last year it was asking me for a word I didn't know (banana peel), this time it was knowing a word I didn't know.

Overall, though, I still have the edge. The Slovak has the edge in English, too. Vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation. We know how to use "he" and "she" properly. Things like that.

Also, we can spell, drive and go to bed whenever we want. (I spell better than the Slovak - in either language. For the record.)

We aren't ceding ground to our almost-four-year-old quite yet.

But...it's still coming.

Raising the Children ALL WRONG

2011-09-30T09:24:00.003+02:00

or, parenting differently than your parents. I imagine most of us have at least some experience with this - after all, we all probably do some things like our parents did and some things differently. And then you throw a spouse into the mix, with their own parents and ideas.

And then you make the spouse from a different country from yours, and you get a treasure trove of potential parenting differences.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Slovak and I are actually on the same page when it comes to parenting - and most other things. It's part of our cross-cultural magic. :) But as I've mentioned before, we are both so far out of our own cultures that we could almost miss in the middle. Neither of us feels bound by tradition and we're both pretty comfortable finding our own path. Being a bit different.

OK, I admit it. We love it. It's why we make a point of speaking Czech in central Arkansas - just to see people try not to stare...

But - we are the multicultural black sheep of two very monocultural families, and THERE is where the "raising the children ALL WRONG" title comes from!

You might expect we would have met opposition to raising our children with more than one language, but in fact that is one of the few areas we HAVEN'T heard criticism about. Everyone in our families thinks it's just great that our kids speak / will speak two or more languages. How fun! How useful! I think both sides know how they'd feel if THEIR language was the one being left out, so they're grateful we're keeping both languages covered.

(In fact, my mother once complained something about raising her granddaughter too far away from her - a legitimate complaint which I acknowledge - and I responded, "Be glad I'm making sure she speaks English." That put things in perspective.)

That said, our respective families DO find the reality of our bilingual family a little disconcerting, but they aren't opposed. And comments along the lines of "It's so strange to hear K speaking a language I don't understand, wow" I can handle.

Oh no, bilingualism isn't the issue. It's everything ELSE we do...which sometimes feels like EVERYTHING else we do. It never fails to crack me up, though, that while our families both disagree with (the details of) how we're raising K, they disagree in diametrically opposed ways.

For example, the Slovak's mother walks into a room and closes the window because are we TRYING to kill the baby? My mother walks into a room, opens the window, and goes to the other room to open another window to get a nice cross-breeze for that baby.

We put a sweater on the baby, and the Slovak's mother wants us to put on another layer and two hats. We put a sweater on the baby, and my mother says, "Get that sweater off that baby! It's not that cold!"

The Slovak's mother was disturbed that we wouldn't give our baby tea in a bottle. My mother was disturbed we wouldn't give her juice or formula in a bottle. (We exclusively breastfed.) The baby foods we eventually did use were also completely inappropriate.

His mother probably thinks we're too laid-back. My mother probably thinks we're too strict.

And so on, down the list of just about every area of child-rearing you can think of. Whenever either side gets too worked up about something, I point out that the OTHER side wants us to do it the opposite way, so if they're equally dissatisfied we consider it a parenting win. And the truth is that we DO do some things the way our parents do, it's just that the things we do differently make a much bigger impression. Due to being, you know, different.

At this point, four years in and having developed a bit thicker skin, it's actually kind of funny. When we were first starting out, though, it was incredibly stressful - we were just finding our balance as parents, making decisions like how to feed the baby and how to dress her, and a stream of criticism from the elder generation was less than helpful in boosting our confidence. Over time, though, we did find that balance, learn to trust our instincts - that often told us to do things a third way that neither of us learned at home - and developed the ability to smile pleasantly and do just as we like...

Some of the differences between our parents' styles and ours are cultural - tea for babies is Slovak, juice and rice cereal are American. Staying home from school for three weeks with a cold is Slovak, toughing it out and getting everyone else at school sick is American. And some are generational - the Slovak's parents are two years younger than my grandparents on one side (they started late, mine started early). In some very real ways my mother-in-law is closer to my grandmother (and her generation) in opinions than to my mother (and her generation) - much less than to me. The Slovak's mother raised him much the same as she was raised herself, meaning to make her really happy I'd theoretically have to adopt the habits of Slovak families in the 1940's. My mother is more flexible in her ideas, but there are clear areas where she thinks we're doing things strangely.

I think a lot of the resistance to our ALL WRONG approach to parenting is emotional - but that's not the way I raised you! What's wrong with how I raised you?? Anything you do differently can be construed as implied criticism of your own parents, which is then hurtful to them, even though so often the reason is much more simple: we live in another culture now and we're doing it their way, or that doesn't seem to work for my child's (or my) personality, or my spouse doesn't want us to do that. Any number of neutral reasons you might choose to do things differently.

And then the implied criticism actually IS sometimes the case - there are several areas where the Slovak and I are deliberately departing from our own upbringing, and while we don't throw it in our parents' faces, if they pressed the issue we'd have to say we simply disagree with their approach and want to try something differently. Different rules, different priorities, different disciplinary tactics. A different understanding of how children tick.

As a frivolous example, the Slovak and I both have clear memories of complaining that our heads hurt as children and being told, "No it doesn't. Children don't get headaches." And then being confused and annoyed because IT'S MY HEAD AND IT HURTS. So now we make a point that in OUR family, ANY member is allowed to get a headache at any age.

I remember the comment, sometime in the last year or two, "You probably think you're going to raise that girl without making any mistakes because you're such better parents than us, don't you?" My instant response was that NO, we don't think we're so much better parents, and we don't think we're going to avoid all mistakes. We just expect them to be our OWN mistakes, not a repetition of past generations. We're trying to learn from the past.

For instance, I grew up on stories of newbie mistakes my mother made with me as her firstborn, like the bees buzzing around my head because she stuck a hairbow to my head with honey, or not knowing she should be washing in the baby fat creases until she noticed horrible gunk in the crease of my neck when I was a few months old. So when I had a baby, I never put honey on her head and I made sure we washed her neck. What I didn't think of, though, was scrubbing DILIGENTLY behind her ears, until we noticed gunk behind there (we'd been just wiping without looking). And nobody told me that when potty-training, if you put a small child on the time-out spot and say DON'T GET UP, she WON'T. Even if she SHOULD. And you have a damp spot where she obediently went pee-pee right where you put her...

See, my daughter will probably know that story and not make that mistake. She'll make her own mistakes while looking back and being horrified at mine. Just as it should be.

And yet - somehow - with all this potential for hostility and culturally-, linguistically- and generationally-based disagreements, we have actually come to a fairly peaceful place. A place in which, despite thinking we do things ALL WRONG, both sides of our family tell us that we are doing a good job raising their grandchild (soon to be -ren) and admire the results of our parenting: K. If we can raise a girl that (confident, bright, sweet, kind - grandparents are biased...), then maybe there is something to what we're doing. At the very least it hasn't ruined her.

I think I've got this on my mind since within the next couple of weeks we'll be starting over with a newborn, and I wonder how much of the same ground we'll revisit with our parents - and if we'll deal with it better this time around. I think we will. Last time we were still learning what kind of parents we are. Now we know and will be prepared to defend those choices or adapt them to fit our new baby's needs.

Because sometimes being all wrong is just right. :)

Multilingual Czech Preschool

2011-09-09T11:48:00.003+02:00

When my daughter's preschool sent out an e-mail earlier this summer asking which parents were interested in forming an English class with a native English speaking teacher this fall, I wrote back saying not interested, thanks, we have one at home.

I guess they end up forming not a full time class but a twice a week lesson with an external American teacher coming in, and the first lesson was yesterday. K was apparently exercising with the kids who don't attend the English class - but when I went to pick her up, the head teacher asked me if I would mind terribly much if K attended the class for 45 minutes twice a week. To help the teacher.

hahahahahaha

Apparently the kids spent most of the class staring wide-eyed and not really participating, since English is so new for them. The head teacher asked the English teacher if he thought it would help to have an English-Czech speaking child in the class to smooth things over, and he apparently said yes. So she asked me if K could join in.

I have mildly mixed feelings about it, but I suspect that most of my concerns would apply more to elementary school and Czechs teaching English. They aren't learning grammar that K already knows, the American teacher won't be threatened by her superior grasp of the language, and I don't THINK that kids this age will give her social problems if she knows all the answers and they don't - three things that can easily happen with older children in a similar position.

So I said ok, as long as it's helpful and not distracting and not more than those two lessons a week. Frankly, I get the impression that K enjoyed the "English lessons" they had last year, which I believe were mainly the regular teachers singing a bunch of English songs. It was/is her chance to be a star since she knows all the songs, can count to 10 in English, and whatever else they practice. Which I guess is not detrimental at this point.

A stickier problem will be what to do with mandatory English lessons in elementary school, where K will either be conspicuously at the top of the class, ridiculously bored, forced to choose between biting her tongue at the teacher's wrong English ("This is my k-nee") and correcting an adult in front of the class, or even put in some special position over the other kids (this is where I think "teacher's helper" can really backfire). I think I'd like to send some worksheets or a book from home for her to work on instead, or if there are multiple English-speaking students in the class, it would be awesome to bring in an external teacher for an hour to do a native-English class - language arts, learning to read, whatever. It'll depend on how open her elementary school administration and teachers are, I imagine.

But for the moment, K will be singing along with English songs, counting in English and generally playing along with whatever the teacher is trying to do. Which will ideally inspire the other children to follow her lead, haha. I'd be interested to see how that plays out!

---

K's teacher also commented a few times recently on how her Czech is improving. It's more grammatical now and more flexible. I found it interesting that her teachers claimed she never mixed Czech and Slovak at school as I described her doing at home, but then one day I was witness to the following:

Teacher: "Kde máš obrázek?" (Where's your picture?)
K: "Já nelobila" (nerobila - SK - I didn't make one)
Teacher: [insert several guesses as to what K means, including "Ty jsi rozbila?" - you broke it??]
K: "Já nelobila!"
Teacher: still not getting it
Me: "Chce říct "já nerobila" - nedělala." (She's saying 'I didn't make one' in Slovak)
Teacher: "Jo tááááák, to je ta slovenština..." (OOOOHHHHH, it's Slovak, didn't expect that...)

I've also heard K use Slovak at school other times, I think, where I had the feeling the teachers didn't realize that's what she was doing. So I'm thinking she may be mixing more than they realize and they just don't hear it! Actually, now that I think of it, I remember a conversation between a teacher and a Slovak-Czech little boy last year, where the boy was talking about his "babka" and the teacher kept asking what/who he was talking about. I mentioned we have a babka in Slovakia as well.

To be fair, I guess you really don't hear or understand the mixing unless you are used to it or expecting it somehow. I may be more sensitive to children's language mixing (whether CZ-EN, SK-EN or CZ-SK) or language-related misunderstandings/disobedience (the two-year-old isn't trying to be naughty when continuing to kick the gravel after being told not to - he may well not know it's called "gravel"!) than your average grown-up. You know, being occasionally prone to them myself...

Big Sister, Baby Brother

2011-08-21T12:07:00.004+02:00

One reason I wanted to have another child is so I could ~~double my multilingual research pool~~ watch and try to foster a sibling relationship up close. Siblings add a whole new dimension and challenge to life - and parenting - that I wouldn't want us to miss out on.

I knew K would love Baby Boy, but I am still caught off guard by the strength of this sibling relationship even before he is born.

She includes him in all our family portraits - sometimes inside me, and sometimes outside. Sometimes more than once.

She daydreams about what they will do together when he is born. Most of her plans are actually realistic, since I've made sure to warn her that babies don't do much but eat, sleep and cry when they're first born. She wants to change his diapers, push his stroller, hold him (all acceptable), and also sleep with him in her bed and nurse him (not very feasible). She also rigged herself a baby wrap from an old scarf and I certainly hope she doesn't expect to carry the actual baby in that...

What surprised me a little more, though, is how she has conversations with the baby - performing both sides of the conversation herself (and sometimes using the results against me). For example, this past week, at bedtime:

"Mommy, please lay down in my bed with me. (persuasively) My bed is reeeeeally comfortable."
"No, sweetie, I have to go back into the living room while you go to bed."
"Because the baby wants to go to the living room?"
"Um, yes."
"(to my belly) Baby, do you want to go to the living room? (high-pitched voice) No, K, I want to stay here with you. (normal voice) See, he wants to stay with me."

So I, of course, did the only thing I could do in the circumstances: I plucked an invisible baby out of my tummy and handed him to K, telling her to take care of her brother. She put him on the pillow next to her and I left the room.

Or yesterday, when K and Apo were on their way to the store and then the zoo, K wanted to take the baby with them. I plucked him out of my tummy again and let him go with her. When they got back from the store, I asked if she still had him, and she held up a plastic bag clenched tightly in her fist, saying, "Yes, he's in here! He had a lot of fun at the store. But now he's too tired to go to the zoo, so he can stay with you." (Probably a good thing, too, if she was keeping him in a closed plastic bag.)

Their interactions are sometimes very sibling-like, too: A few weeks ago I was hugging K so that she was partially pressed up against my stomach. When she moved away, the baby kicked hard, and I told her so: "The baby just kicked, because you were squishing him!" The next day, when she was listing all the wrongs done to her recently (over-tired and annoyed), she said:

"...AND I don't like the baby."
"What did the baby do to you??"
"He kicked me! That not nice!"
"Well, you were squishing him, after all..."
"Hmph."

Sibling rivalry. In utero. Oh my. :)

And then sometimes I have to provide the baby's voice in their conversations:

K: "Good night, Mama."
Me: "Good night, K."
K: "Good night, baby, I love you." (kisses stomach)
Me, squeaky voice: "Good night, K!"

Obviously K doesn't feel that being divided by a few inches of mama's belly is any significant impediment. Of course, their "relationship" is all very theoretical still, since the baby IS still inside (and due in large part to K's active imagination and pretend play), but it is still a bit more intense than I had expected at this stage!

What language do babies speak?

2011-08-16T15:59:00.003+02:00

The other day I asked K what language she thinks Baby Boy speaks.

After a moment's thought, she said confidently, "English."
"So you think our baby boy speaks English?"
"Yes. And Czech. *pause* Wait, I'm silly - babies can't talk! He says 'waah, waah'."
"Of course, you're right, babies can't talk. But we can talk to him, and we can use English and Czech. And Apo Slovak. We will have to teach the baby how to talk."

I like how K saw through my 'trick' question (I didn't really mean it that way, though). She seemed pretty certain that baby boy will be a strong English speaker like her, and she liked the idea of helping teach him to talk - in all three languages.

No monolingual babies in this house, it seems!

History Hitting Close to Home

2011-08-12T21:00:00.003+02:00

Apparently construction on the Berlin Wall began 50 years ago today.

I can't begin to express how grateful I am that it's gone.

Several years ago - a few months after we married, in fact - the Slovak and I took a quick trip to Berlin. We didn't have much time there, but we made it to Checkpoint Charlie. (Right next to which, by the way, was a Czech cultural center called "Czech Point Charlie". I still can't quite believe that...)

We stood on the west side. We stood on the east side. We stood in the middle and hugged. If either of us could do a cartwheel across it, we possibly would have.

I imagined a wall standing between us, keeping each of us from crossing over to the other. If it were still here, I would cross it, if I could. My Slovak is worth it. But we would almost certainly never have met, and we would be worse off for it.

How terribly, terribly glad I am there is no wall between us today.

How did I give birth to a socially adept child?

2011-08-10T13:23:00.006+02:00

Not that I'm not pleased. It's just surprising to see someone who looks and acts so much like me be so...outgoing. Of course, I'm much more outgoing these days than I was as a child (the Slovak is the same), so maybe we can foster our girl's warm, friendly nature without making her as shy as we were as children. Balance is good.

This past weekend we were invited to the birthday party of the Slovak's co-worker's twins. Of course, when I told K she'd been invited to a party, she hardly cared that she'd never met the hosts. She was incandescent with joy. "Really?? I like parties! I've never been to a party!" (She has, but it was over a year ago so she doesn't remember. She loved that one, too.)

This was interesting in a couple of ways. For one, it offered us a partial answer to our "What do people do for their children's birthdays?" question, at least for a certain segment of the population. It also confirmed for us that while it was fun, it's not our style. (Rented facility, hired clowns, lots of kids, only some of whom the birthday girls actually knew)

We also got a rare opportunity to watch our child interacting with her peers, since we got to stay for the party, too. She wasn't the youngest there, but she was on the younger end of the kids participating in the games, competitions, and so on. At one point the children took turns singing a song into a microphone. We looked over, saw K about fifth in line (and at least a year younger than the next youngest in line), and wondered out loud to each other if she knew what she was lining up for...we both expected her to get shy or scared when it was her turn, but she announced her name and chosen song clearly into the microphone and then sang it. She got a bit muddled up in the middle, but she finished - just like most of the older ones who sang before her.

The striking thing was that the man in the clown suit clearly had no idea she wasn't a Czech little girl (you could tell by some of the things he said to her). She communicated clearly and age appropriately. Even forgetting the text mid-song was age appropriate, and her singing was pretty on-key. Score for K!

I also met (or re-met) several of the Slovak's co-workers who were present. They apparently all remembered that the Slovak is married to an American but nothing else about me, because they were all comically surprised to find that I speak Czech. (It's a common reaction.)

(all in Czech)
"You speak Czech??"
"Yes, I do."
"You are Czech?"
"I'm not Czech, but I speak Czech."
(to the Slovak) "I had no idea your wife speaks Czech!"
(all with a clear subtext of "But you sound so...normal!")

Have you ever noticed that if you type Czech too many times in a row, it starts to look funny? :)

I also met/overheard a couple of Czech-speaking foreigners, which is always interesting as we are, apparently, relatively few in number. This was because several of the families present were in similar (Czech-English, at least) situations as us, so I had a few brief conversations about bilingual kids and such.

We also overheard that there was another Apo present - I overheard a girl calling "Apo! Apo!" and saw that another man, speaking Slovak, was answering her. I'm not sure we've met any other Apos, at least not directly. I think my Slovak felt some Apo solidarity going on, even though the two of them didn't speak.

Lots of fun was had, K behaved really well (especially on just a 20 minute nap), fit in very nicely with peers (have I mentioned the wonder of two introverts producing a highly social, leadership-quality-possessing child? the Slovak and I would both have suffered at a party full of people we didn't know, and we'd have died before performing a song in front of a crowd like that!), and the party lasted so long we had to cut out early (after 3.5 hours) because it showed no sign of letting up and we had company waiting for us at home... Overall: success.

Linkfest

2011-07-27T17:05:00.002+02:00

Bilingualism Carnival!

And a series of articles on fun ways to improve a second language (for adults) that I did a while ago and totally forgot to mention here:

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Check them out if you haven't seen them before!

Learning to Write

2011-07-26T10:56:00.003+02:00

When K was around two years old, I hand-wrote something in front of her and her whole body stiffened in fascination as she watched me. She immediately demanded that I repeat the trick, so I took a blank piece of paper and demonstrated how to write her name and, upon her insistence, various other words.

It instantly changed her whole way of drawing: previously, she would scribble and maybe on a good day we might get a circle, but from that moment on her drawings became pages full of small, intricate symbols. She also started noticing things written outside, on the bus, in the store, and wanting to know what they say. Her fixation on it was really sweet, with this attitude of "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE THIS SKILL YOU'VE BEEN HIDING FROM ME ALL THIS TIME." (My response, of course, was "YOU'RE ONLY TWO. DON'T BE RIDICULOUS.")

Since then K has gone through a few phases of intense interest in reading and writing that last a few days or weeks until something else catches her attention. I've been using those high-interest periods to slowly and casually teach her some of the alphabet. The results of this to date are that she recognizes a few letters (K for her name, M for mama) and can write a few others (she writes lines full of T and O and then tells me what they say) and her alphabet puzzle is no challenge any more.

We're going through another intense writing phase at the moment: K makes me write down a word and then she copies it out to the side. She doesn't know what sounds most of the letters make and hasn't really caught on to the principle yet, but she is surprisingly good at making (backwards, upside down, sideways...) copies of the letters she sees. She can be somewhat single-minded (I have no idea where she got that, unless it was from the Slovak. really. that's my story), so we have pages and pages full of writing, ranging from "cat" and "dog" to "basket" and "computer", whatever she requests. I think she wanted to write "octopus" once.

I've been indulging her so far, sounding out the words as I write them and not addressing the backwards and upside down aspect. I think just practicing writing them will help her to eventually straighten them out and remember the names, etc. And of course, backwards and upside down writing is common even in children older than K, as I had to tell my husband - it offends his sense of correctness to just let it pass. He also doesn't like it when K uses "he" and "she" (or similar) incorrectly. It's wrong! I do sympathize :) but I remind him and myself that it's really developmentally normal and K will straighten it out herself eventually...

K also mentions almost daily that when she is a big girl, she will go to the big girl school (where she would really like to be attending already, in fact). She asks me about big girl school: what they do there, what they learn, if they have toys and a sandbox. She was very interested to hear that in big girl school you learn to read and write (and count and learn all about the world). I have been wondering this week if she wants to learn to write now so she'll be able to go to big girl school, or if the two interests are actually separate, if related. She hasn't mentioned them in connection like that, but you never know what is going on in her small, curly head.

I know it's not entirely unusual for parents to teach a two or three year old to read, write, count to 100, and do long division (really, some people's laundry lists of accomplishments are kind of silly), and of course sometimes a child absorbs these things without being specifically taught, but I am really finding a lack of desire in myself to cultivate an early reader (etc.) beyond allowing K access to knowledge as and when she requests it.

Because I also think it's silly to deny a child the opportunity to learn when he is clearly interested, as apparently my mother-in-law did with my husband - it was frowned upon at the time for kids to start school knowing how to read, so none would be ahead of the others, so she didn't teach him anything until he started learning in first grade. (I think this is why he was so surprised when I recently mentioned reading chapter books at 6 and 7 years old - I was an early reader and by first grade was reading Nancy Drew...he looked at me with a little extra respect after that!)

I always thought I'd be more eager to encourage my kids to read (and acquire other academic skills) as early as possible, but I kind of surprised myself once I became a parent and decided, you know, I'm really not interested in pushing it. I am confident that K will learn to read when she is ready and that pushing too hard runs the risk of her losing interest. I'd rather she learn to love reading at any age than learn to read early but regard it as a chore or something to make Mama happy.

K has access to crayons or pen and paper, willing scribes in me and the Slovak, (rather a large number, in fact, of) books, and I make sure she sees me reading myself. Have had to make an effort on this front, actually, as I took to mostly reading on the computer once she was born (hands free), so you can't tell if I'm reading my e-mail or something more substantial. I am picking up real books more often now, though, and not saving them just for when she's asleep. (We'll see how this goes when boy baby is born and I have my arms full again, though...)

So basically, that's where we're at: 3.5 and determined to learn to write. Reading seems to be less of a concern, since K can already "read" (i.e., retell a story to herself as she flips through a book), so I guess she feels like she's got that one down. I imagine that if she continues writing like this she'll learn to actually read sometime before starting school. That's fine with me. Whenever she's ready, I'll be ready to help. To me, the important thing is that she's engaged, eager to learn, and terribly proud of herself. I am not invested in her learning as much as possible, as fast as possible, but I am also proud of her - of her determination to learn and quick mind, yes, but even more of her confidence, joy in life and kind heart. Those are the real skills she'll take with her to first grade, regardless of what else she knows.

No Longer the New English-Speaking Girl

2011-07-20T14:41:00.004+02:00

Yesterday a new girl started at K's preschool, recently arrived from New Zealand. Like K when we arrived, she apparently understands but doesn't speak Czech.

The teacher told me about her yesterday and said it was funny that K and the girl hadn't yet realized that they both speak English. I told her the story of K and her bilingual friend. It's not that unusual I guess.

Today I asked K who she played with at school, and she mentioned playing with Lexie (the NZ girl). I asked about Lexie, and she said they played together but Lexie "doesn't speak very well". She speaks a little bit but not a lot, K said. I asked whether K speaks a little or a lot, and she said she speaks a lot. (That is certainly true!) I asked what language Lexie speaks, and K answered, "Sometimes she speaks English." I pointed out that K also speaks English, and K said that yes, she does speak English, but she doesn't speak it with Lexie. She speaks Czech with Lexie.

It was kind of interesting hearing K's perspective on a girl in the same position K was not so long ago. Her stance on Czech as the language of kids (and babies, and animals) is firm. I was wondering if she would feel any kinship or similarity between her and the new girl, but I didn't want to suggest it to her by asking. I'm not sure if K feels much of a difference between herself and the Czech kids at school. She does speak a little differently, but it's not a significant difference any more and she/they might not pay it much attention.

I did ask K's head teacher yesterday what she thought of K's level of Czech, and she pretty much agreed with my assessment that K is somewhat, but not significantly, behind monolingual kids her age in Czech, but that she should bridge the gap in 6 months to a year at this rate. She was also pretty impressed with how well K has done so far.

