Understanding, hide and seek, and trains

I have a lot of things to say today. Some pet peeves and some funny stories and even though I know you will quit reading halfway through this post I’m going to squish it all in anyway.

Chapter 1

I don’t understand anything going on in my house anymore. When we were having our first child and didn’t know if it was going to be a boy or a girl I admitted that I wanted a boy because I don’t understand girls. Who does really? No men that I know. So I thought I would understand a boy better…..we of course had a girl and I of course fell in love with her right away. Lainey is great and although she is pure girl, drama queen central, and all around crazy, I love her. (today we were having an interaction that was – I love you even though you don’t like football Lainey, to which she replied, I love you even though you do.)

I am encountering a problem understanding my daughter currently, but it's not at all the kind of problem I anticipated! Laine is a great communicator. Thanks to sign language as a baby and very advanced speech pretty early in life I’ve been able to understand everything she says. That has all changed now. I no longer understand anything she says to me. Why don’t I understand anything? Laine now only speaks to me in Spanish. We started Lainey in a Spanish immersion preschool that ONLY speaks Spanish. For three hours every day she hears absolutely no English and she thinks it is awesome. Marie also thinks this is great and has recently dug out her Spanish dictionaries from AP Spanish in high school and she and Lainey carry on and on in Spanish. The only problem is that I don’t speak any Spanish. One Spanish class in 7^th grade is just not cutting it. Lainey also has no patience or understanding for the fact that I don’t speak Spanish. The other day we were driving home and Lainey was in the back of the car munching down some chicken nuggets. “yo quiero mas catsup por favor papa?”

“What?” I said. “yo quiero mas catsup por favor papa, por mi pollo.”

I don’t speak Spanish but I’m not totally dumb so I could hear the word ketchup in there somewhere (not sure if she was using a real word or just spanishizing the word) but anyway – I knew she said something about either wanting or needing ketchup or NOT wanting or needing ketchup, I couldn’t tell for sure. So I asked –“Do you need more ketchup?” “si papa, gracias.”

This morning we were having breakfast together and Laine kept saying over and over something I couldn’t understand. I knew she was asking for something but EVERYONE knows I don’t speak Spanish so I assumed no response was expected from me. I assumed wrong. Finally Marie said , “Jim , will you please help her with that?” “sure,” I said, “but I have no idea what she is asking for.”

Marie started to laugh like she had just realized for the first time that I don’t speak Spanish and explained that Laine was requesting some juice. I’ve tried retaliating and only speaking Swedish to everyone but they just ignore me and act like I’m not there. Not very effective.

Chapter 2

We have been playing hide and seek a ton with the kids lately. It has been really fun. Rom has a couple of favorite hiding spots but the absolute best spot for him is in the pantry. He can stand in there in the dark for the longest time and think it is just great. So this morning this was what was going on in our house. A little pre-church, try not to get to dirty or mess too many things up round of hide and seek. Rom went straight into the pantry. Finally the game ended but he wouldn’t come out. He just kept shutting the door. I didn’t really care because it kept him occupied while Marie and I were trying to get ready for church. Finally I was about to walk out door with Laine, and Marie and Rom were going to follow a few minutes later. It occurred to me that Marie didn’t know Romney was in there so I let her know…”oh, hey, Romney is in the pantry if you are looking for him.” She laughed at the silliness of this statement and went to get him out. I was almost out the door when I heard Marie scream.

Obviously I had to go back to see what had happened and found Romney sitting on the floor of the pantry with both hands in the Crisco. I swear I had checked on him just minutes ago!

Chapter 3

The kids and I were on our own yesterday morning and decided to head out for a bike ride. Lainey has a new trail-a-bike that she FINALLY is willing to try and it turns out she LOVES it – which is awesome and will lead to great fun next summer I predict. Rom however still needs a spot and we only have a bike trailer for him. So how do we do this? BIKE TRAIN! We hooked up the trail-a-bike to me and then the trailer to Lainey. I was officially the engine, Laine the dining car, and Romney the caboose. They rode like this all the way to my parents house (3 or 4 miles) hung out for awhile, then rode back. Lainey was a super trooper. It was awesome.

I tried to find a Jerry Douglas song "We hide and seek" to add to the playlist in honor of this post.....but the service didn't have it - so go check it out and buy it. Great song.

We did add Besame Mucho (laine tells me this means kiss me a lot) for your spanish enjoyment