Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

Grandkids

I like to say that I have two German grandkids and three Japanese grandkids. These are kids of two of my exchange students -- and I know I am not really a grandmother, but it was fun to pretend!

Lara, 4, when told that I did not speak German, did not understand it. How can someone not talk? So her parents started teaching her English. She thinks she is a great English speaker because she can tell me all the colors! I can speak a little German, so when I said something she would respond with several German sentences that I couldn't follow. I got to read her a German book -- but she gave up after a page. I suspect my pronunciation was terrible. She took my picture with my own camera.

She was a little shy at first, but a present (a large fuzzy poster to color) and a pink (her favorite color) dress with a hood solved that. The poster, a unicorn, is 16 by 20 inches (oops, 41 by 51 centimeters) and was completed in record time and now adorns her wall.

Timo, 17 months, had one word -- da -- which I interpreted as "daddy", but is not. It is nonsense. (Daddy is German is Papa.) He is an active kid who doesn't stop for much!

My Japanese grandkids live in Amsterdam and speak English and Japanese. They too were a little shy at first, until Sumi told them that I was their American Grandmother -- then I got lots of hugs and attention! As Sumi put it, grandmothers are OK. They had to show me the neighborhood, the windmill ("Do you have one too?"), the neighbor who was outside smoking, their rooms and their books and everything. And the best part -- they asked me to come back and visit!

*sigh*

posted by Marion @ 5:46 AM