Chili Nuts

My husband has a ritual. When watching a soccer match on television, he likes to have a glass of beer and something salty to munch on, for example, chili nuts.

Not so long ago, the all-important, the-world-will-implode-if-you-don't-see-it European Champion's League final was on tv, and the kids got to see a little bit of the game and have their first taste of chili nuts. Bonding over sports, a bizarre ritual, if you ask me, but the kids enjoyed it.

So the other day, Laney and I were doing some grocery shopping. While I pushed the big cart around and loaded it with boring food items, she pushed her mini shopping cart around and loaded it with healthfood, i.e.-sugary cereal, strawberry milk, and chili nuts for daddy. When we got home, she proudly showed him what she had bought for him.

Fast-forward to that evening -- as Laney was getting ready for bed, she asked her father, "Aren't we going to go downstairs and watch soccer and eat chili nuts?"

Exasperated

I told Laney to get ready for bed.

She gave me her most exasperated look and said, "Again?! We ALWAYS have to go to bed!! We have to go to bed every day!"

Poor kid. Those are the breaks. Life is hard in this house.

Art of Flattery

Relevant background info:
synes = think or feel in Norwegian
Laney regularly mixes Norwegian in with her English. Anyhoo. . .

Laney likes to give compliments. She adopts a very girlish, sweet tone and says, " I like you" or "you're pretty." Today, she told her father, "I like you best. And Mommy. And Nicky. I like all of you three." She was also in a kissy/huggy mood and gave them generously.

The other day, she pulled me close and whispered in my ear, "Mommy, I synes you're not stupid. I synes you're pretty."

Awww, kiddo. Sniff. Sniff. That's the best compliment ever.

Touche

Laney was walking around, arching her back, and sticking her stomach out as far as she could.

Seven teased her. "Do you have a big stomach?"

She didn't miss a beat and said nonchalantly, "Not as big as yours."

Nice.

Tact. We'll work on tact.

Where we were married

Do you know that show Little Einstiens -- children's television that pretends to be intellectual by throwing in a couple of classical music bits? Laney loves it.

In one episode, the four explorers are flying over Florence, Italy in their little red spaceship.

"Hey, pappa and I got married there," I said, pointing at the television.

"In a spaceship?"

Um, no. In Florence.

Mommy better watch herself. . .

Yesterday, Nicky threatened me with the following:

"If we don't play one more game of Uno, I won't snuggle with you tomorrow."

I can't tell you how hard it is to keep a straight face when you're being threatened with the word snuggle.

A conversation

Kids say the weirdest things when they think you're not paying attention. We were lying in bed this Sunday morning and Nicky crawled in with two favorite characters. The following is an excerpt from their conversation.

A conversation between Spiderman and a transformer called Bulkhead

Plllllllllllllwwwwwwwwwwfffffftttttt. (Extreme farting noise)

Bulkhead: Æsj! Gross! Spiderman, why did you fart?
Spiderman: I just wanted to.

Suddenly, the two begin wrestling. Conversation moves on.

Imagining this conversation taking place in real life between the real Spiderman and Bulkhead sent me into peals of laughter.

Kids are just goofy.

Pekepølse

Dette er hva Laney kaller salami (spekepølse).

Kids are good for the ego

Laney saw a picture of an actress in a Renaissance-style dress that pushed her breasts into her throat.

She says to me, "Her these (referring to the actress' breasts) are up there. Your these (referring to my breasts) are down there."

Hey, kiddo. Watch your mouth. They haven't sunk that low yet! Have they? Have they?! Oh, no! I've gotta run and check! Oh, good lord! Am I a dwarf with sagging boobs?!

Adventures in Bathing Suit Buying

A friend of mine sent me her humorous tale of bathing suit shopping with a three-year-old. It's too funny not to share, so with her permission, here you go.

As if buying a bathing suit at my size isn't humiliating enough, my lovely daughter has to make the shopping experience even worse! Seriously, never take your kids bathing suit shopping with you!

Last weekend, I decided that I needed a new bathing suit. We have several upcoming pool parties and a weekend beach trip, so I figured I'd go and look around. So off we went to the mall, and my daughter insisted on coming with me.

OK, fine. Not in the plan, but whatever.