---

K also demonstrated yesterday that she knows her left from her right, in Czech/Slovak (words are the same) and in English. She immediately and without thinking showed me her right hand, left hand, pravá ruka, levá ruka...

This is more impressive (to me) than you might think, because I have always had trouble with telling left from right. I also sometimes forget which side of the road you drive on or which direction is first base from home [in baseball], which knee I have a freckle on, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a technical term for it. So I was doubly surprised when K knew it correctly, because I had to think to know whether she was right or not. Obviously I wasn't the one who taught her.

I asked her teacher once we got to school (this happened on the way there), who said that they don't specifically teach left and right, but they do tell the children, "You are coloring with your right hand now" and similar. And last week K was looking for something and the Slovak told her it was on the left side, and she reached the correct direction to find it - that was our first clue that she knew the difference.

---

Another of my idiosyncracies is that I sneeze in bright light. Like not knowing left from right, people who don't do it themselves don't even know it exists usually, but it totally does! I think it's called photosensitive sneezing, and it apparently runs in families. The Slovak thought I was making it up until our daughter was born and, as an infant, sneezed in the bright sunlight for the first time. He has to admit it exists now. :)

Birthdays

2011-07-14T09:52:00.004+02:00

This may be a totally silly thing to be thinking about in July when my daughter's birthday is in November, but she regularly brings up her birthday - when is it, what will we do, reenacting her last one - so it's not really out of the blue.

Also, her birthday is one month before Christmas, so every year we have to plan in advance what to give her for her birthday and what to keep for Christmas.

Also, this year in particular, her birthday is going to come about six weeks after we dramatically and irrevocably change her life by introducing a baby brother. K is excited about having a baby brother and will be a good big sister, but she is also used to being our baby and not having to share us with anyone, so I don't think the transition will pass with no insecurity or uncertainty whatsoever. So I'm inclined to want to make this birthday particularly special and sparkly instead of letting it slink past in a haze of diapers and night feedings.

In googling for ideas on birthday celebrations for a four-year-old or how to make a birthday special, however, I found that my idea of "special" doesn't seem to correlate to other people's idea of "special". All I found were suggestions on how to spend more money for a more lavish party...

Which brings me to the fact that K has never had a birthday party as such. Go ahead, tell me how mean I am. The thing is I am really not into massive parties for kids, with bouncy castles, pony rides, clowns and the whole class - or even people the child doesn't know! - invited. It has always seemed odd to me to invite your friends, boss, clients, and so on to your child's first birthday (because I think it's overwhelming and not very meaningful for the child), for example, though I know a lot of people do it.

My ideal party is the immediate family and MAYBE one to two close friends of the child, with cake, candles, singing the birthday song, presents, and possibly a child-oriented, age-appropriate outing.

For K's first birthday I made fairy cakes (hey, we were in England!), we helped her blow out the candle and she opened her presents. We recorded the celebrations for the benefit of the grandparents. One other person was present, simply because we had a houseguest at the time. She helped with photography and such.

For K's second birthday, her Slovak grandparents came to visit. I made her chocolate cupcakes, helped her blow out two candles (or was it a candle shaped like the number 2? can't remember), and she opened her presents. We had a live Skype feed for her American grandmother (we do that for birthdays and Christmas for both sets of parents, it's so very 21st century). We also took her to a soft play area for the first time, where she had a blast.

For K's third birthday, I was willing for the first time to invite a friend or two, but it was just after we moved to Prague from UK, so she didn't have any friends close enough to invite. Instead, I made her a cake, she blew out the candles, we sang, she opened her presents, Skype feed, Slovak grandmother in town, and we went to the Prague aquarium. Which was frankly a disappointment, given how beautiful the Prague zoo is for the same price. Oh well, lesson learned, at least we did something fun. And really, especially with the cake and presents, K had a BLAST. She couldn't stop smiling and posing for pictures.

(As a note, my MIL tried to discourage me from making K a cake - she didn't understand why I would go to the effort of making something myself when I could buy some pastries from a bakery instead. I was shocked at the mere suggestion, which I guess shows that I do have certain Ideas about what good mothers do for their kids' birthdays...apparently a big party isn't required, but a homemade cake is. I already feel like a slacker because I don't know how to do cake decorating the way my mother always did, so my cakes are very tasty but not very decorated!)

So this is basically the pattern that I'm looking to make "special" - not a more extravagant party or gifts particularly, but something extra that a four year old will find magical. We've been looking for slightly more "big girl" gifts, with some success - that's another topic actually, what do you get for a four year old that she doesn't already have (gifts from previous years will last for a long time, like her toy kitchen) and that isn't inappropriate, overly commercialized, branded by Disney or TV characters she doesn't recognize, and so on? Because that rules out most of what I saw in stores on our recent US visit.

So far I've thought of taking K on one of those horse-drawn carriage rides around Prague. They're for tourists, but I've always thought they were cool and I think K would adore it. She loves downtown Prague, sight-seeing, horses, being a princess... The only complication is her birthday is in late November so the weather may or may not be very pleasant. But if we dress up warmly I can imagine a wintry carriage ride as being pretty special.

Alternatively, I've been thinking for a while that K would probably really love to sit down for ice cream in a slightly fancy-looking cafe downtown. There are a bunch that have been restored to their pre-war elegant decorations and seem to be frequented by tourists, so we might not be too conspicuous bringing a child. The complication here is do we bring the baby or not and can we convince a friend to keep him for an hour or two if we decide not to.

Even something as simple as a zoo or movie theater trip would be fun, though we hit the zoo too often for it to qualify as life-changingly special and I'm not sure how fun it will be in late November, and there would have to be a really good family movie out at that point, which you can't guarantee.

I'm open to suggestions on something else to do or somewhere to go in or around Prague, especially something that takes into consideration the time of year and presence of infant.

Generally, I've been thinking of scaling back on presents in general in future (for both children) and focusing more on a family outing or experience as above. For the first few years, we didn't have ANYTHING, so we needed everything. A ride-on toy, Legos, books, dress-up clothes, things to play shopkeeper or kitchen, we had none of it, so birthdays and Christmas were essentially opportunities to stock up for K as well as any future children. Now that we have most of the general categories we wanted and most of it K should keep playing with for at least another couple of years, we have less of a need for the "big" gifts and can concentrate on filling in the gaps (for boy baby) and adding on something for bigger kids (for K). I'd rather birthdays and holidays be less about getting a big gift, anyway, and more about spending time together having fun. I'm not opposed to spending money, either on gifts or special outings, but I want to find that magical balance, basically.

I would like to have a very, very small birthday party this year, because I think K is old enough to enjoy it now and see above re massive life changes. I'm imagining one or two friends from preschool coming over to play for a few hours and having a piece of cake.

This is where the cultural and linguistic twist comes in, because I don't know what current birthday customs are in this country! I know what they used to be at least for some people, when people my age were growing up, but I have the impression they may have changed and parties may be more common and such. I am fairly sure that sleep-overs are still pretty much unheard of, but none of my friends are the parents of young children, so they can't really tell me for sure. I would be willing to consider one friend spending the night, but obviously not if the mere suggestion would scandalize the parents!

Also, K's best friend at school is Russian and I'm not entirely sure her parents speak Czech, which would be an additional complication. Haha. I have to figure out some logistics still.

So these are the questions I'm currently considering.

How mean is it that our daughter has never had a birthday party outside the family?

Are we really the only ones who don't do it?

How can we make her first birthday post-sibling something special for her?

What's something fun but reasonable to do in late November with a four-year-old? Bonus points for something offbeat she hasn't done before.

What do other people do for their children's birthdays?

Particularly, what do Czech people do for their children's birthdays? How do I find out?

What kind of toys does a four-year-old play with that a three-year-old doesn't? Bonus points if it isn't Disney themed, involving thousands of small parts or encouraging attitudes I don't think are appropriate for young children, i.e. me and Barbie - and Bratz type dolls even more so - have a very uneasy truce that involves them not coming in my house.

Why can't you buy anything these days that doesn't have a trademarked character (Dora, Cars, Disney Princesses) prominently displayed? Has anyone else noticed that Disney has totally taken over the world?

Was it like that when we were kids?

Why couldn't I find any toy stores other than Toys-R-Us and the toy sections of big box stores in America?

Can anyone recommend me some? Online is ok.

Also, what kind of books does a four-year-old enjoy that we don't already have? Bonus points if they're in Czech or Slovak.

Am I overthinking this? Wait, don't answer that one. Overthinking is totally my thing.

School Year in Review and 3.5 Year Language Update

2011-07-11T11:00:00.003+02:00

The official last day of school was June 30. K started the school year in October, at a different school we weren't happy with ultimately, so we finished out the year at a different school that we ended up loving.

In under six months K went from speaking in individual words to conversing entirely in CZ/SK (she speaks Czech but it's interesting how strong an influence the father-language has on her still, i.e. Czech hasn't taken over completely) confidently, if mildly ungrammatically.

I'd be interested in an actual evaluation of her speech level, since I don't have much experience with native Czech speaking children so it is hard for me to judge what is age-appropriate and what isn't. I would estimate, though, that she may be up to a year behind her age level, or maybe less, which is a massive step up from the 2+ years behind she was at the beginning of this year. I'm hoping to ask one of the teachers what they think, too.

As far as English goes, K is the star of the school's English hour. Hahah. Again, it's hard for me to judge where she's at but I believe she is right at her age level. Grammar concepts are slowly coming together, although some, like he/she and his/her, she still doesn't have straight. Everything in the past is yesterday, and there are still several sounds she can't produce - but those seem about typical for 3.5, it seems to me. When we were in America, a few relatives commented that they could understand everything she says with no trouble, one adding, "I find her easier to understand than [cousin who is a year older], actually."

I do wonder, though, if K will STAY at age level, and if I will recognize the signs if she doesn't. Will her English stagnate with just me to talk to? Will I provide rich enough stimulation to keep her vocabulary and fluency growing? Will I notice if her English starts to lag? I think so...but I'll have to remember to monitor.

Socially and developmentally speaking, K is really thriving and happy, and I think her school is contributing to that. She is confident and friendly and usually very reasonably behaved. She has a wild imagination and loves to tell stories and play pretend. She often plays out both sides of a conversation at once, between her dolls or even, this weekend, between her toes. As in, her toes were having a conversation with each other. She seems to have a feel for music, picking up songs easily and singing them on key usually - not a given at her age. She recognizes a few letters (I teach her only when she's interested) and has good crayon and scissor control. I think our Kumon workbooks have really helped her confidence with crayons and scissors. She can count to 10 and is working on up to 20 in both languages. She knows the Czech months and is learning the English ones. Her reasoning and negotiating skills are developing at an alarming pace...

We've noticed that Czech is becoming her self-play language, especially since a lot of her scenarios revolve around school type situations, imaginary conversations with her friends, etc. It isn't a hard-and-fast preference for Czech, though - it seems that K's toys, like K herself, fluidly and naturally switch between languages at will. But there's more Czech present than English most of the time, I'd say, even when she was, for instance, playing with the toys at my mother's house.

Which takes us up to the end of the school year. I had been minorly wondering what happened to all the children's artwork, since K often came home with paint in her hair but rarely had any pictures sent home. They did display artwork on the walls at school, but that wouldn't account for everything. All was explained, however, when during the last week we were presented with a binder filled with K's work from the year, displayed in plastic sheet protectors. The binder also had several pictures of K and classmates on the front and back, two CD-Roms with pictures and video clips from the school year, the daily record of what went on in school (today we went outside and talked about snails, etc), and a letter to K from the teachers summing up her year.

K's letter talked about how she started out quiet but quickly learned to talk in full sentences, made lots of friends, and generally had a fantastic year and her teachers are proud of her. I thought the letter, and the whole book, were really sweet and a nice memento of the school year.

The "summer break" didn't last long, though, since we decided to keep her in school for the summer - her school is staying open except for a week at the end of August, just before the first day of school on September 1. I think school is good for her at this point, and there's no reason to stop if I don't have anything more fun for her to do. I am going to keep her home a few days if I manage to take us to the zoo or do something else worthwhile, but otherwise it's work and gestating for me and school for K.

So pretty much she finished school June 30, had a Mama and K day July 1, and left for a week in Slovakia July 2, from which we just returned. And then, today, back to school to play with her friends.

Consequences of Multilingual Parenting that Nobody Tells You About

2011-07-08T08:20:00.004+02:00

In our family, we have a Mama and an Apo. In fact, in our family we refer to all mothers as Mamas and all fathers as Apos, no matter how other families refer to themselves. Our Apo occasionally refers to me as "Mamka" or "Mami", and I occasionally refer to him as "your father" (usually in the sense of "WHEN IS YOUR FATHER GOING TO __?"). K goes back and forth between "Mama" and "Mommy" (sounds very like Mami) for me, and sticks to Apo for the Slovak.

Incidentally, "Apo" is a Slovakified version of the Hungarian word for daddy, which is what the Slovak calls HIS father (his parents are Apo and Aňu). It is pretty much only used in eastern Slovakia where he is from, so people in Prague and western Slovakia are as baffled upon hearing it as anyone else. The only time it gets instant recognition is from someone from eastern Slovakia who also uses/used it at home... Czechs call their fathers "táta", "tatínek" and variations thereof, and Slovaks typically call their fathers "ocko" and variations thereof.

"Mama", on the other hand, is pretty adaptable. It's "máma" (slight pronunciation difference) in Czech, or more often "maminka", or "mamka" or "mamička" in Slovak. "Mami" fits in either language. Thus K never raises any eyebrows calling me Mama or Mommy wherever we are.

So it took our daughter a while to pick up on the existence of other words to refer to parents. For example, for a long time she didn't know what people meant when they talked about her "daddy", because we never use the word. Eventually, she figured out that "daddy" and "tatínek" are different words for Apo that other people sometimes use, but she never said them herself, or at least not to refer to her father.

Recently that has started to change...

For one thing, K is referring to us sometimes as "moje maminka" and "můj tatínek" or "můj táta" (instead of "můj Apo"), especially when talking to her Slovak grandparents this week. I can't remember if she has called Apo táta to his face or not, but he definitely tries to discourage it, because he is called Apo.

Our last day in the US this year was Father's Day, and I'm pretty sure people were asking K about her "dad" and talking about dads and moms, because later that day or very soon after she said something about "mom and dad". This caught our attention, because of all the possible parental names, K has NEVER said "mom" or "dad". She clearly got it from Outside Influences!

Soon after that, once we were home, she mentioned her "mom and dad" to me again, and I asked,

"Do you mean Mama and Apo?"
"No, MOM and DAD."
"But we're your Mom and Dad."
"No, you're Mommy and Apo!"
"Um, well, who are your Mom and Dad then? Where are they now?"
"Mom is at work and Dad is at home." (points back to her bedroom)
"Can you ask him to come out here?"

K then went back to her bedroom, Dad first refused to come out, then came after all and K pointed to the floor, explaining that Dad is very small. And apparently invisible.

Are you getting this?

MY CHILD HAS IMAGINARY PARENTS.

And it doesn't end there, oh no. An imaginary "tatínek" has also recently made an appearance, clearly differentiated from the real Apo.

That makes five of us so far.

I keep waiting for K to claim her OTHER parents are much nicer, less demanding, or in some other way entirely better than her REGULAR parents. I could handle that. Especially if the other parents would go to work and clean the house for us so we could spend more time goofing off with our kids.

EDIT TO ADD: I totally forgot about "MApo"! When K was learning to talk, for a long time she referred to me as "Mama" and Apo as "MApo". Which made him kind of mad. Like he's just a substandard version of me. Eventually she learned to say Apo and use it for the correct person, but she continued - and continues - to say MApo sometimes for either or both of us. At least occasionally it seems like she's just forgetting or changing her mind mid-word as to what she wants to say.

But recently - on the plane back from US, so the same day that "Mom and Dad" were first mentioned, she showed us a picture she drew. We are her favorite drawing subjects, especially Apo as he is artistically interesting with his short hair, glasses and beard. This one, however, had glasses, a beard and long hair. (Long hair is my only distinguishing characteristic.)

We asked about it, and she confirmed that we were seeing long hair, glasses and a beard. We looked at each other and said "...that must be MApo!"

So I guess that's six parents at last count...

Bilingual in Arkansas

2011-06-25T20:23:00.003+02:00

One of the most pleasant surprises during our trip to America was that K did not back off at all from her new speaking-Czech-with-Apo routine.

We thought she might revert to answering in English, as she used to do and as would be understandable in an entirely English environment, but she had no problem conversing with him - in the store, in the car, in Grandmama's house - in all or mostly Czech and Slovak, depending on her knowledge of what she wanted to say. She does still speak some English to him, mostly on things she doesn't know the words or grammar for yet. Fair enough.

She also was completely confident in speaking English with everyone else and fitting in with other kids. I heard her use a Czech word to Grandmama once or twice, but she mostly kept everything to what people could understand. She enjoyed singing some of her preschool (and home) songs to Grandmama, which was pretty entertaining, especially when I had to clarify which songs she was singing real words to and which songs she was making up as she went along.

I wondered if K would be surprised by everyone speaking English in America, but the only time she commented on it was at the Prague airport when two women ahead of us in line were speaking English. "They speak English like me! And you!" I guess she got used to it after that.

She had a blast while there and didn't get set back at all during the trip or once we got back. Even jet lag was much easier this time around - we all slept all night every night since we got back! Not like jet lagging with an 11 month old who at 2 am just wants to play...

One thing she learned in Arkansas was the song "Ring of Fire" - she's heard it before on our i-pod, but started trying to sing along in the car this time. So of course I played it for her a few times and sang along so she could watch my mouth and pick up the words. I have to say, "Burns burns burns" is a very funny line to hear coming out of a three year old's mouth! I think it's the perfect souvenir to bring home from a trip to Arkansas, don't you?

Difficulty Making Yourself Understood

2011-06-23T15:35:00.002+02:00

It's not just for the foreign language any more!

We just got back from a visit to America. (It was great, fun was had.) While there, we had a few communication challenges to overcome...not counting the Slovak's traditional introduction to new people of "Hi, I'm The Slovak" followed by blank stares at the unfamiliar name.

Early one morning the Slovak went out to get us coffee (is he not a lovely husband?) and came back somewhat depressed. He said the girl working at Starbucks made him repeat everything three times before she understood. He asked me if his English is really that bad or is the girl just not very smart? I suggested maybe it was the lack of a distinct Southern accent that threw her off.

The next few times we went in, he made me order, and I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM. Same girl, made me repeat myself three times, and still got the order wrong. I was able to assure him that it wasn't him, it was her. Poor guy was starting to doubt himself.

Then, for our last meal before getting on the plane, we stopped at Olive Garden. We sat down, then the Slovak and K left for the bathroom. While they were gone, the waiter stopped by for our drink order.

"I'd like two raspberry lemonades and a child's apple juice please."
"OK, and for you?"
"I'm having one of the lemonades."
"So three raspberry lemonades and an apple juice."
"No, no, just two raspberry lemonades."
"But that's only three drinks."
"There are only three of us here. Me, my husband, and my daughter."
"But I could have sworn I saw a tall, bearded guy with glasses walking away from this table a few minutes ago. With a child."
"Yes, that was my husband and my daughter. We're the only ones here."
"OK, you threw me off with the 'three child's lemonades and an apple juice' thing."
"?? No, sorry, I just want two adult raspberry lemonades and a child's apple juice."
"OK, wait, let's start from the beginning. Who all is sitting here today?"
"Two parents, drinking raspberry lemonade. One child, drinking a child's apple juice."
"Yes. But what are YOU having?"
"I'm one of the parents."
"But what about the other person here?"
"Really, no other person. Two raspberry lemonades, one child's apple juice."

I am not even exaggerating. I think I may have left out a couple of exchanges, in fact. Somehow I convinced him to bring the drinks I asked for, and we got them. Eventually. It was very difficult keeping a straight face for the last half of the conversation.

Good grief. :)

Liminal

2011-05-25T13:54:00.003+02:00

We're in a year of transitions.

It's been about nine months since our move back to Prague, and we're all pretty much settled but not quite settled yet.

Our apartment is definitely still in transition as we work to reduce, simplify, organize, carve out some space for a very small new family member.

And I think 3 is such a year of balancing as well, so grown up compared to 1 or 2, and so small compared to the first graders K so fervently wants to join at the big school. One minute confident in her assertion that she's a big girl and CAN do lots of things, the next cuddled in my lap insisting "But I'm not a big girl any more!" and that she can't POSSIBLY do other things. K still has no problem claiming to be a baby when she's not feeling up to facing the big girl world.

K is becoming a Czech speaker, but she's not quite there yet. She's becoming multilingual, but still has some ground to travel.

She's thriving in preschool, learning and growing in knowledge - in English as well as Czech, which I wonder how she manages - all the time.

She's becoming a big sister, but she's not quite there yet either.

The baby is becoming a baby, the Slovak and I are about to expand the family by 25% and double our parenting responsibility...

Pretty much, this year is going to end in a very different place than it started. More so than most years.

Translation please!

2011-05-16T19:19:00.004+02:00

The Slovak and I have always had a buffer between our families and our other culture, more or less by default, since we live so far away. By this I mean that we introduce certain cultural or language elements to the other side of the family, but always in a controlled and limited way and the families aren't living with The Foreign on a daily basis.

For example, my family is familiar with the Slovak/Hungarian family names we use (Apo, Babka, Dedo) and we've talked about various Foreign customs we keep and cooked Foreign food for them. At the Slovak's parents' house this past Christmas we set out a snack for Santa (and had to save it from Dedo clearing it away after 3 minutes). That kind of thing.

We don't often speak the other language when our parents are around, either, though we do when on our own or even in the next room. Or trying to make my sister uncomfortable. Because we're mature adults, we are.

...but that's all in person. A big part of our communication is obviously online, through Skype and - this is key - Facebook. Skype, of course, is still individual contact, but on Facebook all your friends see what you're saying (unless you take measures so they don't).

This becomes significant for us because both our parents have Facebook accounts and regularly look at our various updates. Obviously. We, in the meantime, have a very international circle of friends, a large number of whom speak both English and Czech or Slovak, so the conversations on our pages tend to be...multilingual.

I do a lot of conversation recording there, for instance, so a lot of my updates are half English, half CZ/SK, or all Czech, or all English except the one key word in Czech... Or else 3/4 of the comments to an English status are in CZ/SK...after all these years in Prague most of my close friends are here or in Slovakia, anyway!

Which brings us to the title of this post: the most frequent recent comment on the Slovak's and my pages is "Translation please!!" from my mother. Especially when she sees that it involves the word "K", of course. She wants to know what's going on in her granddaughter's life, or what funny thing she said today, and she can't understand the language it's in! How frustrating.

I brought it up to laugh at her on Skype the other day after several "Translation!!" comments in a row. "You don't like it when we have something on there that's not in English, do you?" She laughed and said, "It's frustrating!! The Slovak hardly ever has any English on his page any more, I just scroll down once in a while to check..." She understands that we live a multilingual life, but it's one thing to be aware of and another thing to witness.

So I go back and provide a translation when requested, though of course The Funny is sometimes lost when explained, and recently half the "translations" have been "The Slovak is talking about hockey again" (world championships in Slovakia!).

We actually get fairly regular comments from various people, asking for translations or mentioning they don't understand - or pretending they do understand - although I've been concentrating on my mom's reactions in this post because with K's recent Czech explosion this is really the first experience my family has had of what Babka and Dedo have all the time: a grandchild saying funny things (and inspiring Facebook updates) in a language they don't understand. I love that my mother wants to know even the things that are strange to her, though.

So basically, this is another stage of the grandparents learning to live with the reality of a new, Foreign element in the family. I've written about other aspects before, and no doubt will again.

This multilingual family thing, it is a balancing act. And the balancing always fascinates me.

A Song of the Sun (or Moon?)

2011-05-10T10:02:00.004+02:00

It came to my attention yesterday that K's knowledge in Czech exceeds her English knowledge in at least one area. That's a first!

The area? She knows her months in Czech now, or rather, she sings a song that more or less resembles the months of the year, although she doesn't know what they signify I would say. I have mentioned individual months to her in English, like your birthday is in November, my birthday is in December, right now it is May, etc., but I haven't started teaching the months in order yet. I guess it's time now...

I realized this yesterday on the way home from preschool, listening to K sing a song she's never sung before: "červe, červe, červenec!"

I asked her, "Did you just say červenec?" (July)
"No, červená!!" (red) (first clue she doesn't understand the significance)

But then she sang it again and followed up with something like "srpy" (srpen = August), so I asked her, "And what about leden?" (January)

She instantly replied with the whole song! "leden, únor, březen, duben, květen, červen, červenec, srpen, září, říjen, listopad, prosi-prosi-prosinec"

Predictably, some of those were more recognizable than others, but if you knew what to listen for, they were all there. And if you look closely, you'll see that the initial "červe červe červenec" was actually "květen, červen, červenec"!

