Christmas in the Home Country

Okay, we've been back from our trip long enough that it's starting to seem long ago and I can't quite remember what I wanted to write about. It's ridiculous.

The main thing is that we spent two weeks with my family and there were plenty of opportunities for bonding with grandparents and cousins. We got there December 27 and the very next day I helped mastermind a full family Christmas from which my husband (an only child) is probably still recovering. All my brothers and sisters and their children were there - there are five of us and three of us have two children each. It was crowded. And kind of overwhelming for two introverts like the Slovak and me.

The next day we went to a Christmas celebration for the other side of the family, where my aunts were playing the mastermind role and I didn't feel even a little bit bad about not helping coordinate logistics. I had just done that the day before! I sat back and chatted with one of my sisters. And a cousin who it turns out is into Doctor Who. We may have more in common than I thought.

But in all of that my five year old had a blast playing with her cousins - she has several her age, two other girls within six months of her. Their lives are very different from hers, but they enjoyed playing together. I overheard the following conversation more than once during our trip:

"What's your brother's name?"
"I can't tell you, because it's in Czech and you won't understand."
"What's Czech?"
"His name is MAREK. Do you understand?"

"Katka" didn't seem to strike her as a Czech name. She expected everyone to understand that one.

I remember last year K asked that same cousin if she spoke Czech or Slovak as well as English. The girl had understandably never heard of "Czech" or "Slovak", but also didn't really know what "English" is. Like I mentioned...our lives are very different.

A young cousin on the other side heard my husband speaking to one of the children and started making gibberish noises at him. The Slovak was less than impressed.

This was our first time doing Christmas (even if a bit late) in America, and my first Christmas there in at least ten years, so it was a cultural experience for us all. We do American Christmas traditions at home, of course, but there's a difference between doing something yourself and seeing EVERYBODY else doing it, too. The Slovak alternated between fascinated and repelled at the whole spectacle, I think. He thinks mall Santas are really weird, for instance, and didn't want our kids to go to one. Lucky for him I'm such an accommodating wife... I think he liked the Christmas lights, on the whole, but some people really do go overboard.

I would ask him for his impressions, but 1) he isn't home yet and 2) I'm pretty sure it would boil down to "You people are weird."

I'm still glad we went. I'd like to go again...one day. In several years. I'm glad to give the children an opportunity to experience both sides of their heritage, but that was enough for now. :)

Oh! While we were there we managed to leave the children with my mother for a few hours and went to see Les Miserables. It was our first movie in a theater possibly since M was born? We went to see Brave, but not together. It was also our first non-dubbed, non-subtitled movie (other than DVDs) in many, many years. The Slovak and I both love musicals and we got to go with my sister who also loves musicals, so we weren't alone in being ridiculously excited.

We listened to the soundtrack in the car over the next week or so, and it caught K's attention. She insisted on being told, in detail, the stories of each person singing - mainly the little girl Cosette and the Valjean-Javert dynamic. She is still working on memorizing Castle on a Cloud and, amusingly, the confrontation scene between the two men.

I think I mentioned before that we got several chapter books for K - we already finished the first two Magic Treehouse books and are clearly going to need more, and yesterday we started Farmer Boy (Little House series #2). We're still reading Harry Potter, so we'll alternate for a while.

We also picked up a few seasons of TV on DVD while visiting, so we're enjoying some good shows at the moment. Better than endless episodes of Panelák...even if that does happen to be what we have on at the moment. ;)

...and that was our latest visit to America. With two family Christmases there and our own Christmas at home with Babka and Dedo, our children didn't know what hit them! 2012: the year that Christmas just kept on coming.

Notes from the Road

We are coming to the end of our stay with my side of the family. As always it has been good for our children's English and, more importantly, their relationships with the extended family.

K's new phrase for the trip is "pulling someone's leg". She keeps throwing it into conversation since she learned it from Grandmama last week.

I have heard the following conversation twice, once with a cousin and once with a child met in a store:

"What's your brother's name?"
"I can't tell you, because it's a Czech name and you won't understand it."
"What's Czech?"
"His name is MAREK. Do you understand?"

'Katka' is apparently not a Czech name in K's mind. I'm not clear on how the distinction works.

Marek has started saying his first two words on this trip: first "tam" (over there) and then "bye bye". He is a little warmer to other people this time but he is definitely a more reserved child than his sister. He likes to engage with other people from the safety of mommy's arms.

