Frecher Spatz

At the end of the summer I started writing down a few of the funny (and cheeky, or just interesting) things that Clara said, hoping to make it into a blog post. Here it finally is.

One day after the summer vacation I dropped Clara off at her daycare. She started playing immediately with her friends, and I asked the teacher if I could hang out for a bit at the door and watch. After a minute or two Clara happened to look up and notice me. She RAN to the door, pushed on my leg, and said "du muss sofort gehen!" (you need to leave immediately!).

Around the same time Clara started to really categorize people into English or German (and later, to bilingual or "mountainlingual"). So one day at breakfast I was talking to Tanja's mom in German, and Clara interrupted me and said "Daddy muss English sprechen" (Daddy has to speak English!).

As is normal with bilingual children, Clara doesn't have any problems "mixing up" the languages. But German and English are so closely related that if you don't know the German word it's not crazy to just guess it's the same. Clara must have been doing this when she was in the natural history museam with her Opa and she pointed out "die Bohnen von die Bären" (the beans of the bear), when what she meant was the bones of the bear. What's so funny is that on the occasions when this happens she modifies the words according to German grammer, so Bone -> Bohn and Bones -> Bohnen.

Another time with her Opa, sometime in the fall, Clara told him that some non-animal object (a stone, or house, or something) pees. Her Opa took this as a teachable moment, and said that some things pee and some don't, and furthermore that all animals pee. Clara thought about this for a while, and then asked "und ein Schmetterling? Kann ein Schmetterling pullern?" (What about butterflies? Can a butterfly pee?)

A few days later Clara told her Opa "Ich bin ein Schmetterling" (I'm a butterfly). He responded "no, you can't be a butterfly, butterflies don't have hair. Have you ever seen a butterfly with hair?" Clara: "Yeah. Me!"


I once asked Clara to fetch a facecloth from her room. She ran and got it, and when she came back she said "I got him!" (German is a gendered language, so if the object is the right gender you say "I got her" rather than "I got it".) I took this as a chance for a language lesson and explained that in English we call things "it" even if they are a "he" in German. Clara looked down at the facecloth and said "but this is a hand-washing-monster!" So I had to concede that monsters can be he or she in English too!

In November Clara asked Tanja a few great math riddles while they were counting Legos. "What is the last number?" and "What number comes after 'half'?".

Around the time that my parents visited in October, Clara switched from mostly speaking German at home to mostly speaking English at home. While we were in Canada her English vocabulary grew in leaps and bounds. Clara seems to like using "big words", although she sometimes doesn't use them correctly (e.g. explanation, awesome). Highlights that I can remember were "Look at Oscar's bed, how wonderful it is!", and Clara holding something up for Tanja and saying "Behold!" I have no idea where she got that one from...

She also started using "because" correctly while we were in Canada. Before the trip, if I asked her questions that she should answer with "because" she would instead usually use "that". E.g. "How do you know it's winter in the picture?" "That there's snow on the ground".

Getting back to Clara's sass, while we were in Canada Clara had a bit of a potty regression, and would fight about whether she had to go or not. One time when we asked her to go, Clara made a little fart and then yelled "that doesn't mean I have to pee!"


This Sunday around lunchtime Clara commented to me that the floor was dirty, and I should mop it. I told her that I didn't think I'd have time to do it, because Uncle Robert and Aunty Nadine were coming, and that maybe I would do it in the evening, or maybe tomorrow. The rest of the day went by without any mention of the floors, and after I had gotten Clara ready for bed, read her books, sung her songs, and tucked her in I said goodnight. Clara said back "do the mopping!"

Tanja's mom has been here for a long visit, and is going back home tomorrow. This morning Clara told me "Oma should take the train back home". When I asked why she said "because then we would have a car."

Somehow they wash the kids hands differently at the daycare than I do at home - I think maybe they put the soap on the kids hands before rinsing? For a while Clara was trying to convince me to do it the daycare way, but she hasn't tried in a while. Anyway, today I went to the bathroom at the daycare while I was picking Clara up, and she told me "it's ok, we can wash hands the wrong way as long as you are here Daddy..."