Then I asked her, "Do you know what those are?"
She answered, "Yes, the sun," and pointed outside. (second clue she's not totally in on what this means)

This is the fun part: I am almost certain that the sun is not a total non sequiteur in this conversation... The teacher must have told them that this song is the "měsíce" - months. The catch is that měsíc means both month and MOON, and K almost certainly knows only the second meaning. (She doesn't understand time enough to know what a "month" is in English, either, of course.) So she understood the teachers saying, this is about the moon - and then mixed up the moon and sun to tell me it's about the sun.

It's also possible they have pictures to illustrate seasons and months that involve the sun, but I'm thinking a confusion on the word měsíc is involved somehow.

The significant thing here, however, is that my daughter knows something in Czech that she doesn't yet know in English, which is an important milestone in her education. Also, it's surprising that she knew the song so completely the first time she sang it for me - usually she will sing fragments for a while before being able to produce the whole thing. Also, I totally have to figure out a song for "January, February..." to balance her knowledge out again!

A Bilingual Easter Romance

2011-04-28T07:57:00.005+02:00

We spent Easter weekend within walking distance of the border of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria. On the Slovak side. The weather was perfect and time with friends much needed.

After we got back, K overheard me telling someone we had seen "lots of friends" and she instantly corrected me: "No, Mama. Only one friend."

That would be because while WE spent time with lots of our friends, SHE spent the whole time playing with one new friend. It was L, our friends' son who was born 5 weeks after K. They've seen each other before but didn't remember, since it's only once or twice a year.

This time, though, they hit it off the instant we stepped out of the car and played non-stop from morning til night. Or rather, from morning til nap-time, and then after nap-time til night. They're only 3, after all.

Other than the hand-holding and mischief-making and occasional kiss-giving, this friendship was significant for K because L, too, is bilingual. His parents are American but he was born in Czech Republic (different city from us) and he goes to Czech preschool. I don't think K has met any other kids that (she realized) are bilingual like her.

They started off speaking Czech together, which was pretty fun in itself. L's mom kept telling him, "You can speak English with K, you know...", but it took a while to sink in. Both kids are accustomed to other children speaking Czech so it was a perfectly normal thing to do. L also spoke mostly Czech to me, especially at first.

Eventually, the two little ones realized they both know English as well, and the real fun began. I loved eavesdropping on their conversations and hearing how and when they switched between languages. They're both currently stronger in English, so they used it for more complicated thoughts they couldn't express in Czech. It was also instructive to note the sort of things they talk about. It's been a long time since K spent any time with other kids outside of school, where I only see her for a few minutes before going home, of course, so I miss out on the types of things she and her school best friend talk about, for example.

It ranged from planning out their next mischief (Czech: "Půjdeme tam, a pak tam, a pak tam..." - pointing out where they would run to next), to discussing who could run faster (the Slovak overheard this one), to complimenting each other on a job well done (Czech: "výborné! dobré!" every time they jumped from stump to stump).

K woke up in the mornings asking for L: "Where's my friend? Where's L?" though she relatively often referred to him as simply "boy". Including to his face. "Chlapče!" (CZ) she would call when he wasn't right next to her. Or else it was chlapček (SK). Hard to tell.

Slovak made an appearance, too, as it usually does in K's Czech. I'm never sure that anyone but us (i.e. her teachers, etc.) realize that it's actually Slovak, though, instead of gibberish or mispronounced Czech. "Počkaj ma!" she called after L. I don't think I've heard her say počkaj ma (wait for me) before, but it's definitely something she's heard from Apo. I like how you can trace where she's learned things based on the language it's in. Useful for casting blame, especially when she picks up somewhat inappropriate vocabulary. On which more later.

K and L were also fun to watch on a social level. K is a bit of a leader and L is a bit of a follower, so their relationship was pretty much her grabbing his hand and taking him from place to place. With him more than happy to be led. They both had some out of character behavior over the weekend because they were having so much fun and encouraging each other. Usually they both would have stuck closer to home (closer to mama), but with a friend to play with they didn't need us! Plus the sun was shining and there was a sand pit, so really, what could parents offer them other than a place to sleep at night? Didn't bother me...more chance to talk with MY friends.

I can't actually remember all the things I heard them say to each other, but I remember they were funny. We don't get many chances to see our daughter interact with peers, at least for such an extended period, so it was a really nice opportunity for us to see how two 3-year-olds interact. In that sense even the English was a bit of a revelation, to hear how (and what!) K communicates with a peer, or anyone who isn't me. And of course for a kid who at the beginning of January wasn't stringing two words together in Czech, having whole conversations with a friend in Czech is a great accomplishment.

---

This happened after we were back home, but speaking of somewhat inappropriate vocabulary, K and the Slovak had the following exchange on Monday:

"K, potrebuješ ísť peepee." (K, you need to go peepee)
"Apo, už som bola, ty vole." (Apo, I already went, dude.)

That's all Slovak except for peepee (duh) and ty vole, which is Czech and means roughly "dude". It's not a BAD word, but it's a little rougher than "dude" in English, and you definitely don't expect it from your 3-year-old's mouth. The Slovak and I officially disclaim all responsibility for K having heard it, which is reasonable in principle since it's Czech and we are English and Slovak...but...it's true that ty vole regularly makes its way into our conversations (with each other) in any language. It's a Thing.

---

Oh, I also asked K's teacher the other day if she could identify a certain song K sings at home, which in K's rendition goes, "Kaka kaka kakala". I had to sing the tune before the teacher realized what it was: "Jedna kapka kapala". She also burst out laughing and immediately told the other teacher K's version, because K was basically singing, "Poop poop poopy poop". Which was pretty much my first clue that the real words were PROBABLY, ok HOPEFULLY something different.

Parenting, it is a joy.

Working Mama, Growing Girl

2011-04-19T14:33:00.004+02:00

I have five documents open in Word needing to be translated. Obviously this is an ideal time to blog!

The upcoming holiday has had me unusually busy for the last several days. In typical feast-or-famine fashion, I got TWO random phone calls on Friday from prospective clients I contacted ages ago, and then fielded various offers all day yesterday.

In fact, since I knew Friday that I'd be pretty busy Monday, I agreed with K's school that she would stay all day Monday since she'll be missing school this Friday. So K stayed in school 8-5 and I worked all day. It was strange, because while I've put in some very full work days since K was born, it was always working while taking care of her, or at most working while the Slovak took care of her. Translating for hours at a time with no one asking me for a spravočka (roz-, cartoon), pink milk, to come play, what I'm doing, if I'm done working yet...it was not my usual working environment.

Which brings me to a tangent on why I work in the living room, the loudest room in the house. I have a work station set up by the couch. The answer is, I've tried working in the bedroom at the desktop, but it happened about like this:

Me: working away.
K: keeps talking to me.
Slovak: keeps talking to me.
TV: on, because they like it.
Me: I'm going in the other room so I can concentrate. *goes, sets up, translates for 30 seconds*
K, opening door: Hi Mama, what are you doing back here? Do you want to play?
Me: I'm working, can you go play with Apo?
K leaves, comes back 30 seconds later: Do you want me to cook you some lunch Mama? Do you want me to sit on your lap?
Slovak, coming down hall: I'm coming back here with you, this is where all the action is!
Me: OK, I'm going back in the living room, and you two stay here!

My family wants to be close to me. I love that. But it does make it more practical to stay in the main room when I'm busy, because they follow me all over the apartment anyway. Haha.

---

As I mentioned, K stayed at school all day yesterday. She was pumped, because the all-day kids take naps at school and she's been talking for months about wanting to sleep at school. The teacher said she did great and was cheerful all day.

She's also been attending swimming lessons every Tuesday for a couple of weeks, taking a mini-bus from school to the pool and back. My questions about how "swimming" went met with a flat refusal, however - "I didn't go swimming. I blew bubbles in the water. (or) I splashed with my feet in the water." Caught out by lack of precision again! I've mentioned this before.

I also told K recently not to put her shoes on the couch, to which she replied, "These aren't shoes. They're slippers." I told her that slippers are a kind of shoes and to get them off my couch now. Again, precision. Very important to my little girl.

K also continues to impress most everyone with her Czech. She speaks Czech most of the time at school and on Skype to her grandparents. Most of the time meaning that she doesn't always know how to say what she wants in Czech so she makes it up or says it in English. The kids and teachers understand her (Czech), though, which is great. She sings Czech songs she learns at school and gets mad at me if I don't know them. I know some of them, parts of others, and others are just new.

Somewhat frustratingly, her grandparents do NOT understand her. Or more precisely, they don't listen to her. Before, the Slovak and I could shrug this off as it was probably hard for them to pick out the three CZ/SK words from a torrent of English, but lately she's been speaking Czech to them the whole time, no English included, and they still don't respond to what she's saying unless the Slovak tells them LISTEN and asks K to repeat what she said. To be fair, it is probably also hard to hear over Skype, but the main ingredient here is not paying attention. Which is kind of too bad. It's frustrating for K to make a comment or ask a question and be answered with, "You're so cute, yes you are."

It may be better when we see them in person in a few months. Or it may not. We can deal with either.

---

Ok, back to work. Or to get a snack. Hmm...

Not a Duck

2011-03-18T15:45:00.003+01:00

My daughter has always enjoyed playing around with names. I still remember when she realized that Apo and I have other names as well. She seemed to consider it the same as how she also has two names: the English and Slovak versions of her name. "I Katie and Katka! You Melissa and Mama!"

We use the same full version of her name everywhere - Katarína - but encourage English speakers who have trouble with the nickname - Katka - to call her Katie instead. I used to call her Katie myself, but once she started talking she showed a clear preference for Katka, so I decided to respect that...

So far fairly simple, but once you get further into nicknames it gets kind of hectic. Katarína (Katherine in English, Kateřina in Czech) comes with a ton of short versions. Katka becomes Katuška, Katuš, Kaťula, Kaťulka, Káťa, Káča, Kačka, Kačena, Kačenka...and those are just the common ones!

We use a range of nicknames (often entirely unrelated to her actual name) but usually Katka or Katuška. The most common nickname for little girls named Kateřina in Czech, though, is Kačenka. And by most common I mean people start calling you that automatically whether you like it or not. It's very Czech instead of Slovak, though, and the Slovak doesn't like it, so we never called K Kačenka at home...and therefore she never heard it until we moved six months ago.

I didn't really think about it as an issue until her teachers at the new school asked me what they should call K (they wanted something more little-girly than plain Katka) - "She doesn't even look up when we call her Kačenka!!" I explained that she probably didn't realize that was supposed to be her name, and explained that we usually use Katka or Katuška. They call her Katuška and related names now, which works out great for everyone.

Since then I've been paying attention and have noticed that K will actually answer to anything - EXCEPT Kačenka! Sometimes she ignores it completely, and other times she insists, "I NOT Kačenka!"

Yesterday I asked her if her name was Kačenka and she said, "I NOT Kačenka! Kačenka is kačenka. Duck. I not a duck."

This was the point where I fell on the floor laughing, because kačenka DOES mean duck, and that's the reason the Slovak doesn't like it: why would you call your little girl Duck? He's never mentioned that to K, but she apparently came to the same conclusion herself!

Our awesome little Katuška is not a duck...

The Language of Her Peers

2011-03-15T13:49:00.003+01:00

If pregnancy hasn't impaired my ability to count - which is by no means a given - then we've been back in Prague for six months. Six months of increased exposure to Czech, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with where K is at, especially when you consider that most of her progress has been since January at her new school.

The Slovak and I have been noticing recently how her active vocabulary keeps growing - she can tell him offhand what something is called rather than thinking about it for five minutes first. Her grammar is not great, but frankly, what three year old's grammar is? Her English grammar can be pretty sketchy at times, but it is better than her Czech grammar. However, she is really moving past the individual words and set phrases and making her own sentences.

I think the longest/most correct one to date was "Já nechci volat Babku!" (I don't want to call Grandma!) Not the kindest sentiment, maybe, but a spontaneous expression of her feelings in Czech!

Popular set phrases include:

Já to umím sama! / I can do it myself
Teta, já chci pití! / (to teacher) I want a drink
Dej mi to! / Give me that
Koukej! / Look
Vidis! / See?
To nejde! / It won't work, I can't do it

Several of those are marked, as the Slovak complains to me bitterly, by a distinct Prague accent. Last week she talked about a "pejsek" (instead of a havo!). Or today at school, as she was getting herself dressed to go, I said, "Vidíš, jak to umíš sama" (See, you can do it yourself!) and K replied, "Ale ne-umíííím!" So perfectly Pragueish! I think it's adorable - and inevitable - and of course having learned the language here I speak Pragueish Czech, too. But the Slovak, as an Easterner, is finding that he's a little less reconciled to little Czech-speaking children than he once thought. He can handle a pejsek, but I'm pretty sure if K comes home talking about sejr one day, we'll be on the next train to Košice!

Basically this is the flip side of my mixed feelings last year on K's British accent in English. There is something fundamentally jarring about your child speaking to you in a different dialect than the one you use. Like a tiny stranger is living in your house. If we ever (as we hope) move to Slovakia, this won't be the only reason - but it won't be the least important, either.

For now, though, the essential thing is - K can communicate and is learning to talk just like her friends! That's the way things should be.

I want to go there! or Supporting a love of travel in small children

2011-02-27T18:59:00.002+01:00

In our living room we have two paintings hanging on the wall. We also have about four more sitting around somewhere because we put our foot down at two to hang up - my in-laws gave us at least six of them when we got married. Apparently a lady in their building in Košice is a painter and gives FIL a painting every time he fixes her toilet or whatever. Which, since he is a handyman and the go-to man for building maintenance, is a lot. The paintings are mostly castles, cathedrals and other historical landmarks or landscapes.

So these two paintings have been hanging in our living room for a long time, but a couple of weeks (?) ago, K was sitting next to me on the couch, staring off into space, and spoke up: "But how are we going to get there???"

I of course replied with my standard excellent-parenting "Eh?"

"There! I want to go there," she said, pointing to the wall. "Can we go there in the car?"

"Ohhh... [pause for a prayer of thanksgiving that we didn't hang up paintings of the Taj Mahal or Great Wall of China] ...actually, we CAN go there! That one is called Týn Cathedral and it's here in Prague. We can get there on the tram. I'll take you there again soon."

"What about THAT one? I want to go there, too. We take the tram there?"

"No, THAT one we can go to in the car. It's called Alžbetin Dóm and it's in the town where Babka and Dedo live. We can go there next time we go to visit them."

K was very excited at the prospect of visiting both 'castles' (they're both actually churches but are big and stone and have towers, so I guess it's a logical mistake). She has asked several times since that first day, when can we go there? Is that place far away? I want to go there...

I've been looking forward to taking her to see Týn especially, since it's in town and, honestly, how awesome is it that I can fulfill a wish like that? I've blogged before about how exciting it is for us to see K developing an interest in new places, travel, castles, cathedrals...the same things WE'RE interested in when we visit a new city, basically. A fantastic development for a family that travels as much as we do for our various reasons.

Unfortunately, flu, bronchitis, arctic winter, blah, blah, blah...so it took us a while to find a chance to go, but today was the day! We were downtown already (for the first time in AGES) so I asked K, "Do you want to do something special?"

"Yes!" came immediately, eyes shining...

"Do you want to go to the castle in our painting?"

"But it's far away."

"No, it's here around the corner! It's in our city, Prague, and right now we are downtown. Do you want to go?"

The answer to that one was a resounding YES!! obviously, so we went to Old Town Square and found the spot on the square that most closely approximated the angle of the painting. In doing so we realized that the painter actually moved the statue of Jan Hus at least 20 meters to the right to be closer to the church, so we couldn't replicate it exactly... K instantly recognized it though, and we got a picture of us there so we could look at it at home later in case she didn't register that it was the same place. She wanted to know where the door is (it's hidden behind some houses) and to go inside and look around. We walked over, I showed her the 'secret entrance' and lifted her up so we could peer inside, since the church wasn't open for visitors. K was disappointed we couldn't go all the way in, but very interested in what we were seeing and what is THAT and what is over THERE.

When we got home I asked her which castle we went to, and she pointed to the correct one on the wall - so she did recognize that it was the same place. She was pretty impressed.

And, as you can probably tell...we thought it was great! Our daughter's first experience of dreaming of going someplace and then really going there. I love that we can support her desire to go somewhere and see something beautiful. I hope it will encourage in her a feeling of adventure and involvement with the world and all sorts of positive stuff like that. :)

And in conclusion, here are Mama and K being touristy in front of Týn and Jan Hus.

Holding On...and Preschool Update

2011-02-25T19:14:00.003+01:00

I've been trying to think of something to update about, but frankly, we've barely left the house in weeks. Did I mention the bronchitis? Did I mention that when a kid goes on antibiotics, the doctor recommends staying home from school for three weeks? Don't tell anybody, but I'm thinking of making an executive decision and sending her back to school a few days early. All of this, of course, while I'm dealing with my own case of (untreated) bronchitis and morning sickness. Actually, it's been kind of nice not having to get out of the house while I'm not feeling well!

As stimulating as our weeks-long Buffy and Doctor Who marathon has been (good parents let their kids watch sci-fi), I'm afraid the time is coming for K to go back to school. She has tolerated being cooped up at home pretty well, actually, and we haven't really been driving each other as crazy as one might imagine. She still talks about school and her friends there, and I think she'll be thrilled to go back sometime next week.

I never did write in much detail about the new school, but we really like it. She's been attending half-days five days a week since right after New Year's (except the recent time out sick). She was a little nervous to be left, once or twice, but generally was more upset about being picked up than dropped off! In fact, we had to have a serious discussion about NOT SCREAMING WHEN YOUR MOTHER PICKS YOU UP FROM SCHOOL. Once or twice it's amusing, but every day just gets old. The new system is that she gets her favorite afternoon snack only if she makes good decisions at pick-up time. Otherwise it's no pink milk for the rest of the day. Only had to enforce that once and her behavior underwent a magical change. Hah.

Her teachers are very nice and I like their attitude with the children - warm, nurturing, relaxed, reasonable. They seem to consistently speak Czech with K, which I appreciate. She's a new experience for them, since she understands Czech - unlike the other two foreign children there - but doesn't speak it.

"It's amazing - she totally understands everything I say and answers back in English!" one teacher told me. And then one day, after three weeks in school, "She talks now!!" I answered, "I know!!" - I had noticed the previous day a large increase in Czech phrases used at home and wasn't surprised they were showing up at school, too.

Interestingly, K is continuing to use increased amounts of Czech even during this extended period at home. She uses it to the Slovak and me as well as in her imaginary play. It's pretty cute. The other day I actually noticed that K was attempting to have a conversation with the Slovak ENTIRELY USING SLOVAK (/Czech). It was hard to tell because she got stuck pretty quickly, not knowing how to complete her sentence - but she was trying, instead of filling in with English. She also chewed me out for telling her Ľubím ťa instead of I love you. First time she's ever cared which language someone speaks to her.

Generally I feel like other than getting sick from exposure to germy kids, which can't really be helped, K is really thriving in her new school. She loves her teachers and has a best friend. The kids and teachers like her - every time I ask how her day was (or similar), the teachers say how involved and active in class K is. She draws and paints and comes home singing new songs.

And she's really looking forward to being a big sister...

To My Newest Love

2011-02-18T10:23:00.002+01:00

Dear maybebaby,

You are two lines on a stick. You are two lines on two sticks. You are not a blood test, not an ultrasound, not a warm milk-smelling weight in my arms. No doctor has told me you exist, but I don’t need one: the pain in my belly, the ache in my head, the midnight yogurt are all your messengers. The two lines, the four lines. They all tell me you are coming. They tell me you are here, waiting for us. As we have been waiting for you for so long.

Just wait a little while longer, sweet one. Soon enough you will be big and strong enough to come out and meet us face to face. Your big sister is already preparing for your arrival. She has big plans for what she is going to do with you: change your diaper, undress you, hold you gently, THROW! you up in the air. As you can imagine, we still have some distance to travel regarding appropriate handling of babies. You might consider it a good thing you’re tucked away safe inside for now. A few months ago, talking about the possibility of getting a baby sister or brother someday, she instantly jumped to her feet and said, “Yes! Let’s go!!” So you see she has been ready for you for a while already. She will love you so, so much, sweet baby, and you are going to adore her. Her blend of maternal and bossy will drive you crazy and make you feel safe, making her the perfect older sister. I should know, since I was an older sister, too.

Grow, sweet baby. Be healthy. Be strong. Come home to us – not too soon, not too late. We’re preparing a place for you.

Love,

Mama

----

(written a few days ago, before yesterday's doctor visit. aka my second 'flu' of 2011 that wasn't really the flu...)

A Word from the Sickroom

2011-02-17T19:53:00.003+01:00

2011 has really knocked me for a loop so far. We started off with ear infections, soon moved to (consecutively) flu, sinus infection, flu, bronchitis... K is home from school this week and next, so we're spending our days curled up on the couch watching Buffy Season 3. Also just started Doctor Who Season 3. (What? Good parents let their preschoolers watch scifi. Seriously.)

Then factor in keeping relatively busy on the translating front and I find my blogging mojo seriously flagging. I am good at multi-tasking on the micro level but seem to have trouble devoting my attention to multiple endeavors at once. Currently child-rearing and working have been winning the race for my attention, I guess.

I have so many blog posts half-written in my head that I haven't been able to write out or publish. I don't seem to be the only one who's gone quiet in the beginning of 2011, though. Seems like lots of us are MIA for one reason or another.

I had been waiting until I felt better to try to write something here, but it seems that is an unreasonable goal for this winter! I am settling for "somewhat less pathetic than I was" as a more attainable level. Also factoring into this is the second "flu" in the list above, which turned out not to be flu at all. On which more later.

K loves her new school, by the way, and so do I. She has a new best friend and is using more and more Czech at school and at home both. I went to pick her up one day about three weeks in and the teacher said, "She talks now!!!" She's doing really well - just have to get rid of this sickness so she can go back again. Poor sweetie.

I have a blog?

2011-01-05T20:07:00.003+01:00

Oh. Hello! Happy New Year!

My husband has been nudging me since my last post to update again, why haven't you updated yet, will you just write something already, ARE YOU EVER GOING TO WRITE AGAIN? Since between my last post and today is the number of days past her due date that Baby K was born, I think his impatience and incredulity lacks a certain oomph, if you know what I mean.

We spent a week in Slovakia with Babka and Dedo, which was basically a repeat of our previous visits there, plus Christmas food. And a ridiculous number of Christmas presents.

Then the day after we got back K started complaining of pain in her ear. In the morning, she cheerfully announced, "Mama, my ear hurts! I need to go to the doctor!" By lunchtime she was curled on the couch, saying weakly, "Mama...my ear hurts...I need to go to the doctor..." So we went to the doctor and spent a week battling the almost-an-ear-infection that was a lot like an ear infection but apparently caused by allergies. Either way, it involved temperatures, four kinds of drops and fever medicine. K still loves doctors but now hates medicine. Especially drops.

I do, too. *sigh*

Anyway, between one thing and another - including starting her new school this week - I've been distracted lately. More on school later, I imagine.

Fortunately I wasn't too distracted to notice that Ready For Ten, a parenting website, included me in their list of 50 favorite bloggers of 2010. I'm skulking in the back, in the W's. Thanks, guys!

I have also just updated my About Me, which still said we're located in UK. Oops. I'm also going to get around to the Family Language Diagram at some point, because it's out of date, too.

Grammar, Stories and Parenting

2010-12-22T10:23:00.003+01:00

My daughter K objects to the name "Goldilocks" and the Three Bears because, as she says, "It's only one Goldilock. Not three." She finds my explanation of the "locks" having to do with hair to be somewhat lacking. Possibly because "hair" in English is uncountable, though I'm relatively sure she isn't up to countable and uncountable nouns yet.

Along the same lines, she doesn't like the "Don't talk to wolves" rule in Little Red Riding Hood, because, again, there is only one Big Bad Wolf in the story. I told her there are other wolves in the world, but she considers that irrelevant.

I think she may have inherited her mother's attention to detail, known by certain adults in my childhood as "playing word games" (not in a good sense) and "twisting words". I never saw it that way, though; for me, it was just a question of what the words ACTUALLY SAY without regard to what you may have intended to say. I was genuinely bewildered that it might annoy someone.

I'll have to keep this in mind in parenting her as she grows up.

---

K also really wants the title of the story (i.e., what I read out on the title page) to be "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf". Ditto for "The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf". She's started re-telling stories to her babies, usually taking elements from several different stories or even genres and combining them.

I start most stories with, "Once upon a time, there (were three little pigs, was a little girl named Red Riding Hood, etc.) whose mama loved him/her/them very much." We have one book that starts out that way and I noticed that K likes that beginning, so I adapt almost all our stories to start the same way.

Yesterday, K told a story that started, "Once upon a time, there was a Big Bad Wolf whose mama loved him very much."

I think I like that perspective, in fact.

New Preschool

2010-12-17T17:14:00.003+01:00

Today was K's last day at her current preschool. She'll start at the new one January 2, I think.

One point I forgot to mention in my first post on this topic is that despite the rigid attitude and possibly exaggerated expectations as described, they actually seemed really pleased with K whenever I talked to the teacher or principal. Even at the parent-teacher conference where we discussed the evaluation of K as a "beginner" in skills I know she masters well, we finished that topic and then the teacher talked about how great K is and how lovely she is during ellipse time and how well she's acclimating into preschool. So maybe they did think she's on track for her age, after all. No telling.

