During school holidays, our 4½-year-old daughter attends the centre de loisir in her school building. On the last day of the week, there is usually a party, and kids can come in costumes. Last Friday when I picked up my little witch, I met her BFF S. about whom I’d already heard a lot. She wore a pink dress featuring several Disney princesses. Later, my daughter said, “S. didn’t wear a costume today.” I was a bit surprised: “But S. wore a princess dress!” My daughter rolled her eyes at me and explained. “But Mommy, that wasn’t a costume! That was only a Disney dress!”

A few weeks ago, I said something about Daddy being an adult. Which prompted this exclamation from our 4½-year-old daughter: “C’est pas un adulte, papa!” (Daddy isn’t a grown-up!)
We looked at each other. He shrugged. I grinned.
And she added the punch line: “C’est un parent.” (He’s a parent.)

The other day, my daughter (currently 4½) and I were playing with her various plush animals. She handed me her dragon hand puppet, informing me that it was not a real dragon.
Me: “It’s not?”
Her: “No, look.” She dropped it. “See? It can’t fly.”

Our family is quite a bit international, or European at least: In addition to German (Mom) and French (Dad), there is D., the second husband of my widowed mother-in-law, who is from Turkey, and my divorced father’s partner A., who is from Lithuania.

Yesterday, during a car ride, my daughter and I were playing a guessing game based on colours. After a while I was running out of the basic colours that I knew she mastered, and I ventured into new territory:

“I’m thinking of something turquoise.”

Daughter thinks for a moment, then: “Oh, I know, it’s D.!”

No, my stepfather-in-law is not “türkis”  but he’s “türkisch” (Turkish). Close enough. 🙂

Two nights ago, I read my 4-year-old daughter a new book from the Conni series (for the second time). Afterwards, she chose the same book for Daddy’s bedtime story. Whenever she chooses a German book for him, he tells the story by the images, which works well for this series. However, some details mentioned in the text obviously won’t be in the pictures, and I always enjoy listening in on how she “corrects” Daddy.
This time it was especially funny. In the story, Conni and her mom were going to a pet shop to get the basic equipment for Conni’s new cat. The picture shows them in the shop, with Conni’s mom inspecting a cat tree. Daddy included the cat tree in the purchases they made, but he was informed that they didn’t buy the cat tree because “il est– zu teuer.” As she couldn’t come up with the French word for “too expensive”, and Daddy didn’t seem to understand her German stand-in, she told him “ça coûte beaucoup d’euros” (it costs a lot of euros).

This afternoon, my daughter and I went to the playground with her friend E. and her mother. I had only found out recently that the mother is anglophone, and so of course I chatted her up on the subject.
At some point, the girls came to see us. E. wanted something from her mother who reminded her to “say please”.
When a few moments later, my daughter asked something of me, begging me with “Bitte bitte bitte!”, E. stood beside her and said “Tu dois dire please.” (You have to say please.)

As a result, E.’s mother and I explained to the girls that

s’il te plaît = please = bitte

Don’t we have polite girls? 🙂

Last week, during the European Aquatics Championships in Berlin (BLN 2014), I tried to watch whatever race I could catch between coming home from work and bedtime. I don’t follow any swimmers in particular, so when a race came up where I didn’t know a single name, I said: “I don’t know anyone there, I’ll just cheer for all of them.”
My daughter: “But Mommy, you must know them, you go to the swimming pool all the time!”

And a few days later, when Daddy told her I was going to the swimming pool: “Maybe we’ll see Mommy on TV then.”

My four-years-and-one-month-old daughter recently expressed the wish to learn reading. So naturally I pulled out all the stops, ordered a reading kit from Kinder lernen lesen and bought an alphabet poster.

Last night, she “read” the first letter

and proudly declared “A wie pomme!”

The other day, while on holidays in Germany, we were walking through a pedestrian shopping street in Flensburg, the northernmost city in Germany. I told Daddy: “Admire les jolies façades !” (Admire the nice façades!)
Which he dutifully did. (They were nice.)

My words prompted my 4-year-old daughter to add: “Regardez ce magnifique hélicoptère !” (Look at this magnificent helicopter!)
Naturally, we obliged.

When we’re in Germany, I have a tendency to raid bookshops, much to the delight of my 4-year-old daughter (she always finds something by herself there). The other day, after our second raid in three days, we passed the bookshop we’d just left a little earlier.

My daughter: “Können wir da nochmal rein?” (Can we go back in there?)
Me: “Nein, ich habe kein Geld mehr.” (No, I don’t have any money left.)
She: “Gehen wir erst Geld kaufen?” (Let’s go and buy some money first.)

Sure honey, I’ll just get some from that nice ATM down the street. 🙂