Lantern Parades and Pumpkin Carving

This week we had a jack-o-lantern carving and lantern parading day at K's preschool. I thought the combination was interesting (Halloween is not very widespread here).

The lantern parade (lampionový průvod) is a tradition in this part of the world, though nobody can tell me why exactly other than it was mandatory-participation under the socialist regime. This is a good description of the German version, which is probably similar to what the Czech one was before it was co-opted for the glory of the Red Army. Now, however, it is just for fun.

The Slovak couldn't take off work for the afternoon, so Baby M and I headed out to school by ourselves, armed with a pumpkin and a knife. When we got to school, however, I discovered we were in fact armed with just a pumpkin. The knife must have fallen out along the way!

M was gracious enough to be unusually content sitting by himself in the stroller so I could borrow a knife and help carve K's pumpkin.

K of course left me to do the scooping and carving because she wanted to roast an apple. Then she wanted me to roast her apple for her, too (I didn't), presumably WHILE carving and looking over my shoulder praying her brother wouldn't decide he'd had enough with waiting patiently.

The pumpkin turned out kind of wonky looking, but for never having done it before and having the shortest amount of time possible for actual carving, I considered not cutting off any of my fingers to be a rousing success.

Then it started to rain so we all huddled under the cover available.

Then it stopped raining, they handed out paper lanterns with tea candles in them, which K obviously wanted me to hold for her (I didn't), so we could set out on the walk.

The teachers had set all the jack-o-lanterns along the path so we could pass by and admire them. At the end of the path the children gathered around in a circle with tea candles in the middle and sang a few songs about autumn. Also Boleslav, Boleslav.

K was in her element as she is one of her school's star singers (according to her teacher), which may have to do with an actual sense of pitch or may simply indicate that she sings nice and loud. When the teacher said in the middle of one song, "Sing louder, kids, I can't hear you!" they all perked up and K and her friend were very nearly shouting.

(K does, in fact, have a good sense of pitch and I believe she will have a good singing voice when she is older, but especially in groups she seems to believe volume is key. Maybe because they're always being told to sing out, I don't know. It was sweet, though.)

About that time Baby M decided he had truly had enough and started making his feelings known from (and about) the stroller.

Then we headed back to school, picking up our pumpkin on the way, said goodbye to our friends, and headed home in the dark. I was watching the path the whole way, wondering if someone had found and hurt themself/others with my lost knife.

Along the way we stopped for a pastry and met Apo, who was just coming from work. He carried the thoroughly-fed-up M on his shoulders and I pushed the way-too-tired K in the stroller.

We stopped at the Chinese take-out place, which also serves fried cheese and french fries (a typical Czech meal). We always order it (along with actual Chinese food) and laugh that our children will probably think smažák is a traditional Chinese dish. In fact that's just the only restaurant around that does take-out.

As we walked the last stretch home, we filled Apo in on what he had missed.

Me: "...and then we did the lampionový průchod." (lantern parade)
Apo, looking at me like I'm dumb: "Průvod."
Me: "Seriously? I may have said průchod earlier today. I hope nobody heard me."
Apo: (laughing at me)
K: "Mami, co je průchod?" (what's a průchod?)
Me: "PRŮVOD, člověče, copak to nevíš???" (it's PRŮVOD, man, everybody knows that!)
Apo: (still laughing at me)

Just to show that I still make dumb mistakes once in a while :)

Then we went home, where I found my lost knife in the entryway. It must have fallen out right after I put it in my bag.

It was fun, but I think I've had enough lanterns until next year!

Big Kid Skills: learning to whistle, learning to knit, learning to read

I've spent this morning brainstorming birthday/Christmas/knitting ideas for my soon to be five year old.

Birthday and Christmas because, well, they're coming up. Knitting because this weekend K asked me if she could please learn to do that thing with the needle thing where you make things, which I determined to be either knitting, crocheting or sewing based on her hand gestures.

I was already thinking of getting her a children's knitting kit, actually, but then I would also have to get her a person who knows how to knit in order to teach her. I like the idea of knitting but am not very, ah, coordinated. I also have my doubts as to how well she would handle the needles. She is currently learning to tie her shoes but hasn't mastered it. (Though she has only had shoes with laces for a week or so.)

Then I had the inspiration of finger knitting! No needles and a relatively fast payoff, right? I remember doing it as a child and making endless chains. If and when she masters that we can look into something more involved.

Is that a good idea?

Is there anything else in this area that would be suitable for a five year old with an unskilled parent?