I don't think it was a total mistake to put K there, and I think the experience was probably helpful for her. Even if the teachers rarely spoke Czech to her, she had the opportunity to spend time with Czech-speaking children, so I think she's fully on board with the idea that some people speak one language and some speak the other - an improvement on her previous belief that actually, everybody understands both languages if they would just stop being STUBBORN. I think this school has served its purpose, which was as an interim measure, a halfway house between fully English school (and society) and fully Czech school.

But! All of that is behind us now. On to new things: Czech preschool.

It's still private, because our neighborhood preschool still doesn't have any spots available, but it's less expensive than the current one and much closer - three bus stops from home. Actually, it's 30% cheaper for five half-days a week than the other one is for three half-days a week. Taking into consideration the more reasonable cost, my steadily increasing workload (yay! and...whoa) and the fact that I don't have any supplementary activities for non-school days* like I did in England (no playgroups or other places to go to be around other kids), we decided to go ahead and increase her school days from three to five mornings per week.

It will be good for me to have more time alone to dedicate to work while K is out, and it'll be good for K to have more time with teachers and children who speak Czech. The mommy in me feels like K is still such a baby to be in school so much, but I also recognize that it's not good for us to spend all day home alone. The good things is the teachers at the new school seem really flexible and open to adjusting the number of days, so if we go for a few weeks and I feel like it's too much then I can just ask to cut back.

We've visited the new school twice now. First for a short visit so I could look around and ask some questions. My main impression was that it was nice but seemed disorganized, which I thought might be due to the time of day (half-day pickup, some kids downstairs waiting for parents, other kids upstairs napping). Then we visited again last week for about 2 1/2 hours so that K could experience part of a regular school day. I stayed in the room at first, but as she got more comfortable she told me that I could go and wait in the other room, oh and could I please not sing along with the songs the class was singing? Thanks Mom for not humiliating me in front of my new friends. I figured that was a good sign.

My second impression was that the school does seem nice and a little disorganized. But for me, "nice" outweighs "disorganized", provided they don't actually lose my daughter while I'm gone. And if it comes down to it, I prefer disorganized (but warm and relaxed) to strict and rigid (but organized). It's their first year in business, so things are still fluctuating somewhat, as the reality slowly comes into line with the vision. Some things mentioned on their website, for example, aren't fully implemented yet. Most of the children are K's age, both older and younger (i.e., 2.5 to 3.5) with just a couple of older children (4-5).

K REALLY enjoyed the visit and kept herself busy in the home corner and playing with the kids. She announced before we left that she will go to THIS school now, thank you, and doesn't intend to go to the other one again. She didn't comment on or seem phased by the fact that it was all in Czech. She definitely understands Czech better now than she used to.

I did ask if the teachers all understand English, and they do, which is reassuring in the sense that if K tells her teacher something important in English, she'll get more than a blank stare. They said they'll just speak to her in Czech, though, especially since they know she understands Czech. That's what I'd prefer, anyway. We'll see how it ends up working in practice, I guess. There are two other foreign children in the school (Russian and Ukrainian, I think), who started in September not understanding a word of Czech. Apparently it was rough at first but now they are much more comfortable and understand what is said to them, even though they don't speak much.

All in all I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm not expecting it to be perfect, but I think this school will be a better fit than the last. Anyone who's met us knows us we are definitely on the "warm, relaxed and disorganized" side of the fence!

* Especially now in the Arctic Winter of 2010-2011. When it was warm we could go to the zoo or park or castle, etc., but these days, if we don't absolutely have to go outside, we don't. It is COLD out there! And hard to walk on non-cleaned sidewalks.

Montessori: Our final verdict

2010-12-08T15:54:00.004+01:00

I haven't written about K's school in quite a while. The short answer being that we aren't too thrilled with it...

We had reservations from the beginning (see "education" tab for a few, though I didn't mention them all) but didn't have many options and thought a bilingual school might be a good halfway house before Czech schools.

The "bilingual" aspect was disappointing, since the classroom teachers are non-native speakers of both Czech and English and seem to spend all their time speaking to the children in English, anyway. I noticed that at pick-up the "Czech" teacher always spoke English to K, which made me suspect that she might ALWAYS speak English to K, and when I went for parent observation in November that was confirmed in the classroom. Then I went for K's birthday celebration and saw that again, everything was in English (birthday celebration during morning circle time) except what was addressed specifically to K's grandmother, who came with me and doesn't speak English.

So "bilingual" = "actually we pretty much speak English", which is great for Czech parents wanting their kids to learn English and probably ok for foreign parents who don't much care whether their kids learn Czech or not, but for a Czech-speaking family wanting to help their child learn Czech after a few years abroad (it's us! it's us!), not so helpful.

More problematic than that, though, was the atmosphere at the school. I'm not sure if all Montessori schools are like this or if it's just this one, but the classroom sessions we observed were incredibly sterile, controlled and not very engaging. A classroom full of preschoolers working was almost completely silent: the teachers whispered to the students, who were also expected to whisper.

I also watched my daughter working with one of the activities and trying to play with it in a different way: building a tower out of the blocks instead of lining them up in the determined way. The teacher, who was sitting right there, didn't exactly chastise her, but redirected her and when K persisted in building, the teacher suggested she go and get the tower-building blocks. I was surprised that the expectations were so rigid and that there wasn't more support for thinking outside the box, which to me says good things like Creativity and Resourcefulness and I Am Not Even Three Years Old, What Do You Expect? Haha.

The birthday observation was also instructive, since I got to see how "ellipse time" looks at least loosely. There was a lot more sterility and long stretches of silence. K was thrilled to be sitting in the special birthday chair, but was otherwise obviously uncomfortable with the extra attention and didn't understand what was expected of her. The teacher did not, in my opinion, do a good job of explaining what was expected, either. That is, she explained, but not fully enough for a newly turned 3 year old to understand. The expectations weren't complicated, but were expressed in sentences too complex for a child this age under stressful conditions to fully grasp. When I touched K's arm and told her the same thing in a different way, also in English, she responded instantly. Or, for example, when the teacher brought out the birthday cards the children had made, she showed each one to the class and set it on the floor in front of her. K, predictably, wanted to get the cards herself - they were HER cards! Since the teacher didn't let her have them and didn't explain (first we all look and then I give them to you), K spent that time pouting and wanting to leave the circle. They didn't actually do the full Montessori birthday ceremony, either because there wasn't time with all the long, long pauses or because they thought K wasn't being cooperative enough (since she was uncomfortable and confused).

Any time the children moved off the designated ellipse or raised their voices above a quiet indoor voice, the teacher got their attention by chanting a quiet two-tone "thank you" or the child's name. I found the chant-singing oddly creepy, if effective. Also when the teacher randomly asked a child to pick a song (I think because the child was being too active or wanted to sing?), that child was the only one who sang it while everyone else listened. Is that a Montessori thing?

I also went for a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago. They gave us an evaluation of the child in advance that assessed skills in various areas, graded on a scale of beginner - making progress - advanced (or similar). The only area where K had top marks was in "speaking English". Guess I'm doing my job on that front! The other areas, though, were all marked as beginner or at most making progress - even areas where I know K's abilities to be at or above age level. It made me wonder what standards they were using, if children are judged against the whole age range of the class (3-6 year olds) or if each age is judged separately (separate standards just for 3 year olds). Because, sure, my daughter's knowledge of, say, colors is probably not as advanced as a 5 or 6 year old, but she knows them all and mixes them up rarely, which to me is where a 3 year old should be. Either the standards are impossibly high or quite possibly K, like many other children, doesn't demonstrate the same abilities in the classroom as she does at home. That's fair enough, so I didn't give it much more thought. In the conference itself the teacher made a few observations that I thought were accurate and a few I thought weren't, which is probably pretty typical.

I do admire the level of discipline the teachers are able to keep in the classroom, but it's not my style. There were things I did like in the few glimpses I had into the classroom, like looking at the map and talking about different countries or making a poster with the birthday girl's name, picture and age for the classroom door. We still have it hanging up at home.

But overall, too controlled, too sterile, too rigid. Not Our Style. K seemed to like it at first, but over time has been more and more reluctant to go. She's also been going through a major mommy-phase recently, which I only this week realized could be connected to being unhappy at school. She is unusually clingy and wants me to dress her, read to her, etc. - not anyone else. Most tellingly, when I tell her she's going to school tomorrow, she says, "I don't want to go, Mama, I want to stay home with you." That, people, is NOT my Baby K. If she said that at 7 am when she doesn't want to get out of bed that would be one thing, but in the afternoon the day before it seems more like she really means it.

I could get over the seaweed they feed them at lunchtime (oh, how I WISH that was an exaggeration), I could get over the not great English, I could get over the very, very difficult daily commute (takes 45-60 minutes one way), I could get over the very high school fees, I could get over pretty much any one of these negative points, but taken all together it just becomes too much to accept. K isn't happy there, I'm not happy sending her there. This particular Montessori school gets a thumbs down from the entire Where Going Havo family.

But! Coming up next time (because this one got long), the happy ending. We found a new school...

A Book Lover's Tragedy

2010-12-03T08:40:00.003+01:00

I wrote the other day about how my daughter seems to prefer being read to in English. Part of it is of course that she understands English best. Part of it is probably that she prefers ME to read to her and I usually (but not always) read to her in English. But there's another aspect that I suspect may play a role, and it annoys me:

I think half the problem with preferring English books is that the English books are more INTERESTING! I have the hardest time finding CZ/SK children's books that are worthwhile. You can have a big children's section in the bookstore but it is made up of:

1) dictionaries (usually board books like "My First 100 Words", often "My First 100 English Words")

2) nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Usually the same ones in different combinations.

3) some Czech originals for much older children - pages full of words and few pictures. I'll read these to K when she's older, because there are some nice ones, but they're too complicated for any 3 year old.

4) translations. Often from English, such as Winnie the Pooh, Disney Princesses, Cars, etc. Not often ones I'm that keen on even in the original.

We have a small collection of CZ/SK books that we're hoping to build further now that we're back in the country, but it is composed of 1-2 dictionaries, 5-6 books of nursery rhymes, 2-3 books of fairy tales, and 1-2 Czech originals for older children (Ferda Mravenec and maybe one other). It's looking like I'm going to have to lift my 'no translations' rule.

There is also a big jump between board books for the under-2 crowd and chapter books for competent readers: nothing really between those two extremes.

What I do NOT see in bookstores is exactly the kind of books we have so many of in English. Storybooks, lots of pictures with a few sentences per page (not one word, not whole page of text), original characters and plots that you can read to a non-reader and a beginning reader can read alone. It's a huge gap in the literature in my opinion.

Some of our favorites from UK are The Night Pirates, Knight Time, Usborne Illustrated Fairy Tales, and recently (birthday present) You Can't Eat a Princess.

We have tons of fun books like this in English and just can't find Czech or Slovak equivalents. So when I compare our book collection in the different languages, it does occur to me that I can hardly blame K for wanting to read about ALIENS AND PRINCESSES (seriously, how awesome of a book premise is that?) rather than going through My First 100 Words again.

Anybody familiar with CZ/SK children's literature is VERY MUCH INVITED! to offer me some recommendations for books to engage a preschooler. Anybody?

I say England

2010-12-03T08:16:00.004+01:00

Time for a language status report. We've been (back) in the country two months and two days and you can already start to see the influence of school and Czech in my daughter's speech.

This week she's been saying "eště ne" (not yet) a lot, which is funny in itself because strictly speaking it's Czechoslovak: "ne" is Czech, compare to "nie" in Slovak, but Czech is "ještě", "eště" is Slovak pronunciation. Or slangy Czech.

Also heard:
"Mama, I'm not done eště" (not done yet)
"Is it skončit?" (CZ Is it done?) Took me a minute to recognize this one.
"I want to kúpiť..." (SK to buy, also used in many other English sentences)
"I'm walking in veľký sneh (SK big snow) all on my own."

I haven't really been keeping a list but she is definitely using CZ/SK words that she didn't know before. Also, if you ever doubt that she understands Czech, just say "dárek" or "něco pro tebe mám" ("present" and "I have something for you") and see how high she jumps.

She's aware now that she speaks the same language I do and that it is called English. She understands both Czech and Slovak, but not perfectly: for example, she doesn't follow all the details of a story read in Slovak unless it has very clear pictures. Of course, she doesn't follow ALL the details of a story in English without pictures, either, but she gets more of it, it seems to me.

She also prefers to be read to in English, or maybe it is that she currently prefers to be read to by me no matter what language I read in. I do read her a book of Czech fairy tales, for example, and she likes that. I don't go as far as reading in Slovak (it would be a lot less convincing than Czech) but I do sometimes translate on the fly the few Slovak books we have. Yesterday Apo read us a story in Slovak and K asked me to read it again later in English.

She seems to be identifying herself with me and as an English speaker. "I say England. I say English." I always tell her, "Yes, you speak English AND you speak Slovak. And at school they speak Czech. You speak lots of languages." She nods and agrees that she speaks Slovak and English, but she knows perfectly well that she's primarily an English speaker and isn't as proficient in Slovak or Czech. (But have I mentioned our South American friend taught her to count to ten in Spanish? My daughter: polyglot.)

K is also aware that Apo and I both speak more than one language. Our traditional conversation when learning a new word is to establish that Apo says XX and Mama says YY and K says XX and YY. She always says it with an obvious pride in her voice. Recently she's been asking more questions about who says what: Mama says fish and Apo says ryba, but does Mama say ryba, too? I tell her yes, I say ryba when I am speaking Czech. And does Apo say fish? Yes, Apo says fish when he is speaking English.

Yesterday we were discussing a word that's different in Czech and Slovak (the two languages have a lot of shared vocabulary with only some words that are entirely unrelated). I can't remember what it was, so let's call it "cat" (CZ kočka, SK mačka).

We established that Mama says cat and Apo says mačka and K wanted to know if Mama also says mačka. I said, well, usually not. If I speak Czech I say kočka. I say kočka and cat. Apo says mačka and cat. K says cat and mačka and kočka. That seemed to mildly blow her mind. Three years old, three words for cat. And turtle. And the other 10% - 20% of CZ/SK words that aren't related.

No miracles happening here, but we're making progress. The other day K asked why I wasn't wearing slippers because the floors are cold. I think she's going to fit in JUST FINE.

November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism

2010-11-30T18:25:00.003+01:00

Step right up to the November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, organized by L from Bilingual for Fun! Grab a cup of tea (or other hot drink of your choice, especially if you're experiencing this same snowy weather we are) and sit down for a while with us. We've got several entries this month taking a look at the adults, the children and some of the tools of bilingual families.

Smashedpea from Intrepidly Bilingual starts us off this month with a look at Him - that mysterious supporting player without whom the whole thing falls apart.

First-time contributor Tamara at Non-Native Bilingualism makes a liberating realization that I think would benefit all parents, not just the bilingual ones, in her post Mama's New Freedom.

Gen at Bilingual Families wrote about a "dormant bilingual" she met recently. This young mother would like to regain her native language after years of not speaking it, for the sake of her children. I think a lot of us living outside our native countries or languages can probably identify with this, no matter how far down the road to dormancy we may have gotten.

Then mamapoekie at Authentic Parenting addresses a topic that's been on my mind lately in Towards a Language Switch. With their upcoming move to another language environment, how and when will her child's dominant language change?

Jan at BabelKid knows where his daughter overheard something - because of the language she said it in! One of the less well-known advantages of raising your children with multiple languages, in my opinion.

Rea at Not So Spanish explores her son's expanding vocabulary in both English and Spanish in her post Big. Green. Boobie.

Sarah at Baby Bilingual spoke English to her nephew Carl - and didn't get in trouble for it! Read her post Ma'am, we heard you speaking English to that child. Hand over your mouse. From now on you're not allowed to blog about raising children bilingually! to see how and why she occasionally breaks the rules.

Maria at Fab Mums discusses one of the cornerstones of language learning for kids or adults. In her post The importance of songs in the bilingual journey from nursery rhymes to pop music she talks about the role Michael Jackson is currently playing in getting her son interested in English, his second language.

Eve from Blogging on Bilingualism posts about a SmartPlay giveaway, including an interview with the president of the company. Head over to check out the conditions to win! The giveaway ends Sunday, December 5.

Maggy from Red Ted Art discusses another cornerstone of language sharing: books. Read about her experience with a multilingual book exchange in her post Swap.

Lynn from Open Hearts, Open Minds also writes about the importance of reading in her family's language plan in her post Reading to Elliot en Español. She recommends some of her favorite children's books in Spanish and observes one of the enduring truths of reading books in translation: some of them are better than others! Here's to well translated children's books - something we're on the lookout for as well, since we live in a market with a high ratio of translation to original publications.

Finally, I was thinking along the same lines this month in my post The Three Little Pigs and Growing Up. With our recent flip-flop of community-minority language I think it's important not to ignore English too much, so this is a post all about reading to my daughter in my native language.

In putting together this carnival, I noticed that a few of us this month wrote posts not exclusively focusing on bilingualism or the 'foreign' language. I think it's an interesting point because really, bilingualism is just one aspect of our families. It may be the one that makes us stand out in public (hah!), but it isn't all we are. We are families who happen to speak two, three or four languages at home, which is just the way we live. And that, my friends, is pretty cool!

Thank you very much to all participants, contributors as well as readers. Please pass the link around and don't forget to check in for next month's carnival hosted at Multilingual Mania!

This and That

2010-11-29T16:29:00.004+01:00

OK, I can breathe again. I'm still recovering from this weekend. As it turns out, 3rd birthday with associated outing, cake baking, present wrapping and unwrapping + (Slovak) grandmother visiting + big translation project due Monday = very late nights over the weekend for mama.

---

K had fun playing with Babka for the five days she was here. It was supposed to be six, but with the big snowfall predicted she decided to take the train back yesterday, instead. Possibly a good thing she did, because it started coming down yesterday and hasn't really stopped since.

At one point last week I looked over at where K and Babka were sitting in chairs (kid and adult sized), both with cushions under their bottoms. Babka because it helps her stand up from the chair, and K because, well, Babka has one, doesn't she?

K communicated with Babka occasionally in Slovak but mostly continued her English immersion policy (teaching the rest of the country English instead of learning Czech herself, that is). Several times we reminded her that Babka doesn't understand English so K needs to speak Slovak to her, and K would say the one word she needed and then go back to chattering in English.

The stubbornness, she gets it from her father.

---

K has been doing some stuttering lately that I don't really like. More like she just gets stuck on one word and can't get past it - "Mama, why you, why you, why you, why you, why you do that?" I noticed it before we left UK, which is a good thing because if I'd noticed it once we got here I'd probably be panicking that the shock of the move or change in language environment was giving my child a stutter. So at least I know it wasn't caused by the change of environment.

Dr. Google informed me that a lot of children actually go through a stuttering stage at about this age and that most of them grow out of it. So that's comforting. I haven't been making an issue of it, of course, but it is occasionally trying to stand there patiently and let K finish her sentence instead of jumping in and finishing it for her. I think in K's case it's probably related to the huge jump in sophistication of her speech (putting in all the connecting words, etc.) recently: she is probably getting stuck trying to get the more complicated grammar and vocabulary out. She's gone from "Mama! Hep!" to "Mama, can you help me please?" in a very short time.

Still. I'll be happy when I see that she's grown out of it.

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Annnnnnd in the time it took me to write this I got another longish assignment for this week. Off to work.

Cross-Cultural Thanksgiving

2010-11-27T20:04:00.002+01:00

To start with, it's obviously not a day off here. We usually celebrate on Saturday, since employers typically don't go for "But it's a holiday in my/my spouse's country!" in our experience.

This year we celebrated with a young American family who recently moved (back) to Czech Republic and our friend A, who is originally from South America. It was a totally mixed afternoon of English and Czech, which was kind of fun. Most of the time we hang out with people who are one language or the other, so it's fun to spend time with a group that does both. Lets the Slovak and I speak our true native language: Anglo-Czecho-Slovak.

We had turkey pieces, stuffing, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and green bean casserole. I had to make the stuffing and green bean casserole from scratch, of course, because you can't get the typical mixes and pre-made ingredients (cream of mushroom soup, French dried onions, etc.) people usually use in America. They turned out pretty yummy, though I say it myself.

My favorite moment of cultural syncretism was using rohlíky to make my home-made bread stuffing. It sounds funny, but it works!

K enjoyed playing with our friends' baby. She once referred to him as her "brother" and also has started talking about her baby dolls as her "brother" and "sister". I think she's trying to tell me something, don't you?

3rd Birthday

2010-11-24T21:22:00.003+01:00

I'm poking my head out from my translation cave to write a short post. Things were so quiet on the workish front around here in October that I was starting to wonder (ok, maybe more than starting) if this was all a waste of time. Then partway through November I started getting some work again and now have more than I know what to do with - at least for the moment. The good news is I've made up our preschool tuition already!

All of which is to say, I should be working on the ginormous assignment I have due on Monday, but I am totally procrastinating right now. Let's call it "multi-tasking".

Today was Baby K's third birthday. Babka came to town yesterday and couldn't wait til morning to give her birthday presents, so K got some presents last night, one present from us this morning and the rest from us along with the birthday cake this evening. In the afternoon she helped me bake her birthday cake. She was so excited to blow out her candles and eat her birthday cake...she's been asking if it's her birthday yet for almost two months. We sang her "Happy Birthday" immediately followed by "Živio" and provided bilingual commentary during the present-opening phase for the grandparents (his dad, my mom) watching us on Skype. Overall it was a good day.

My baby is officially pre-school age (though she's been attending part-time already). And I am officially no longer employed: my three year parental leave ended today, so as of tomorrow I am out in the cold. At least business has picked up a little :)

Happy Birthday, sweet Baby K.

The Three Little Pigs and Growing Up

2010-11-21T22:13:00.004+01:00

This post is part of the November Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month here at Where Going Havo?

When I imagined what it would be like to have a child, besides the predicted sleepless nights and constant asking "WHY?", I imagined putting my child to sleep at night by reading books or telling stories.

The sleepless nights never really arrived, but we've been fielding dozens of WHY questions daily for a while now. My daughter was never really interested in being read to at bedtime before, and when I offered to tell her a story she ran to the bookshelf - I said no, I'm going to TELL you the story - she looked pityingly at me and said, You need the book first, MOTHER. (Paraphrase)

However, in the last couple of weeks our nighttime routine consists of books or fairy tales until she drops off to sleep.

I couldn't be more thrilled.

We go through a wide variety of books from our bookshelves, though of course she has some favorites we tend to return to. I love that her attention span and understanding of the stories has increased, so we can even read some of the books with more sentences per page. We have a few collections of fairy tales, so I've been reading to her from those quite a bit. (I figure she needs a good background in classic fairy tales before moving on to Phase 2: Greek Mythology.)

For a while she made me tell her The Three Little Pigs every night. Sometimes I didn't even make it past the second pig before she fell asleep, but she wanted to hear it. Her favorite part is the Big Bad Wolf. She likes him in Little Red Riding Hood too, and I also inserted him into a story I made up for her about a nice Waaah (monster) who just wants to be friends with all the kids, and finally succeeds when he saves them from the Big Bad Wolf. K finds this story deeply engaging and usually demands to hear it two or three times in a row.

But my favorite part of story-telling, right at this age, is the following exchange we have during nearly every re-telling of Three Little Pigs:

Me: Once upon a time there were three little pigs whose mama loved them very much. They gave their mama a kiss and set off into the world to seek their fortune.
K, shocked: WHY??
Me: Because they were grown up and it was time to leave home.
K, deeply disturbed: Why they go away??
Me: Well, when people grow up then they sometimes want to go and have a new home and seek their fortune. You might want to seek your fortune when you grow up, too.

K allows me to continue, but she is visibly uncomfortable with the idea. She doesn't understand why anyone would leave home when they have a MAMA who LOVES them.

I have to admit that I don't like the idea, either! I pray she keeps this attitude for a long time yet. Sweet, sweet girl.

Call for Carnival Submissions

2010-11-19T19:30:00.003+01:00

Hey, bilingual bloggers! I'm hosting the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism this month. Please send your submissions on multilingual family life to me at melissa dot dedina at gmail dot com by the 28th and I'll include them in the carnival!

Pass on the message!

Modlitba pro Melissu

2010-11-17T20:07:00.002+01:00

Twenty one years ago today, students demonstrating on Národní Třída in Prague provided the final push that toppled the Socialist regime in Czechoslovakia. It was neither the first nor the last in a long chain of events leading to the collapse of Communism in Czechoslovakia, but November 17th is the date that went down in history.

This day is my own personal Thanksgiving. I know the American Thanksgiving is coming next week, but my thoughts turn to thankfulness every year on the 17th. Thank you to the students, thank you to the dissidents, thank you to the ordinary people who came out in so many thousands in the days and weeks following November 17, 1989. Thank you for seizing the moment for change. Thank you for having the courage to stand up for what was right. Thank you for surviving 20 years of occupation and 40 years of the workers' paradise with your Czech subversive spirit intact.

