Nestor {from the back of my bike, where he is always the most inspired to talk}: “Mama, leven is leuk.”
I {Instead of the only life motto you need, I hear a grammar mistake. Adults are funny like that.}: “Yes, darling, life is good. Het leven is leuk.”
Nestor: “Nee, dat bedoel ik niet. Ik bedoel het.is.leuk.om.te.leven” (No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant: It is good to live.)
****
Nestor: “Mama, M (the new kid in his class) does not speak Dutch, only German and English. I think he is really sweet so I am helping him learn Dutch. Today I thought him to say “In a galaxy far far away”.
I: “Very sweet of you, Nestor. And very useful, indeed.”
****
I: “Nestor, what would you like to do today?”
Nestor: “Build technology!”
There is no hope for this one either. {The photo below is Una’s first technical design of a boat made from milk carton. At the age of 6. }
****
Nestor: “Mama, I am so happy you were born.”
I: {sometimes there just are no words}.
Una: “Mama, do you think I could be a strip tekenaar (comic book artist)?
I: “I think you could, what do you think?”
Una: “I kind of think so too. I am quite good at both drawing and creating stories, so I thought this could be a good choice for me”.
****
Una: “Daddy, could you help me find a good app, I would like to start learning Chinese”
Mark: “?X$$%%#%#%#”
{And there we wondered whether she could handle being trilingual}
{Nestor and I are doing grocery shopping. Freshly baked chocolate croissants are calling from the bread isle.}
I: “Nestor, would you like a chocolate croissant?”
Nestor : “Neee! Dat is helemaal ongezond! (That is totally unhealthy!) {giving me a look of disgust, as though I suggested that we have McDonalds hamburgers with a side of sugar candy for dinner}
Today I am grateful for dinner time laughter our happy, silly boy is making sure we get plenty of, every day. Like most parents, we try to each our children table manners, which sometimes involves marching orders: sit on your chair/elbows off the table/leave your sister(brother) alone/you’ll choke if you laugh and eat at the same time/stop popping cherry tomatoes so that they splash everyone around, you know the usual. I hope we succeed in teaching them manners without shutting off the laughter.
Oh yes, I am also grateful for Nestor’s daily additions to the dutch/english/serbian dictionary (we aren’t quite sure where he intends to place it). Word of the day – lofelijk (according to Nestor, this means: “Not being in the mood to eat the food that is on the table”). At least for this one he graced us with explaining the meaning, we are still baffled by what bohonder means and he.just.won’t.tell.
{we made a mistake of telling the kids three months too early that we will probably visit the Playmobil park in Germany during the summer holidays}
Nestor: “Mama, Playmobil is the best thing ever. Playmobil and Riley (Nestor’s best friend).
I: “Playmobil and Riley? Nice.”
Nestor: “Mama, Riley is 4 and I am only 3. Do you think that 3 is good enough? I think that 3 is good enough.
I {while trying not to fall off the bicycle laughing}: “Yes, Nestor, I think that 3 is enough.”
{pause}
Nestor: “Mama, I am SO old”.
***
{after dinner conversation}
Nestor: “Mama, Daddy, do you know what my plan now is?
Mark and I: “No, what is your plan?”
Nestor: “My plan is to talk to my sister. THAT is my plan.”
***
Nestor: “Mama, ik vind je ZO lief!” {I think that you are so sweet}
Mama: {instant melting}
Note: I write what Nestor says in English, for the most part. The language that he mostly uses at the moment is Dutch though. The conversation about his plans to talk to his sister was in English, with a fake British accent, no idea where that came from. I also write my answers in English, while in reality I only speak Serbian to him.
A couple of months ago Una started accompanying me on my weekend runs. She cycles next to me, trying really hard to maintain her balance while keeping up with my lightning fast pace. This is wonderful for many reasons: I have company, she cheers on me when I feel like I am going to fall dead and to be honest makes me go when I really want to stop, I want to show her that mama is not a quitter. But above all I cherish the opportunity for her to open up to me and have an uninterrupted hour to talk to each other without anyone or anything disturbing it. And given that I am normally too busy trying to regulate my breath so that I don’t fall dead as I mentioned before, Una is the one who does most of the talking. And she is the kind of child who, or if I consciously apply the non-labeling principle of mindful parenting, is in the phase when she needs time and attention to really talk.