He did allow himself to be babysat last week for long enough for the Slovak and I to go see Les Miserables, which was fantastic. We hardly ever see movies in the theater and this one was the first in many years that didn't have subtitles (or dubbing).

In addition to buying clothes for the next year (the exchange rate is favorable for us shopping here) we also stocked up on some chapter books to read with K. We got the first five Little House books, the first two Magic Treehouse books, How to Train Your Dragon, Matilda, and maybe something else I've forgotten. We have plans to buy one or two more to read to her from our Kindle.

After hearing the soundtrack to Les Miserables in the car, K demanded to be told the story (the parts about Cosette and an abbreviated explanation of Valjean and why Javert is after him) and extracted from us a promise that she can watch the movie when we get the DVD. This morning she drew me a picture of a castle located on a cloud with Cosette, Valjean and Thenardier (a.k.a. the girl, her new Apo and the cheating man).

Five is such a great age. :)

I Want to Go There! Just Kidding Edition

So today's post was supposed to be about our long weekend in sunny Venice - our first vacation in two years. Family visits don't count. We do love to travel, so we were all pumped.

Everything was set, bags packed, excitement at a peak, prepped K looking at pictures of Venice and informing her that she already knows one word of Italian: čau/ciao, flying out Friday at noon, when...K woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug. Poor child had never actually thrown up in her life (even as a baby, she spit up a total of 3-5 times ever), so I had to explain what was happening and that it is a normal phenomenon. She also wanted to know how to say "throw up" in both Czech and English.

I took her to the doctor early Friday morning but it was pretty clear - no flying for us. The doctor said a three-day bug is going around at the moment and she'd probably be fine by Monday. So we let the airplane take off without us. Sigh.

The Slovak took Baby M out for a walk late Friday morning while I took care of sick K. She was very pathetic - still not convinced she wasn't dying. (On the way to the doctor's earlier I realized she thought we were going to the hospital for in-patient care.) She took a long nap and woke up after noon, when we were waving goodbye to our Venice-bound airplane.

When the plane took off, she was still sick. We definitely couldn't have traveled. And yet, like magic, when the plane landed an hour later K was JUST FINE. Looks like it was a 12 hour bug, just long enough to keep us home. Weep. She spent the rest of the weekend running around perky while the Slovak and I came down with bad colds and tried to pretend we were in Italy.

The bad news is we lost the price of the plane tickets (no changes). The good news is we didn't have to pay for the accommodation, so it could have been a lot worse, right? The other bad news is, obviously, we didn't go to Venice.

And now I suspect we never will! You see, six years ago we also had purchased plane tickets to Venice for the weekend. A week or two before the trip they canceled the flight (the only Prague-Venice flight) so we ended up going to Budapest instead. We've been looking forward to trying again ever since then. Now, though, we're kind of nervous as to what might happen to us next time we try to go. Maybe Venice just doesn't want us!

I think we are going to travel everywhere else in Europe and never, ever see Venice except for in pictures. I can live with that. As it stands now, though...I still really need a vacation. In fact, our bags are still packed. We may still be in denial.

Someone take me somewhere fun!

visit to family and other things

So we went to Arkansas for a week and K came back with a northern accent. Whatever you call the way the asparagus kid from Veggie Tales talks. Or Kai-Lan, as I recall. I'm going to assume it came from one of those sources rather than being a direct result of the visit, although it did come on very suddenly, in the airport as we left. It's wearing off a little now, but for a while there it was very distinct and if K accidentally said something in her "normal" accent, she quickly corrected herself. Obviously an affectation then, but a quite random and amusing one.

Though I will say she sounds noticeably more American now even discounting the newly discovered accent. I think that WAS a result of the visit.

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This was the first chance the family had to meet Baby M. He was a rousing success.

K really enjoyed showing off her little brother, and her dance moves, and her ability to jump on one foot.

I had to bite the NIP in USA bullet (first visit with K was when she was older, so it was easy enough to avoid it), and nobody spontaneously combusted, so that was encouraging. People in the South are either becoming more tolerant or less observant, it seems!

It was also the first visit where K cried when we left - I think it's the first time she really understood what was going on and how long we go between visits. She had a hard time saying goodbye and cried a few times over the next day or two once we got home, too.

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At one point during our visit I overheard K ask her cousin of the same age, "You speak English, right? Do you speak Czech and Slovak, too?" Her cousin didn't respond in the slightest, obviously had no clue what K was on about.