We go to Macy's and as I pass the really cute, tiny, two-piece things, my daughter announces for the whole store to hear, "We have to look for a BIG bathing suit for you, right, Mama?" I think she meant adult-sized, as opposed to kid-sized, but it sounded so bad!

As I'm going through racks of depressing, modestly cut one-piece numbers that scream "middle-aged and cellulite," she adds, "Yeah, you need to find another bathing suit because yours is TOO SMALL, right?" This comment is bad enough if it were true, but it's NOT true! I'm still the same size, but the suit is just getting old and faded! Whatever, let it go, let it go...

As I'm trying the suits on, she starts cracking up and yells, "I can see your boobies and belly button!" I heard some stifled laughter from several rooms!

Then she asks, "How come you're taking off ALL your clothes?" Again, not true -just the bra, I always keep my panties on when trying on swim suits! Anyway, I couldn't find anything that looked decent so I think I'll do what I should've done in the first place and order something online.

I think this is the beginning of many situations like this one...

Yeah, shopping ain't as fun as it used to be!

New Baby

We were in the grocery store when a woman passed us with her newborn.

"Mommy, can we have that baby," Laney asked me.

"You want that baby?"

"Noooooooooo, not THAT baby. We can't take baby away from her. We can buy a new baby!"

Later, I heard a baby wailing loudly. We passed the same mother again as she tried to wrestle her older child's hands out of the candy dispensers, while baby screeched her protest at being left in the carrier. From the look on the frazzled mother's face, my guess is that we might have been able to buy THAT baby at that moment. Her brother would have been thrown in for free.

No, kiddo. If this mommy's going to be buying anything, it's first-class tickets to an expensive Caribbean resort, so she can lounge around in a big straw hat with a good book in one hand and a daiquiri in the other.

Friends

I was changing her for the morning when Laney says to me in her cute voice, "We are friends."

I melted inside.

"We ARE friends," I said and gave her a hug.

May it will always be that way, baby, even when you're sixteen.

Mommy, are you a dwarf?

We caught the end of a documentary about a woman with restricted growth disorder, i.e.- dwarfism, coming to terms with her condition and meeting others like herself for the first time.

I explained to Nicky that she had a condition that did not allow her to grow to a normal adult height and that she was very small, not much taller than he was.

He asked me, in all earnestness, "Mommy, are you a dwarf?"

Hmpf.

What's he trying to say? I am 5'2", first thing in the morning at my full height, thank you very much. Dwarf, indeed.

I didn't take it personally, as later, he asked, "Mommy, am I a dwarf?"

Personally, I prefer the term vertically challenged.

Sounds like fun

We were playing hide-and-seek. Nicky hid under the bed. When I found him, he kicked his leg out. I moved my head so as to avoid a black eye.

"Mommy, can you put your head back," he asked me.

"No, Nicky," I responded. "I don't want you to kick me in the face."

"I won't kick you in the face really hard. Just a little."

Gee, kiddo, sounds like a win-win situation all 'round. . .

Silly me. I didn't actually think he was aiming for my head.

Bless You

Laney came to me with a package of tissues today. She wanted me to hide them in my sock. Ummm, okay.

"Mommy, put this Bless Yous in your sock," she tells me.

She also calls a sneeze a Bless You.

Prinsessa

For the Norwegians in the house. . .

Laney elsker plaster -- særlig dem med motiver på. Hun kaller dem ¨klistremerker¨ og vil ha dem over hele kroppen sin. Her om dagen hadde hun et "klistremerke" med Askepott på armen sin.

Jeg spurte henne hvem den prinsessen var.

"Påskepott," svarte hun veldig stolt.

"Mener du Askepott?"

"Ja, påskepott."

Så da pappaen kom hjem, sa jeg at hun måtte forteller pappa hva prinsessen på armen heter.

"Vaskepott," svarte hun selvsikkert.

Det var kanskje det beste navn av alle tre. . .

No more Norwegian

I was getting ready to go to my Norwegian class when I heard Nicky running up the steps.

"Mommy," he said a little breathless. "You have to call me if you see any invisible bad guys at your school."

"Um, okay."

"Don't forget, you have to call me, okay? (pause) Why do you have to learn Norwegian?"

"Lots of reasons. One day, you'll go to school and have homework and stuff. I'll have to help you and Laney with your homework."

"Pappa can help us with our homework. Don't go! Don't go to your class!"

Aha! The real reason for this conversation.

