Fueling the Fire of Change

Wow, check out this crazy stunt, writing 3 days in a row.
Maybe I should send my husband to Vegas more often...

There's so much change taking place on a daily basis, it's hard for me to avoid sitting down to lay it all out for the Kaya die-hards. I know you're out there. AND...I know that one day, while I sit blissfully in the sun, floating on my favorite lake in the German Alps (Eibsee!), listening to my daughter ramble on in her Krauty-way, I will want to go back and read how it all started, read about the days full of 'sucky' moments, full of strife between me and my two year old while I 'gently' remind her that I don't understand.

Gently.
Maybe if I say this enough it will serve as a gentle reminder to myself to follow my own implicit advice.

It's not as bad as I'm implying it to be, really.
In all actuality, despite the frustrating moments that we experienced today with our choppy and awkward communication, I'm seeing major 'progress', which continues to provide the fuel to make it to our next moment of success.

Here are the best of the best...

This morning, I was invited by one of my German-speaking friends to have coffee with her and a native German colleague that she recently met in the lunch room at work. Admittedly, I had my concerns about bringing Kaya into a coffee shop at 9am, especially after the challenges we had in leaving the house (typical these days whenever we're trying to get anywhere on time). But the whole experience was awesome! My friend loves Kaya, and the feeling seems mutual, so as they sat blissfully in the corner, reading books and playing in German, I got to interact in German with an adult! I think what I loved the most was that this German woman was so willing to share her feelings with me, to the point that she got teary-eyed as she was telling me about her ex-boyfriend in China. My experience of many Germans has been that it takes them a while (many months?) to open up and share their most meaningful feelings. It was SO great to experientially branch out of that stereotype. I also loved that Kaya was surrounded by German, and though she still needed a bit of reminding at times that I am only understanding German from her, I'm confident that it made a difference in how much German she was speaking. When she saw the strawberries on top of the granola, for example, she let me know that she wanted some by saying "Erdbeeren" [strawberries]! I took her face and nearly smothered it with kisses, I was so excited! Despite the progress, it can still take her 6-7 repetitions in English before she'll switch to German. The fact that she spit it out the first time...SO huge right now. My friend said, too, that with her, she was speaking a lot of German, as well.

Ja, wohl!!

Later in the afternoon, I decided to take Kaya to the library for our favorite performer, Mr. Ben. As much fun as that was (it really was! He rocks!), I had even more fun with Kaya once the show was over and we headed to the children's section. Last week, I decided that I like reading English books to Kaya that I can translate on the fly. Initially, I was being really hard-core about only reading "Mama-Buecher" [Mama books] and Dada-books. I've since backed off, however, realizing that we have such greater variety if I leave myself open to the option--and since she can't read right now anyway, I don't think it makes much difference (please feel free to chime in, anyone, if you know otherwise). So, the greatest moment during our time at the library was when I was reading one of these books to Kaya and asking her to identify some of the things on the page that she saw. In the past, as I've said, I've been asking her a lot of either/or questions (which, by the way, are getting MUCH easier for me to create in our many conversations). This is to encourage her to speak German instead of saying the English which is likely on the tip of her tongue. But this time, I thought I would see how she'd respond with a direct, open-ended "Was ist das?"[What is that?] and "Was siehst du da alles?" [What all do you see there?]. I was ecstatic (would you expect any less from me at this point!?) when she responded immediately with the German, whatever it was that she was identifying. I think my excitement ended up taking so much space in my brain that there was no room left for remembering what she actually identified. But I do recall thinking it was perhaps a fluke, that if I were to ask her again, she'd answer in English. So, I tried that, too, and she continued to answer me in German, for a number of words in the book. It was as if her brain had switched over, and she was simply operating in 'Mama-speak'.

On the way home, she seemed to be in that mode, too. She was in her car seat, and had just finished the rest of her snack in her cup. All of a sudden, I heard her saying "nehmen, nehmen, nehmen!" [take, take, take], as she was handing me her cup to take from her. This was after no encouragement from me whatsoever--we'd simply been driving down the road listening to our favorite German CD right now, 'Lisa Kann schon Viele Sachen' [Lisa can already do a Lot] (it's awesome if you're interested...a good mix of talking and singing!).

It's funny. When I take a step back and look at how excited I'm getting that she's speaking one or two words in German every once in a while, it's easy for me to go to that "what the hell?!" place, where I feel embarrassed, and this desire to explain myself. I have to remind myself that it's all about the progress, about the now...not about how it was more than a month ago when this would have been a 'silly' thing for me to get excited about because she was speaking mostly German to me, at the same level as her English. Now that she's speaking fluent English, and very little German, these milestones seem massive when I allow myself to really experience it.