I'm also considering getting a learn-to-read book (we have some workbooks but they are more about individual letters or doing mazes and other tasks) or some other kindergarten materials. This is still a problem, but I hope that in the next year it will be easier to find a few minutes here and there for some English learning activities.

Is THAT a good idea? Does anyone have a recommended book/curriculum or should I not even use a formal curriculum and just continue freestyling and/or letting K learn to read on her own?

Anything else I should buy while I have the chance?

Naughty Doesn't Begin to Describe It

Yesterday my daughter misbehaved enough that she got sent to her room. This was her version of events when the Slovak got home:

"Apo, já jsem dneska trošičku zlobila a mamka byla cross tak jsem šla do mojej izby ale teď se už ukľudnila"

(Apo, I was a tiny bit naughty today and mommy was cross so I went to my room to play and then she calmed down again...)

First of all, how's that for a trilingual sentence?

Second, both the Slovak and I had to turn away so K wouldn't see us laughing.

Third, which part is best? "a tiny bit naughty", "Mommy calmed down" or the claim of voluntarily going to her room?

Fourth, I think the clear lesson here is that everything depends on your point of view. From K's perspective this was a perfectly valid representation of events.

***

K enjoys helping out around the house, but of course only on her own terms. She recently requested to help put the groceries away by saying, "Můžu je dát pryč?"

Literal translation from English "put - away". Not what she intended to say, though.

***

I have noticed several times that K has mixed up the words "lend" and "borrow". This is a typical Czech mistake (půjčit v. půjčit si, so the distinction is hard to remember when learning English), so it is mildly grating to hear coming from a native English speaker (even if a child).

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, because this week K was telling me how a friend "borrowed" her a toy when the Slovak stepped in to tell her no, it has to be "lend", and explained the difference.

At least she doesn't say "willage". I definitely couldn't live with that!

A Reading Family

Our apartment is decorated in bookshelves. We have slowed down in book buying over the past few years because with young children around we - at least I - have had less time to read and the books were about to overrun us anyway (also because we bought Kindles...), but one look at our home makes it clear that the people here are some serious book lovers.

Sometimes I have wondered, over the past few years, if our children will inherit our love of books since we don't read much when they are around. I do a lot of reading on the computer, because it is easier for me to handle while holding a baby or napping toddler, but of course a child can't tell the difference between that and working, or facebooking.

I am not sure where, but I remember reading once that children need to see their parents reading - not just reading to the children, but reading for themselves - in order to develop their own love of reading. I'm not sure if that's true, but it is true that my mother read when I was little but not when my younger siblings were little (I was an only child for several years, so she had more time) and I am the only one who reads books now.

With that in mind, and because I was tired of having gone from 50+ books a year to none, I started making a conscious effort to read actual, paper books when K was about two. It still seems to be mostly after bedtime, of course, but once in a while I manage to pull out my book while K is awake. I only make it through a few books a year now, but I have a small part of myself back.

Reading to the little ones, though, is more difficult. Baby M has a shelf for his board books, which he mainly likes to flip through and then scatter around the room. But it is K's books that give me twinges of conscience.

I have gone through phases during her life of reading to her a lot and not reading to her much at all. Sometimes she simply lost interest for a while. But especially in the last year I have hardly been able to read to her at all!

It is one of the most difficult things about having a second baby, not being able to devote enough time to the first one. M is the Chillest Baby Ever and can entertain himself indefinitely with minimum input from me, but the instant I pull out a book to read to K or a workbook to do with her he is ALL OVER us. He will not sit and read with us (because he is one), he will not play on his own or be distracted by a toy I give him. He will jump up and down on us until we put the offending items away.

The obvious answer is to read to her during his naptime, but the boy has a sixth sense that tells him when I am paying attention to his sister even when he is sleeping. He wakes up within three minutes. With K it was tea - making myself a hot cup of tea was a surefire way to ensure K would wake up at any time, day or night, and demand my attention until my tea had gone cold. With M I can have tea but I can't read to his sister.

I have had a little success with reading board books to both children at once, but of course a one-year-old's attention span is not great and they are not exactly on K's level. I am looking forward to when M is older and I can read to them both properly. That's a long time for K to wait, though!

So K's bookshelf has not been touched as much as I would like over the last year. Apo and I take turns reading to her at bedtime, when it is one-on-one, and recently we started reading chapter books together as a family. I read and Apo holds M so he can't climb up and knock the book out of my hands.

