dynamic elf

Usually, picking up N from school is very gratifying: she runs up to me with a huge grin and LEAPS into my arms, yelling, MOMMY! Some days, though, I miss her more than usual. Last week, I was having one of those days, where I just wanted to quit early and go pick up my kid and do something ridiculous. She had given me strict instructions to not pick her up early that day, though, so I arrived at the appointed hour to the daily leap-hug. I was still bursting with love when packing her drowsy form into the car, so I made a silly "I'm eating you up" noise and ended with a kiss to the head.

Me: Aaaaaaaahhhhm-MWAH!
N: ....why did you say "à moi"?

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She's still counting things. She just doesn't do it out loud anymore, like she did when she was two. But every so often, I hear little numbers racking up under her breath, or she will proudly announce, "It's NINETEEN STEPS from the sidewalk to the car!"

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Natalie is into writing everything, all the time. ( I love this adorable apostrophe-s semi-mastery )

A scene from our car trip to Virginia a couple of weeks ago -- I'm driving, N is writing a shopping list, D is assisting, because she really wants to spell "bread" correctly and she sussed out that "brad" wasn't it from our pleased but vague reactions:

N: How do you spell "bread"? B...?
D: B, that's right. Then R, E, A, D.
N: *writes intently* Then what?
D: E... A....
N: Then D?
D: Yeah! You've spelled "bread"! And I see that you wrote it upside-down so that I could read it!
Me: *spits out coffee*

That's my girl. If I ever had any doubt about her brain being like mine, I don't, anymore.

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This one is dilletante's, from a recent drive to school:

N: We're supposed to speak French now. Talk in French, Daddy!
D (helpful): Je ne parle pas Francais.
N: Yes you do!

*pause*

N: Anyway, je ne parle pas Francais *is* French!

Apparently, this was a good enough joke to her that she relayed the story to her teachers.

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Best car-based mama-and-kid pastime of the moment: putting on the radio and discussing every song that comes on. What instruments are playing, what kind of voice the singer has/is using, how the music makes us feel, whether we like it or not, what else it reminds us of.

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Now, I'm pretty good at languages, but sometimes that little-kid brain amazes me. Natalie and I got into a conversation about Haitian Creole in the car, the other day, and about the teacher at her old school who spoke it and provided Creole translation for the preschool graduation ceremony. Natalie said, "she speaks some French!", to which I responded, well, not quite -- she speaks a whole lot of a language that is similar to French, but different.

It occurred to me that there are a bunch of Haitian Creole AM radio stations I could put on, so that she could hear what Creole sounds like. After all, the last time she talked with this woman, Natalie didn't speak much French at all. So, I switched the radio to AM and began flipping through the dials.

A bit about my brain: when I start to hear something that I half-understand, my understanding and level of knowledge comes first, and I have to spend some time actively processing and thinking about what the sounds are like and which things I do and don't recognize before I can construct what the language must be. So, when I hit a Portuguese talk radio station, I stopped to listen a while and figure out what was going on. Natalie was not fooled: "Nooo, THAT doesn't sound like Sonja!" OK, all right, you're right, let's keep flipping. In my experience, there are a lot of actual Haitan radio call-in shows, so I was scanning to find one of those and flipping past the music. Natalie, of course, said, "no, go back! THAT sounds like Sonja!"

I went back one station, and sure enough -- Haitian Creole music. This means that she remembers what a teacher in another classroom at her old preschool sounded like well enough to pick it out of half a second of music. How does that even work? I love that kid.