So this past Saturday we were chatting about her school mates, the upcoming four-day walk (avondvierdaagse) and all kinds of things and somehow stumbled upon multilingualism, foreign roots and such. Now the concept of speaking more than one language is natural to her, there are a couple of other kids in her class who are bilingual, we have friends with bilingual or trilingual kids so this doesn’t phase her. But I was surprised when she said: “You know that Timo is half Dutch, half German?” I replied that I knew because I spoke to his mum and she told me that she was German and spoke German to her kids. And then I added: “The same way you are half South African, half Serbian”. She looked puzzled: “And half Dutch?” I told her that her origins are not Dutch but that she was born here, is growing up here and that this is her home. And that it is most important how she feels. I then asked her how she feels and she replied: “I am not sure. Is that OK?” I told her that it is more than OK and that how she feels will most likely change over time, sometimes she will feel “more Dutch”, sometimes more South African or Serbian, especially if she spends more time there or meets other people with the same background. She told me that it made sense and seemed perfectly satisfied with the explanation. I was happy that I managed to address an important issue in a way that she understands but also that we believe in. Religion and origin of babies next, wish me luck (of course we talked about both before but she keeps coming up with more complex questions like:””What happens if when you grow up you don’t want children and still get them?” She is only six, I am not prepared!!)
*****
A perk of not speaking the community language at home is that by carefully listening to what your children say in that language you can tell so much on what kind of environment they are exposed to at school. Lately, Nestor has been saying things like: “Kom lieverd” (Let’s go my dear), “Perfect gedaan!” (Well done!), “Kusje erop?” (a kiss on it? – when someone is hurting), “mag als je wilt” (if you want) etc. At his first evaluation in this preschool, his teacher showed me the indicators on his development and everything was on track or ahead, while his language was on the level of a 3.5 year old (he is 2.5). She admitted that they are all so amazed as they were openly quite skeptical about his trilingual upbringing. This is the first preschool/daycare that we’ve come across both with Una and Nestor that expressed such opinion which made us a bit uneasy at the beginning. And while they do work with a program for preschool education through play, they strike me as much more structured and old-fashioned compared to Nestor’s previous creche which worked on the Reggio Emilia principles, had their own atelier, a yoga teacher and a super-relaxed atmosphere. We loved it. Nestor wasn’t as enthusiastic. So when the teacher asked me at the evaluation of the new pre-school if we have any concerns/issues to be raised I was totally honest – I told her that as long as he is so happy to go there there is little else relevant to us. The language tell-tales and his excitement when we get on the bicycle to go to school and disappointment when he realises that today is not a school day tells us without a doubt that he is well cared for, loved and encouraged there. And that is all that, at his age, he needs from school.
Filed under Raising multilingual children
When Una was about the age that Nestor is now, like any first time parents we were naturally marveling at every new word she learnt and every new sentence construction she would put together. An additional dimension of hilariousness was that she would use all three languages at the same time, very often in one sentence (this blog’s address is one of Una’s first sentences, met-the-ovo – meaning with-the-this (dutch/english/serbian)). But sadly, other than a few very memorable ones, we forgot a lot of these early gems, and also I honestly have no idea how big her vocabulary was when she was 18/22/24 months old. So I am going to do the opposite of what my parents (read: my father) did and try to record my youngest child’s verbal development. While my father lovingly and meticulously kept/marked/framed/gold plated my sister’s doodles from 1-10 years in half a day increments, the only thing I have from my early childhood other than a photo here and there (in most of which they couldn’t have been bothered to wipe my beloved jam off my face) is that one tape of me singing yelling at them. They later tried making up for that with the cheesy stories of how I made our family complete, was an angel baby and could read at the age of 4. Of course I was too smart to buy into any of it, I could read at the age of 4 for goodness sake. I hope you now understand why I have a soft spot for younger siblings.
Anyway, I thought I would write down some words and sentences that Nestor now uses on a daily base. And while Una at this age spoke mostly in Serbian, then in Dutch and only then in English Nestor seems to be a lot more balanced. So at 20 months old some things he says:
Serbian:
Ne tamo (not there, I use that a lot with him)
Moja zaba (my frog)
Ide kozice (going to the goats)
Gde je, gde je? (where is, where is)
Oko/glava/nos/uvo (eye/head/nose/ear)
Pazi! (look out, careful)
Pada kisa, mokro (it is raining and wet)
Nije nase auto (it is not our car – followed by a sigh if it is a car fancier than ours which is, well, most cars)
Sokoooo (Juuuuuiceeeee)
Sam! (Alone, by myself!)
