I speak somewhat random 7 languages and apparently brain capacity 🙂 and smartness and talent is one of the things mother gives to kids. What fathers give to kids? Dunno. But the languages give me and kids quite fun time. Not only the Scrabble that we play every now and then in two different languages! One of my kids decided by himself that he shall now learn German for fun. That was some three years ago. Out of the blue, all by himself. He has done the Duolingo thingy and he always asks some words from me aswell. Like: what’s some funny words you know, or what happened if I used wrong word is some conversations and so on…. Like the best joke about an hedgehog in the spring that I remembered one word wrong and that was the start of a great friendship with HM ambassador some many years ago….. So for some years now we casually chat away using not only German or English or Russian, but also Swedish and Finnish and Polish and even Spanish and Italian. I know nothing about Spanish but I understand quite a lot in certain situations and the rules for our inside game are we can use any language that we know the word in what we need. Like if you want to say sentence “How was your day” in as many different languages at once as possible. So our usual evening when I come home would be like that…. or actually was today:

Kid 1: Buenas tardes! ?que tal tu dia?  (* the rule is you can also mix all different languages up: Good tardes! How byl tvoi päiväsi? Here is four languages mixed up)

Me: Horrible as usual, I am half way dead frozen

Kid 1: ooh, por que, oh por que!?

Me: well, it’s fucking freezing, was minus 17C today (for the Fahrenheit lovers it’s about 1-2F and that’s literally death by freezing cos I was out by the sea all day long)

Kid 1: Wie dem auch sei! Vad blir det till middag? Kyckling?

Me: Well, whatever you want. Pick something and voila! izz a commin! 

Kid 1 to Kid 2 (has headphones on, so Kid 1 is yelling): oy! Shall we have kyckling for dinner?

Kid 2 to Kid 1: I have no clue what you just said

Kid 1 to Kid 2: I said if you would like to have kyckling for dinner?

Kid 2 to Kid 1: I have no idea what kyckling is, mate

Kid 1 to Kid 2: It’s a chicken, mate, a chicken

Kid 2 to Kid 1: what is chicken?

Kid 1 to Kid 2: kyckling is a chicken, mate!

Kid 2 to Kid 1: what are you on about

Kid 1 to Kid 2: kyckling is chicken in Swedish, mate!

Kid 2 to Kid 1: aah, ok, I thought it’s some sort of style of chicken like indian or something

Kid 1 to Kid 2: nooo! Are you stupid? You don’t know how is chicken in Swedish?!?

Kid 2 to Kid 1: why should I know chicken in Swedish? I don’t know anyone speaking Swedish!

Kid 1 to Kid 2: so? You must know minimum in every language! 

Kid 2 to Kid 1: you are not OK in your head, mate! So whats for dinner?

Kid 1 to Kid 2: I’ll say kyckling to mom then?

Kid 2 to Kid 1: kyckling it is!

By that time I was hysterically laughing while sitting in toilet, trying to get my arse and feet (on the hot floor) thawn. Those two were like hillbillies yelling about what they should order me to make for dinner. We have sort of game of manners aswell. I tell them you go take a look whats in the fridge, follow the dates of all the stuff, keep an eye on so that we don’t throw stuff away because we forgot that damn chicken in the back. Then they must decide and agree among themselves on what they want for dinner and then they sort of give me the order. It has been like that years and this kind of solution came about when they all had different wishes for dinner. For some three of four years I actually made three to four different dinners every day. Until I had enough. One day they made their choices, and I did their “orders” and then!!!!!! Two of them said: oh, I’d rather have what you have and they did not eat their dinners. That moment I figured out: I will do one dinner for all, based on what you order, and you have to agree upon first. I sometimes don’t eat the dinner they order, like mac-n-cheese or burgers. Then I still enjoy separate dinner. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, both the four different dinners or even less difficult the two dinners. I hate throwing away food and I am proud I tricked them all to work together and now they have to eat what they have ordered. Damn, I’m clever! My single dinner sometimes is just whole Brie and two glasses of wine :). Or, if I can pull it off a box of best sushi in town. Now that’s the difficult one because just one of my kids eats sushi, others don’t. And he loves sushi. So few times it’s been so that we two have sushi and others have whatever they invent. 

Ah, some of you might think: tf is wrong with this chick, doing four dinners for one seating at home. Well, it came to be for several reasons. One being that oldest kid is autist. He could not eat potatoes for some ten or 15 years. Then another don’t eat seafood AT ALL, yet rest of us LOVE pasta ai frutti di mare or pasta alla scoglio! So to get them and myself peacefully fed I figured I will have two bases like pasta and potatoes, and three or four sauces as per everyones preferences. So I had pot with pasta going, pot with potatoes, and pot for me with asparagus…. oh well, I see how that sounds ridiculous but I was really good with this system! Then on pans I had either bacon or mince or salmon or…. In the end I had plate of exactly what was orderd to each one. And NOTHING ever was thrown away. I ran a literal a la carte restaurant in the evenings! Ah, and usually the prepping was accompanied with the best music, usually set to support my mood, ofcourse. 

So this hilarious thing just happened today when I came home and I figured to put it all in writing fast before I forget. I have lost many good situations because of not writing them down immediately. Like the one with sock. I have just managed to write down a remark for my new short story: the sock. I have no blody clue what was that about. Hilarious for sure, because I made an effort to remember. Yet I have no clue. Which now woudl be the same if I was to write down just word kyckling. Already tomorrow I would have no idea why I wrote down chicken in Swedish to my notebook. 

So thats how we keep busy, learning languages, playing with words in different languages, having fun. Not once was hilarious when in scrabble someone put down some word in English, pleased and proud and the rest of us ask what is that word, it’s not in English. Only to be confused and realise oh, yes, that’s in German! I hear this kind of play is good for oldies to keep away Alzheimers too. Ain’t too early to fight that bugger off !

Stay cool and hot!

XOXOX