No Worse For Wear

 So here we are again, back in town, our respective vacations over for more than a week already*.

As you may know, I worried a lot about whether or not the kids’ German and their willingness to speak it would be impacted by us going on vacation and them going to spend some time with their monolingual English-speaking grandparents. Before we ever even booked our tickets. Of course, that’s just what any good worrywart would do, but I still think I really have reason to worry about all this in general as they don’t get all that much German input to begin with and I often feel like it’s a bit of an uphill battle to keep things going.

But as it turned out, there was absolutely no need to be worried about these 10 days! Their German survived, and in the case of Punk 2 it may even have flourished. So awesome!

I was very impressed with both of them from the moment we made the first phone call to check up on them, as they immediately switched into German when I got on the phone. And when they continued speaking German even when I switched into English because their monolingual English-speaking grandmother was there and had the phone on speaker. That just about floored me. We only ever talked to them for a couple of minutes here and there as they were usually too busy playing with their cousins or running around outside and didn’t actually want/need to talk to us. So they didn’t exactly get a lot of practice out of those calls, but at least I got reassurance that they – and their German – were doing well.

Now we’ve had them back for just over a week, and I am still impressed with how well they are able (and willing) to use their German. There doesn't seem to be a difference with Punk 1's German, except that she is still so happy we’re all back together that she’s often on her best behavior which, for her, has always included speaking more German without complaining about it. Punk 2 on the other hand seems to have matured a little over those 10 days. He appears to be more grown up in his behavior and had a growth spurt, so he acts and looks a little different now. And his German, if this is possible, also underwent some kind of development!

I am not sure how this happened or what happened, but he is now able to come up with more complicated sentences and is using more varied vocabulary. Also, in the last few weeks before we left, more and more English had been creeping into his German conversations again and I was beginning to get antsy for Oma’s annual summer visit that made such a big difference for him last year – but now he speaks much more German with me again, is more willing to try and play with the language to get a sentence out, and altogether gets at least an A+ for effort.

So yeah, I am pretty much ecstatic about how well they can use their German, and both of them have completely blown me away. Getting them back was great in itself, but getting them back with no dent in their German was the best coming home gift I could have asked for :)

The other thing I have noticed, however, is that English pretty much has a complete grip as their sibling language. This is not new, of course, but it somehow seems to be stronger now than it was before we left. It is not surprising in that the two of them have always been close, but have gotten even more so as they leaned on each other and even slept in the same bed while we were gone. So the three of us now constantly have conversations that go like this:

Mama: So, was habt ihr denn heute alles im Kindergarten gemacht? [So, what did you do today at daycare?]
Punk 1: Gespielt. [Played.]
Punk 2: Ich war draußen! [I was outside!]
Punk 1 (laughing to Punk 2): That was so funny when E fell into the mud!!
Punk 1 (still aughing to me): Mama, das hättest Du mal sehen sollen! E ist ausgerutscht und in den Matsch gefallen!! [Mama, you should have seen it! E slipped and fell into the mud!!]
Punk 2: Mama, ich habe auch mit G gespielt! Möchtest Du meine Spidermanunterhose sehen?? [Mama, I also played with G! Would you like to see my Spiderman underwear??]
Punk 2 (to Punk 1): I’m wearing my Spiderman underwear!!! Wanna see it?

Conversations are a bit cumbersome like this, but they separate their languages extremely well (when they want to… there are many occasions when I have to remind them, especially so Punk 1), get their points across in either language, and don’t seem to think twice about holding forth this way.

I still wish they’d speak only German when, as in the above example, it’s only the three of us, but I realize that this is getting to be more and more unlikely at this point. Maybe later when they are a bit older they can make the conscious decision when to use what language with each other depending on the languages spoken by whoever else is around, but I suspect that for the time being at least English is their language, and that it's hard for them to speak German to each other even when other German-speakers are around.

But either way, their German survived! And even though to some extent all my worrying beforehand served to prepare myself for the worst, it would have been a hard hit to take had they come back unable and/or unwilling to speak German with me!

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* We all had a wonderful time and some of us returned home with plenty of new clothes (thanks to insanely good deals in the US and an insanely strong loonie, hah!), others with a vocabulary instilled in them with pride by their older cousins. We are hoping the word ‘noob’ will not be called upon to show a little daycare friend who’s boss :)

The kids fared well, really they did. Punk 1 had a great time and loved playing with her cousins, watching as much TV as she wanted, and getting spoiled rotten by her grandma. There no longer is any treat she doesn’t yet know. At least she thoroughly enjoyed herself. Same for Punk 2, though he apparently cried a couple of times, wanting to go home. It never lasted for long and he was easily distracted by his cousins and now really only talks about how much fun he had. He appears to be particularly impressed with the line-up at the local swimming pool snaking all around the complex.

We loved our trip, too, although the weather was mainly pretty bad. We knew spring wasn’t the best time of year for a visit to northern California, but weren’t thinking it was going to rain as much as it did (3 inches, yes inches - that's almost 10 cm -  in one night alone!). We didn’t let it stop us from doing the things we wanted, but a little more sunshine at least would have been nice. But the thing that really depressed us was that we arrived back here in the midst of a snowstorm and temperatures of 10-15C below normal for this time of year.

But anyway, it was a good trip and a wonderful treat! I’m sooooo glad The Husband thought it up :) I’m also pretty sure we’ll be doing something like it again, though it might be a while.

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This post is part of the Raising Bilingual Kids Carnival, hosted by Multilingual Mama.