Category Archives: A mother’s diary

You don’t need exact words to make yourself understood

May 20, 2014A mother's diary, Contemplations, Discoveries, Memoriesvica

We often evaluate what we have said, sometimes long after the listeners have forgotten what we were talking about. And we judge ourselves for the word choice.

My son reminded me last week how sweet “the wrong use of words” can be and how much fun playing with words is.

One of the wonderful memories in this respect is connected for me with teaching English to beginners. One of the courses I taught was at a large hotel in the center of Moldovan capital, Chisinau. The staff of the hotel had to learn English, and their abilities to talk English at the end of the course would determine how secure their jobs there would be. More and more foreigners were staying at this hotel and English skills were essential. All of my students were elder than me, some of them close to my age but most of them at least two times my age at that time, which was beginning of my twenties.

One of the assignments I gave to my students was to describe their homes. And one of the students, who was a bit more advanced than others, but wasn’t trusting herself in this, made a wonderful description of her home. She used some beautiful details describing colors and shapes in various rooms. She was truly in the moment and thinking in English. I knew this as soon as she named kitchen “cooking room” without realizing it. It was just a logic thing to say. She didn’t even stop to search for the “right” word. She just said: “cooking room”.

I loved that and pointed this out to her when it was time for me to evaluate her presentation. I was touched how proud she was to realize that she could think in a foreign language and make herself understood even if she didn’t have all the words “at her hand”.

My son reminded me last Friday of this wonderful encounter. He, my husband, my mother, who lives close to us, and I went to an adventure park not far from the city we live in. It was a bank holiday and we enjoyed sunny and warm weather. Shortly before the park closed we re-discovered the airplane carousel, which my son enjoyed last year. So, we hurried to test it again. Moms and Dads were allowed to join in one of the two seats on an airplane. Niklas asked me to fly with him. I agreed.

Immediately after that I got some instructions. Niklas has forbidden me to touch the handle that makes the plane goes up or down as it circles with the merry-go-round. He claimed the handle for himself. I happily agreed and called him captain. He loved this and took on this role immediately.

More instructions followed. Niklas has pointed to his tummy and said: “You must not sit here in front of me,” and pointing to his back he added, “But here in front of me”.

I had a big smile on my face and such a wave of warmth at the sweetness of this sentence. It was perfectly clear that I was supposed to sit behind him.

These sweet encounters and realization, that a “wrong use” of a language could be sometimes more fun, allowed me to dare to write in a language of countries, which I visited only briefly, but which I deeply respect and language of which I love and cherish. Help and support from my friends who are native speakers in English is absolutely inspiring and encouraging.

Just the day after my sweet experience with my son, my writing teacher, dear friend and a wonderful author, Menna van Praag, has praised my fellow students from Germany and me on our English skills. It was at one of her monthly writing seminars, which I immensely enjoy and at which I learn a lot. She liked the way I structured sentences to enhance the emotion and feeling in a scene. And she praised me on my word choice. One example made me smile. I have written the following paragraph searching for reasons of the feelings the main character has for his fellow student at the university:

“One of the reasons may lie in her constant merriness. And carelessness. People around her often appear grim and unhappy in contrast to her smile and lightness. All troubles of the world seem to pearl up and flow off her like heavy raindrops on a windowpane. I forget my worries with her.”

Menna’s comment to this was: “Lovely structure. I don’t know the expression “pearl up” do you mean “peel off” or is it a new one on me? :)”

I tried to figure out where I first heard the expression “pearl up”. I couldn’t come up with the exact source. It might be from my time and interest in semiconductor and material science. I read an article long time ago about so-called lotus effect, which allows the lotus leaves to always appear clean and free of dirt and water stains. A very specific structure of the leaf surface does not allow water to adhere to it. Water gathers in large drops, reminding me of “pearls”, and carries the dirt rolling off the leaves. This inspired some of the car building companies to create similar surface structure on the wind-shields, so that they would remain clean and needed less washing, which in turn would save water consumption.

I don’t know if I will keep the expression “pearl up” in my novel or not, but the smiley from Menna strengthened me in my will to continue writing and playing with words in this language, which doesn’t feel that foreign to me anymore.

And the mother tongue of my son is German, which is theoretically foreign to me, since my mother tongue is Romanian, but not foreign to my heart.

Wishing all, who read this, joy in using whatever language you wish, whether the one you were born into or chose to speak or write in!

Picture: On the way home.

A laundry picnic

April 7, 2014A mother's diary, Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

Several months ago, I have written in this blog that my son didn’t like tidying up.

This has changed. He doesn’t throw things on the floor anymore but puts them into boxes or onto the tables. I had to take one of his socks off the dining table today.

He also started to be appalled when we spill his toys on the floor in order to find one particular toy. Or he gasps and laughs afterwards.

This is the way Niklas tidied up last Saturday. He took an empty laundry basket, put it in the middle of our living room, which is also his playroom today, and piled various toys in it, so that the toy-tower was taller than him. Looking at his creation he said proudly: “Now I have tidied up!” I had to explain myself to him when I started to un-pile the tower and put the toys on racks and into boxes at the end of the day.

