whatMsg?

Despite my best efforts of consistency in only speaking Estonian with my children, translating every picture book I read into Estonian on the fly, or reading Estonian stories, and playing many fun Estonian DVDs, I would estimate that my 3 year old speaks 70% English and 30% Estonian with me.  The 23 month old speaks Estonian even less, perhaps 90% English and 10% Estonian and then it is mostly just nouns that are in Estonian with a few demands here and there as well.  The girls play together very nicely and converse, though almost entirely in English with each other.  I’m sticking to my Estonian however because they have 100% comprehension of everything I tell them at t least that is something.  I’m just going to keep doing what I have been doing and have been careful not to nag at all about speaking in Estonian, though if they forget saying “please” or “thank you” then I give them the Estonian phrase they should be using to politely ask me for whatever it is that they wanted.  That’s the extent of my pushing for Estonian.

What has given me new hope for the future is that a family friend with two daughters about 10 years older than mine has gone through this all already and what did the trick for her was spending a summer in Estonia with the girls when they were still in the single digit ages.  So, that is what I will look forward to!  In the meantime, I’ll keep up my Estonian-only conversation and will try to be content with my children’s comprehension and occassional Estonian words and phrases as I figure it is better than nothing.

A friend of mine is involved in a themed blogging even, topic “Simplicity” and it just so happens that it fit so well with what I was already considering writing here anyhow.  Here’s my story…

On Saturday, My sister, Daddy and I took K and A snowshoeing.  We have always been very active participants in winter sports and it has been more than a little complicated trying to do things like downhill or nordic ski or snowshoe since my children were born.  So, as we drove past the perfect conditions on the ski slopes while drooling on our way to the snowshow trail, we embarked on many hours of unbelievable strenuous work to go perhaps half a mile.  Here’s how it went down…

Leave the house at 10 am and drive 30 minutes to the Cascades.  Get two toddlers in snowsuits as it was just 24 degrees out.  Put the 20 month old in a backpack and get the 3 year old on her own snowshoes.  Grab sleds in case of sledding opportunity.  After 30 minutes 3 year old wants to get in the other backpack which we of course always carry along.  Get snowshoes off, put her in backpack, walk 50 yards, she wants down.  She’s almost perfectly contect to run on the packed train, except when she wants to test the depth of the snow…very deep…and always in the boots and up the snowpants and very cold, but fun that must be repeated many times.  Then, K decides she needs to go poopie.  Oh yes, I kid you not.  So we unzip the jacket, pull down the snowpants, fleece, thermals and underwear, I have the paper ready to go and a nice deep hole dug in the snow (K’s first “natural” toilet and I had to make it good), I hold her over the snow-potty for a good 2-3 minutes at great pains to my lower back and we have….nothing!  Not even a trace of yellow snow for my efforts.  We reassemble and move on.   We finally get to a sledding place and go sledding down a very bumpy, curvy hill.  A gets a face full of snow and doesn’t stop crying until we are back at the car, but K says, “I want to do it again!”  though we both have a face full of snow and snow up the snowpants.  So we “do it again” 3 more times until Daddy can’t take A’s crying anymore.  We hike the quarter mile back to the car and it takes us 1 HOUR to get de-geared and situated.  Snow suits off, hot chocolate in the kids, gear stowed and everyone content. Drive back home and arrive at 4 pm.

This story sums up just about everything in my life these days.  Nothing is simple and I miss the freedom to pursue my own interests (and skiing!) more than I can express without feeling terrible guilt and everything is unbelievably hard work.  I don’t want to wish away my children’s  early years and love so much about this time, but boy am I ready for them to be big enough to join me in particpating in the things that I love to do.  It sure would be nice to snowshoe more than a couple of yards again someday.

But, to sum it all up, 6 hours of snow and cold and constant work…exhausting.  Seeing K’s exultant face as she climbs up a huge mound of 7 foot deep snow without sinking during her first time on snowhoes, priceless.   Yes, we’ll do it all again on another weekend real soon!

Today is my birthday and it was marked with my 3 year old coming into the bathroom while I showered to present me with a 5-balloon bouquet followed by her 22 month old sister dragging a single half deflated Hallmark Store balloon from a week ago and holding out the string to me in her chubby little toddler hand. The gifts were so special and obviously the most exciting things for toddlers to give in their minds.  But the deflated balloon was beyond touching and a very obvious indicator that gifts that tug on the heart strings aren’t necessarily the newest and most wonderful and a deflated balloon means just as a much as a shiny, buoyant one when it comes held out in a tiny hand.

Well, we have run into an interesting little language situation that I can’t help but think has something to do with my kids speaking two languages.  But maybe I’m just sensitive to that and it might happen anyway.  Personal and possessive gender specific pronouns are proving to be an amusing stumbling block for my 3-year old in English.  She is always very friendly with other kids on the playground, and I can’t help but be a little embarrassed for K, especially when she is speaking with older children and confuses he/she and his/her.   She is such a bright little girl and has no trouble conversing with adults and older children, but gets this one thing wrong.  Could it have to do with that in Estonian there are no gender specific pronouns and everything is neutral?  Either way, when I hear it I correct her with  a friendly “Uh oh, you said the wrong word!”  The funny part about this is that she says the same thing to me when I occasionally have a brain-glitch and say the wrong word accidentally.  We have fun correcting each other.  Hopefully the pronouns will work themselves out soon as it’s been a few months now.  I’m not really concerned and am sure we’ll get past this quickly!