I think he thought that settled matters, because when I was about to walk out the door, he reminded me, "Pappa is going to help me and Laney with our homework. You don't have to learn Norwegian anymore."

Sigh. I wish it were that easy.

Plooping in my underwear

I read recently that if you start learning two languages from birth, then you use the same part of the brain to process the languages. If you start learning a second language later in life, then you actually use a different part of the brain to learn the new language. I didn't read what age the different part of the brain kicks in, which I would be curious to know.

It makes sense to me. Last summer, I found myself trying to speak to a couple of Japanese tourists who were lost. My Japanese is stronger than my Norwegian, and certainly was at that time, but I found that only Norwegian words would come out. Try as I might, I could NOT find the Japanese words. In essence, the first few words out of my mouth were Norwaneseish. Yeah, gibberish. Basically, I had accosted these lost Japanese tourists and started speaking gibberish at them, scaring the shit out of them in the process, I'm sure. They probably couldn't figure out what the heck was going on at first. "Who IS this woman? What does she want? Why is she talking to us like that? No! No! Leave us alone!"

It's like my brain processes English, then all others. If it's not English, then it pulls up the first foreign word that it can. Norwegian words are at the top of the pile, failing that, Japanese comes next. It doesn't matter which language I'm trying to speak. Of course, if it is Norwegian, then it works. If it is Japanese, then something really bizarre comes out. It doesn't matter that my Norwegian is still pretty poor. It's the language at the top of my 'other' pile.

For the kids, it is so different. They switch back and forth with ease, since they are growing up bi-lingual.* They can distinguish between the languages and rarely mix them. English is for mommy (or mommy's family) and Norwegian is for everyone else, including each other. In fact, Nicky gets really irritated if he is speaking English and someone else, i.e.-pappa, answers. He is also known to give Norwegians who dare to use English with him a funny look. Laney just tells them off. Someone spoke to her in English the other day and she said firmly, "You're not mommy!!"

Still, learning to languages from the get-go can't be easy and sometimes the kids say really cute things.

My current favorite is "ploop."

The Norwegian word for fart is propp. Laney translated it herself into English as ploop. Anyone with kids knows that kids ploop all of the time, so she'll often announce, "I plooped in my underwear!" She is pretty much potty-trained and one morning I put her on the toilet and then went to get her clothes. She had gotten off herself, and I was a little worried about that and asked her if she had gone poo poo. She gave me her most withering "Don't you know anything?" look and said in a very sassy voice, "No, I just plooped in the toilet," and walked off. Very hard to be sassy, missy, when you're throwing a word like ploop around!

The bilingual kids in the front yard a few weeks ago.

It's also interesting (to me anyway) to see how the kids will directly translate things from one language to another -- most often from Norwegian into English as Norwegian is the dominant language -- when they don't immediately know the equivalent. For example,

With one time! It means right now! It's a direct translation from the Norwegian med en gang.

Pee pee me out. Also a direct translation which means to have a potty accident. This totally cracked me up the first time I heard it.

Summer flowoo (flower). Laney said this to mean butterfly. The Norwegian word for butterfly, sommerfugl, translates into summer bird. I guess she mixed the words and sounds.

I is really fascinating to watch how they process it all. You can see it in grammar mistakes they make, like switching word order, but mostly you see it in how extensive their vocabulary is in both languages. I am at the point now that if I don't know what a word is in Norwegian, I can ask Nicky and he can tell me. He acts as my tutor and is very excited to teach me words. It's a little sad for me that my four-year-old is better than me, but it makes me very proud too.

I don't have so many recent indoor photos of the kids, so I'll post this one because I love it. Nicky was two years old and Laney was five months old.

*I grew up sort of bilingual. I could understand Japanese and some things come easy to me that are hard in a second language, like thinking in numbers or simple math (it's so much more natural to do these things in your first language), but I was never bilingual the way my kids are.

Material World

I have been having the "Mommy, we just need to buy XXX" conversation with my kids much too often recently. Mostly, it's Nicky. He knows we buy milk, bread and his toys. Of course, he has no real understanding of money and how much things cost. He also thinks that items like, the Death Star, are available for purchase. If we don't have it, we just buy it. Simple.

Laney has adopted this thinking. Yesterday I was making dinner and she came in and announced, "Mommy, you have to buy a penis for me."