Sneaky Little Punks

Especially S is good at playing us against each other.

That's not surprising, I know. She's four; it's her job. Has been from day one really, now that I think about it. She figured out early on that Papa is much more likely to cave in on just about anything if only she pretends she might cry. She also knows that there's usually no point in even trying half the stuff she tries with Papa with me. As does O. But he has a different personality and is not taking this to the extreme the way she always has. Though maybe this will come when he gets a bit older.

Now that she's actually speaking German to me most of the time, inspite of the odd hopefully temporary problem, she's figured out that it gives her yet another advantage on this whole "Let's-see-what-I-can-get-away-with-now Game" she likes so much. She shamelessly exploits the fact that Papa is monolingual and can no longer understand most of our German conversations. Even though he has improved a lot over the years, he's nowhere near the level she's at, and consequently, often has no real idea of what she and I just talked about/she was just asked to do/I just forbade/etc.

Over at the BabelKids' household, the parents can't have their own secret language, a problem I know only too well. In our house, however, the more serious side effect of having budding bilingual children running around is actually that the kids and I have a secret language that they can use to their own advantage.

For example:

"Nee, Du kriegst nicht noch einen Keks! Du hast gerade schon zwei gegessen, das reicht. Ausserdem gibt's gleich Abendbrot!"
[Nope, you can't have another cookie! You've had two already, that's enough. Besides, we're about to have dinner!]

O chimes in, "Keks! I want a Keks auch!!!!" [Cookie! I want a cookie, too!!!!]

"Mama!!!! Nur noch einen! Bitteeeeee? Mama, bitte! Ich esse auch mein Abendbrot, wirklich!"
[Mama!!!! Just one more! Pleaseeee? Mama, please! I will eat dinner, really!"]

O can still be heard in the background, "Keks!!! Ich auch!!! Keks bitte!!!"
[Cookie!!! Me too!!! Cookie, please!!!"]

The Husband understands the word Keks [cookie], but really, he's watching football or some other nonsense on TV and is not paying too much attention to what we're up to in the next room. S eventually gives up and meanders over to talk to Papa. O follows closely, and both of them are smiling innocently. She sweetly says to Papa,

"Mama said we can have another cookie. Can you get some for us please?"

If this happens while I'm not paying attention, they win. Hands down, not much effort required. Had Papa been paying any attention to either of us or the time of day, he might have survived this one, of course. But with football or some other sports in the background, he never had a chance.

And there are countless varieties on the above, with or without sports on the TV.

"Zieh Dir bitte eine Strumpfhose an!" [Please put on tights!]
S goes upstairs to get dressed and gets Papa to help. Sure enough, she will come back without tights on - unless I interfere.

"Bürste Deine Haare ehe wir losgehen." [Brush your hair before we go out.]
Can you guess who will come back with a wild mop of hair? And can you also guess who's standing upstairs still, trying to figure out why she quickly came upstairs for a second?

"Hör bitte jetzt endlich auf, immerzu O zu quaelen!!!!" [Please stop torturing O!!!"] - at the sound of O screaming, this is me, calling from the other room.
You can bet she will only stop once Papa finally realizes that the little punk is out of his league. And his threshold for rough-housing can sometimes be way higher than mine.

"Mach bitte Deinen Teller leer." [Clean up your plate, please.]
If I don't stay there to make sure, she will claim, "Mama said I can be done" and leave the last spoonful of food on her plate, regardless of whether she's actually hungry or not. It's just something she likes to do and Papa doesn't see anything wrong with that either.

"Wir kriegen gleich Besuch, räum mal bitte Dein Puzzle weg." [We're having people over in a minute, please clean up your puzzle.]
If anything, it's Papa who will clean up the puzzle.

If only The Husband understood everything I said to S, at least some of this would not happen. We've agreed a long time ago that we need to be on the same page with the kids and that we don't want them to run from one of us to the other, hoping to get what they want eventually.

However, given that she is bilingual and he is not, she's got a leg up on him and has an easier time of pulling one over on him than a kid in a monolingual family might have, or one in a bi-or multilingual family in which everyone understands the same languages.

It's frustrating for him and tiring for me, for sure, but eventually we hope she (or they, if Punk 2 follows her example) will learn that this kind of thing is not really what we do. She is learning that telling the truth is important, and eventually it will click that this is a similar thing, But for now, we are stuck in this strange situation where the kids and I have a secret language.

Sometimes this is good, as it allows me to say things like, "Nimm den Finger aus der Nase!" [Take your finger out of your nose!] when we're in polite company and don't want everyone to understand. But mostly it helps the kids pull one over on Papa. Which is not all that good, really.

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This post is part of the "Raising Bilingual Children Blogging Carnival", this time hosted by Bilingual Readers.