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Baby M turned 5 months yesterday. The day before that, the Slovak was holding him in his lap while eating a banana, and M grabbed the banana and stuffed it in his mouth. We were PLANNING to wait a full six months before introducing solids (with K we had a ceremonial first bite of food on her half-birthday, which she obviously immediately spit out), but in the spirit of baby-led weaning I decided to go with it. That, and the boy wasn't going to willingly let go. Also as of this weekend he can sit up without support. He's been busy.

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Also while in Arkansas I found that my children, while comfortable navigating public transportation in any European city you might suggest, are not at all adapted for hopping in and out of the car all day as one does in America. They both complained STRENUOUSLY about the long car rides, anything over 15 minutes being met with a "But that's SO LONG!" from K. No wonder - we use our car once or twice a week in Prague and only for 15 minute trips most of the time. M missed traveling in his comfy wrap and K missed being able to walk everywhere. Fortunately February/March in Arkansas is acceptable walking weather, so we did walk more than normal, but only a bit more: America is simply not built for pedestrians! But everyone knows that, anyway.

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And now we're all fighting colds, all but the baby, that is. He is too busy munching on apples and bananas to bother being unwell. I'm ready for everyone to be healthy so we can get out and enjoy the spring!

I want to go there! The far east edition

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.

Bilingual in Arkansas

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

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. :)

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

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.

Stealth Visit

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!

Moving Day, take 1

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.

one step closer to Prague

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

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.

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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!

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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

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.

Travel with Young Children

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

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.

Extended Family and the Multilingual Child

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!

The Vacation

After finishing with our wedding commitments, we drove to Williamsburg where my mother, brother and nephew had driven to meet us. We went to the Jamestown Settlement museum, which we would have enjoyed more if we hadn’t been delicate English flowers wilting in the heat of the New World. By which I mean it was really hot. “I’m used to English weather,” I thought. “Of course I can’t be expected to cope with this heat.” After a minute I realized the settlers must have felt the same way, getting off the boat from England into this oppressive humidity! I’d have been dead within the year, too.

The museum was great, though, especially the outdoor part. The next day we visited Colonial Williamsburg, though we only managed to see a small part of what was available. Heat, and lack of time. We really need to go back for several days next time, once K is old enough to appreciate the concept of something that happened before she was born. That child has no appreciation of history (but she really liked the three-cornered “pirate” hats).

After that my brother went home and we drove with my mother and nephew north to D.C. We were limited in what we could do with two kids in tow in hot weather, so we kept it casual and didn’t stretch ourselves too far. K still did a LOT of walking, though. She spent the whole time walking or riding on our shoulders.

While taking a break at Starbucks one afternoon, K had a conversation with a lady at the next table. They had a real conversation covering a range of topics (their names, what they were doing, sunglasses, pirates, umbrellas, forget what else?) in which at no point did I need to step in and clarify what K was saying – the stranger understood it all. K’s speech really is getting a lot more intelligible lately, and her sentences are shaping up with some more structure to them. I was impressed with the content, too: questions, answers, real exchange of thoughts. Fortunately the lady was patient with an extremely friendly little girl in a coffeeshop.

We would have loved to go to all the Smithsonian museums, but with time short and a two-year-old’s interest difficult to catch, we opted for the Natural History Museum. She LOVED the dinosaur hall. One small dinosaur she instantly picked out as “K dinosaur”. It said it was a 1/6 scale representation of a...triceratops, I think? She loved that it was small like her. The Tyrannosaurus Rex was the “Apo dinosaur”. Her other favorite section was the insects, where she got to touch a stick insect and hold a cockroach in her hand (!). I wasn’t going to do it, but she wanted to! Our other close insect encounter was the day before, when K got stung by a bee on her finger. She talked about both events for days. (We also dressed her in a dress with little bumblebees on it the next day. Was that mean? We were going for "funny". And in the store when she liked the umbrella with the bees, too...well...she needed an umbrella, anyway!)

The Slovak and I thought the forensic history section was fascinating, but K was oddly uninterested. She had had a long and eventful day by then, so we whipped through the animal and undersea sections and went on our way.