The last little fuel for the fire today happened while I was at the Farmer's Market this morning, where I went so we could pick up our CSA share from the local meat farm we just joined. The guy working this morning overheard me speaking German with Kaya, and chimed in, at one point, that he was really glad to hear me teaching her with that language. His mom, he told me, tried to do the same with him, but didn't follow through because his dad is American. He doesn't have much family on his dad's side, however, and after going to Korea to visit family, he realizes that the language is a big barrier. Now, he's learning Korean in college, wishing he learned it as a kid so he could have those connections with the only extended family he has. Hearing his story was my reminder of my initial motivation for this endeavor: I've read of NO children that regret that their parents spoke to them in a 2nd or 3rd language, but of plenty of children who wished their parents had followed through in raising them with more than one language.

I need this reminder during those many moments where Kaya is SO excited to tell me that she "wants ta wead wif (you) Mama", or asks me SO sweetly if we can "snuggle wif da wight on". It's in these moments where I need this reminder that this process really will pay off, and that, in the end (and perhaps even in the process), it will be a true gift for her. At this point, the way I see it, Kaya has had no reason to go through the extra effort to produce the German. It was working just fine for her to speak to me in English and have me respond to her in German. She understood everything I would say to her, and she could use one language to communicate with both of her parents. I knew that this situation is common in many households where a minority language is spoken by one or both parents, and I knew that I was hoping to avoid it. I just thought it wouldn't really start until she was older. But after experimenting with this 'insistence' as I have been for 5 days, it's clear to me that Kaya needs a reason to learn to speak. I could wait until we are in Germany, or until one day down the road when she may be there by herself on an exchange. But I want to try this, because it seems like it could be easier and more enjoyable in the long run if we put in the extra effort now.

That's generally how life works, right?
It seems like bilingualism should be no exception to the laws of the universe...



(and to all you Dad's out there, including Kaya's and my own, Happy Father's Day! I've once again succeeded in writing into the wee hours of the morning. Please, dear spirit of the dawn, help me create energy and patience with my budding toddler...!)

Baby Steps Towards Success

Our house is a disastrous pit. I'm not sure it's ever been messier, honestly.
And here I sit, actually preferring to go clean, but knowing that it will make me happy to share the latest progress about our newest little method: insistence.

So, since we've come home from the park two days ago (with the exception of this morning because we were with a group of English speakers), I have been 'insisting' on German from Kaya. 'Insist' isn't really the word I prefer to use here, because it definitely comes with a negative connotation. But it succeeds in conveying the message that I am no longer simply responding back to her in German as she speaks to me in English. Nor am I simply telling her what to say to me in German, either, as I had been doing for the past month or so. Now, like I said on Tuesday, I am responding 95% of the time as if I either don't understand her or expect her to tell me, in German, whatever it is that she wants to share.

She's definitely been growing more frustrated over the past 2 days, as I continue this method with her. My tendency is to respond with "Bitte?"[What?] after she speaks to me in English (which is still 95% of the time), though I'm finding that "Was ist das?" [What is that?] tends to cause an almost immediate switch for her to German. When I tell her that I don't understand, or if ask her what she said, she has a tendency to raise her voice when she repeats herself the first time (as opposed to the 15th, as on Tuesday). She has mixed responses when I tell her, "Von dir, verstehe ich nur Deutsch." [From you I understand only German]

I am noticing a CLEAR improvement in how quickly she is beginning to switch languages, though, especially after my responses to her. Yesterday morning, for example, she was asking me repeatedly, "What is that?" as we were sitting at the table. I was responding as I just explained, and towards the end of our 5-minute interaction, she finally caught on by asking, "Was ist das?" As we pulled up to the gym 20 minutes later, and she wanted to know what it was that she was seeing on the street, she asked me, in German, the first time! This happened again this afternoon when she wanted me to get her out of the bouncy seat, and another time at the table during dinner. At times, though, it's definitely like pulling teeth. Tonight, for example, while we were getting her ready for bed, she came out into the living room saying, "I want ta read a book wif you, Mama." SO cute, it's hard for me not to eat her up in those moments and just do whatever she wants me to do, in whatever language she may be speaking! But, heeding the Austrian, I stood my ground and asked her what it was that she was wanting to do. I tried all the responses in my repertoire, and none of them were working to create the pause and the German response that follows her spinning wheels. It is getting easier, though, to just let those moments go, and to make no meaning out of them, especially as I watch this process create a greater tendency for Kaya to use the German that is so clearly behind her big brown eyes.

It's 11:40pm.
Will the kitchen get cleaned? Will the living room get tidied?
Or will my friend come over tomorrow night and see the trash pit that is our house in these days of rampant English?

I tend to think it's a good life skill for me to practice, accepting that our house simply is the way it is right now, until it isn't. Carpenter ants and all...

Oh, the Sweet Sound of Insistence!

For quite some time now, I've been wondering about the following:

At what age is it possible, or even recommended, to start "insisting" on German from Kaya?

As much as I've read about responding in German, and encouraging children to speak in the minority language, I've yet to come across information that could answer my question. Today, however, the sun shone down upon me...