Thank you for a world in which we whiz by the border on the highway rather than being searched or even shot for daring to cross. Thank you for opening the way for a girl from the West to meet a boy from the East and stay with him. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to live where we choose, how we choose, with whom we choose.

I didn't know it then, but the students on November 17, 1989 were demonstrating for me, too. My life was set in motion that day. Whatever happens in the future, let peace remain with this country.

Ať mír dál zůstává s touto krajinou

Ways in which my daughter is already assimilating

2010-11-13T20:39:00.002+01:00

1. She not only takes off her shoes at the door, she loudly berates visitors for not doing the same. "You no shoes here! You shoes THERE!"

2. At a restaurant, she wanted to play with the coasters but Apo told her, "Sú iba na pivko" (They're only for beer). Her instant and excited response: "I want pivko!"

3. She is proud of her beautiful country and enjoys seeing different parts of it. We went to southern Bohemia this weekend and she was suitably impressed by the castle we went on a tour of this afternoon. Kept saying "Wooooow!" as we came to each new room. The Czechs on the tour enjoyed her enjoyment!

She's already Czech, my friends. The language is just a detail.

This Is Our Stop: on belonging

2010-11-09T17:47:00.005+01:00

When we take the bus home from preschool, one of the bus stops we pass by is our last name. The feminine form, specifically, minus one diacritic. Used to have a friend who lived there.

We've been by several times, but yesterday as they announced it on the bus, K said, "[Last name]? It's our stop!!" I told her yes, it's ours, but we aren't getting off there. I laughed because I've always felt a certain affinity with it, too.

Compare that to life in any other country: no one can pronounce our name and you would certainly never name a bus stop after us. I spent so long mispronouncing my own last name for the benefit of English ears (i.e. anglicizing it so people would understand) that I accidentally did it a few times here in Prague, too.

People could usually handle K's name because we use two forms of it: we call her the CZ/SK form and we tell English speakers to call her the English form. That's one reason I call her K on this blog, actually, because both forms start with K! And then people end up calling her (Slovak) K anyway, because they hear us doing it.

You never meet another K anywhere else, but here, K is actually something like the 7th most popular name for girls (or was when she was born). We've already met multiple K's in Prague. In our search for a name to fit three languages I guess we forgot to consider she might be one of two or three K's in her kindergarten class. Not a big deal though. The point is all relevant family members can pronounce and spell it. Unlike our last name.

My point? I think it's wonderful to be in a place where people recognize your name. Where instead of, "What was her name again??" they say, "Oh, K, that's my sister's name!" I think it's great for K (and us) to see our last name as the name of a bus stop. It makes it normal. Just another name, and we're just another family.

There are enough things about us that are different; I am happy that I can bring up my daughter in a place where something as simple as her name can be "normal". I want to make this a place where she can feel like she belongs.

Cross-cultural Halloween

2010-11-04T08:13:00.004+01:00

This was our first Halloween (post-child) that we haven't spent visiting family in USA.

The first year our 11 month old went trick-or-treating in her grandmother's neighborhood dressed as a monkey. This was the remnants of an idea I had where the Slovak would dress up as a pirate and the baby would sit on his shoulder dressed as a parrot or, in Pirates of the Caribbean style, a monkey.

As it turned out I had my work cut out for me just convincing him to go out with us trick or treating, much less dress up himself. It was an uphill battle, but I like to think my rhetoric won the day:

Slovak: There is no way my child is putting on some freakish outfit and going around to strangers' houses.
Me: It's just Halloween; we did it when we were kids and it was fun.
Slovak: It's a bizarre American custom that I'm having no part of.
Me: But you love all the other American customs. You're more American than me sometimes. Why declare war this one?
Slovak: Yes, well, this is one step too far.
Me: How exactly is this different from Mikuláš? People dress up in freakish outfits and you get candy.
Slovak: That's different! Mikuláš is a TOTALLY NORMAL thing to do. Halloween is not normal.

(He grudgingly agrees to walk with us and observe, if not participate. We come back after one block and examine our haul.)

Slovak: Um, Halloween is awesome. Look at this candy!!!

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OK, maybe not a victory for my persuasive skills...but chocolate speaks for itself.

The next year, we all dressed up! At almost two, K already knew about pirates (is still very into pirates, in fact), so we dressed up as a family of pirates. The Slovak put up a good show of not intending to dress up for several months in advance, but kept coming up with suggestions for how to make his pirate costume. I read between the lines and decided he didn't mind too much. When his costume got compliments at all the houses we went to (he looked very rakish and pirately) he perked up even more.

Sadly, the night ended early when K got excited (got into the spirit after a few houses), took off running and fell flat into a mud hole she couldn't see in the dark. It was an interesting addition to the costume, but we calmed her down and took her home. We were all jet-lagging anyway, since we had flown from UK the day before. Had to wake K up to get her ready in the first place!

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This year, at almost three, K and her Apo dressed as Charlie and Lola. He wore a baseball shirt with CHARLIE written on the front (internet design your own shirt shop!) and she wore an outfit like the ones Lola often wears and put butterfly hairclips in her hair. A little girl dressing up as another little girl doesn't have far to go, costume-wise.

We were concerned that we wouldn't find any Halloween parties or trick-or-treating events, since it obviously isn't celebrated in this country (see the Slovak's distrustful attitude above), but I hoped that some expat group would have planned something. In the end some friends tipped us off that in a certain neighborhood on the outskirts of Prague, mostly populated by foreigners, they have trick-or-treating every year!

It was the most surreal experience. The neighborhood is new, so it was prefabricated (but huge) houses laid out like an American suburb. Hundreds of trick-or-treaters dressed up in a wide array of costumes. Every third house decorated for Halloween, some people sitting outside their houses, dressed up and giving out candy. It was like being instantly transported to America, except...I heard Hebrew, French, Spanish, German and English at least. English as a native language and English as a foreign language. Oh, and even some Czech. Prompting the following exchange at a Czech house:

Me and K: Dobrý večer, trick or treat! (good evening)
Czech lady: Dobrý večer, Happy Halloween!
Me and K: Děkujeme, na shledanou! (Thank you, bye!)
Czech lady: Na shledanou! (Bye!)

Now there's a conversation I never thought I'd have.

(Another conversation I never thought I'd have: serious consultation with husband re spelling of na shledanou. Space or no space? Neither of us was sure! Not because we can't write, but because you never write that word down: you just say it! I am fairly sure that some people write it all together but that a space is, in fact, correct.)

K had a fun time trick-or-treating, though she had a hard time with the idea of dressing up as someone else. Kept telling me, "I not Lola! I K! Apo not Charlie! He's Apo!" She also likes to say things like, "I not cute, I K!" "I not naughty, I K!" I'm thinking she has a very strong sense of self.

Happy late Halloween!

October Bilingualism Carnival

2010-10-28T20:40:00.004+02:00

This month's Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is up now! It's hosted this month by Corey over at Multilingual Living. If you make it all the way through, you can find my entry from earlier this month.

Enjoy, and keep an eye out here for next month's carnival, which I'll be hosting!

Stealth Visit

2010-10-26T20:31:00.003+02:00

This past weekend we fulfilled one of my long-time daydreams: ringing our in-laws' doorbell and announcing we'd come for a visit. I was minorly concerned that the shock might be TOO much, but after some satisfyingly dumbfounded surprise they handled it quite well.

The Slovak took a half day off work and we left right after K got out of school at lunchtime. We can make the trip in a fairly reliable 8 - 8.5 hours, which is far but not impossible. I have to reiterate once more that our daughter is a phenomenal traveler. She sleeps in the car and pretty much entertains herself while awake. We didn't even have to make any extra stops beyond what we would have made ourselves, anyway. She spent half the trip singing, "Babka, Dedo, Babka, Dedo..."

We're going back in two months for Christmas, but we haven't been to the Slovak's hometown or seen his father for over a year, so we thought an extra, surprise trip wouldn't be a bad idea. Babka and Dedo were excited to see us, by which I mainly mean their only grandchild. She got one of her birthday presents early and I only barely stopped them from giving her another. They still had to pick her up something at the toystore. It was sweet.

It was also sweet to see how easily K settled into a relationship with her grandparents: not just tolerating hugs but actually seeking them out. She would hold her arms out to Babka like, "You may pick me up and hug me now," and over Babka's shoulder I could see K's little smile that showed she was enjoying it. She was a little more reserved with Dedo, which seemed only natural as she's seen Babka as recently as July and Dedo not since her last birthday. She especially loved their dog, Sandra.

K was able to communicate better this time around, which was nice to see, at least on the level of individual words that Babka was able to understand. We still did some translating (English to Slovak, for Babka to understand) and also provided the sentences for K to say what she wanted in Slovak. Since K's method of speaking Slovak is currently to substitute Slovak nouns and occasional, haphazardly conjugated verbs into an underlying English grammar structure, she benefited from a little guidance on how to form a complete sentence. If she said something that Babka didn't understand, either Apo or I would tell her, "K, tell Babka 'Aj ja chcem pomoct' - 'prosim si dzusik' - 'kde je havo?'" -- short sentences that she understood, even though she couldn't come up with them herself. She was able to repeat whatever we suggested and her grandparents understood what she was saying. It seemed to work pretty well, actually.

The only bad thing about a fly-by visit like this is that we didn't have time to visit any of our friends while there. We saw some of them briefly, but otherwise wanted to spend as much time as possible just with the grandparents. We'll have time for visits in December, when we should stay for a week or so.

It was too short, but lots of fun. Nice hearing lots of Slovak again. K loved it. Looking forward to next time!

One Month In

2010-10-25T21:42:00.003+02:00

It's been almost a month since we packed up and set off for lands unknown. Unknown, that is, as far as our daughter was concerned. She was born here but that doesn't mean much to her as she doesn't remember anything but England!

One month in, I'd say it's going well. K adapts well to changes and is an experienced traveler. She still asks about her friends in England, for example if they will go to her new preschool. She takes it well, though, when I explain that England is too far a commute.

She loves her bilingual preschool and has a pack of friends, both Czech and foreign. She refers to the teachers as "teta" in Slovak and "that lady" in English. Unfortunately we don't have any neighborhood friends or playgroup type activities yet, but then it took us a very long time to hit our stride when we moved to UK, too. We'll find out where the fun people are eventually!

She still speaks to people in English and seems to feel that if anyone doesn't understand her, well that is THEIR problem and has nothing to do with HER. She is, however, using more and more Slovak and Czech words when talking to Czech speakers. Last week she called me "Maminko!" - correct Czech ending and all. I still wouldn't call it a Czech explosion at this point, but that would be a little premature to expect, anyway.

K's English is still developing in amusing ways. Her imagination is wild and her use of language is more and more able to express it. She breaks out with new phrases I haven't taught her even now in a Czech environment. Most recently "ages and ages" - "I did that ages and ages [ago]." She started talking about "good choices" and "bad choices" this month - I think they must talk about that at preschool. K's approach is usually to do something naughty and then insist, "That not a bad choice." If I suggest that it was maybe not such a good choice after all, she can get kind of defensive, insisting at the top of her lungs, "I GOOD CHOICE, THAT NOT A BAD CHOICE."

We've had to work on adapting to new rules, like teaching K the rules of traveling on public transportation or other aspects of city life. I don't really like it, but I have to shush her more than I did before. Living in an apartment building you can't jump up and down repeatedly on a wooden floor without annoying the neighbors. Can't shout in the hallway, no matter how fun the echo is. Not to mention the different rules once you leave home. K is an agreeable little girl and is picking up on what is expected, but it's still an adjustment.

The adjustments aren't just on her part, either. My poor husband is going through reverse culture shock for essentially the first time (he's traveled very extensively but never lived abroad [i.e. not Czech Republic or Slovakia] before). I'm going through the adjustment, too, but as a foreigner I remember what it took to get used to life here the first time, so I can do it again. The Slovak gets worked up about things, like "The waiters! They're rude! How dare they be rude!" and I pretty much answer, "I know, they've always been rude!" The good thing is I think I'm a little more relaxed this time around, even if I do require the Slovak to give me a refresher course on random things and how they work once in a while. I never claimed to have ALL the kinks worked out. :)

All in all...not a bad start to Life In Prague, Take 2. No major breakthroughs or setbacks to report, just steady forward progress. And we have yet to get tired of fresh Czech bread for dinner.

Working Mama

2010-10-20T21:29:00.002+02:00

I mentioned yesterday "starting a business" and was taken to task in the comments for it. So, details!

I picked up my Czech Trade License (aka self employed person's license) on Monday in part two of the Pleasantest Bureaucratic Experience Ever. Category: Translation and Interpretation.

I've done a bit of freelance translation here and there since Baby K was born, not too intensively, just kind of whoever came along. For the past six months or so, though, as I've considered what to do when my luxurious three years of parental leave runs out, I've been ramping it up a bit, updating CVs, looking for more clients, figuring out what paperwork I need, etc.

Since coming back to Prague I've started to put the plans in place, getting the trade license and everything I need to be officially self-employed as a freelance translator. Czech to English, Slovak to English. Mostly legal, since I worked in law offices in USA and CZ in my pre-child days.

It's all in the start-up stage now, trying to work out what number I need from what government office and how to generally run a business...but I think it has potential. I'm cautiously optimistic. :)

Grumpy Mama

2010-10-19T16:01:00.004+02:00

Busy week. Starting a business. Paperwork. K burned her fingers while baking muffins (really) at preschool last Friday. Took it very bravely despite three large burn blisters on her little fingers, poor thing.

Took her to the doctor to get it wrapped up. She feels like a rock star - really likes doctors. Keeps looking at her bandage and saying, "I'm very brave." Also held hand up to Charlie and Lola on TV today and said, "Look, I've got an owie hand! Oh, you can't hear me..."

I can't say that the doctor herself (at the hospital, not our pediatrician) lived up to my warm, fuzzy recent impression of Prague. So far (since first coming here) I've had mostly positive experiences with private practice doctors and mostly negative experiences with hospitals. No surprise I guess.

Lots of staying inside and watching DVDs this week, unfortunately. See above mama starting business, K burned (now bandaged) fingers. Mama not feeling that great. And Tuesday-Wednesday are our no-preschool days. We're kind of hurting without our UK playgroup routine for no-preschool days. And the two hour break I have to take in the middle of each preschool day (to go pick her up) is really wearing on my nerves and cutting into my productivity. I have to leave at 11:30, 11:40 at the latest, to make sure I'm there to pick her up for 12:30. Thus a full two hours less, practically speaking, than our Bracknell nursery pick-up (five minutes away) of 1:30. It's enough to make me consider starting to drive.

The rest of my productivity is apparently shot in the foot by the inexplicable lack of phone signal in our apartment. I knew we had reception problems in the bedrooms (baby monitor didn't work, only talk on phone in living room) but the living room used to be ok! Now half the time when I talk to someone on land line or cell phone, I can hear them but they can't hear me. And that's WHEN the cell phone even rings to let me know I have a call! I'm contemplating whether it could be a phone provider issue or if our walls are just that full of lead. Or whatever it is that screws up your phone service. I have to make my phone calls from the park outside. How ridiculous is that? Hard conditions to work under, I tell you!

And with this clearly optimistic frame of mind :) I am supposed to go out for our approximately bi-annual date while dear friend watches K at home. Too bad all I feel like doing is going out by myself for a coffee and coming back in, I don't know, three days. Or whenever we get a blessed neighborhood preschool spot so we can start living like normal people.

By which I mean people who take fifteen minutes to pick up their child from a school that is a reasonable distance away, for which privilege they pay a reasonable price. My hopes are set on next school year.

The Princess and the Parek

2010-10-15T09:46:00.003+02:00

I can think of no better place to live for a little girl who adores castles than here in Europe.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are our no-preschool days, so by Wednesday afternoon we were pretty restless. I woke K up from her nap and asked her, "Do you want to go see the castle?" Her eyes popped open instantly. When I suggested we could stop for a párek v rohlíku (hot dog in a rohlík, the long bread roll) along the way, she jumped up and started singing a song about castles and párky.

If I wrote a list of things in Prague that K loves, párky would have to be near the top. She jumped on that bandwagon after her first taste.

So we took the choo-choo, I mean tram, up to the Prague castle. On the way K entertained the woman sitting in front of us with questions to me about what we were seeing. Buses, cars, the boy walking on the sidewalk: "That's my friend my best friend! He's waiting for me!"

We got off the tram behind the castle and walked over. K was very impressed with the side view of the cathedral and insisted on being lifted up to see over the bridge railing to what was below. We admired the cathedral from the front and K commented how beautiful the castle is. To which I replied,

"Well, actually that's not a castle, it's a cathedral, a big church."
K: "Where's the castle, then?"
Me: "This is all the castle: this building here, that building over there..."
K, offended: "That's not a castle! That's a house!"

Her tastes are becoming more refined, I see. Not long ago she was satisfied with any tall, stone building!

We walked all around the cathedral, looked at St. George's Basilica and peeked into the cathedral itself (you have to pay to go all the way in now (!!), but they let you stand in the back and look around before filing back out. We looked at the stained glass and discussed what pictures and colors we could see. We looked toward the front and K was very impressed.

"Is that where the princess gets married?"
"Yes, that's where the princess gets married."
"Where's the princess??"
"She's not here right now."
"Where is she?"
"Well, she's busy. She hasn't found her prince yet. When she finds him, they'll come here and get married."
"And then dancing."
"Yes, and then there'll be dancing."

My daughter is such a girly girl that it shocks me. Where did she learn about weddings and princesses and dancing? She does love my wedding picture and calls it my "princess dress". I told her it was when I got married to Apo, and she always wants to know where SHE was that day (I guess meaning why doesn't she remember). I tell her she wasn't there, but she doesn't want to believe me. I tell her she was just a dream but I can tell she isn't convinced.

Last night she showed me an empty tin and said it was her presents. "A bracelet! Oh, it's perfect!" (Everything is perfect recently. The toilet paper with a floral pattern was, "Look, my perfect one!") K put an imaginary bracelet on herself and one on me. Then she put on her imaginary necklace and I showed her that I was already wearing one that Apo gave me. She knows that Apo gave me my (wedding and engagement) rings, too. Once we were wearing our perfect jewelry she asked if I wanted to get married. I said I am already married to Apo, but who did K want to marry? "Grandmama," she decided. I suggested that it's traditional to wait until you grow up to get married, and maybe someone outside the family would be best. K agreed that she would wait.

This girly love of weddings and pretty things is so foreign to me! At K's age I supposedly refused to wear anything except for a certain nightgown over a pair of pants. I think it's adorable, though. K is the only child I've seen who gets excited like it's Christmas morning when she gets new clothes. She always insists on trying them on right away.

When we finished at the castle, we walked through the front gates, looked over the wall to see the city from above, and made our way down the hill, across the bridge, through the winding streets of Old Town, never once finding a párek v rohlíku stand. K was asking for one every three minutes or so the whole afternoon, too! But like many fairy tales, this one has a slightly unsatisfying ending, because we never did find one and had to make do with a slice of pizza instead.

And yet, still, a lovely time was had by all.

Things I've Missed About Prague

2010-10-12T15:28:00.007+02:00

...that you just can't get anywhere else.

1. Chléb
2. Rohlíky. The perfect size for small hands. K likes to tear hers in half and hold one in each hand.
3. Cheese rohlíky.
4. Bacon and cheese rohlíky.
5. Basically anything in the bread family.
6. Iced green tea.
7. Blueberry tea.
8. Blueberry yogurt.
9. Any kind of good yogurt.
10. Bryndza (sheep cheese). It's a Slovak specialty but you can buy it in Prague.
11. Effective public transportation.
12. Automatically giving up your seat to the elderly, pregnant and small children.
13. That unmistakable Prague accent.
14. Czech evening news, including ever-present ragging on Slovakia and/or America!
15. Czech "American Idol" type shows.
16. Czech cable package including main Czech AND Slovak TV channels. (We've found that while shows dubbed into Czech sound TOTALLY NORMAL to us, we both find dubbing into Slovak to be strange and unaccustomed. Our previous Prague TV provider didn't have Slovak channels.)
17. Our friendly neighborhood pediatrician.
18. The Prague Zoo.
19. All of this.
20. And all of this.

Just a non-exhaustive list of the first things that came to mind over the last ten days in the city!

Still can't believe how easy that was...

2010-10-11T15:14:00.004+02:00

I had the loveliest experience today at the city offices for our district of Prague today. It feels funny even to write that, because my experiences of bureaucracy are usually of the "We don't like you and are refusing your application, oh, and also, you're stupid" or at least the "Why don't you have these other three papers I never mentioned before?" variety.

I went in this morning feeling cautiously optimistic that maybe the person I talked to last week was correct in claiming that I didn't need any extra paperwork, but prepared to have this be the first of several visits, just in case. In fact I had the most pleasant, painless bureaucracy experience of my life.

I showed my IDs, paid my money, filled things out, signed them and was instructed to come back in a week to pick up my final result. Everyone I talked to was unusually helpful and friendly. All in all I'm feeling very pro-Praha 10 today!

I suspect the difference is that this was the office for residents of a certain district of Prague rather than the country-wide foreign police, for example. A higher standard of pleasantness and helpfulness may be typical for a local office. Or else Praha 10 is really just that great of a place!

What does bilingualism\multilingualism mean to you?

2010-10-09T00:09:00.005+02:00

This post is part of the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month at Multilingual Living.

I just answered this question at the Multilingual Mania Facebook page and it started me thinking. My answer was:

"To me it means being a part of two separate worlds defined by the two languages, and belonging to them both. It's a constant challenge and a game of deep undercover, with points scored when I make a good turn of phrase or someone believes I'm a native speaker, and points lost when I lose my cover by making a silly mistake. These are the things that keep my life interesting from day to day :)"

As I've written about before, for me it's less about being two people or having two personalities and more about being one person who moves between two worlds. I think this one is key for me.

And the challenge...I do love a challenge, and this one hasn't gotten old so far. I remember my first year after university (after coming back from a three month stay in Prague) I had a job and an apartment and absolutely no challenge in my life. I was bored stiff. I read a huge number of books that year, difficult, challenging books that made me think, because I needed to use my brain. That was part of the appeal of moving to a new country and learning a new language: at first, even (especially!) grocery shopping is a challenge! I thrive on it, and I still get bored if things start getting too easy.

Along with the challenge, I love the undercover agent game aspect. I have two names (CZ/SK surnames are slightly different for women), two identity cards, two marriage licenses. I'm not quite what I seem. Still no numbered Swiss bank account or Q to give me gadgets, but it's still pretty awesome.

But then I realize, those are pretty much the same answers I could have given six or seven years ago. They relate just to me in relationship with the society around me. But they don't take into account how I've changed since then. They don't account for love, for my husband, for my daughter.

So to me, bilingualism also means love. It means I can tell my husband I love him in his own language. It means when he retreats into his own language, in laughter, in pain, in stress, in pleasure, I can follow him there. When he wants to share with me a joke or a movie from his childhood, I can appreciate it. It means I come into his world. And all of this applies equally for him to me.

Then when it comes to our daughter, bilingualism means that she is connected to her family, her extended family, generations of Slovaks and generations of Americans stretching back into the past, and the cultures that produced us all. She can share the songs, the movies, the customs, the food of both sets of grandparents. It means she has two whole worlds open to her...just as a start. Bilingualism means I serve as her interpreter when she needs one - not her as mine.

It means I can have a relationship with my in-laws, and help my daughter to do the same. It means I can support my husband when he forgets a word, my daughter when she doesn't know one.

Bilingualism makes my family possible. And you don't get any more essential than that.

Guest post

2010-10-08T14:42:00.005+02:00

So I totally forgot to link to my most recent guest post on Multilingual Mania, another addition to the Language and Identity series there. Stop by and read The Blank Page, the Fresh Start, an exploration of how learning a new language as an adult can affect your identity in the new language and as a whole.

And with that...I'm out. My bilingual child is driving me up the wall today, so I need to go count the minutes until her father gets off work!

More Encounters at the Playground

2010-10-07T18:03:00.002+02:00

I just got back from another playground visit with K. We have to take advantage of the decent weather while it lasts! There were a bunch of kids there to play with.

One boy of about six was really intrigued by the fact that he couldn't understand K. They were taking turns on the slide and she was speaking English some.

"I go on my tummy!" she announced.
"Teď jsem jí nerozuměl," he said to me. (I didn't understand what she just said.)
"I go on my tummy!" she said on her next turn.
"To bylo to samý, co řekla před chvílí!" (That's the same thing she said before!)

I agreed with him that it was the same and that she had said she wanted to slide on her tummy. He remained intrigued and was obviously paying attention to her for the rest of the time they played. Then we bumped into each other later in the nearby farmer's market and he came up and talked to us for a minute. Very friendly boy!

I also thought it was funny that K and a slightly younger girl got into an argument about sand (the other girl thought ALL the sand was HER sand - so I didn't get involved). The girl yelled at K once in a while and K yelled back. Sometimes K yelled the same things ("MOJE!" - "No, MOJE!") and sometimes she said nonsense syllables that presumably sounded like Czech to her. K held her own, though, and they came to an agreement. K: 1, Czech: 0.