First we read Little House in the Big Woods, which was an exciting moment for me since I loved Laura Ingalls when I was little and have been looking forward to introducing it to my daughter for years. The Slovak was skeptical at first, since he wasn't familiar with the books, but after a few chapters he was secretly looking forward to our nightly reading and by the end he was actively sucked in and wanting to know more.

Once we finished that we moved on to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It is a little over K's comprehension level, but she has seen the first few movies and really likes Harry Potter, so she was set on reading that next once she found out there are BOOKS about Harry Potter as well. The first chapter was a little rough - in hindsight I should have skipped it - since there is a lot of hinting and grown-ups talking about things that aren't fully explained until later. Booooring.

Once we got to the part with Harry in it, though, things pick up. Last night we read chapter 3, where all the mysterious letters start coming to the house. Usually I split chapters over two sessions, but this time K begged me to keep reading: "I want to know what happens next!!"

At that, the Slovak and I shared a look over the top of K's head. She got it.

She was feeling the thrill of a good story, the need to know what happens next. As passionate readers ourselves, we both felt the thrill of passing something on to our child, something we pray will accompany her through her childhood and her whole life.

Siblings

I have been enjoying watching as my children's relationship develops. My son loves anything his sister does, even if it involves being a bit too rough with him. It makes it hard to intervene and stop her:

"K, don't do that to your brother."
"But he likes it!"
(M grins like crazy)
"That may be so, but you are still not allowed to poke your brother/take his toys away/turn him upside down. -I- don't like it."

(We determined that he actually does enjoy being poked in the belly with a pirate sword. He does it to himself and giggles.)

She defends him against perceived injustice:

(in SK) "M, stop that!"
(in SK) "Apo, leave him alone, he isn't doing anything! He's just sitting there. Making messes."

She is proud of his accomplishments:

"He said 'ale' [but]! Like a ľud!"

Ľud is from ľudia, which means "people" in Slovak. The word for person is "človek", but K assumes it is a normal plural so she says ľud. Like "peep" from "people" I guess. It makes us laugh, anyway.

In the way of many young girls, she has also decided to marry her brother in case her plans to marry Apo fall through.

All of this doesn't mean she is without reservation regarding her brother, though. She remains clear that she really wanted a sister:

"Mommy, I don't want this baby. I mean, we can KEEP this baby, but I want another one too, a girl one."
"What if we had another baby and it turned out to be a boy, too?"
"Mommyyyy! (with a 'you're being silly' expression) That would never happen!"

A year on, though, I think the Slovak and I can say that M was the perfect addition to our family and we wouldn't trade him for a little sister. In her heart of hearts, neither would K.

Cultural Differences in the Doctor's Office

Going to the doctor in a foreign country. In our family this is usually my job, which is tricky sometimes because of our contrasting standards for an illness or injury requiring medical attention. For me it has to be an extremely high fever or severed limb and even then I'd rather give it another 24 hours and go in the morning if it doesn't clear up overnight. The Slovak, however, was raised by wolves somewhat hypochondriac parents and while he is pretty reasonable about his own health, it is natural to worry more about your children so he has a tendency to panic at the first sign of illness. It doesn't help that if his parents witness a single sneeze, they yell at us for getting the children sick. So I can understand that it makes him a bit jumpy.

I've had to take both children to the doctor this fall more often than usual, between routine checkups (the first year babies have a lot, plus K is about to have her 5-year visit) and assorted minor illnesses. Since we've now all had bronchitis (baby too) we've been a bit more careful with coughs and colds, since bronchitis is not fun. Over the weekend K was complaining of lower abdominal pain so I took her in Monday morning to make sure it wasn't an infection.

I am always a bit frustrated at the doctor's office because while I have a decent grasp of basic (regular person) medical Czech I can never remember the proper medical terms off the top of my head so I am never sure I've precisely described the problem in the way I would have in English. "I am a LEGAL translator," I always want to say, "I don't do medicine!" But I get the point across.

After feeling K's belly and taking a urine sample the pediatrician's main advice to me was to make sure she doesn't sit on a cold floor.

And that's where the cultural issues come into play.

Sitting on cold floor or concrete = infection is a very common piece of folk wisdom in this part of the world. I hadn't heard it before coming here, but I believe it may be somewhat of a tradition where I am from, too (anyone else heard of this?). I do not, however, believe that it is founded in evidence-based medicine. Unless it is and I just missed it, which is possible.