On the same day, I was folding up our washed and dried clothes as I recalled several occasions, on which I did this before. On some of them, I was in hurry and folded up the clean clothes and linen while standing in our master bedroom between the bed and the closet and trying to finish the task as fast as possible. I didn’t enjoy those. On other times and this time as well, I sat on my cover as one would sit on a picnic blanket and played memory while folding up the socks. I had fun. And I came up with a fun name for my new hobby. A laundry picnic.

The experiences on this day made me realize that we humans are not only complaining or seeing the things we usually enjoy sometimes as a burden, of what we often accuse ourselves in. I realized that we are definitely able to turn the activities, we might not have liked before, into a hobby.

When did you have your last laundry picnic?

Picture: Our window sill tidied up by Niklas.

Brought safely on the ground

March 3, 2014A mother's diaryvica

The first movie my son has ever watched in a cinema was Disney Planes. He loved it. His Dad and I, who joined him in the cinema enjoyed it, too. We still enjoy watching it on DVD. Just as Disney Cars, Niklas watches Planes again and again. And at some scenes he hardly moves, sometimes standing on his knees in front of the coffee table and fixing his gaze to the laptop screen, which substitutes a TV-set in our household.

Last Saturday, Niklas decided that there must be something new about Dusty, main character of Disney Planes movie, on the “new-tube”. All we found were various commercials that soon bored both of us. After a prolonged search, I suggested to play something together, or as an alternative to start the movie on DVD.

“No. I want to see Dusty on new-tube!”

“Ok”. I searched. Then I searched a bit more. All we found were short snippets from the movie in various languages, each of which Niklas claims to understand, or hour long recordings of video games or commercials.

At some point I lost my temper and said in a slightly unnerved tone: “Sweetheart, you have so many great DVDs, of which are all Cars DVDs and the Planes DVD, and you waste your time with watching this boring nonsense!”

Niklas’ calm answer was: “Don’t lower yourself to their level.”*

And with this, my son brought me safely to the ground of laughter and made me forget my agenda of, oh, so many important things. We watched the movie together holding hands and having breaks in between to fly toy planes around the living room landscape.

* This was what Dottie said to Chuck when he got angry with Ned and Zed making fun of him and Dusty. The Dusty fans will know which scene I am talking about. 😉

Picture: my Dusty, the fastest plane in the “Wings around the Globe Rally”, who is much faster than my high-resolution phone camera 😉 , and the sweetest boy on the world! Taken yesterday at the carnival celebration for children organized by the Sankt-Markus church community in Aalborg.

Taken care of by a small child

January 21, 2014A mother's diary, Discoveries, Memoriesvica

As many adults I think small children must be taken care of. This is true and comes naturally to most of us. But it still comes as a surprise to me that our small, not long ago having been toddlers, children are able to take good care of us.

My sister has a kind of allergy or phobia against peach skin. She gets goose-bumps all over even while thinking of it. A bit more than twenty years ago, I watched my three-year old niece peeling the skin of a huge peach. I wondered what she was doing, because the fruit was washed and she didn’t mind eating it with the skin before. As soon as I asked her, she answered: “Mommy can’t eat the skin, so I am peeling it.” She was preparing the peach for her mother. My sister had no idea she was getting a peach. It was her daughter’s idea to do this.

About a month ago, I have put my son into a position to take care of me. It was done unintentionally, and I might have done this before, but this time I became aware of this and enjoyed immensely the lesson I learned.

I came back from a business trip. I had big difficulties to remain awake, already quite early in the evening, because of a Christmas party with colleagues the night before. My son wished me to bring him to bed. In contrast to me, he had difficulties to fall asleep, so I suggested to undo the studio couch in the room adjacent to his and to try to fall asleep there together. He agreed. But even then he turned from side to side, sat up and played with his toys. He was fully awake.

I wanted to slow him down and to make him relax. I asked for his hand. I hoped that holding hands would prevent him from moving too much. But unbeknownst to me I reversed our roles. Usually, he holds my husband’s or my hand when he falls asleep. Now I asked him for his hand. He was taken aback with this. He looked at me thoughtfully, then smiled and said: “You may have my hand, Mama.”

This is the last thing I remember before my husband came to wake me up and to bring Niklas to his bed. As I woke up, I saw Niklas sleeping beside me and holding my hand. He haven’t let it go.

The next morning, I thanked my son for taking care of me. He was extremely proud and talked for a while about this. He has demonstrated me how he closed his eyes, when he saw that I was asleep.

One of the interesting things I noticed: like many children, my son doesn’t like helping. But he loves taking responsibility and taking care of others. As long as he can decide and take control of the situation, he is willing to do what is asked of him. But his way. One of his favorite phrases currently is “you should”. I wonder where he has taken that from … 😉

Picture: my big boy shuffling snow two days ago. He was angry when my husband and our neighbor shuffled away the snow ‘mountain’ he has created. My son was of the opinion, that the pile of snow standing in the middle of the yard wouldn’t disturb the cars coming out of the garages.