Too Sick to Blog

2010-10-05T17:44:00.002+02:00

I wish I could offer an insightful, entertaining look into multilingual life today, but I am unfortunately prevented by the piles of boxes to unpack and piles of tissues from my fun new cold. I'm not sure which situation is more annoying.

Yesterday was K's second day of school, where she continued to make a good impression on the staff (the principal was throwing around the word "vzorná", so there you go). She was happy and engaged and made lots more friends. Whatever my reservations about the school itself, I couldn't be happier that she is starting off so well. She'll continue Thursday and Friday for her three half-days per week, which is what I'll think I'll keep it to for the time being.

Off to unpack some more...or else make myself a cup of tea with honey. One of those two.

First fruits of life in Prague

2010-10-03T19:55:00.003+02:00

Is it too soon for K's Czech to have improved? Because she's already using it more than before. Color me kind of impressed.

For example, K wanted our friend to come to the next room to see the toy car go.

Friend: "A tady nemůže?" (Can't it go here?)
K: "Může!" (It can!!)

With a vowel exactly in between the Czech ů and the Slovak ô.

K also declared this evening that "nemáme" (CZ we don't have) something, and earlier in the day said, "Daj šupišup!" (SK Do up your zipper!). That is her Slovak made-up word for zipper, but it's still a two-word Slovak sentence, which is still cause to be impressed in our house.

Her grandmother asked over Skype, "Ako bolo v školke?" (How was preschool?) and K offhandedly answered "Dobre!" (SK Good!) This is another word that she knows but usually you have to drag out of her, so we can see that she's already using her limited vocabulary more readily.

In words I'd just as soon she not use just yet, K told Apo, "Kecáš!!" (You're babbling / you're making that up / talking nonsense / etc.) Which just gives a nice insight into the kind of conversations we have at home, I suppose. Haha.

This evening K told me, "Mami, I want to číst (CZ read) a book." I laughed, repeated it entirely in English, then asked her how Apo says "book" and got her to say "Chci číst knížku" (CZ I want to read a book). Then I got her a book to read.

K has actually asked me to read her a certain book of stories in Czech a few times this weekend. I read it to her (in Czech) and she kept asking for "ešte" (SK more). When she was done she told me "konec" (CZ the end).

If you notice the CZ and SK labels I put on those comments, you can see that Czech is already making itself felt against the Slovak - and the English! The community language, it is strong.

K's English is still getting more and more complex and interesting to listen to. I can't begin to list all the goofy things she's said lately. She's been having a little trouble sleeping in the new place and keeps insisting, "I can't sleep very well. I have to be awake." Yesterday she came out of the bedroom claiming that, "The bed is really mean. It scratched me."

And just for something different, K has also learned a couple words of Spanish. We were walking along playing a game involving counting, doing it first like Mama (one, two, three!), then like Apo (raz, dva, tri!). Then K turned to our Czech-speaking South American friend and wanted to count like HER. So friend cooperated and said, "Uno, dos, tres!" I think K was surprised to get a different counting system, since she probably expected it to be Czech. I don't think she's heard our friend speak Spanish really. But she repeated it and can now say Uno, dos, tres! And also, inexplicably, Adios! Friend claims she didn't say it, but it's possible K remembers Apo or I saying hola and adios. Or from reading a Dora the Explorer book.

Either way, Adios!

First Day of Preschool

2010-10-02T15:46:00.003+02:00

Yesterday was my daughter's much-anticipated first day of preschool.

We got there a couple of minutes late due to the commute (have to learn to time it right) and took K to the changing room. Each child has a little locker to store their extra clothes, coats, boots, etc., and there is an attendant there to help them if necessary, because parents are NOT ALLOWED.

In K's nursery in England we always helped her hang up her jacket on the hook in the hall and then took her straight into the classroom, so she was surprised that we were leaving her at the door already yesterday! For a minute she looked stricken - just incredibly unsure of herself, but then another little girl came in and K forgot about being scared in her haste to introduce herself. That's more like our K.

We went off, the Slovak to work (right next door!) to sort out a few introductory things, and me to the mall (three minutes away) while I waited for him. I got some work done, too, until I discovered the free wifi.

When we went back to get K after lunch, she came out of the changing room with the other half-day children. Running, singing a made-up song, waving her art project for us to look at and holding hands with another little girl. She stopped by us briefly to hand us her picture and backpack and then ran on with her friend to the playground, from which we extracted her about ten minutes later.

I think we can say it was a good day. I wasn't surprised she enjoyed it, but I was a little surprised she was so nonchalant when we picked her up, simply because when I picked her up from nursery she always made a show of crying because she missed me. At first the tears were real, then over time they got more and more perfunctory, but we never had a pickup like this one before. It was a beautiful thing to see.

After a few minutes the teacher came out and talked with me for a minute. "It's the most extraordinary thing," she said, "I've never seen a child engage so quickly before; usually they cry and cry at first..." She said K ran from place to place, looking at everything and wanting to know what was on the shelves and how it worked and that she already had a pack of friends.

I was hardly surprised to hear it, but it does please me that K's teacher seems to have a good impression of her so far. It's good to start off on the right foot!

We went home and let K take a nap, and then for the rest of the afternoon she seemed to be playing school. She kept talking about her "classroom" and I'm pretty sure she was doing circle time with her stuffed animals.

The final word on preschool was when I asked if she'd like to go back next time, and she agreed that yes, that would be acceptable. Let's hope she keeps enjoying it as much as she did her first day!

A New Beginning

2010-09-30T21:51:00.002+02:00

The waiting and preparing is finally over and we are here, ready to get started. Currently we're struggling with an hour time difference and a late afternoon nap making bed the LAST thing on our daughter's mind. She needs plenty of sleep, though, for her first day of Real Preschool tomorrow.

Real Preschool. I'm not sure I'm ready. Maybe I'll just keep K home until Monday. Or next year. Ahem. I think it'll be easier to let her go to school this time, actually, because we are already used to her "school" in England. That was the difficult adjustment, but still, starting this school feels different: it is actual, official preschool because my daughter is an actual, official preschooler. The other one was just for fun, just to get K out with other children. This is Structured.

I was supposed to have another baby to take care of by the time I sent K off to preschool! I guess that shows you what plans are worth. I do have tons to do while K is in school, so I guess it's good that I'll have a few hours a few days a week in which to do it.

More tomorrow on how it goes!

Random Declarations and the Balancing Act of Being Two

2010-09-29T15:23:00.005+02:00

"I no go to school. I go walking in the countryside."

K made this declaration on the way to her last day of school in UK. I'm pretty sure I know where she got the phrase from, after thinking about it, but it was pretty off the wall at the time. She then repeated herself several times, ending with, "Countryside, countryside, countryside, crountryside, crunchy, crunchy, crunchyside..." Which is actually kind of clever in a way. We had to admire her vocabulary level in English.

She has also taken to saying, "It's a rainy day," "It's a windy day" or "It's a sunshiney day" instead of just "It's raining" and so on. That one she learned from me - and surprised Apo with her sophisticated phrasing when he heard it the first time.

---

K declined to take her nap today, so after bouncing off the walls for a while in the hotel room, we went in the late afternoon to Starbucks. We had coffee, juice and a chocolate muffin and read books. We made it through The Gruffalo and part of a book about pyramids, with K snuggling further and further into my lap as we read until, midway through the second book, she started snoring. Not such a big girl after all, I guess!

It must be exhausting to be her age, so poised between toddler and big kid. She does a good job negotiating her way back and forth as needed. I just have to follow her lead and try to be what she needs, alternating between snuggly Mama, in-the-background Mama and Egyptology teacher.

Moving, Day 2

2010-09-28T13:52:00.002+02:00

K: "Mami, daj!" (Mama, give me that!)

Made me slightly nervous until I realized which language she was speaking. "Daj" sounds like English "die". Cheeky child.

---

Me, discussing fitting houseful of things into an apartment: "We're going to have to využívat the sklep." (take advantage of the basement storage area)

I could have also said it the other way: "Budeme muset jůznout (n.b. use-nout) ten basement." The Slovak of my dreams would have understood me either way. How awesome is language mixing, anyway?

---

K and I watched some Bořek Stavitel and Prasátko Pepinka on the internet yesterday. That is, the Czech versions of Bob the Builder and Peppa Pig. I am slightly mystified as to why they went with "Bořek" for Bob's name instead of something alliterative like "Standa Stavitel". That will not, however, keep me from singing "Znáááte Bořka? Všechno staví!" for the next few days at least.

I totally should have thought of that before - the problem with finding traditional Czech children's entertainment online is that a lot of it has no words or, all too often, words that I wouldn't want my preschooler hearing! Or else it's just over her head, like the classic Czech fairy tale movies we have. K isn't quite old enough for Pyšná princezna or Princezna se zlatou hvězdou na čele yet...although come to think of it, maybe I should try them out soon. She IS very into all things castle and royal lately.

We also watched some (more) videos of Czech and Slovak kids' songs. I particularly look for songs K knows, sung by children, like home videos of someone's two-year-old singing a barely recognizable Prší, prší. I think it's good to see the language and the songs K hears at home from Apo also being used and sung by real children like her. Plus she really likes babies.

Moving Day, take 1

2010-09-27T10:49:00.003+02:00

I am keeping out of the way blogging while the movers pack up all our stuff. This definitely beats our DIY move within Prague. Of course, then we didn't have to deal with changing countries, or, indeed, metro (subway) stops. We moved about a ten minute walk from where we had been. CZ to UK (and back) is a bit different.

The guys moving us are Polish, which is awesome, except that we don't have a secret language if we need one. Of course, neither do they. That's the fun thing about language cousins.

I'm glad K isn't here to see her toys being boxed up. She feels pretty threatened even when I just organize them, so I don't see her being down with seeing the ujos take them away. I asked her this morning if she knows who is coming to our house today. She thought for a minute, then remembered, "Ujos. They take my toys to Prague."

I've been preparing her for the move for the past few weeks. She keeps asking if we're going to "Pwague" yet. Last night we did our final pre-move organizing and packed our suitcases for the week we'll be without our things. When I put on my pajamas and sat on the bed, K told me, "No sleeping! We have to go to Prague!" I had to explain that we weren't going to Prague RIGHT THEN.

She is signed up for nursery M-W, to give her somewhere fun to be while we pack and clean. Then Thursday we fly and Friday she has her first day of real preschool.

I'm still debating half-day v. full day. Full day would be convenient especially Friday and Monday, since we'll have plenty of work to do at home, but full days are obviously more expensive and also it might be better to ease in with some half-days for the first few weeks. Especially since full days are 8 - 3:30 and I have a child who still likes a good two-hour nap in the afternoons. It'll be interesting to see how THAT develops with the advent of big kid preschool.

Then next week I start on my work-related paperwork. Ach, too many changes at once. Plus who knows what other government office visits and official things related to work, preschool and generally re-integrating into Prague life.

Neither Here Nor There

2010-09-26T00:16:00.004+02:00

We took our last trip to London today. Went to the Natural History Museum, which was pretty awesome in fact. We didn't see everything, but that leaves us something to look forward to if we ever come back here again. K was down with the dinosaurs and the bugs, just like in the Smithsonian earlier this year.

The Slovak of my dreams is watching college football on ESPN tonight. I think he's going to miss it when we move, unless our cable provider has improved its American sports selection while we've been gone.

In an attempt to amuse myself while failing to get very excited about American football, I have added a short list underneath the blog archive to the right over there. I thought it might be useful to link to previous blog posts with some basic information about us/this blog. Is there anything else I should cover?

On Being the Expert

2010-09-24T13:05:00.004+02:00

We had a first this week - the first of what will probably become commonplace in a few years. K asked me how to say something and I didn't know the answer!

"Mama, I put this on table. What this called?"
"That's a banana peel."
"What Apo call this?"
"Um, I don't know! We'll have to ask Apo when he gets home."

And with that, a bridge was crossed. All because I don't eat bananas.

---

I'm in a peculiar position at the moment, because we are moving to a country where I know the language and my daughter doesn't. I am the expert in her eyes. But, since it isn't my native language, she will have the occasional question that I can't answer and the day will come when she will know the language better than I do. For the moment, though, I still know more than she does. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

(That applies to more than one area of life, doesn't it? I also am retaining my edge in technology and gadgets, by the skin of my teeth. K can do things with my phone that it took me ages to figure out...)

---

Also, even once K both speaks Czech and works my phone better than me, I will still be the one with the driver's license. And the bank account. Thus guaranteeing me a few more years of relevance to her life!

September Carnival on Bilingualism

2010-09-23T12:35:00.004+02:00

We took a break for the summer, but the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is back this month, hosted by Fab Mums! Take a look at my submission, Parenting Now, if you missed it. Maria also linked to my post on Multilingual Mania earlier this month.

Enjoy!

Childhood Classics

2010-09-20T14:42:00.002+02:00

We've been having a nursery rhyme revival around our house lately. We have several collections of nursery rhymes and songs, but I realized recently they're all in Slovak or Czech, and I just tend to sing the same half-dozen or so songs in English that I've managed to retain the words to over the years...

So I set out to rediscover some classics - especially rhymes - that I've forgotten about in the mumble mumble years since I learned them. I didn't get more than a line or two into anything before having to hit up my trusty friend Google. With the computer to back up my rusty memory, I introduced Baby K to Jack and Jill, Hickory Dickory Dock, Georgie Porgie...and as predicted, she loves them all!

When I finish one, she encourages me, "Another one! Try again!" When one strikes her fancy, she asks me to repeat it several times until she can sing or chant along. I love how intently she watches my mouth while she's learning the words. She likes to act the rhymes out when possible, like jumping over an object on the floor every time I say "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick."

She can sing/say more of the Slovak ones that we sing, too. Her versions of "Prší prší" and "Varila myšička kašičku" are pretty recognizable. I really like how, even though she can't remember all of the (very similar sounding) words on the second one, her intonation is spot on: "tomu dala NA [lyžičku], tomu dala NA [vidličku]..." It sounds very Slovak. :)

---

Yesterday as we were getting ready, K asked me to "čes" her hair. "Mama česing me." "Apo no čes me." Česať means to brush (hair). This is totally the sort of mixing I accidentally do - like "čeking" for "waiting".

---

Not long til moving day now. Stuff gets packed up a week from today and we fly out a few days after that. Buying a few last-minute things we want to get before leaving England for good. Need to get fish and chips, I think. And order some Indian.

Mmmmmm...

I have a present for you

2010-09-15T12:01:00.002+02:00

Use it well.

This is an old Czech song that's had a major revival on the Polish internet in the last few years. Take a look at Jožin z bažin, a Czech song presented with Polish subtitles! Does that not break your language brain?

(It's like the time I told someone calling me from America

Me: "I'm just watching a Polish movie."
Them: *strangled sound*
Me: "What? No, it's not in Polish. It's dubbed into Czech."
Them: *strangled sound indicating that's not much more normal* )

Jožin z bažin is actually pretty funny, so here's a version with English subtitles if you're interested. Give it at least until the guy starts dancing (just under 30 seconds in).

I totally have to show this video to Baby K when she gets home from school.

The Power of Word Choice

2010-09-13T17:33:00.003+02:00

Recently K doesn't seem to "want" anything: she "needs" it.

"I need sit on you knee." [i.e. lap]

"Mami, I need Timmy." [TV show]

"I really, really need chocolate."

I guess all those exchanges consisting of, "I want chocolate" and "No, you don't need chocolate now" have made an impact. It's not a question of desire, mother! I need it! To live!

---

Also, brief, cryptic discussions in Slovak apparently don't go over K's head any more...at least, not when it comes to Christmas presents. Apo went back in the store to buy something we'd been looking at for K, while K and I walked on. As soon as he left, she turned to me and asked, "Apo buy me my Tinkerbell now?"

If we want a secret language, I may actually have to learn Hungarian. Though K will probably learn it faster...

Parenting Now

2010-09-10T12:52:00.005+02:00

This post is part of the September Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month by Maria at Fab Mums.

In talking and reading about bilingual (or potentially bilingual) families, I have often been struck by the conflict between an overly long-term and overly short-term view.

What I mean by that is those parents who give up on speaking an additional language to their kids for reasons in the short term like inconvenience, refusal to respond in the language, child not understanding the language as well so parent quits entirely, speaking majority language so the child will get on in school, and all sorts of other relatively short-term concerns. For example, in the short term it would have been easier for the Slovak to just speak English to her, or for me to speak Czech to her while we're in UK (so she would speak it when we move back), but I think in the long run those solutions wouldn't hold up.

I don't think that any of these are problems so insurmountable that the family should give up its language (because truly, stick with it and the child WILL almost certainly be fine in the end), but unlike a lot of the popular advice floating around, I DO think they are valid concerns and shouldn't be dismissed off-hand.

Then at the other end of the spectrum is the over-emphasis on long-term development. Every conversation I have about moving to a country where my daughter doesn't speak the language well includes the repeated reassurance, "She's so young, she'll be fine!" I have taken to saying it first, actually: "I know that at her age she'll be fine eventually, but [insert mild concern here]..." It is true! At her age we will ultimately be more concerned with keeping Czech from taking over completely as her dominant language. But.

What has struck me in the last year, faced with long-term reassurances like "She will be fine in the end," is that while she WILL be fine in the end and maybe even in the middle, I can't focus solely on the end result and ignore the present. I am her mother now. It is my job to be concerned about her welfare both present and future. I can't blithely go on, assuming she'll be "fine in the end", and ignore the real girl struggling today.

She will be fine in the end, but today she is sad because the children on the playground ignored her. She will be fine in the end, but today she is confused because the stranger on the bus didn't smile at her greeting.

She will be fine in the end, but today she kicks the ground and says with self-disgust, "I can't talk!" because she can't get the words out right in the other language.

I really believe that the long-term benefits will make the struggle getting there worth it, but I can't just casually dismiss the process without acknowledging it CAN be a struggle. I can look ahead to sending my trilingual third-grader off to Czech school with a smile, but in my haste to get there I can't overlook the tiny preschooler who is my today - and an over-hasty rush to say "fine in the end!" feels to me like overlooking and trivializing the tiny preschooler's real and current feelings. She won't even remember this, but I'm not just responsible for the parts of her life she remembers, am I? I have to watch and guide her and shield her from unproductive pain even if it is just transient.

She will be fine in the end, but I am not her mother just "in the end" - I am her mother now and every day until we reach that end in which we will be fine.

one step closer to Prague

2010-09-08T11:04:00.003+02:00

We are in the countdown, slowly disengaging from England so we can focus our energy on Czech Republic. It would have been so nice to just stay there instead of coming back here for such a short time. It's difficult to be in transition for so long. Plus, explain to a 2.75 year old child that "we are going to live here, but not right now, but soon, because first we will be here for a little bit, then go back to our old house and school and then the ujos will come and pack up our books and toys and clothes and take them here to Prague, and we will live in this house and go to the new school."

K refers to our Prague flat as the "small house" as opposed to the "big house" that is our house in England. She also knows that the place is called "Pwag", though as we walked to the market one day (15 minutes away) she said Prague was back behind us and what is THIS part called. I should teach her "Vršovice" and "Strašnice" I guess.

The first full day in Prague she gestured expansively to indicate the whole flat or city and said, "This my home."

She didn't want to leave the other day, which was surprising given all her toys and things are in England. Made me hopeful that she will take the move well, at least.

She is learning about very big girl things in Prague, like holding on in the metro and not running in front of trams. She is in charge of pushing the buttons in the lift, 0 for down and 7 for up. The first week I was still lifting her up to reach the 7, but the second week she could reach it herself. She is very concerned about having a stamped ticket for public transportation. When I was using the one-time tickets, I let her hold on to them with the instruction not to lose this because it's very important! And being very important, of course, is right up her alley. Now that I've got my long-term card I have to come up with "tickets" for K anyway. She doesn't care that you ride free up to 6 years old.

Also while in Prague she started talking a lot about her "passport" and being very concerned that if she didn't have it, they wouldn't let her on the plane. She even made a worried pretend phone call on the subject. Apo found her a novelty souvenir passport and pasted her baby picture (the same one in her real passport) in so she has a passport to play with. She was very relieved when she got it and immediately "scanned" it into the computer. Can you tell this child travels a lot?

K still spoke English to people but she seemed more receptive than before to the idea that to communicate you need to speak the way people understand. On the way to the playground I reminded her that kids here say "ahoj", not "hi", and mentioned a few other Czech-English word pairs she knows. She nodded seriously and then took off running, "ahoj deti! ahoj!"

One difference about living all on the same level (no upstairs) is that we use the whole space more of the time. K seemed to enjoy having a full length mirror in the bathroom. Occasionally I would pass by and she was growling like a monster or making faces at herself into the mirror. I guess you're never too young for that kind of thing. Also, we had to have several heart to heart chats about how just because you CAN open the refrigerator to get yourself some cheese doesn't mean you're ALLOWED to do so. (Our fridge in UK is above the freezer and she can't reach it.) That child could eat a whole box of Veselá kráva in one sitting, if I let her. That can't possibly be good for you.

Now it's back to our routine for a little bit and then off to one-hundred-spired Prague yet again.

Back, briefly

2010-09-07T01:44:00.002+02:00

We're back from our last visit to Prague before moving in, like, three weeks. Ask me if I've packed anything. Don't expect much of an answer.

---

While I was away, I had an article published at Multilingual Mania! It's called The Language That Speaks to My Heart and talks about how language affects (my) identity. Take a look if you haven't read it already, and I hope you like it!

---

We had a great week full of friends and somewhat cruddy weather that didn't manage to keep us from having fun. K was best friends over the weekend with a boy her age who only speaks Polish. It didn't stop them getting into mischief, giving each other hugs and to tell you the truth, it kind of looked like they were spooning once. I learned a little bit (more) Polish. Also Croatian and Hungarian. You don't get too much more multilingual than this past weekend!

I even made it to K's preschool informational meeting and introductory first day for new kids. My reservations about the school eased in some ways and intensified in others, leaving me firmly ambivalent. Pro: K's teachers seem nice. Con: I find it VERY, VERY DIFFICULT to overlook the mistakes they make in English. "Participating on" something or wanting "to enlight" someone my child might not notice, but "jinny pig" for "guinea pig" is a little more blatant. The lead teacher's Czech is better than her English, but she's not a native speaker. I'd say she speaks Czech approximately as well as I do, i.e. occasional mistakes and an occasionally noticeable (in her case Russian) accent. Not a deal-breaker, but they DO claim to have "native speakers" in each classroom, and I wouldn't consider myself or the teacher to be native speakers of Czech. However, the more important thing to me is that she is sweet and I think K will like her.

Also, they want to feed her seaweed. We'll see how it goes.

A Place Not Frozen in Time

2010-08-25T21:32:00.001+02:00

We traveled to Prague today. Despite the familiar feeling of homecoming, we could tell we'd been gone for a while.

We set off for town with three clear goals: 1) get tram passes, 2) buy a new wireless router and 3) find a snack, preferably a párek v rohlíku - a Czech-style hot dog, available from many roadside stands around the city. Or so we thought.

Our first stop was our local subway station to get the tram passes. There we found that to get the monthly pass (like $2 more than the 5 day pass!) you need the special tram pass holder booklet thing (name, pic, spot to hold pass card), which of course we have, if we had seen them at any time in the past two years. So we decided to just get new ones, making it 1) get pictures taken for tram passes.

Next we used one-time tickets to get downtown, since we don't know any picture taking booths in our area. The booth we come to takes 80 kc, coins only. We don't have that much change. We resolve to find a walk-in place or booth that takes bills. Also, wireless router and snack.

We walk to nearby O2 store to get router, but find a helpful sign saying it is closed since 2008 and giving directions to the new shop down the street. Oops. We walk to new store and it is closed for reconstruction with addresses for nearby stores. We head for the nearest one, in a new shopping mall we figure has the least likelihood of being closed down.

Along the way we want to stop for a párek, but our trusty hot dog stand is not there either. Snackless we continue into the mall, where we wander until we find an O2 stand that, uh oh, only sells cell phones. They point to the big store on the next floor, where we are grateful to pay entirely too much for the router.

We decided to one-way it over to Národní třída, where they have another good hot dog place and a few photo places. We get our párky but frankly, the rohlíky were overheated (too crusty) and K dropped hers (i.e. mine) on the ground halfway through. While we waited Apo got a sim card for me from a cell phone shop as long as we were nearby (needed a different shop than the router...).

Missions 2) and 3) accomplished (however irritatingly), we devoted ourselves to 1)a). Picture taking. First photo place we know, CLOSED! Second one we remember, CLOSED! Third and fourth ones are open but ask 150 or 160 kc for a picture, which we agree is highway robbery and move on.

Allow me to pause for a moment and rewind a bit. You see, all this time, ever since we first got downtown to the automatic picture taking booth, I have been saying, "Let's just use this one. Let's get some change and use the machine. Do we really need to traipse all over town when we could get some change and use the machine?" Apo, meanwhile, insisted that we need a walk-in place or booth that takes bills.

