December 20, 2006: Freedom of Speech

Veronika's life is mostly about talking. When she wakes up, she asks what day it is and talks about what's going to happen for the day. When she comes home from preschool, she brings home new things that they talked about in class, such as the months of the year, what letters she drew in class, and how to be a "good listener." Whenever anything out of the ordinary happens—good or bad—she will re-tell the story, sometimes putting herself in a different role and/or talking about what will happen next time (to Papa: "Next time, when you're a little boy, I will be the Mama and if you don't put your pajamas on, I will count."). When she wants something but one of us proposes a different alternative, she will try to negotiate a middle ground ("how about that?"). When I come home from work, I usually get a report about what's happening at the moment ("Ivan's a little bit cranky") or what happened during the day ("Stew Leonard's, Papa!"). She used to use this opportunity to confess her trangressions and it was a little funny to be greeted at the door like that:

Papa (coming in the door): Hi Noni!
Veronika: I was crying!

At night, we often have to recap the day's events for a final time and talk about what will happen the next day and what day of the week it will be.

When she started preschool, she started speaking German less and English more but after noticing it, Mama starting making more of an effort to speak strictly German to her and she's coming around. Having two sets of words gives her another opportunity to talk about the things in her life from another angle. At first her translation requests came in the form of "What does Mama/Papa say about that?" but lately she asks for words "auf Deutsch/Englisch."

And she sings! Veronika loves singing her ABCs and nursery rhymes, even (wonderful big sister as she is) to soothe Ivan when he's crying. Preschool songs are big lately—such as the days of the week song that we can't pick a melody out of but hear often ("Sunday, Mondaaay, Tuesday, Wednesdaaay...")—as are Christmas songs in German and English, with "Jingle Bells" and "Kling Glöckchen" being the favorites. She even surprised us this week by coming home from preschool singing the Dreidel song.

But with all this sun comes a few clouds. She has learned the power of defiance and often tests the boundaries in new ways with her new words. Even though she threw quite a fit three hours ago when I was putting her to bed, by now it's mostly disappeared from my memory, leaving room for more pleasant conversations like this one, when I came home from work just as she was going to bed and went into her room to kiss her goodnight:

Papa: Hi baby.
Veronika: Papa, you were at work so long.
Papa: I know, I'm sorry sweetie.
Veronika: But I miss you when you're at work.
Papa: I know, baby, I miss you too.
Veronika: But I love you, Papa.
Papa (melts into puddle on the floor)