In the evening we went to meet one of the Slovak’s childhood friends, who lives 6 blocks behind the Capitol. We had a lovely visit with him and his wife, who is from Colombia. They are raising their 1.5 year old daughter with Spanish, Slovak and English. When they walked us to the metro stop, we drew a few curious glances with our mix of English, Spanish, Slovak and Czech depending on which adult was addressing which other adult or child… I thought it was great. I also thought it was great how much Spanish I still understand, when it’s addressed at a toddler.

I loved the tourism, monuments, battlefields, even more the time spent with friends, but the most important thing we did with our week was allow grandmother and granddaughter to spend time together. I'm pretty sure we could have stayed in the hotel room the entire week and it would have been a success!

The Wedding

We’re back from our trip, by the way. We went to a wedding the first weekend and then my mother (and brother for one day) came up to meet us and spend a couple days in Williamsburg and D.C. The lure of the granddaughter was too strong to resist.

K spent the weekend connecting with her country roots: barefoot and grubby the whole time. We tried to keep her shoes on at first, but they never lasted more than a minute or two. Plus you kind of have to be barefoot to run through the sprinkler like she was doing. Eventually I decided she was experiencing an American childhood in the South and let her be. Instead I concentrated on sipping lemonade with the Slovak, sitting in the rockers on the porch and staring down the long, unpaved road to the house. Seriously! He is fascinated with the American South and was in his element.

Actually, to tell you the truth the scene on the porch with the lemonade lasted about five minutes. The groom is another Slovak, a friend of ours, and my Slovak was the best man, so they were running around organizing and I was running after K and going to the store for bobby pins and other necessities no one had gotten yet.

We spent a good bit of time talking to the groom’s parents, who had traveled from Slovakia to be at the wedding. I was impressed with their English (being the generation of my own in-laws) and how well they used it in a high-stress environment such as a son’s wedding, with plans and flowers and future in-laws and such. There was at least one moment where one of the other guests was not as impressed as me, and made a bit of a (hopefully unheard by others) snippy comment. If I had had time to process at the time, I might have made a few pointed comments about communicating in second languages and how well would YOU do in the same position, etc. I know exactly how difficult it is to function at a high level in a second language, so let’s have some patience and understanding, please!

It seemed like the groom’s parents really appreciated having us there. They do speak English, but it must have been a relief to have someone other than each other (and their slightly preoccupied son) to talk with in their native language. We really liked them, too. Also, we had a somewhat parallel situation as we are a Slovak husband, Czech-speaking (though foreign) wife, and the groom’s parents are also Slovak husband, Czech wife. I noticed she spoke Slovak with them but Czech with me, so I asked her what she does usually (since people often slowly adopt the language of the other country if they live there long-term). She said she made an effort to speak Slovak even at home when her son was younger but now speaks Slovak with Slovaks and Czech at home. Her husband jumped in and said, “When she loves me, she speaks Slovak to me. When she’s mad at me, she speaks Czech.” Sounds about right to me, hahaha!

I should pause at this point and give a piece of advice to those who occasionally take advantage of being bilingual in a non-bilingual crowd. If you make an inappropriate wedding night joke about the groom to your husband because no one in the room will understand you but him, make sure his parents aren’t sitting three chairs away. Oh dear heavens, I just blushed again writing this. Fortunately they only laughed...

The wedding itself was lovely. For the first kiss, the groom picked his bride up and twirled her around before setting her back down to kiss. There was a minor hiccup in the form of a brief storm at the reception, but after it cleared up things were back on track.

We seized the opportunity to briefly kidnap the bride before the dancing in the evening. At traditional Slovak weddings, the friends kidnap the bride and take her to a bar where they rack up a large bill which the groom has to pay as a ransom when he finds them. We didn’t do an extensive kidnapping, just staying on the grounds (we hid out in one of the guest rooms). And it was really less of a kidnapping and more of a, “Hey, there’s this kidnapping tradition, do you want to be kidnapped?” But it was still kind of fun. She said that he had warned her several times that someone might try to kidnap her. She said it was pretty much, "Will you marry me, oh and you should know you may or may not be kidnapped by my friends on our wedding day." She still said yes, though!

One of my favorite moments of the wedding was during the dancing, when among all the English music this lovely Czech song came on. As the bride and groom danced to it, I saw him translating the lyrics into English in her ear. I thought that was a very sweet image of a cross-cultural marriage at its beginning.

I had more to say about the wedding than I thought, so I’ll split off the rest of the week into a separate post. Stay tuned for Virginia 2010: The Sequel! Coming soon. If I don’t forget.