Allow me to unpause and return to the bit where we've been to four no-go photo places, which were fortunately all in a row on the way from Národní up Václavák. Looking into our change holder after getting us a drink, the Slovak of my dreams spoke up:

"You know, we have more change here than I thought."
"Do not tell me that we've had enough change this whole time and you're just now admitting it."
"I, um, think we might have enough change."
"I have to say, I don't see this ending well for you."
"Hey, look! Another 50 kc! You know, you're such a great wife. You are so special and such a wonderful mother."
"Do you especially appreciate my kind and forgiving heart?"
"...I do."

So with the change we had had all along, we returned to the automat picture booth and got our pictures taken. We then returned to our neighborhood ticket office and got our tram pass booklets made to put our new tram passes in. While standing at the window we overheard in the line behind us, "Where is [other friend]? She must have stepped around the corner to look at the picture taking booth."

At which point our eyes locked, the hair stood up on the backs of our necks and we whispered to each other, "Surely not!!"

We tried our best to shake that off and headed for the tram to go one stop, since we were tired. We sat on tram # 19, which Apo would probably like me to interject has ALWAYS gone straight at the intersection towards our stop, but today, as you have probably guessed from the direction of this sentence, it inexplicably turned at the intersection and went to another stop. We got off and walked home, laughing at the final twist in our unpredictable day. I do have to give this one to the Slovak: the 19 ALWAYS goes our way. Clearly it's had a change of track.

And you know what's funny, after an afternoon like that, I'm still glad to be home. I leaned over to smell the fresh bread while picking up dinner in the corner store (which was still open and sold everything we expected it to) and felt a thrill run through my whole body.

I'm home.

Voice recognition technology doesn't speak Scottish

2010-08-19T13:03:00.002+02:00

I'm usually late to the party with regard to online videos and similar, so you may have seen this already. But it made me laugh pretty hard.

Voice recognition technology doesn't speak Scottish

Side Effects of Becoming a Mother

2010-08-18T22:23:00.002+02:00

Now that K is feeling better I have the luxury of being sick. We've all been feeling cruddy (from three different causes, too!) recently, but when K started her tummyaches and temperature, you wouldn't believe how fast my cold dried up! It wasn't just that I ignored my sneezing, I actually stopped sneezing.

Then she seemed to feel better for most of Sunday, and I started sneezing again. Then Monday she was sicker than ever and I found myself oddly devoid of cold yet again. I had a clear head and enough energy to do what I had to.

She's been feeling better since yesterday morning, so of course last night I came down with a fever and chills. Last night and today I've been pretty uncomfortable, but I can afford it now: K was in school or napping until Apo came home from work.

It seems my body automatically schedules its illnesses for when my child doesn't acutely need me.

Mothers, behold your superpower!

Use it well.

Czechs and Slovaks: The Truth of the Matter

2010-08-16T22:55:00.005+02:00

I spent most of today on the couch holding a small bundle of pain and suffering, so I don't have too long of a post to offer.* Baby K hasn't been well all weekend, but today was particularly bad. Got some medicine at the doctor's today, fortunately, which seemed to help a little by evening. Poor sweet pea.

I've still got one question left to answer from my questions session a couple of weeks ago. Leslie asks:

How significant ARE the differences between Czech and Slovak, linguistically and/or culturally? According to a Czech or Slovak? According to a well-informed outsider?? I've always been curious about that!

I've talked about that some here. Basically Czech and Slovak are very similar but not the same, sort of like different types of English if English had bigger differences in regional spelling rules, for example. I like to tease the Slovak of my dreams that Slovak doesn't actually exist as an independent language, since Slovak looks like Czech with, like, all the words misspelled. Conversely, he contends that Czech is actually Slovak spoken with a speech impediment.

If you speak one language fluently, you should understand the other with relatively little effort. It's kind of a question of learning to twist your brain around the different sounds to the words. There are some common words that are different between the languages, and the word endings are slightly different, but usually in a pretty predictable way. For example, a Czech ou or í often changes to a Slovak ú, or a Czech word starting with z (followed by unvoiced consonant z is pronounced s) is often pronounced AND written s in Slovak.

As a LEARNER of one of the languages, it is more difficult to understand the other, since you have less practice listening to it. Of all the people I know in Prague, the Slovak of my dreams was (almost) the last I started understanding. (The last was a friend who mumbles, never enunciates and often makes complete non sequiteurs in conversation. I eventually realized that even some of our Czech friends don't understand him sometimes, so I felt like less of a loser!)

With plenty of exposure, I eventually started to understand spoken Slovak, first just when my Slovak spoke and later when any Slovak spoke. It's a process... I learned to read Slovak by reading what the Slovak of my dreams wrote. He gave me a three page document to read and 45 minutes later couldn't believe I was still reading! I had to pronounce each word in my head and think, "Now what Czech word does that sound like?" to figure out what it said. Once you learn the spelling rules, though, it's not so bad. It does take some mind bending, though, when you're used to just the one language.

As to native speakers, I think it depends on who you ask. Native (or fluent) speakers of about my age or older usually understand both languages without any problem, since they were brought up in a single country and listening to the evening news in both languages, etc. Slovaks seem to understand (and speak) Czech better than Czechs understand and speak Slovak, because there are more Czechs and the Czech market is bigger, so Slovaks watch more Czech TV and read more Czech books than vice versa. That's a generalization, though, and just because you understand the other language doesn't mean you can speak it convincingly, just like I couldn't speak British English convincingly even after living here. My husband, for example, perceives them as actually one language - he can write and speak both when he wants, but when he hears or reads something, he literally doesn't notice if it's Czech or Slovak. I know he's not the only one, either.

Younger Czechs and Slovaks understand each other pretty well, but there are more phrases or words that they don't recognize, because their exposure to the other language is less than in previous generations. We notice this in Prague, that young people occasionally look at the Slovak like he's from Mars: "WHAT did you just say?" And little children sometimes have a really hard time understanding, to the point that it's not a bad idea to attempt to speak the child's native language to them in order to be understood. They really aren't used to the differences in the languages yet.

There you go for linguistically. Culturally speaking, Czechs and Slovaks are pretty similar to each other from an outside perspective. They have more in common than not. Shared film industry, books, music, some shared history. But from the inside, there are definite differences in attitude and some customs! Generally the west-east relationship between the two countries really reminds me of the dynamic between the north and south in the United States. Northerners (Westerners) often see themselves as more sophisticated and educated than the country bumpkins in the south (east), and southerners (easterners) often see themselves as more warm and welcoming than the cold, rude northerners (westerners). This dynamic seems to apply between Czechs (west) and Slovaks (east) as well as west and east within each countries, i.e. Bratislava in western Slovakia takes the same attitude towards Kosice in eastern Slovakia as Prague in Czech Republic takes towards all of Slovakia. And everyone thinks that about Ukraine. :) This is, of course, another big generalization, and like all massive generalizations it sometimes has some validity and sometimes is totally off-base. It's definitely more of a friendly rivalry than a cut-throat hatred. Except when the hockey teams are playing each other...

I hope that cleared things up entirely! Or at least got the waters good and muddy.

* Actually, it seems like it got long after all while I wasn't looking. Who needs sleep?

The essence of being a bilingual child

2010-08-13T19:27:00.003+02:00

"Ticho. That mean quiet."
"That's right, ticho means quiet. Does mama say ticho?"
"Maybe."
"Does Apo say quiet?"
"Maybe."
"Mama says quiet, right?"
"Yes. A Apo ticho."
"Which one do you say?"
"I say quiet. *long pause* I say ticho. *long pause* ...and quiet."

---

Yesterday or so K said in tones of great frustration, "I can't talk!!" Apo had asked her to answer him in Slovak and she was frustrated that she couldn't say in Slovak what she had just said in English. That's the first time I remember her explicitly expressing that thought, that she can't speak Slovak.

After that, she used "I can't talk!!" again when she wasn't able to say what she wanted in English. It was sad to see my upbeat, communicative little girl feeling so defeated. Both times I comforted her and told her that she can talk and she will get even better at talking with practice. And she will, in English and Slovak both.

At the moment, though, her understanding and complexity of thought exceeds her ability to form effective responses in words. Goodness, do I ever know what that feels like! Sadly, though, there's not much I can do to help her through it other than what I'm already doing.

Be patient, Baby K. It will come soon enough.

Don't mess with Babka. She will take you down.

2010-08-11T18:59:00.001+02:00

I never did the post-visit debriefing. Babka left last Tuesday after ten days with us, and I have to say it was the most pleasant, least stressful for everyone visit we've had yet. I think we're finding our stride.

I didn't keep up the all Czech at home the whole time, but there was a lot of CZ/SK flying around. It mostly depended on how much energy I had at any given moment to deal with addressing K in Czech, but I did still have to do a whole lot of translating. This because K is talking a lot more sense than last time we saw Babka, so I have to clue Babka in to what K is telling her. I would let K clue Babka in herself, but K is holding firm to her position that if K understands a word, everyone should understand it. Which basically adds up to me doing a lot of interpreting for a little girl who cuts no slack for anyone who can't keep up!

My favorite part of Babka's visit, during the trip to lovely Scotland, was how the Slovak of my dreams and I convinced her to think back and tell us everything she remembers about her family background and childhood. It isn't something she talks about much, so he learned almost as much as I did. Like that his grandfather was the dance master for the town, leading all the dances and teaching the dance classes. Maybe that's where his grandson got his dancing talent?

I think the best part was her stories about her own mother-in-law. We never met any of the Slovak's grandparents, because the last of them died when he was K's age, but his paternal grandmother sounds like a piece of work. Once Babka picked up and left with her little son in tow - without telling her husband - because his mother gave all the children chocolate, "Except for you, [Apo], you don't like chocolate anyway." So of course he cried and cried at being left out. So Babka took him and left, and when her husband came back from mushrooming with the brothers-in-law, no one could tell him where they'd gone! Apparently, the last straw came when her husband's mother was staying with them (her five children took turns keeping her for a month each). Babka had to bring her meals in bed because she was ill and bedridden - supposedly. One day when Babka got home from work, her mother-in-law told her the plates were in the wrong cupboard and the cups should be over there and the towels were folded wrong blah blah blah. Babka asked how she knew what was in the cupboards if she couldn't get out of bed, and it turned out maybe old granny isn't QUITE as bedridden as she claims...

Babka packed up her mother-in-law's things and set the suitcase outside. When her husband got home, she told him, "Take your mother to a hotel, and if you don't like it, you can go too!" I'm telling you. You do not mess with our Babka!

We also asked about how it was that they went from a Hungarian-speaking family to speaking only Slovak later. She has mentioned before that in school they were harshly disciplined for speaking Hungarian, which surely makes a strong impression on a young child. She also talked now about a time, walking with her mother and sister in the street, when a group of men came up and slapped her mother across the face and said, "In Slovakia, you only speak Slovak." This was during the Slovak protectorate during the war. That incident, combined with the beatings in school, combined with the natural inclination of a child to speak the school and neighborhood language, made Babka more and more resistant to speak Hungarian at all that eventually she couldn't even when she tried. She said her parents gradually spoke more Slovak to their daughters, because the girls refused to speak Hungarian with them (they were able to speak it perfectly well, actually - it wasn't that they were immigrants who didn't know the language) to the point that the younger girl never even learned Hungarian.

Now Babka is able to understand some Hungarian, I think, but refuses to even try to speak. Her son, our Apo, learned Hungarian not from his parents but from the older couple who took care of him in lieu of daycare. Once he stopped going to their house, he had very little opportunity to use it and never learned to properly read or write.

And that is why we don't speak Hungarian today. I don't know about you, but I find it a very sad story. Babka still carries the hurt from being mistreated by the ignorant and misguided and from losing her language. I wish I could say that attitudes across the world have entirely changed in our generation - but they haven't, have they?

I can tell you, though, Hungarian speaking or not, I don't ever want to get on our Babka's bad side! And neither do you.

Keep that in mind, people!

The Stubbornness She Gets From Her Father

2010-08-08T21:14:00.004+02:00

"Mama, come dole!"
"You should really say either 'come down' or 'poď dole'."
"Come dole."
"Try 'come down'."
"Come dole."
"How about 'poď dole'?"
"Poď down."
"OK, now she's doing this on purpose."

---

Also, a couple of weeks ago K started talking about "time out", which was odd since we call it "the quiet place" or "the stair". She likes to tell her dolls off a lot. :) Then she started saying something that I eventually decoded as "I'm going to be cross with you!" This caught my attention as it's a very British phrasing that she wouldn't have heard at home, and I couldn't think of anywhere we'd been together where she'd have heard it, either.

This left nursery as the most likely source for both phrases, so on her next school day I asked her teacher if they'd been having disciplinary issues with her. She gave me the answer every parent longs to hear when she said, "Oh no, we never have any problems with K! She must hear us saying that to a couple of the other children who misbehave." I was really hoping she'd say that, but knew it wasn't impossible that K would get in trouble herself, either. The teacher also mentioned that the only thing with K is getting her to keep her shoes and socks on. BE GLAD SHE STOPS WITH THE SOCKS AT NURSERY is all I have to say about that.

--

And that is all for tonight. Been kind of busy the last few days so I haven't had a chance to blog until now. More next time!

Bursting Into Song

2010-08-04T16:32:00.002+02:00

K has had certain favorite songs for a while, but would never sing along. She liked to do the motions or dance a crazy dance while listening, but never sang herself more than a word or two: "twinkle twinkle", "prší prší", "kolo mlýnske".

But this month, that changed, and with very little lead-up. All of a sudden she was busting out with at least 3/4 of the lyrics to several different songs. I think the first one I noticed was a nearly complete rendition of "Wind the Bobbin Up", which was funny because that is a British one that we sing at playgroup but not at home. All of a sudden Wind the Bobbin Up became her favorite song, from which she likes to segue straight into the chorus of "Hokey Cokey" (she says "cokey cokey", the US version is "Hokey Pokey"). Those are part of our car songs now though, since she likes them so much!

She did start using more Slovak while Babka was here, but the most dramatic development was again in song. We were singing along to her Slovak children's CD - "Medveďku..." and suddenly she chimed in with "...daj labku!" We fell off our chairs and that song mysteriously and instantly jumped to the top of our repeat list. Hahaha.

Medveďku, daj labku.
Pôjdeme na svadbu.

Medvedica ráno vstala,
všetky deti vychystala

medveďku, daj labku.
Pôjdeme na svadbu.

The middle part is sung very fast, too fast for her to keep up, but she can do the slower repeated refrain. We sang a good deal on the trip to Edinburgh, including this one several times, and it was so funny to see how K watched my mouth VERY INTENTLY to get the rest of the words. Especially struggling to pronounce the "sv" in svatbu (she still has trouble putting two consonants together in either language). I talked with her a little about what the song is about, since it has words she doesn't know.

We sing this song a lot now, with us singing the first word and her jumping in to complete the rest of the chorus, then we sing the complicated middle part and she finishes off with the part she knows.

K also picked up on another song that Babka taught K/us while she was here. It even had hand motions, which is of course K's favorite type of song. K sings the first phrase and is working on learning the rest.

Nechcem ťa, nechcem ťa, nechcem ťa znať,
poď ku mne, poď ku mne, ručku mi dať,
pravú mi daj, ľavú mi daj,
a už sa na mňa nehnevaj!

I also heard Babka playing a game with K that involved telling a story and K filling in the missing parts, that coincidentally had K practicing some word endings. I need to get Apo to do something similar with her!

Overall singing has gotten a lot more interesting in our house since K started to chime in! And - best thing of all - she appears to have inherited my sense of pitch. My slightly tone-deaf husband and I have both been hoping for that!

Travel with Young Children

2010-08-01T17:58:00.004+02:00

IT GETS BETTER! Oh my goodness, 2.5 is the best age yet. We just got back from a quick trip to Edinburgh for my mother-in-law's birthday. We have actually done a lot of traveling with K so far: family visits across continents, shortish vacations (2-5 days) in other countries/cities and many, many day trips to cities around England. K has always been a good traveler in the sense that she adapts well to change and sleeps in moving vehicles, but she was always just along for the ride. What does a baby care if she sees Westminster Abbey? Recently, she was more interested in spotting squirrels than admiring architecture. She still likes a good squirrel, but the difference between this trip and previous ones was night and day: she was interested in EVERYTHING! Like, the same things we were looking at!

Sometime about a month ago, K started mentioning "castles", a word that I had certainly not taught her. Nursery? Quite possible. It started in the sandbox, claiming that she was building a castle. Then she started building castles with blocks at home, and these really big soft play building blocks at her playgroup. When she had been going on about them for a while, Apo and I bought her a book with flaps (what kid doesn't like flaps??) about castles. I told her that princesses and kings and queens live in castles, but she wasn't too impressed. She is mostly into the castles themselves. Though she did take heed when she learned that knights ALSO live in castles - she likes knights.

Enter trip to Edinburgh, complete with CASTLE! How fantastic for a little girl who loves castles, to live in Europe where they HAVE castles. We walked to the two castles at either end of the Royal Mile and talked about what lovely castles they were. I showed her the bridge and the gate and the cannon (cannons are very heavy; Katka can't lift one. Mama neither. "Apo," she suggested, nodding wisely. Apo is surely strong enough to lift a cannon.) Then she had an ice cream that she insisted on eating SLOWLY to savor it as much as possible.

She also enjoyed the cathedrals we went in. "More castle! I so excited!" she cried. Sort of, I explained. This kind of castle is called a cathedral and it is very beautiful. "Bootiful," she agreed. She looked at the stained glass windows and guessed what the pictures were. She sat in the pews. She looked up, up, up at the ceiling.

We looked down every narrow, winding alleyway. We oohed and aahed over every view. We looked in gift shops and tried on funny hats. On our way back south Saturday, we stopped in Durham and York on our all-day trip. In Durham we visited the cathedral and looked over at the castle. Apo and I had a conversation about how do you explain "don't step on the graves" to a person who has no concept of a grave because they have no concept of death. Answer: you don't, you just lead them away by the hand. In York we visited the Viking museum and walked through town, stopping briefly in the foyer of Yorkminster. They were closed because it was time for evening service, but K and I listened to the singing for several minutes. We were VERY QUIET and cupped our hands to our ears because you have to talk softly in a cathedral and we wanted to hear the singers. K waved Apo over to make him listen, too.

The other main thing we did in all these places was take pictures! K is used to having her picture taken with us when we travel, but this time she kept posing and making us snap pictures of just her. Against a wall, standing on a post, sitting on stairs, everywhere! She seemed to notice a group of young Japanese tourists taking pictures and posing for them, because then she wanted to do the same thing. Her foot up against the wall, arm just so. Then she would move six inches over to the next nook and want another picture. I have to say, it was pretty funny.

In a toystore over the weekend we saw a Sherwood Castle happyland set and with all the castle love lately, decided to get it. K already has a cottage and some people from the same line, so we thought a castle would be a great staging ground for more play with those figures plus the couple of little knights and pirates she has. She loves it so far. She declared that the top tower was for dancing and put the princess (Marian) and Friar Tuck figures up there to dance together. I tried to suggest that Robin Hood might be a more appropriate love interest for Marian, but K seems to entirely reject the idea of Robin as a main character of any sort. She is a firm Marian/Tuck shipper, as she has showed the same preference for the few days since we got the set! I guess she likes the rare!pairs.

We had a blast with K on this trip. She still has no sense of history and she DID still misbehave some (lack of nap), but she understood what we were doing and she appreciated the travel and the sights and the sounds and the fun in a way she wasn't able to before. And that's BEFORE the sense of history kicks in! It is only getting better from here and we are so happy to be starting on this journey with her.

Our potential life in America

2010-07-27T21:50:00.004+02:00

Leslie asks:

Do you think you'd be equally diligent about teaching your daughter Slovak if you lived in the US?? (I ask because I know our future children would just NEVER learn Turkish if we lived in the US!) (I mean, I know you're in England right now, and we even will be soon, too, but I personally imagine that the US would make us EXTRA lazy!)

Honestly, I think it would make us even MORE diligent, for the reasons you mention. I agree that it would be so easy to just slide by with English, especially in an area without other Slovaks around. This time in England has showed us that at least for our family, no matter how much time Apo spends with K when he's home, it is not enough for her to keep anywhere near age level and we would have to step it up if we were staying long-term. And yet it is actually really important to both of us that K and any other children of ours would know both their heritage languages well. Really very important.

If we ever did move to the US permanently or semi-permanently, I think that I would take the plunge and go to minority language at home (CZ/SK at home, English outside) or even all CZ/SK, outside or in. I am unclear on whether this would involve me switching to speak actual Slovak. That would be less confusing in the sense that kids wouldn't have to decide whether to imitate Mama or Apo, but less workable in the sense that I would be mentally translating everything from Czech and second-guessing myself all the time. I could do that, but it would be more natural and spontaneous for me to speak Czech, which would turn us out some little Czechoslovak speakers - which, if we lived (semi-)permanently in the US, might not bother us that much.

I'm not sure how we would do it exactly, whether it would be truly all CZ/SK, all the time, or if I would move back and forth between that and English - since I wouldn't want to give up English interaction entirely - but I am fairly sure of one thing: we would be even more diligent than we are now!

Whether we would be SUCCESSFUL is of course another problem, but the desire is there.

Speak Slovak please! and How Baby K Came To Be

2010-07-25T20:42:00.005+02:00

Lots of Slovak the past few days. With my mother-in-law here visiting, I've decided to try something new this time: speaking only CZ/SK when she's around, even to K. I'm also regularly reminding K to speak Slovak, providing words when she can't think of them and providing a running translation for Babka when K speaks English anyway. In the past I've always spoken English with K and then felt bad that Babka doesn't understand. I know there are different opinions on this issue, but that's how I feel, so I tried speaking 90% CZ/SK this time. It's actually having an effect, since Babka definitely appreciates being let in on our everyday conversation and K is surrounded by more sorely needed minority language.

She's learned (or activated) some new words, including "vý-bor-né!" (excellent!) at dinnertime, which made me pretty happy. I'm most proud of her for how well she is counting in Slovak, though! We counted yesterday several times in English and Slovak, and K counted on her own in Slovak from 1 to 5 without prompting (!!), and then 6 to 10 with prompting.

It's interesting to me that she doesn't mix the number systems together when counting, although "sedem" (7) does occasionally come out like "sevem", which is kind of funny. I've also noticed that her "ďakujem" (thank you) sounds suspiciously like "thankyouem". They do kind of sound alike, we've discovered.

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I thought I'd try to answer another question today. You can find the first one here.

veronica.maria.rojasdelaparra also asks:

Also, how did you meet Apo? I'm a sucker for romantic stories!

I gave the short version of how we met in one of my first posts.

I can't say that how we met was very interesting in itself - we saw each other and didn't make much of an impression. I had just come to Prague and didn't act like his idea of an American. He had just come from some out of town team-building exercise with work and kept saying "I'm too old for this", giving me the impression he was much older than he actually was.

Sparks started flying pretty quickly - but not romantic ones! We are both sharp-tongued, sarcastic types, so the banter got sharper and sharper until we started wondering if the other one was serious. He thought I was annoying, and I certainly thought he was annoying, except...

Within a few weeks I was starting to realize that of all our friends, the two of us had the most in common, and that he had a lot of positive qualities you look for in a partner. "He'll make somebody a good husband," I told myself. "Just not me, because he's, like, rude." As time passed and I saw the books he was reading and the topics that interested him, I realized that he would make a good husband for ME - if he would just lose the attitude!

The only thing standing between us and eternal happiness was that he didn't like me. I COULD WORK WITH THAT.

I wasn't exactly pining after him, either. I was just clear-sighted enough to recognize potential compatibility when I saw it. I let it be and went on with life. In the end, it was actually him who fell in love first.

Truly all it took was for both of us to lose the attitude enough to have a normal conversation like normal people, and when we did, we started getting along pretty well. One fateful day we went for coffee together (he had just come from the dentist and was just trying to enunciate properly for the first hour or so) and romance was born. Or at least, the possibility of romance. We texted and e-mailed a lot over the summer and by fall were each fairly sure we should get married, that is if the other one wanted to. Of course, I had known that for over a year by then, but I didn't let him in on THAT detail until much closer to the wedding.

After we started getting along, we REALLY got along and arguments or other tension became pretty rare. We are sweet to each other now. And if that's not happily ever after, I don't know what is!

Extended Family and the Multilingual Child

2010-07-23T18:41:00.005+02:00

Questions and answers, part 1! I'll try to answer these one or two at a time over the next several days.

veronica.maria.rojasdelaparra asked in the comments to my question and answer post

“I'd like to know how do you handle K's relationship with your family in the US. Have you ever visited? How do you feel about it? I ask because we visited my family (in Mexico) last Christmas when my son had just turned 2 and it was a disaster! He couldn't get used to the new environment and the new people, and I ended up feeling quite sad that my son and my mom couldn't get along as I had hoped they would. (we live in Belgium -married to the Fleming of my dreams-, BTW, so we only get so see my family every couple of years).”