Njam njam (yum, yum)
baka/deka/te(t)ka/Jana – granma/granpa/aunty/Jana
slon/maca/krava/patka/mis (elephant/cat/cow/duck/mouse or Smurph)
JOS! (More!)
B(r)avo!
Veeeliko more (biiig sea)
Puuuno auta (lots of cars)
Avion/kamion (airplane/truck)
Kaki (#2)
Pupa (belly button)
Kasika (spoon)
Mama nos(i) (Mama, carry me)
Ca(ra)pe – socks, this kid is obsessed with socks, every morning when we dress him he is very concrete on which pair he wants for the day, the rest he doesn’t care too much about but socks he is serious about
Pec-pec (hot-hot)
Fuji (yuck)
English:
Is a good boy (mostly when he is not:))
Give me dummy
Look!
Whyyyyyy?
Enough Una! (he uses this a lot)
Kiss, kiss!
Come seka (seka means “a little sister” in Serbian which is how he mostly calls Una)
Horsey, horsey
Cookieeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Give hand
There you gooooooo
Money, money, funny (can you tell that we are Mama Mia fans?)
Good morning (sounds more like “good moaning” though)
Thank you. (he say is every.time.you give him something. And it is still adorable)
P(l)ease. (hmm, looks like he is learning his manners from Daddy and learning to give orders from mama…)
Chippy
Fishy/cat/ducky/horsey/birdie
Hot (more pronounced like hooooooot)
C(l)ean, c(l)ean
Dutch:
Ik wil (I want to – this he uses with all three languages, so he will say “Ik wil tamo” for “I want to go there”)
Ik wil slapen/drinken/eten – I want to sleep/drink/eat
Zitten bum – this comes from the phase where he thought that chairs are for standing on them and subsequently falling off, so Mark lost his voice repeating “sit on your bum” which became “zitten bum” and this is what he uses every time he sees anything that can be sat on.
Van mij! (Mine! – this is the first Dutch word that Una learnt as well, day care survival)
Pindakaas (peanut butter)
Appel (apple)
Is weg (it is gone)
Mama werken (mama is at work)
Ball (ball, but pronounced differently)
Lopen (walk)
I am sure this is not all, he is a real chatterbox these days, although his most effective way of communication by far has recently been the lovely screech that mostly gets him what he wants VERY fast. Will try to add new ones every month or so, it should be interesting (for Mark and I only, of course) to follow how it develops and I am sure there will be many “met-the-ovo”s of his own to come!
Filed under Raising multilingual children
A lot of people think that having a multilingual family makes things complicated, especially when some family members do not understand one language that is used in the family. In some situations, this is very true. A meltdown of a toddler in a supermarket is one of them. Not only do you have to reason with a screaming and kicking child why licking the supermarket floor is not such a good idea but you also have to translate what you are telling the toddler to the other parent so that you can both be on the same page. Sounds like fun, no?
But there are other situations when it comes in really handy, for example when:
You know exactly what parent is to blame for such vocabulary. (Hint: no translation has been performed above).
***
Vecina ljudi misli da je podizanje dece na vise jezika uzasno zamorno i komplikovano. Ima situacija u kojima je to tacno. Naprimer, kad pokusavate da dokazete dvoipogodisnjaku da lizanje poda u supermarketu nije tako sjajna ideja. Ne samo sto treba da se raspravljate sa vristecim detetom nego treba da prevodite i drugom roditelju, da bi ste, naravno, bili na istoj strani.
Ali ima i situacija kad je to jako korisno. Npr. kad:
Trazenje uzrocnika izmedju dva roditelja je sasvim pojednostavljeno, zar ne?
I remember someone saying that when an expat reaches the 10-year mark in their new country it is safe to say that they’ll be staying there for good. Mark and I have recently passed this magic mark. I think most of our family and friends have sort of gotten used to the fact that we live here but we still get the “what is keeping you there” question, openly asked or implied. And as this whole blog is sort of an online journal for Una and Nestor and I am sure that one day they’ll be wondering why their parents chose to plant their roots here or wherever else we’ll be I thought that it would be neat to write down how we feel now.
