Sunday 27 May 2007

Baby language

Having a baby I expected the difficulties to include a loss of sleep, mental faculties and control.

I expected the happy gains to include experiencing feelings of unconditional love and contentment. I did not expect to see ‘developing conversational German’ on the list of gains, but it definitely needs to be added. For, when I take April into town in her baby sling, she is like a magnet for German females who want to engage me in small talk about her size, age and general cuteness.

Take yesterday for example:
• On the up escalator coming out of the tram I found myself surrounded by a group of über trendy teenage girls cooing over April.
• At the counter of a parfumerie a group of young mums came over to engage us in conversation.
• As April and I waddled through a department store there were audible ‘ooos’ and ‘aahs’ from assistants.
• On the tram home a lady sitting opposite me grabbed April’s tiny hand and exclaimed that it was cold. (This made me feel like a bad mum for not kitting April out in gloves.) The lady went on to make all of the usual exclamations about April being small and sweet, until we both had to get off at the same stop. At this point she asked if I knew where such and such a street was. Fat chance that I could answer her query (due to poor knowledge of the local geography and the local language), but I was chuffed that she hadn’t twigged that my German was so inadequate until that point. The lady then grabbed April’s hand again to make a special point of saying goodbye to the little one.

If only April could understand her public...although as her outfit shows, she is trying to embrace the lingo. These garments were given to us by a couple of Simon’s female colleagues. ‘Statt Karriere’ means ‘Instead of a career’ (nice joke ladies) and ‘Mit Liebe gemacht ’ means ‘Made with love’.

1 comment:

Anna said...

You can expect lots of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from me this weekend when I'm over!