A few years ago, after a phone call to the German American Society, I found a German playgroup that meets once a week for a few hours. Over the past few years, through my participation with the group, I've discovered that there are a variety of family situations that exist within our group. In all of the families, at least one parent speaks exclusively German with the children (OPOL). In some of them, there are two native German speakers, in others, both non-natives. In some of them, the children speak mostly English with both parents, in others, all German with the German-speaker. There is one family in particular that I seek to emulate, in which the mom (a native Austrian) speaks only German with her son (who is 4 1/2 yrs old), while the dad speaks only his native English. Together, the parents obviously speak English, and, similar to Geoff, the dad can understand some of what is said in German between the mom and the kid. I highlight this situation because it is one that is most similar to ours and 'offers' what I seek most right now: an exclusively German relationship between mom and child.

My intention had been to talk to this mom about her situation, asking her specifically when I might start "insisting", or feigning misunderstanding, from Kaya. Before broaching the subject, however, I found myself pushing Kaya on the swings, standing next to the only non-native dad in our group. He's the only other parent (that I know of other than me) who is non-native and speaks exclusively German with his daughter. She and Kaya happen to be about the same age, too, with Kaya being just a few months younger.

So, eager to get my dilemma solved, I asked this dad about his experience with his daughter, specifically if she speaks German to him.

"Ja," he answered.
My thoughts began to spiral. What's wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? Why does his kid speak to him in German and mine doesn't?

I began to ask question after question (all in German, of course) in hopes of discovering the answers to my internal banter:
Do you insist on German from her? Well, sort of, without creating a negativity around it.
Are you a stay at home dad? No. Only a few hours in the morning.
Does your wife speak German? No. She speaks English.

My line of questioning was making me feel worse. It definitely didn't help when he told me that some kids are more inclined towards movement and less towards language, and thus, their language tends to develop slower.

My kids loves to read. And is clearly all over language. Just not the German!!
Ugh.

It wasn't until I asked him if his daughter had always spoken mostly German with him that I began to feel a little sense of hope.

There was a little while, he shared with me, that she spoke more English than German.
Oh thank the dear Buddha in the trees...there's hope afterall!
That's normal, he told me, apparently picking up on my concern. Keep up the good work, you're doing great.

My head was spinning. Was I doing great? It sure didn't feel like it. I couldn't shake the idea that there must be something that I could be doing differently so that I can live in the same language as my kid.

Kaya, by this point, was ready for another activity. She wandered over to the play structure and told me she wanted to slide. Do I ignore her? She just told me in English? How do I feign misunderstanding without feeling like a cold-hearted beast?

It was back on the swings that I decided to test out my new method. This time, we were alone, so I didn't have to get hung up on what I thought others might be thinking of my beastly ways. She wanted me to push her, so with every push, I'd count in German: eins...zwei....drei...vier...After a few rounds to ten, she began to get the hang of it, and would join me in counting. Instead of saying the next number in German, however, she'd say it in English (which impressed me that she even knew what came next, in either language!): ...sechs...sieben...eight! As dismayed as I felt about overall German situation, I told myself that all I needed to focus on in that moment were the repetition of the numbers...even if I couldn't see the effect. The repetition will sink in, that's the gist of 'learning'--it's simply how the brain works, right?!

After about 5 minutes of pushing and counting, Kaya was eager to move on:
"I'm dun", she told me.
"Wie bitte?" [What?] I asked her, telling myself that this was my window.
"I'm dun," she said again, in a similar tone.

I kept pushing, wondering if ignoring was the ticket to success. Would she just figure out what I was doing and switch languages to see if that would get her what she wanted? This dad in the group had told me that he just doesn't respond a lot of the time if his daughter speaks to him in English.
"I'm done!" she said, again...and again, and again, and again.

Ignoring wasn't working. It's like ignoring a barking dog...they don't just stop the ruckus on their own. Nor do they generally start meowing like a cat.
"Was hast du gesagt?" [What did you say?] I asked her, as I pushed her higher. I felt so mean.
"I'm done," she said, a little louder this time.
"Was sagst du mama?" [What do you say to mama?] I hinted.
"Fertig," [Done] she finally said, as a smile formed on her lips. I stopped the swing and kissed her face. Repeatedly.
"Genau! Fertig," [Exactly! Done.] I told her, with a bigger smile on mine.

Next, we headed over to the big slide.
She was eager to climb up, and told me as such: "I want to go up."
"Bitte?" I asked her, repeating my method from before.
She repeated herself, in English, and I began to wonder if she even knew how to ask me for what she wanted in German. That's been a part of my internal dialogue, actually, that she probably doesn't even know how to express what she wants and needs, so I need to just go with her statement in English or tell her how to say it in German (which has been wearing the hell out me!).

"I want to go up," she said again, this time putting her foot on the step.
"Du willst aufsteigen?" [You want to go up?] I verified, landing on my old method.
"Ja," she agreed.
"Sag, ,Ich will aufsteigen'," [Say, 'I want to go up'] I told her, again, using my old stand-by.
"Ich viw aufsteign," she said, calmly.
And up she went, higher and higher. I felt back at square one, feeding her words and telling her what to say. Yuck.

I did this a few more times at a few more places on the playground, often with no resolution. She'd say something to me, I'd ask her what she said, tell her I don't understand, and often not even feed her the words. I felt disheartened.

And then, we went back to the swings. After a bit of banter about the "blue one" (Welche? [Which one?]) and the "green one" (Bitte?), I finally lifted her into the green one and started to push. And count. And push some more. She wanted me to push from behind, and once again, the game ensued: Wie bitte? [Huh?] And then it happened. After pushing from behind for a few minutes, she began to tell me, in English, that she was done. She repeated herself probably 8 times, until she finally said, with no prompting, "Fertig!" Clearly, I was ecstatic, and kissed her even more than I had the first time.

Then, as I was pushing her on the blue swing a bit later, the Austrian mom came over and began to talk with me. I began in German, grew frustrated with my lacking vocabulary, and quickly switched to English. Within a few seconds, she told me to speak to her in German--I love it! Just like she does with her son! So, I began to share with her my concern about Kaya's German, and a discussion quickly ensued about her advice about what to do. I was in heaven. Speak to her only in German, she told me, no matter what, no matter who is around. And insist on German from her. My questions came rolling forth: Is it not too early to feign misunderstanding? Am I not being mean? You don't think she doesn't know how to speak German? No. No. No. Her message was clear. It's not too late, silly Tamara, and it's not too early. The perfect time is now. Right now. Just like I was doing on the swings. Treat her with love, tell her that, from her, I only understand German, and as long as I give her the initial time and opportunity to answer, continue to teach her vocabulary when she clearly needs it.

Even now, I breathe a sigh of relief. An "expert" in my own backyard, and the experiment on the playground to back up her advice. Throughout the entire conversation with this mom, I was pushing Kaya on the blue swing. I was impressed with how much she was enjoying it. And then, towards the end of our conversation, when she was ready for another activity, she said it the first time, as clear as a bell: Fertig.

And that, my friends, is the sweet sound of insistence...!

Someday My Kraut will Come...

How do 2 weeks go by without my writing a single word on my blog?! It's amazing to think that there's something that I love to do so much, like write, and it takes me 14 days to get around to making the time to make it happen.



Damn sunshine and love of gardening.
Damn passion for eating organic and visiting the family farm we just "joined".
Damn 2-year-old, sapping all my extra energy with all the English you speak.

Why is blame so much easier than taking responsibility?!

I'm not exactly sure what I want to write about tonight--I just know that it is high time to make it happen: all of a sudden, my readership just grew tenfold--literally. I'm not sure exactly how, but here's my best guess: this British blogger in Glasgow, with a blog called Mummy Do That, recently linked to my blog from hers. As a blogger with more than 150 followers, on topics ranging from knitting to sustainability (not to mention, raising her children in German and English), it's not much of a surprise that I'd get a few hits off of her site. But to go from about 8 readers a day to 100!!--the LAST thing I expected to see when I jumped on my blog tonight. Yikes. I can't believe it. It almost makes me nervous to even open my "mouth" here, writing to so many of you at once...

I better make it good, huh?!

I just think it's amazing how powerfully strong an online community can be...and how incredible it is to be able share them as we do, and declare them as our own communities once we see them that way. Thank you, Mummy, thank you very much!

So, the theme of late has been all of Kaya's English. Not much has changed, really. It continues to roll off of her tongue in the sweetest ways, while the German stays mostly dormant, preparing for its BIG debut. One of these days, I'm sure of it, the curtains will open back up, and the Kraut will come pouring out of her, as if she'd spent all of her waking hours in the land of Lederhosen.

You just wait. It will.

And by the way, for those of you who are concerned that I damned my child above...have no fear. I love the hell out of her, and find myself wishing, on too many an occasion, that I would allow myself to speak the same language that she does so that I could feel that love even MORE than I already do.

A few weekends ago, I almost "gave up" all over again. The mantra was the same as what I wrote on my blog about a month ago: Can I do this? Do I want to? We were having a Block Party, and repainting our intersection compass, and all I wanted to do was continue my conversations with a few people about how I wasn't cut out for this, how I don't like it, and maybe I AM screwing her up with this choice that I'm making. And then, on Monday morning, it hit me: as much as I used to judge women who would blame PMS for everything under the sun, I, too, am just a human who is controlled by my hormones during many a monthly moment. Funny thing is, I felt so liberated as soon as I realized that...and finally, instead of telling myself that I'd remember next month, I actually wrote it down on my calendar next month so I can be ready for the roller coaster that may come barreling down my path.

My guess is that most of my readers are women...and to the rest of you men out there, dedicated to me and my blogging endeavors, thanks for putting up with this little effeminate dance. My intention a few weeks ago was to dedicate an entire post to the topic--so, you lucked out with merely a paragraph.

So, today, as moody as I'm not, I can't avoid the fact that my feelings haven't changed much: I still don't like the fact that I speak a different language than my daughter speaks with me. During the most trying of moments, and even the most endearing ones, it's like being in different worlds, and when I go anywhere near the idea that I might have to "endure" this forever, I instantly want to give up. Thus, when my emotional plate has room to spare, I can easily avoid those 'dangerous' thoughts, and do my best to live in the now, and focus on the connection we do have as opposed to the common language we don't.

Over the past week, I've been trying a myriad of ways to get her to speak German--the way that's been working the best has been to ask her tons of either/or questions. Today, for example, she wanted to read the Opposites book by Boynton. In the past, I've been unwilling to read 'Dada-books', and have steered her towards 'Mama-Buecher' in German. But lately, I've backed off of my stringency, and have taken the opportunity to expand our repertoire (and my creativity). So, as we were reading that Dada-book tonight, our interaction went a lot like this:

Mama: Der Elefant ist schwer. Der Hase ist leicht. Ist der Elefant leicht oder schwer? [The elephant is heavy. The rabbit is light. Is the elephant light or heavy?]
Kaya: schwer.[heavy]
Mama: (pointing to the animals on the page...) Schnell. Langsam. Ist der Hund schnell oder langsam? [Fast. Slow. Is the dog fast or slow?]
Kaya: schnell! [fast!]
Mama: Ist die Schnecke langsam oder schnell. [Is the snail slow or fast?]
Kaya: (pause) langsam. [slow]

It's getting easier for me to think like this while I'm reading her books...esp. the picture books with one or two words per page. But in real life, at the breakfast table for example, it's a lot more challenging (and draining!) to figure out how to word most of my interactions as either/or questions, or as informational questions that she'll answer with words that tend to be buzz words for her in German. And then I find myself even questioning how natural that is, and if I'm doing us a disservice by trying so frickin' hard to get the German to flow. Here's a pretty typical conversation at the breakfast table between us:

Willst du yogurt? [do you want yogurt?]
Ja!! [yeah!]
Was willst du drauf? [What do you want on it?]
Weizenkerne. [wheat germ]
Ok. Was noch? [ok. What else?]
Flax Oel. [Flax oil]
Ok. Noch was? [ok. Anything else?]
Ja. Apfelmuss, und Hefe! [Yeah, apple sauce and brewer's yeast!]
Ok, lecker. [oh yummy] (p.s. I don't really think brewer's yeast is yummy, though she does!)
Willst du auch Cheerios dazu. [Do you want Cheerios with that?]
Ja! [yeah!]

(I know, I can't believe it, either, that my kid chooses to eat wheat germ, brewer's yeast and flax oil on her food...it's a left-over habit from Super Baby Food and I'm lovin' it!!)

There are still a few life situations, like breakfast and riding the bus, where Kaya has a number of German buzz-phrases:

Sie steigen aus. [They're getting off]
Er steigt ein. [He's getting on.]
Wir fahren mit dem Bus. [We're riding the bus.]
Bus fahren. [Riding the bus]

I'm working to create a few more, but admittedly, Kaya has such a super-Dada that most topics have already been played with in English before I can 'get to them' in German. Yesterday, they were making a bouncy house out of play-doh, for example, and they've been having a great time in the backyard playing with the big bouncy ball from Geoff's office. I might have a chance with 'airplane', which she requested to do with me while we were reading from her 'Klara' book...I remember playing airplane with the boys I used to babysit, balancing them on the soles of my feet while they 'flew' above me on their stomachs. Kaya loves it, though definitely lets me know when she's had enough: "Don't do dat, Mama." Maybe I can monopolize the gardening topic, as we've been doing a lot of that together lately...just have to keep her from cutting all of my roses when she has a scissors in her hand!

Maybe it's because it's 12:30am, and I know I have to get up in 7 hours, but I'm dying to think of some of the cute things she's been saying in English and I just can't. She's speaking in complete sentences all of the time, at least in English, and enunciates like them best of 'em. One of her favorite phrases of late: "You canNOT do dat" (fill in 'dat' with whatever activity we happen to be doing that she doesn't like). She's also very willing to tell us, "I don't wike dat," or "I don't want it wike dat!" She has yet to master the letter "L" or "th", and as much as I don't want our daughter to have a speech problem, I wuv it, and hope it won't change anytime soon.

I bet if it weren't so late, I could also come up with a story or two about our farm trip to Junction City on Saturday, followed by our trip to the cabin for the rest of the weekend. But alas, it's time to follow my husband into bed, and prepare myself for a day of toddler tomorrow. So for now, you'll have to settle with a few pictures of the pigs that I fell in love with on the farm. As crass as it sounds, it was pretty cool to have these creatures rubbing their noses on my hand, nibbling my knuckles, reminding me of how much I love ham.

Community Language in the Lead (28 mos)

I swear I write more when my desk is a mess. I sit down to clean it, distract myself with blog comments that I have yet to respond to, and lo and behold, I'm inspired once again by my love of writing and connecting with my new-found blogging community.

So, hello again. It's nice to be back!

I've been m.i.a. lately for a couple of reasons. I recently started this book called The Householder's Guide to the Universe, which got me all excited about, yup, you guessed it: 'house-holding'--staying home, growing food, cooking it, and storing it away. All these years, I've been resisting the wife-label, being afraid of what it means about me if I stay home all day and then cook dinner for my husband who has been at work all day. All of a sudden, I LOVE the idea. Not that I haven't enjoyed being home with Kaya--I have, without a doubt. I love tutoring in the evenings part time--without that "escape", I'd be struggling, for sure--but what I've loved about staying home in the past was not having to get up and go to work at 8am, with a lesson plan prepped. I've loved the freedom of being a stay-at-home mom, the freedom to choose OMSI or the park or a hike or nowhere, whenever I feel like it. The idea of having to do laundry, having to cook dinner, having to play that dutiful wife role, kept me in state of rebellion...and had Geoff cooking dinner on many evenings, doing laundry in his spare time, and me feeling guilty because he's out there earning the majority of our income AND taking care of the house and family. Well, all of a sudden, there's passion in place of rebellion. I'm in love with gardening, with baking, with cleaning toilets. OK, definitely not the last one--and I still can't find it within me to dust regularly--but after reading this book, followed by the author-recommended "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades", I'm so eager to be home, to grow our food, to learn how to store it, and essentially, to do all of these things as part of my mission to save our struggling little planet.

And the other reason for my long absence: Kaya has been speaking mostly English for the past 20 days, and admittedly, I'm still not very inspired to write when she's speaking English, as cute and endearing as some of her phrasings are...

But I'm inspired now!
The rain is here. Kaya is sleeping. And I'm determined to re-connect.
And as much meaning as watch myself make out of her English-tendency, I'm telling myself that it's all part of the journey, whatever language she chooses in whatever moment she chooses it. I continue to tell myself that it doesn't mean anything about me that she's speaking so much English, as much as I fear that people are going to see it as failure. I'm sure there are a few of you out there (myself future-self included) wondering what language she's using for her tantrums these days.

I haven't been using my handy-dandy little magic-phone recorder lately, but there are a few one-liners that I keep playing over and over in my head. Yesterday morning, as we were driving to our German playgroup, I was thinking about the fact that I want to talk to her more, and I could start by describing the situation around us and what I see.

"Wir fahren in Stau," [We're driving in a traffic jam] I told her. "Es gibt viel Verkehr auf der Strasse." [There is a lot of traffic on the street.]
She processed for a few seconds, then responded with "What means dat, Mama?"
"Das heisst, es gibt viele Autos wo wir sind. Siehst du sie alle?" [That means there are a lot of cars where we're driving. Do you see them all?]

In the moment, I remember feeling bummed out a bit: my daughter isn't understanding the language I'm choosing to use with her. How am I supposed to foster relationship under those conditions?! I definitely was making it about the German, not about the fact that she's 2, and still learning about everything in her environment, in both languages. I can tell myself, now, that she asks questions in English, too. But it definitely takes effort for me to get myself 'back on track'.

Fact of the matter, as I said above, she's speaking primarily English these days. There have been about 2 days, in the past 20, when she's spoken about 70% German with me (I was dying to write on those days!). There were also a few where I'd guess she was speaking about 30-40%. Generally, though, I'd estimate her German usage with me to be about 5-10%. She's stopped speaking much German at all with Dada and her grandparents, as well as with others in the community. Basically, she has key words and phrases that she uses with me almost exclusively in German (though when I take a moment to think about them, none come to mind!). Where she used to ask "Buch lesen", she now says, "Read a book, Mama." Where she used to say only"Katze" in my company, she often chooses "cat" instead. Today, for example, while we were reading a book, she got excited when she saw the "cats!" under the flap. I tried blogger-Sarah's suggestion of creating a language game to encourage her to switch languages:

"Du siehst Elefanten darunter?!" [You see elephants under there?]
"No, cats," she said, calmly.
"Oh, Affen!" [Oh, monkeys!] I replied, faking my understanding.
"No, caaats," she said, a bit louder and more pronounced.
"Oh, du siehst Hunden darunter!" [Oh, you see dogs under there!] I said this time.
"Cattts!" she said, quite definitively this time around.

I wasn't having the same success that I've had in the past, where she'll switch terms after I ask her a few times. So, I tried our old favorite:

"Was sagt mama dazu?" [What does mama say for that?].
She stood up and turned around on the couch, clearly getting a little restless and tired of the game. "Cat," she said, seemingly confident in her response.
Noting my lack of 'success', I tried one more time, "Was sagt mama zu cat?" [What does mama say for cat?]
She paused, kept looking ahead while facing backwards on the couch, and said some word that wasn't even remotely close to "Katze", the term I'd been seeking. One more time, I repeated my last question and then, after a long, 5-second pause, she said, "Katze!" Katze, Mama. Katze, Katze, Katze. Can we get on with just reading the damn book already? (Kaya, in 4 years...!)

I've been telling myself that "without some serious change in habit on my part (like talking and reading to her a hell of a lot more often), or a change in her environment (Germany in October!), there's no way that her German skills are going to catch up to her English ones." When Kaya speaks English, we can pretty much understand 95% of what she's saying. She enunciates very clearly, and often repeats herself until we respond, if she's talking to us. It's the opposite in German. She does repeat herself, but her sounds are more jumbled and slurred, at least with those terms that are new for her. Lately, when I can't understand what she's saying, I switch my brain to German input mode, wrack my brain for what I just said to her in German, repeat her phrase aloud, over and over, and then, if my brain has worked faster than her patience level, we can move on to the next concept and continue in our communication. It's tiring, for sure.

Here comes the part where I 'should' on myself...
It seems like I 'should' know, as a language teacher, that this could be just a phase. It seems like, as a blogger with such a supportive community and a year full of blog entries, I could tell myself more often that this is just a phase and there's no reason for concern. It seems like I could even pull up the recordings on my handy-dandy magic phone from the book I read two weeks ago that inspired me to remember that there's no sense in worrying at this stage of the game--mixing is normal until three and a half.

Yet I worry a bit, regardless.
It's the beauty of the brain, right? It's like its natural tendency is worry and fear, and the path of effort is peace and serenity.
I'm confident that with continued practice, it will be otherwise.

I wonder if Katzen worry.

Kaya just woke up from her nap, and as tempted as I am to sit here and continue to write, I'm also determined to spend some time with her before heading off to tutor for the evening. This post is growing overly long, anyway. I made my point, got back on the horse, and hope to be back again soon, writing about one of the many other topics that I'm eager to address!

Grammar Gaming

I'm going to go out on a limb here and write a brief little post about some grammar gaming that Kaya's been doing over the past few days. I know, I know...it may come as a shock to some of you if I don't wax on for days, lamenting about how hard this whole thing is...

But I'm gonna try it.
See how it feels.

So, a few days before I wrote my last post, Kaya and I were having a moment in the kitchen: she was playing with the plastic, magnetized measuring spoons, ultimately throwing them on the floor. I wasn't into it. Especially when I saw the magnetic pieces flying every which direction.

The next day, moment behind us, Kaya was playing with the spoons again, wondering about the missing magnet on the back. I reminded her of what happened, and she, like a detective, went searching for the missing piece. I told her that I thought one of the pieces went under the stove, so she hopped over there and began to look. Within a few seconds, I heard her say, "Kaya see it not," which as some of you may realize, is German grammar through and through: Kaya sieht es nicht.

A few days later, as I was leaving for work, Kaya let me know, emphatically, that "Kaya's bleibing bei Dada" [Kaya's staying with Dada]. Initially, I was really delighted to see that Kaya is playing with the rules, applying German grammar to her English sentences. But then it hit me that she's doing it in both directions...SO cool.

The human brain is really SO cool.
(Except when it keeps us stuck in our self-degrading, overwhelmed states!)

Can I do this?! Do I want to?

This post was written for the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, hosted this month by Multilingual Mania. Thank you so much to everyone involved...your posts and readership make a massive difference for us all!

I was doing an interview with a friend on Thursday, when one of her answers left me pondering:

"What can you count on me for?" I asked her, curious to hear her perspective.
"To speak German with your daughter," I heard, suddenly smiling at the irony. Just two days earlier, I was making plans to back off.

To speak German...,
the non-native language that has been plaguing me for weeks, leaving me feeling trapped and restricted in how I say what, and when...

With my daughter...,
the incredibly endearing two-year-old who is adamant about what she wants with whom and where...

If we'd had more time, I would have told my friend all about how close I'd been. She probably would have said, You've been there before, right?, and I would have said, Yeah, but this time I was really close. And I woulda been right--I was really close.

As you may know, if you've followed my blog at all, I've continued to struggle with this whole non-native endeavor. Am I good enough? Can I do it? Will our relationship suffer? Is it really what I want now that I have a feel for the sacrifices involved?

The past few weeks have been especially tumultuous for me, in regards to these dilemmas. I could think of little else other than changing my method and breaking free of my entrapment. Not throwing in the towel altogether, but allowing myself some opportunities to speak English with my daughter. However, being as strict as I have been about OPOL, I felt like I was about to give up. Though I've gone through a few brief phases in the past two years, I've generally spoken to our daughter in only German since day one, and requested that my husband do the same in English. It's been a roller coaster of emotions, to say the least, watching the ebb and flow of Kaya's English and German. One week, tons of German. The next, seemingly none.

When Kaya was a baby, other mom-friends would give me crap because we had such an "easy" baby. She slept well, ate well, and cried when most people expect babies to cry. I knew I had it good, and soaked it up for as long as I could. During this time, as I implied above, I continued to speak German to her, despite the awkward challenge of monologue in my non-native language. As tempted as I was at times to give up, I told myself I'd wait for dialogue before making my decision.

Well, here it is. The dialogue. Full sentences. Narrations her life as she lives it:
Kaya's hungy.
Kaya's done.
Kaya do dat.
Kaya will staubsaugen [Kaya wants to vacuum].

The day has come, I've reached my goal, and as I've been doing all week, it's time to re-assess. Is this what I want? Can I handle it? Is it as much of a priority as it used to be?

No. I don't think so. Not really.
The answers were pretty obvious to me, and their negativity was what had me truly questioning whether my method reflects where I want to be going. I'd talked to three very important people in my life--my neighbor, my Dad, and my 'surrogate' mom--all of whom supported me immensely in doing what I felt was best: backing off the stricture and doing what felt more comfortable and easy.

My concern, I told them, was that as much of a gift as bilingualism is, I'm not sure that Kaya isn't losing out in some other way, at the expense of our attempt to raise her in two languages. It's the classic argument, right? Can a non-native speaker really foster the essential connection in their non-native language? A month ago or so, I had no doubts. A blogger friend even asked me, "What's changed? What happened to cause the doubts that didn't seem to exist before?"

Kaya is two.
That's the difference.
At least that's how I make sense of it.

I tell myself it's harder because I'm not only trying to parent in my non-native language, but because I'm constantly faced with being tested in it, too. It's one thing to be the parent I want to be in English...that, as many of you know, is challenging in itself. But in German?! While we were taking a parenting class last year, I remember the struggle that I had, attempting to process all of the info in German--What would that sound like? How would you say that? And how am I going to get it to come out in German when it isn't even natural in English?

And that's what I found...it doesn't come out naturally at times, especially in those moments when all I want is to get my message across as quickly as possible, and to feel confident in my role as a mom. Not lame and stupid and awkward, speaking my third language.

Between those uninspiring feelings, and my sense that I haven't been speaking to Kaya as much as I might if I spoke to her in English, I feared that she might be losing out on a big part of her mom. And as much as I know that there are no truths, no guarantees, my understanding of neurology had me confident that those foundations are not worth sacrificing for anything, including multilingualism.

I still believe that, I have to say.
But what's changed is my strategy.

After talking to my Dad on the phone, and hearing him tell me that, according to my concerns, I should change my method "forthright" (I kid you not, he used that word!!), I began to wonder if I might not regret my decision later. Of course, this wonder wasn't new...I've been kicking it around for weeks, frozen by fear of the consequences of "giving up" on something that I might not be able to get back. It's had me feeling trapped, this fear, and is exactly what I've been trying to shake for the past 6 months. Kaya may speak 'a lot' of English right now, far more than I continue to expect under the circumstances (another topic for another day), but what I do know is that she's not speaking English because she hears me speaking it to her--and that, for me in my current position, is incredibly relieving.

In the past, I've talked about creating possibility, about the power of seeing what you want and going for it, even if it seems completely out of reach. I decided, while sitting on the couch with my husband, that it's time, once again, to employ that tool. Instead of feeling stuck in strategy, trapped by my own rules and regulations...despite being tested and awkward and tired and tempted...I can focus on the possibility and follow through with my initial dream of active bilingualism for Kaya.

It really came down to this: If I give up now, at what could be the most challenging parental phase of our lives (adolescence aside!), how will I feel later?

Of course, there's no way to know until I'm there, but my sense is that I'd rather not make any rash decisions, about anything if I can avoid it, when I'm being tested by a toddler. We really should use this excuse far more often than we do, fellow parents. I can't pay the bills, honey...I'm being tested...

The other thing that had me holding on was this awesome piece of advice by another blogger-friend: "...we have created this environment which is really remarkable, yet we feel, in weaker moments, that we are doing something artificial. Maybe we are, but it's all our little angels know, so for them, it is their reality...I just think that its easy to forget that actually, for Kaya, it is as normal to hear you speak German as it is for her to hear her dad speak English." This is so true. The last few days, as I was mulling all of this over, I spoke a few sentences to Kaya on different occasions. Each time, she'd been simply focusing on whatever object was in front of her, as she often does. As soon as I spoke English, though, she quickly turned to look at me, and paused, as if she were clearly processing that something wasn't quite 'right'. She notices, I have no doubt of that now. And as this friend continued to remind me, "inside her brain, Kaya understands German whether she chooses to respond using her German words or not." This, too, was a great reminder. I'd been telling myself that all my efforts were for naught, that the challenge isn't worth it if she's not even learning how to speak 'my' language. But what I forget in those moments of high expectation is that there's a lot I don't know, and making a decision based on those feelings can leave me, leave us, with oodles of lost opportunities.

So, at this point, I've decided to stick it out: I'll stick with OPOL for six months, which will just about see us through our 3 1/2 week trip to Germany in October. At that point, Kaya will be closer to 3, in a different language phase altogether, and hopefully, fingers crossed, won't be testing us as severely. I know, I know...testing continues. But I'd rather 'risk it' and see, than be driven by fear and overwhelm....the conclusion I seem to land on every time.

Thanks, once again, for joining us on our journey...

P.S. I know that there are many of you out there, bloggers and parents who I value and respect, who don't use OPOL as your method. You may bounce between methods, and might utilize the inconsistencies that leave me feeling so fearful. I just want you to know that, in no way, does my fear nor my dialogue here, reflect my attitude towards you and what you do. I recognize that we each do the best job we can, with everything we do, and we each have our own set of expectations and concerns. As much as I know that I share concerns with many of you, I also recognize that my concerns may feel eons away for those of you employing different strategies that work better for your life. I applaud you for whatever you do, it all makes a difference--I'm just not very good at extending the compassion and appreciation I have for you, to me (working on it though, and one day, SOON, I'll be a master!).