I don't mind the doctor telling me that, but it just serves as a reminder how deeply entrenched we all are in our own cultures (and generations - I think it depends on the age of the doctor as well as country of origin or medical training). I think medicine (causes of disease, treatments, germ theory, etc.) is probably the area in which I feel most foreign and most American, because I was just raised differently and it seems to be more deeply ingrained in me than, say, wearing shoes indoors or talking really loudly (two classic American behaviors).

There are a lot of other Czech medical beliefs that were new to me when I moved here. I can't remember them all off-hand, but a few include:

Drinking cold drinks gives you a sore throat. Iced drinks are basically just asking for it. I have been requested to put orange juice in the microwave to warm it up before serving. After it had been sitting on the counter for half an hour since I knew cold = bad.

Eating cherries and drinking water (together) will have you tied to the bathroom for the next several hours.

Combining certain types of food will have the same effect. The list seems to vary depending on who's talking.

When you have a cold you should wear a scarf around your neck. Because I guess your neck is cold? I'm not clear on the reasoning on this one.

Eating warm desserts will make you sick. The first time I brought my new husband cookies fresh from the oven (the preferred way to eat them in my country, or at least my family) he thought I was trying to poison him.

My mother-in-law does not allow fans or air conditioning to be blowing, even in the car in 40 C (very hot) weather, because they cause ear infections. Heat stroke, though, doesn't seem to concern her.

Walking around with an exposed lower back will give you a kidney infection.

Walking on a cold floor, or any floor, without sandals will make you sick.

When I moved to this country, I only knew "draft" (in the sense of cold air) from 19th-century novels. I had no idea it was a thing that people still talked/worried about, but it totally is.

And that's not even getting into the very specific ideas about raising children. I don't do dětský čaj or balení na široko (tea for babies and a special way of wrapping small babies to restrict their movement in order to prevent hip problems, more or less), which raises some eyebrows but my children seem to be managing without somehow.

I guess going to the doctor, when I can't get out of it entirely, may always be a reminder to me that I'm not in Kansas any more. On the other hand, a few months ago I woke up with a sore back after sleeping next to an open window, and my first thought was "...draft!"

So maybe I'll get on board with some of the above list someday, after all!

Happy birthday, Baby M!

We've just had a weekend visit from the grandparents (my in-laws), who came to Prague to celebrate Baby M's first birthday with us.

He had a chocolate cupcake to devour and a big sister to help him open his presents. The clear favorite was the rocking zebra (a rocking horse shaped like a zebra), which both children enjoy playing with. It is too small for K, of course, but as a new and somewhat fun toy meant for someone else she instantly realized it was all she had ever wanted in life...

I think it has increased M's worth in her eyes, having something that she really wants to play with. He is kind enough to let her ride, too, but I have to remind her that it goes both ways: it's not ok to play with his toys and make him stay away from hers. It was touch and go for a little bit but overall I think she handled the "it's someone else's birthday and not mine" issue fairly well. I hope next year will be even better since it won't be the first one.

I wondered up to the day of his birthday (Thursday) if M would take off walking, but it seems he has joined the ranks of us slackers, walking after a year. I walked at 14 months and the Slovak at 16 months, so we were pretty surprised when K was up and running around at 10 months. M will take one or two steps at a time sometimes but otherwise he refuses to walk or stand without holding on to something.

He hasn't said any first words yet, but he can sort of do a few signs and recognizes several signs and words. He's generally exhibiting signs of intelligence (problem-solving, understanding instructions, that sort of thing) that we didn't really see in his sister at 12 months. She was a good 14 months old and still looking at us like we were speaking Martian, no matter how common the word. (Meaning not even a flicker of recognition even at basic words referring to things like milk.)

M has not been a very talkative (babbling) baby so far, but in recent weeks this seems to be changing. He is getting better with his tongue, can blow raspberries and stick it out all the way, and is making a greater number of sounds. He was born with a tongue tie so this was a bit of a concern.

His pediatrician diagnosed him at 6 days old and recommended we have it snipped at one year, but I consulted with the doctors at the hospital where he was born and they said it is better to do it right away, so we did. I think it was the right decision and it improved his nursing right away, but I still wonder if there will be any leftover effects on his speech. This is why I'm glad to see him stick out his little tongue and master new sounds, because it is really pretty recent.

Sometimes I feel like he understands Apo better than me, or at least as well as me - he definitely understands "pitie", for example, but I haven't noticed him react to "drink" particularly in English. And sometimes he responds better to "nie" than "no", but that could be a discipline problem as much as anything else of course. :-D

He is an incredibly good-natured baby - excuse me, one-year-old boy - who puts himself down for naps when he's tired and who will eat anything you give him.

I can't wait to see how he grows up.