Lilly

December 10, 2013A mother's diary, Portraits, True Storyvica

Lilly is a princess. She is not a child because she is a princess. Lilly lives in a castle.

Once there were many Lillis and many castles, but usually there is only one Lilly living in one castle.

She is very kind to dogs. She loves dogs and she feeds the dogs.

Lilly always allows things that mommy and daddy forbid. She always manages the things mommy and daddy don’t manage.

And she is the one for whom my three-years-old son threatens to leave when he and I argue.

Here is the story of how Lilly was ‘born’. It happened this summer in the picturesque town of Briançon, in French Alps.

On the first day of our summer vacation, and as my husband was fetching the stroller from our car, Niklas and I witnessed a gorgeous British bride and her bridesmaids heading to the church accompanied by some friends and family. Just a few minutes before, we’ve seen many guests of this wedding near the church as we passed by. All the guests seemed to have travelled here all the way from Great Britain. I was carrying Niklas in my arms when we saw the bride and her friends.

The young women were singing loudly and very well, I must say. They looked like having sprang straight out of a romantic movie into the streets of Briançon. The street we saw them walking was steep and shadowy. They were going down the hill towards us. The descending blond beauty in white was shining and both my son and I were mesmerized by the wonder and the merriness of it all.

I said to Niklas: “Look, what a beautiful bride!”

I saw confusion in his eyes and said: “She is marrying today. And that is why she is dressed like a beautiful princess.”

In the following few days, Niklas was playing and trying to dress as both a bride and a groom and leading me several times to an imaginary altar.

The second part of the story started when my mother-in-law bought him a book about the builder Manny, a French equivalent for Bob the Builder. While translating the book into German she did call Manny Bob. Manny-Bob had a beautiful Kelly to help him with his work. And Manny-Bob had a construction company and his own car with his name on it.

Several days past. We were in our car on the way to the next walk in the mountains. And this is when it happened.

As we passed several sweet looking small town houses, Niklas said: “Here lives my beautiful Lilly.”

I was intrigued. “Who is Lilly?”

“She is my mother and I am married with her.”

“But if you and Lilly are married, then she is probably your wife, isn’t she?”

“No, – , yes.”

“Sweetheart, do you mean Kelly, Manny’s, sorry, Bob’s Kelly?”

“No, Lilly!” And after a pause, “And I have a construction company and my car!”

A few more days later, Niklas went with his father and his grandparents to a castle, situated at the top of the city. I stayed at our vacation home to do some writing.

When they came back, Niklas told me about the castle and that Lilly lived there. They all heard many dogs behind the gates leading to the castle. The gates were locked but Niklas and his entourage could hear that there were several if not many dogs and they all claimed hearing someone giving food to the dogs. Niklas said it was Lilly. That she was kind and loved her dogs.

It is already more than three months since then and Lilly is always there when my son needs her.

When we, his parents, say: “Niklas, you must not do this!” the answer often is: “But Lilly allows this! She is nice!”

She always does what we fail to do. For example, she already managed to get a movie on DVD, which we recently watched in the cinema and which is not on sale yet. Anywhere. Even Nikolaus, one of the German equivalents of Santa Claus, who brings sweets and small gifts on December 6, couldn’t find one, according to mommy. But Lilly could, and she and Niklas watched the movie together.

Lilly never disappoints my son. And she is the source for many stories. Now, when mommy and daddy tell about their colleagues and friends at the dinner table, Niklas can contribute as well. And he tells us about someone who we know nothing about, just like he doesn’t know about some of our colleagues or friends. He tells us about Lilly.

In September, my son had something close to a crush on a girl of four. This is another cute story, but here it is relevant to be mentioned because this crush came and went. Lilly is still here.

Lilly reminds me of my own escapes when I was a child. When I started learning English, I imagined having a friend, or rather an admirer and a husband-to-be, with whom I spoke English. He was English and could not speak any other language than English and he had no name. This most handsome young man, whom I was never able to describe except him being extremely handsome and very kind, was the one with whom I shared all my most secret of secrets.

I am grateful to my son and to Lilly to remind me of the works of my own imagination and what a powerful and wonderful force it is. Without it many things would appear two-dimensional and un-poetic.

I don’t know whether my son will remember Lilly and her story when he grows up. We both might forget this story as I forgot about mine until Lilly was ‘born’.

That is why I wanted to record it and to share it.

Let this story be a sweet reminder to Niklas and to all of us about all the wonderful ways our imagination leads us along.

We often blame our imagination for our fears, but it can also provide help, it can reassure us in our beginnings, make us look ahead with curiosity and excitement, and show us the ways out of the labyrinth of doubts and worries.

Did you have your own Lilly or an English friend when you grew up? What was she, he, they like?

P. S. At the walls of Lilly’s castle:

P. P. S. Niklas the Builder: