Our Lucky Break

Everything German is chugging along nicely – the kids are entirely capable and generally willing to speak it, Punk 1 has basic literacy skills (though lagging behind English a bit), and we continue to make an effort for German to have a role in their day-to-day lives (books, DVDs, CDs, play dates, talking to relatives in Germany, etc.).

However, as usual I’ve been worrying because they are still getting much more English than any other language, and we postponed the Germany trip we were thinking of taking this summer to (hopefully) next year. So, I have been wondering about it all. But then our summer plans were coming together and because of a camp/daycare shortage, the grandparents will be more involved with childcare this year than they have ever been before.

While this means the kids, or at least Punk 1 as Punk 2 is a bit undecided still at this point, will be spending another week of all English at the in-laws – this time hopefully without any fretting over it on my part since it went so well when we tried it earlier this year - it also means, and this is the exciting part, that Oma’s annual visit really is Oma’s summer job this time around as she’ll be babysitting Punk 1 for two whole weeks at our place (and sticking around a little longer to relax and just visit after).

But yes, two whole weeks of German immersion!

And it really will be German all day long as Oma doesn’t know a lot of English, giving Punk 1 more German-only than she has ever had! They both get a day here or there when I take them out for the day, and sometimes more when The Husband travels for work and abandons us all for a few days – but they have never had two full work weeks, with only a little English thrown in mornings and nights.

I’m excited!

As are they. They had a wonderful time with Oma last year and are both looking forward to her visit, with Punk 1 being quite happy that Oma is going to babysit her. And me, I have my hopes up that she will get into German more (and hopefully stop saying and thinking that she doesn’t like speaking it); increase her vocabulary; get more confident and at ease using the language; maybe get over some of her more glaring grammatical mistakes; and mainly just have fun in German. I’m hoping she will have such a good time with Oma that she won’t even notice she’s speaking only German all day long!

Things are a little more complicated with Punk 2, however. I’d love for him to also stay home from daycare and learn German spend time with Oma, and no doubt that’s what he wants, but the thing is that he’s rather wild and a little much for Oma to handle. We’re not sure how things are going to play out, but right now we’re thinking that he’ll get to stay home some days and then go to daycare the other days to give Oma a break. Compared to last year, he’s a little older and more mature, he doesn’t run away quite as often anymore and is a little more likely to at least stop running when he gets to a road, but since Oma can’t run after him anymore, things are still a little dicey.

The other thing is that the kids are still pretty determined to speak English to each other, regardless of who is around, so it is somewhat likely that they’d play by themselves for hours and speak English to each other, only depending on Oma to keep them fed and hydrated, and to break up the occasional fight. It might not be much German immersion with the two of them together, after all.

But for now we’re all excited and I’m gearing up to order some more German books and resources that Oma will bring. Some of those I will keep in my closet and get out throughout the year to stock up our supply of German things, but what I really want for this summer are some of those school preparation workbooks Punk 1 loves anyway, so that Oma can maybe work on some literacy skills with her as well. Oma is a very good and patient tutor, so it’d be good if we could get them into something fun that also involves reading and writing. Like playing school, for example, something that Punk 1 does all the time anyway – in English. If she could have her usual imaginary classroom just with Oma as a real student, I don’t see why she couldn’t be reading German rather than English books to her students and lecture them on the finer points of German rather than English spelling. Or they could write postcards to the German cousins, anything that makes it fun, so that Punk 1’s German literacy skills have a chance to catch up with her English. And without her noticing that she's actually working on something.

I want them all to have fun most of all – but I also want us to take advantage of the immersion aspect, and get all the benefits that come from having a (mainly) monolingual German speaker around.

And, as if this is not enough German for us all, we are also getting at least one other visit from Germany this summer, and possibly a second one! The first one, coming up in a couple of weeks already, is not going to be more than maybe a brunch and an afternoon lazing about the backyard or something with my aunt and uncle who are stopping over on their way to Vancouver. But the second and so far unconfirmed visit might be coming from my friend and her family, including a daughter who is only six months older than Punk 1. Having these kids around, my friend has three altogether, would be so awesome for our kids! Especially so for the girls who are so close in age! Plus, I haven’t seen my friend since the girls were babies, and it’d be so great to finally catch up again, in person. But I’m trying to stay calm about it for now, just in case it doesn’t work out after all as my friend is not in the habit of making the most organized travel plans and hasn’t told us any details yet anyway.

But there’s lots of German in store for us this summer for sure, and I can’t wait to see how it goes!