Both of us came here for a very specific reason (getting a PhD) and then stayed a bit longer for another specific reason (getting an EU passport). Fast forward 5 years, we are still here, with a house (a tussenwoning or row house, of course), one child in a Dutch school, 4 red passports and 3.5 bicycles – it doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere any time soon. There must be another specific reason, sure?
It actually is quite simple and comes down to the (for us) great work-family balance that we have going on here. Both of us are doing what we want (or getting there), while working 4 days a week and coming home in time for dinner. Also, the environment and societal values match pretty well with how we want to raise our children (I am sure it makes my mum happy to see that not only have I turned out a socialist after all but have also married a socialist-lite :)). Did it mean that we had to pass up some great opportunities from other parts of the world? With a higher salary and opportunities to move up (up where?) faster? Check and check. Neither of them took more than an evening of thinking time to realise that what we would be giving up here was not worth it. Simple. A fellow expat friend of ours, an Aussie married to a Dutchie and settled here, was once telling me about the childhood she had, the horses, the green fields, the whole nine yards and I asked her what on earth they were still doing in The Netherlands. She said: “Honey, if we could find jobs there where we would work 4 days a week AND be able to pay our $$$ mortgage, we would be on the plane – right now.” That about sums it up.
Do we still dream of hot, slow summer afternoons on which we would sit on our porch with our families and friends and watch all our children run barefoot chasing butterflies? Crisp, white winter mornings sitting on the same porch (there is always a porch!) sipping mulled wine, watching the kiddies build a snowman and warming their little frozen fingers? Sure. We are still looking for that closet leading to Narnia.
****
Nekad davno sam cula da kad provedes 10 godina u zemlji u kojoj se nisi rodio da su sanse velike da ces tu i ostati. Mark i ja smo proslavili gastarbajtersku 10-godisnjicu, i jos smo ovde. Vecina nasih prijatelja i clanova porodica su manje-vise prihvatili cinjenicu da je nasa adresa ovde, ali se pitanje “sta vas drzi tamo?” tu i tamo ipak provuce. I posto je ovaj blog na neki nacin pisana zaostavstina za Unu i Nestora i sigurna sam da ce se jednog dana pitati zasto smo se odlucili da bas ovde pustimo korenje cinilo mi se kao dobra ideja da zapisem ono sto sad mislimo.
I Mark i ja smo ovde dosli (nezavisno jedno od drugog) zbog vrlo konkretnog razloga, da zavrsimo PhD. I onda ostali jos par godina zbog takodje prilicno konkretnog razloga – da dobijemo EU pasos. Ali 5 godina kasnije mi smo i dalje ovde, sa kucom (tipicno holandskom), jednim detetom u holandskoj skoli, 4 crvena pasosa i 3.5 bicikla – ne izgleda da cemo bilo kuda da mrdamo.
Razlog je vrlo jednostavan, i svodi se na (za nas) sjajan balans izmedju porodicnog i poslovnog zivota. Oboje imamo posao koji smo trazili, radimo 4 dana u nedelji i kuci smo na vreme za porodicnu veceru. I drustveno uredjenje i norme se podudaraju sa onim kako bi smo mi zeleli da vaspitavamo Unu i Nestora. Naravno da je bilo prilika koje bi nam pruzile dosta vecu finansijsku stabilnost i mogucnost napredovanja ali ni o jednoj od njih nismo mislili vise od jednog dana, ono sto bi smo izgubili nije vredno toga. Jedna nasa prijateljica, Australijanka udata za Holandjanina i takodje zive ovde mi je jednom prilikom pricala o tome kako je ona odrasla, o konjima, i zelenim prostranstvima i svemu ostalom i ja sam je pitala koji djavo njih dvoje traze ovde. Ona mi je jednostavno odgovorila “Hej, kad bi smo tamo mogli da nadjemo posao na kom bi smo mogli da radimo 4 dana u nedelji i da otplacujemo papreni kredit za kucu mi bi smo istog trenutka bili u avionu!”
Da li mi i dalje sanjarimo o vrucim letnjim popodnevima u kojima sedimo na verandi sa nasim porodicama i prijateljima dok gledamo svu nasu decicu kako trckaraju po travi? Svezim, zimskim jutrima na istoj verandi, dok pijemo kuvano vino i gledamo decicu kako prave sneska i trljamo njihove promrzle prstice da se ugreju? Naravno. I dalje trazimo taj orman koji vodi u Narniu.
Three words for everything 