We used to visit the USA about every 18 months, but when K was born it quickly became clear that my mother would never get over it if we kept her grandchild from her for that long at a time. Now we try to make it more like once a year, with three trips since last November for various unavoidable reasons (wedding and funeral). K has been to America four times so far, I think, though under normal circumstances it would have been just two. My mother has been to see us once and a few other members of the family have been at different times.

We’ve been fortunate so far that parts of my family made the effort to come see us, and that we could make the trip across the ocean ourselves, especially now before we are tied to the school schedule and can go whenever we want. Still, though, it’s obviously not enough to maintain a relationship like when you live in the same city. So far, however, our trips have always gone well.

One thing is that K is simply an outgoing, people-oriented little kid, so she is pretty agreeable to meeting new people, sitting on their laps and giving them kisses. She is also a really good traveler and (almost always) adapts well to new surroundings without too much fuss. That sort of thing just depends a lot on personality, I would think.

Another key thing is that we try to keep the grandparents’ memory alive, so to speak, even between visits. For example, we have pictures of all the extended family on display and often talk about them, and K likes to point to the pictures and name Apo, Mama, K, Grandmama, Babka, Dedo, uncles and aunts… We also talk about what is Grandmama doing right now, what we did when we visited last, anything to encourage a feeling of attachment.

Probably the most significant element, though, is SKYPE! We usually Skype with both sides of the family at least a couple of times a week, so they get to talk and, most importantly, see each other. This means that when we step off the plane in America, it’s not a total stranger greeting us, but the friendly face from the computer who watches while K sings and dances. I also let K talk on the phone when we call that way, even before she could talk and all she did was babble. That communication and especially video calling really does seem to make a difference.

Even so, K is always a little standoffish with both sets of grandparents at first, until she gets used to them. I know both grandmothers are a little sad when she doesn’t jump straight into their arms and have sleepovers with them and all that. I actually think this may improve with age, since just-turned-2 is a difficult time: old enough to object to being loved on by just anybody, and not old enough to understand the concept of “grandparents”. I wonder if your next visit will be smoother, with an older child and plenty of preparation for travel and how fun grandparents are. I think it's probably also important not to put too much pressure on your child, parents or yourself to "force" more intimacy than the child is ready for. Our families are pretty good about holding themselves back and going at K's pace, even when all the grandmothers want to do is pick her up and smother her with kisses. And just to recognize that it might take a while (a few visits/years) to build a comfortable grandparent-grandchild relationship. That may take some managing of expectations on the grandparents' part!

The good thing about relations with my side of the family is that K is most proficient in English, so my mom could understand her on our most recent visit (with some translation of “baby” English and Slovak-English the way K speaks it, of course). They were able to talk and play games, which will in turn help their next meeting to be even more fun, I think. K is old enough now to remember and start to form the emotional ties to extended family, even though I know it will never be the same as if we lived close by. That is a regret that I have, but there is no way we could satisfy both sides of the family, and we have to live our own life, too. It’s just a consequence of international living, it seems.

The flip side of that is that currently Slovak is K’s weaker language, so her Slovak grandparents really DON’T understand her. My mother-in-law is visiting now and I am providing a running translation of what K says, since K understands Babka but Babka doesn’t understand K. (And K seems DETERMINED that she will speak English to whomever she pleases, thank you very much, and that if someone doesn’t understand, then that is hardly her problem.)

Was language a factor for you? Like that your son didn’t understand Spanish well, so he – or grandma – was uncomfortable or unable to really connect? It really makes the Slovak of my dreams and I sad when we see that with his parents. Of course, part of the problem there is that they don’t understand even the Slovak that K does speak, because she talks too softly or they aren’t listening properly. It is pretty frustrating. However, we aren’t all that worried about it in the long term, since we know we’ll be moving and K will be learning Czech (close enough to understand Slovak) soon enough.

In short, I feel very fortunate that K and her grandparents on both sides have had as many opportunities to meet as they have, even though it is not as many as we could wish for. It gets harder and harder to walk away from them after a visit, knowing that K will be different next time, and that her grandparents are aging, too. I'm glad they have as good a relationship as possible under the circumstances, though, and I hope that it will continue to improve over time. I really hope that your next visit to Mexico will be more fun and relaxing for everybody!

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Stay tuned for more answers next time. Thanks for asking and especially for de-lurking, since I didn't know you were there!

In which you do my job for me

2010-07-21T11:12:00.002+02:00

So with the cleaning and mild panic that go along with my mother-in-law coming for a ten day visit tomorrow, I haven't devoted much thought to blog topics. And that, my friends, is the perfect opportunity for a question and answer session!

What have I not written about that you would like to read? What would you like to know about me, the Slovak of my dreams or Baby K? Questions about us in particular, multilingual child-rearing in general, what we had for dinner last night?

Comment with your questions and I'll write them up over the next several days. Now is the time to come out of lurktown!

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Also, my mother-in-law is coming to visit! I anticipate an intensive Slovak environment for the duration, which should be good for all of us. I've tried to prepare K for speaking more Slovak, meaning I've told her that while Babka is here we will be speaking Slovak/the way Apo talks because Babka doesn't understand English/the way Mama talks. She agreed, but then she agrees with pretty much anything you say, because she is an agreeable little girl. It makes a refreshing change from the constant negativity in some of her peers, at least, though it comes with its own challenges.

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Over the weekend we made some new friends with children who are 7 and 5. The 7 year old was playing with K and asked her mother, "Mummy, how do you say 'Let's go play'?" Her mother answered, "She does speak English, dear."

I could have included that in my guest post about reactions to bilingualism: K was speaking English, and I was speaking English, but since the girl heard K's father speaking something else to her, she assumed K wouldn't understand her. She's not exactly the only one to think that way, either. Either way, the two girls had a lot of fun together.

Multilingual LEGO Reading

2010-07-19T12:19:00.004+02:00

Got Legos at home? Take a look at this simple idea from Filth Wizardry and think of the multilingual possibilities! Basically it's just putting letters or words on individual Lego bricks (with stickers or labels) and stacking the resulting words and sentences. Like a DIY magnetic poetry set, but for kids and customized to your tastes - and languages. I'm just disappointed my daughter isn't reading yet so she won't get immediate use from this. :)

There is a version for readers with sight words to build sentences, and a version for younger kids with one letter (or cluster, i.e. "ee", "th", "ck") per brick to build words. We are just starting some letter recognition when K is in the mood, and we do have a bunch of blocks, so I'm pretty sure letters will be making an appearance on her Legos sometime soon.

Since our languages use the same alphabet, we can use the same blocks for both if I add some with the added letters (š, č, ť, é, and so on) and extra v, y, z, and other letters that are used with more frequency in CZ/SK. I'm excited about the possibilities.

The Reasoning Power of a Two Year Old

2010-07-15T14:58:00.005+02:00

“Kde that??” (Where is that?)

“Eh?”

“Kde circle?” (Where is the CD I was holding?)

“Dieťa. Uvažuj logicky. Kde si ho mala naposledy? Preberme to od začiatku.” (Child. Consider it logically. Where did you have it last? Let’s start at the beginning.)

She thought for a moment, then stiffened in realization and ran to the hallway straight to where she had stowed it in the storage compartment of her stroller.

This was about a year ago: K was 21 months old at the time. I was laughing at my husband for pulling out his uncle’s old “consider logically, retrace your steps” approach on a little child, but he (and his uncle) were right: even at less than 2 years old, K was capable of thinking and remembering more than I gave her credit for.

You’d think that would have taught me my lesson, but it didn’t. I still regularly underestimate my daughter’s abilities, as I imagine a lot of parents do. Especially now, at 2 ½, it is more effective to actually explain something than to just power through and weather the screaming. She has enough language and cognitive ability now to understand the why of something, if it is explained the right way.

For example, on one of our trips to Prague several months ago we gave K a new backpack to take on the plane for her things. She adored it and felt so important! When we got nearer to security, Apo and I started looking at each other uneasily: no way was she going to surrender that bag without a fight! I picked her up and showed her the scanners and the people in front of us. "Everyone has to put their bag on the belt," I explained. "I'll put my bag there, Apo will put his, and look, those ladies are putting their things there too." She looked thoughtful and nodded, and when it was our turn a few minutes later, she took off her backpack and placed it on the belt herself! I didn't think it would work, but it did. I don’t know why it took us so long to catch on before that! We were still in the mindset that she is a baby who won’t understand.

We are slowly moving into explanation and reasoning territory, which is terribly exciting for us parents. A few months ago, a trip to the zoo was like a big game of Spot the Animal. “There,” she pointed, and walked right on. If she didn’t see the animal, a tree or a rock was just as good. Now she can stop with us and watch the animals play, and we can explain what they are doing and why. Simple natural processes are starting to make sense to her: bees like to fly around the flowers, and sometimes they sting your finger. Birds hatch from eggs and like to fly in the sky. Red means stop, green means go. Simple things, but so exciting to discover for the first time!

K will sit still for a whole story now instead of wandering off in the middle (usually…). She is even starting to show she understands the stories by retelling them to herself while flipping through the book. She invents elaborate backstories for minor pictures in a book, like the boy on one page who is running to his mama because his finger is hurt because it got stung by a bee and his mama kisses it better and then the boy goes to play football.

I just love the thought processes caused by an active mind with a limited knowledge of the world. When K’s forehead is hot, she makes me blow on it, because that is what you do with hot things. Or earlier this week I wasn’t feeling well, so Apo and I both had to remind K several times not to jump/lean/sit on Mama’s tummy, because it hurt. She gave me a kiss on the mouth and on the stomach to make it feel better, and immediately asked, “Is it better?” I said it was. The next time Apo got onto K about jumping on me, she said indignantly, “No, it’s better! I kiss. [Turning to me, putting her hand on my arm, kissing me again] Is it better?” I had to admit that her reasoning was sound. “See?” she turned back to her father. “It’s good.”

Of course, she also tries to wear her doll’s clothes and today insisted that she had no pockets, only “vreckos” (vrecko is pocket, plus English plural), so I’m not signing her up for genius school yet. She just has the ordinary genius of all two year olds, and I love to watch it in action.

Conversations with my husband

2010-07-12T22:52:00.006+02:00

"I like how you refer to me on there as 'the Slovak'."
"Do you mean you like it or you want me to change it?"
"I mean, you could call me 'the Stud' or something. Just if you wanted to."
"I am totally blogging this."

Sort of like the time he told me I was free to tell anyone about our, ahem, private life, provided I was sufficiently complimentary.

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K brings me a Ferda Mravenec book and insists I read it to her.

"You know, you're really getting a British accent in Czech. I think I can hear it there."
[insert glare and pointed comment about who dragged who to this country]

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And then the other day when I was counting from 1 to 10 in Hungarian, and K was repeating after me:

"Hey, her pronunciation is actually better than yours."
"WHY CAN YOU NEVER SAY ANYTHING POSITIVE ABOUT ME?"

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But when I felt sick this afternoon, who leaped up from his desk and came home to take care of us? It was the Devilishly Handsome, Raven-Haired Slovak of My Dreams!

(There, sweetie, what do you think of that one?)

Language 101

2010-07-12T13:10:00.004+02:00

We are toying with the idea of doing Multilingual Living’s Language Challenge 101, a project to learn a new language as a family for 101 days. Or, you know, until I lose interest.

The most useful for our immediate future would be a concentrated dose of Czech for Baby K in preparation for moving and starting bilingual preschool, but that would be just for her, since us bigguns already speak Czech.

The Slovak suggested Hebrew or Welsh, but that sounded like a bit too much work. Then he suggested Hungarian, which was blatant cheating, since while I DO want to learn, he actually speaks it and would be just brushing up on grammar, while I know just a few words. I did pull out our Communist-era Teach Yourself Hungarian book (“We are workers. Are you workers?”) and went through a few lessons. I probably doubled my Hungarian vocabulary yesterday in an hour or two – meaning I retained five or ten words. I already knew a few things like “I don’t speak Hungarian”, “thank you” and “hello”. Really impressed the (Hungarian-speaking) extended family with those a couple of years ago, too!

I may look through the Hungarian book some more on my own, but as a family project it leaves something to be desired. I’d rather a language where we’re more on an even playing field! Or even where I have an advantage…which brings us to Spanish. We each know a bit but not too much, but I know more (somewhere in the depths of my brain). Score! And the Slovak doesn’t get to insult my pronunciation like with Hungarian.

So Spanish it is. Now to see how long we last, with work, moving, my mother-in-law coming to visit, and, perhaps most significantly, my own slacker nature. At least I can take the Spanish book with us in the car and refresh some basics while we drive!

I didn’t specifically teach K any Spanish or Hungarian vocabulary over the weekend, but I did try out a few sentences on her, which she attempted to repeat. She thought it was pretty funny, which is interesting because in the past she hasn’t reacted to us speaking other languages with any level of surprise. Now it seems that she recognizes and is amused by the fact that this is not our normal way of talking. I think that's probably progress.

But for now it's from the beginning: el español es muy fácil. We'll see about that!

Betrayed by an "Um"

2010-07-09T00:25:00.004+02:00

Or, the importance of non-verbals in language acquisition.

I had a disturbing experience during our visit to Prague a few months ago. You see, usually, if someone asks about my background, they assume I’m:

a Czech who’s been out of the country long enough to get rusty
born abroad with Czech parents/grandparents
Moravian
Slovak
Polish
Ukrainian
Croatian
Russian
French
and so on. In order of most to least flattering.

English-speaking countries are far down the list of common guesses. Even, interestingly, when the person is holding my residence card stating my nationality in their hand (as happened with my doctor the first time anyone ever mistook me for Czech). This is an important point because it shows that my accent, while present, is somewhat difficult to define, in contrast to when I first started learning Czech and my pronunciation screamed AMERICAN IN THE ROOM. Now it is mainly my husband’s OU Sooners (college football) shirt and hat that scream American in the room. He is often stopped by Americans in Prague asking what part of Oklahoma he is from. If he were more of a smart aleck he would say Prague. Pronounced "Pray-g". Cracks me up every time.

My disturbing experience took place on the playground when a mom I was talking with asked me where I was from after just a few sentences of conversation, and without waiting for an answer, she said, “American, right?” She said her father spent several years in the United States and came back saying “uh-huh” all the time, just like I did. I really can’t remember the last time someone guessed I was an American right away during a Czech conversation.

I also recall a few years ago a colleague said to me, “You know, however good your Czech may get, I’ll always know you’re an American by the way you say ‘um’.”
My response? “Um…yeah, I should do something about that.”

I have actually worked to eliminate my “um” and “uh” and similar nonverbal giveaways, but I can’t find anything to replace them with. The Slovak is very little help, as his answer is always, “You shouldn’t say anything like that!” He was taught in school to rephrase whatever he’d just said to give himself time to regroup, rather than using a filler sound like “uh”. That is interesting advice, but it does lead to a lot of repetition. Like, saying the same thing three times in a row. And anyway, I have a deep-seated need to make some sound or hand motion when thinking (of a word or of how to answer a question, etc). I have had some success with replacing “um” and other American nonverbals with more Czechish ones (and in the above mentioned conversation I was actually intending to say “aha”), but the odd “uh-huh” still makes its way through on occasion and outs me to any careful listener. I’m also not sure what to do with “ow”, assuming I don’t want to curse, in which case I would have a wealth of colorful options at my disposal.

Who knew that grammar, vocabulary, word order, pronunciation, intonation and local cultural references, assuming I could ever get that far, weren’t enough? Not that I don’t have plenty to work on with all of those, either! But even if you mastered all of that, you have to be the other language even when not actually talking! After all the nonverbal sounds, of course, come things like posture, volume, facial expressions, shoes (shoes are a dead giveaway for Americans, has anyone else noticed that??), and who knows what else.

I once brought a sick friend (my Czech teacher actually) TWO FLOWERS as a get-well-soon gift, and she laughed and said, “Sometimes I forget you aren’t entirely domesticated yet.” Um, okay… The ridiculous thing is, I KNEW that even numbers of flowers are for funerals. I had even advised foreign visitors of that in the past, but it never crossed my mind when going for a visit myself. It could be worse, I suppose – I have an American friend who brought his Czech wife ten red roses when she gave birth to their first child. Supposedly she practically beat him over the head with them because 1) even numbers are for funerals, and 2) where was her gold jewelry (as he should have given her according to custom)??

On the flip side, there are also Czech nonverbals that I have incorporated pretty fully into English, which I only really realized when I had to translate some of K’s utterances into “English” for my family. For instance, we say “fuj” (ew) whatever the language context, or “ham” (taking a bite) or “ňam ňam” (yum yum). Or Barany buc. I also consider “ahoj” and “čau” (both are “hi” or “bye”) to be pretty much English words at this point. I feel fairly justified in this, since the Slovak claims that “čau” (derived from “ciao”) is actually of Slovak origin.

So there you have it: my second language Achilles heel. I probably have others that I don’t even know about, but this is the main one I am fighting at the moment.

What is it that holds you back in your other language? How does non-verbal communication differ in your other language/country? What should I say instead of “uh-huh” in order not to sound too foreign?? I welcome thoughts on any of these questions!

erm...

2010-07-07T15:34:00.002+02:00

Any thoughts on how to get the image in my sidebar to a readable size? I haven't done this before!

Family Language Diagrams

2010-07-07T14:46:00.005+02:00

Inspired by the lovely diagrams at Multitongue Kids and other places, I thought I'd make one for our family, too. This is what actually goes on at our house right now:

As you can see, there is a whole lot more red than either shade of blue. It's not surprising that Slovak lags behind English at the moment. And of course the only Czech in our house is me talking to the Slovak. But when we move in a few months, here is how our ideal future situation might look:

A whole lot more blue obviously. It will be interesting to see if K is able to separate Slovak and Czech enough to continue speaking Slovak at home. I guess we'll see if and when the reality starts to approach the ideal! I'll have to save these and revisit them in a year or two.

Living a Czech life in Multilingual Britain

2010-07-05T12:41:00.004+02:00

One of my favorite things about our town, other than the parks, the trees, the children’s centres, and the ten minute walk to Starbucks, is the Slovak community that has mysteriously gathered here. In our previous town, twenty minutes away, there were no parks, few trees, no playgroup (or Starbucks!) within easy walking distance, and no Slovaks! Well, just the one. Worked in the bakery. Recognized me by my “Česká republika” shirt. I am nothing if not subtle.

Then I move here, and hey! Slovaks! And playgroups! And parks! I felt like I was being let out of prison. Plus, there's a semi-active Slovak playgroup that meets at our local children's centre. And a Czech group that meets once a week in a nearby town. And a Czech Saturday school in another nearby town. If we stayed here long term, we would have more opportunity to take advantage of these resources, too. I just kick myself for not moving here in the first place so I could have had two years of Slovaks and playgroups, not just one. I met one Slovak mother at our local playgroup (overheard her speaking to her son) and she tipped me off to a particular park where a lot of Slovak (and some Czech) families go. Once I made an acquaintance or two, I was in! I am currently refraining from making a comparison to the mafia.

It is really great to have a friend or two who speak Slovak to their kids. It hasn’t magically taught my daughter Slovak, but she gets to hear more adults speaking the language than just her father, which does count for something. It has also been a lifesaver for my ability to string together a coherent sentence. My first year in England was very hard on my language – apparently talking to my husband when the mood strikes just isn’t enough. Having a friend to talk to, and bumping into the occasional mom in the coffeeshop or the park, has got me nearly at an acceptable level again.

And it isn’t just Slovaks in this town. I’ve met families from all over Europe and the world at our local playgroup. Even some of the mothers I thought were British later turn out to actually be from Spain or Finland (etc). I remember at one of our early visits getting into a conversation with a Slovak and a Portuguese woman with a British husband about raising our children with two languages, and I noticed a couple of other mothers were sort of edging their way closer. “Aha,” I thought, “you’re intrigued by our bizarre bilingual lifestyle.” At a second look, it struck me that one woman was Indian and the other was German. They didn’t think we were freaks; they were facing the same issues themselves! To me, that is just fantastic. I love that my daughter has friends from different language backgrounds, with parents who speak fluent English AND their home languages, too. That sort of integrated diversity is one thing really lacking in homogenous Czech Republic as well as our part of USA.

It’s funny how much difference a 20 minute drive makes. We couldn’t have predicted that this particular area would be the one where we can make Slovak friends on the playground. We just got lucky on the second try, I guess. Our town isn’t ideal, but the parks and the playgroups and the Slovaks make it worth it for us. We will actually miss it when we move back to Prague.

The family that sings together...

2010-07-02T23:15:00.002+02:00

…stays…bilingual. OK, so I don’t have a catchy ending for that one. But it points us in the direction I want to go today: language learning and song.

We used to hold ourselves back from singing along with songs in the other language, because One Parent, One Language, after all. But along with our small secret revolution we relaxed about singing, as well. Now we all sing along to whatever song we’re singing, no matter what language it’s in. (Which isn’t always one of ours, since our i-pod has at least five languages on it at the moment…)

If you think about it, music is actually a perfect area in which to relax the rules without being confusing. You don’t get any more clear-cut than “now we’re singing, now we aren’t”. And if you don’t have a perfect command of the target language, songs have a set text so you don’t have to come up with your own! For example, I can sing Slovak children’s songs if I know the words, but I couldn’t have a complex conversation in Slovak and be confident it was correct, as my Slovak tends to come out as a funny mix of Slovak and Czech.

Singing is also great because it combines language and culture, if you sing the right sort of songs at least. I don’t consider the Slovak translation of “Jingle Bells” to have much cultural value, but “Narodil sa Kristus Pán” does. And I can help impart that cultural value even without speaking perfectly authentic Slovak. For that matter, I can help my husband impart that cultural value just by singing along for vocal support. He is also now free to participate in marathon sessions of "Hello K, wave hello" and "Twinkle twinkle little star".

While composing this post I popped over to Multilingual Living and saw Alice’s latest post in which she mentions song as one of the tools in her arsenal. So come on, other non-native spouses! If you want to support your family’s other language, SING! Sing a song of multilingualism!

July Carnival

2010-07-01T20:19:00.003+02:00

This month's Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is now up at Bringing Up Baby Bilingual! Sarah has put together a good collection of posts from a range of bloggers. Don't miss the party with the word nerds, including my post outing myself as a closet Slovak speaker.

Baby Signing

2010-06-30T20:59:00.002+02:00

One thing that really seemed to help K make the connection between words and their meanings was sign language. Apo and I used the same sign in our different languages so that K was able to quickly associate the object, sign, English word and Slovak word as the same thing. She used her first sign (food) at 14 months, after several months of us signing to her and talking to her and all of us being frustrated because she didn’t understand ANYTHING. I could repeat to her 500 times “ball, this is a ball, let’s play with the ball” with no response from her, but within two days of introducing the sign “ball”, she understood the sign and the word, together AND separately. The same thing happened with all the signs we used (only 10 – 15 total), once she learned the first one and got the concept. It was like she needed the sign to anchor the word and object together in her mind. After that she was able to learn a word just from hearing it. Apo had the same experience with her comprehension of Slovak. I’m not sure if the signing was really the sole catalyst or if she was just due for a language burst at that particular age anyway, but the difference was pretty striking.

She was also visibly impressed with herself when she learned to sign. You could see the satisfaction on her face, and the power: I make this motion, and I get a snack! Score! I think it was the very next day after she first signed “food” that she used it as a bedtime delaying tactic. Apo took her upstairs to bed and she kept signing “food”, really, I’m hungry, I can’t go to sleep yet. I had thought only bigger kids did that! And especially when she learned “milk”, she woke up signing, she went to sleep signing, she signed IN her sleep. That first week we happened to look in the back seat and realized she was silently signing “food” in her rear-facing carseat.* So we gave her a snack.

We only took signing as far as the 10 to 15 signs that I bothered to learn, and the few she made up herself, but I think that she would enjoy signing even still, if I actually knew sign language to be teaching her. It kind of takes away from the spontaneity of the moment when you see an airplane, run to the computer, look at your online ASL dictionary for an appropriate sign (some are too complicated or too similar to each other, etc.), learn it, run back and say, “Look, an airplane [sign]!” Meanwhile the airplane is probably over the English Channel by now. She still signs sometimes, especially if she says something we don’t understand. I’ve noticed she has her own “signs” for animals that she consistently uses in the same way, e.g. snake, monkey, bird. Recently she has come up with signs for panties and swinging (or playground in general). Signing is also useful for discreet communication or across a room. I liked having a sign for breastfeeding that was more subtle than some of the code words I’ve heard.**

I also think signing can be an excellent tool for multilingual families if everyone agrees on one sign to use. Baby K quickly learned that “milk” and “mliečko” are both accompanied by the same sign and mean that she gets milk. It took her longer to make the connection between words that we didn’t have signs for. Our experience was definitely that it stimulates speech, not holding it back as you might think. At least for our child, the research didn’t lie!

* You have to wonder how long she’d been at that.

** I think “na na” or “num num” or whatever baby words people use are kind of transparent. :) Of course when the child gets to the point of reaching down your shirt and attempting to help herself all subtlety is gone…