whatMsg?

“Emmi, päike läheb looja.”
“Päike läheb looja.”
“Emmi, miks päike läheb looja?”

Translation:

“Emmi, the sun is setting.”
“The sun is setting.”
“Emmi, why is the sun setting?”

This was K’s first “why” question and I though it was a great one. It also happened in Estonian which was also interesting.

Wednesday, August 6th was a tough day for me as I spent most of the day in doctors offices, radiological suites and eventually an operating room. By the time the sun was setting I was sedated, having severe nausea and facing a 30 minute ride home in the car and wishing for unconsciousness. My kids however had other ideas as they had spent the day without me AND it was 2 hours after their bedtime. Also, I didn’t want an 18 month old and almost 3 year old worrying about me too much and so I put on a brave face, tugged a smile out of somewhere and tried to keep up with the conversations that I was bombarded with which is when the conversation above took place- almost before we were even out of the hospital parking lot. It is amazing that even just spending a day apart from the kids, how much they develop in just one day. By the way, my answer to K’s question was that the sun is setting because it worked so hard all day to give us light and warmth and now it has to rest to do it all again tomorrow. I wasn’t in a place to explain the solar system to an almost 3 year old We have books and the internet and I’ll get to that another day here real soon.

Otherwise, it was very notable that K was obviously concerned about me throughout the day when she would occasionally see me and only spoke with me in Estonian. It makes be think that when she is being deeply personal with me it happens in Estonian and otherwise, with just daily life she mixes things up a bit and says whatever is easier I think. I was quite touched, though I did have to apologize to Daddy since I usually make a point of making sure he knows what the conversations are about but I just didn’t have the energy that day. Poor Daddy didn’t get a recap of the first “why” question until almost 24 hours later even though he was in the car for the conversation.

Update on A: she is saying more and more words and has conversations though for the most part I still can’t quite make out what she is saying when she strings words together- other than “gimme” which I guess is technically two words.  Figures that would be her only phrase.  Otherwise, the nouns are coming along in a mix of Estonian and English. I’m waiting for the “ah ha” moment when things click and we start understanding each other better since poor A gets quite frustrated with us sometimes and has quite a little temper. K is going to preschool in September and so 3 days a week I will have 2 hours to spend one-on-one with A to work on things without her big sister taking over.