Our little Polish girl

It's that time again. A few days (or minutes) have passed and I already have enough material to write another book about how amazing and adorable Anna is. Plus, our friend Maria gave Anna a cute little traditional Polish folk dress, so I thought I'd put up a few pictures for you to look at before I continue to gush.




Cute! And now for the rest of the Anna Update.

Spoonerific
I'm sort of a word nerd. Sure I like to read and dabble in writing a bit, but word jokes have always made me laugh. I love thought-you-saids and spoonerisms will always be classic — ever since the day my friend Tamra Rhodes introduced herself as Ramra Toads. (Thanks for bringing them into my life, Tam.) Anyway, my sisters and my mom love a good mix-up as well. The day my mom said "beats and pisses" instead of "bits and pieces" will live forever. And we like them even if the mix-up isn't quite an official spoonerism, like the time my dad announced in church that the closing song would be "Ring Out, Wild Bears." (It should have been "bells," for those of you who are unfamiliar with the rare tune.)

OK, so I think I got a little carried away with my introduction, but I guess that's pretty telling about how much word jokes make me laugh. The point is that some of Anna's common phrases have been spoonerized and you can imagine how much delight I get when I hear them.

good night = nigh good
get down = det gown
goodbye = buhgye

The F-Word
Now I've got your attention, right? A few months ago, Anna used the word "fix" for basically any way she needed help. Opening things, putting her shoes on, etc. And yes, a few months ago her version of "fix" sounded unmistakably like that unmentionable f-word. We worked hard on her pronunciation and I guess you could say it's paid off. She's definitely got the right vowel sound down, but she's still working on the 'x' sound. So for now, it sounds like "fick-s." It's so cute, all drawn out like that. And it's the same when she says the name of her little friend Max. She's even working on possessives. She'll point to things around the room and say "Mom'z," "Dad'z," and "Anna'z." (Man, it's hard to transpose verbal toddler language into written prose.)

Old Lady Anna
She's always been rather polite, but lately Anna has started saying a very hearty "Oh, thank you!" whenever she receives anything, be it a treat, a bath, or a diaper change. And if that weren't enough, she also started saying "Thank you much" over the last couple weeks. I have no idea where she got it, but it makes me laugh. Little old lady Anna.

OK, I think that's enough for now. Here are some other random photos for good measure:

Working at the penloo with Dad. How did "penloo" come to be the word for "computer"? Your guess is as good as ours.

Anna loves playing on the balcony, and this time she happened to bring some friends to sit out there with her. I like how she set them up so that they surround her in a circle, including the topless barbie.

On the train to Warsaw. I don't quite know what face I'm making, but Anna's is adorable.

Playing at the Arzapalos'. (The orange outfit, glasses, and crazy hairdo are courtesy of Maria; the insanely cute girl is courtesy of . . . me and Trevor.)

Not your typical Sunday afternoon

Last Sunday afternoon, the three of us were lazing around and basically doing nothing. Actually, I was doing nothing while Trevor read to me. We kept tossing around the idea of going for a nice Sunday stroll in the park since the weather was pretty mild, but we were too lazy to even decide. True to form, we planned to give it another thirty minutes or so and then we'd make a decision.

Not ten minutes later, the weather changed and down came the rain. Lightning and thunder followed in force, with Anna yelling "Loud!" and "Noise!" at every crack. It was super crazy. This went on for a while and then the lightning and thunder eased up, so we thought we'd let Anna out on the balcony to play in the rain a little. She had been wanting to touch it all evening.

(I'm going to apologize for the poor photography right from the get-go. The pictures are blurry, dark, and the bars kept getting in the way. I am quite an amateur, but I was also trying to not destroy the camera in the monsoon.)


While we were on the balcony, the rain came down more and more — and then we noticed the street was totally flooded. There's a curve in the road right by our building and the water had basically formed a small lake there. A few cars drove up on the sidewalk to get through, but most just turned around and went a different way.

The two tiny people in the center of the picture will give you an idea of how deep the water was — at least knee-deep, don't you think?

One small, though fairly bold, car decided to attempt driving down our street-turned-river. It started to float away after a few feet, so Trevor rolled his moose pajama pants (thanks, Jen) up to his knees, threw on my flip flops, and ran outside to help the driver push it to safety.



He was COMPLETELY drenched, as was Anna by this time — but it still took me a good 20 minutes to get her to come inside. And she still cried. But the rain finally let up a little after that and the flooding went down a few hours later. What a crazy, crazy storm.

Update!

Trevor and I finally decided what to do with our lives once our time in Poland is over. We're flying back to the States on August 11th. Soon after that, we will move all of our stuff to Los Angeles, where Trevor will begin a master's program in film directing at the American Film Institute Conservatory.

While we're sad about leaving lots of good friends, good food, and fun memories in Poland, we're very excited about all of the new adventures coming our way. We'll obviously keep you updated on the trip home and the move and, well, probably everything else.

Also, I've never actually been to LA. Lots of other cities in California, but not LA. Anyone have any advice, humorous anecdotes, or fun things we should do there?

Come again?

While Trevor and I have been in Poland, there have been a few instances that have gotten lost in translation, where what we were intending to say in Polish did not exactly cross the language barrier in a favorable way. It's just business as usual when you live in a different country, I guess, but we've gotten quite a kick out of them.

Like the time I desperately tried to explain to someone speaking to me that I don't speak Polish. When I later related to Trevor the extent of our conversation, I realized that I had been telling the man, "I don't speak Polish not very well." We laughed and then Trevor said, "There's probably not a better way you could have said it." (Really, this was just an instance illustrating my poor Polish skills more than a translation problem, but it still makes me laugh.)

The latest moment happened in church last week while Trevor was teaching Sunday School. I walked into class a little late after dropping Anna off in nursery, just as Trevor announced the number of the hymn we were going to sing. I quickly opened the hymn book to the right page, and when Trevor saw that I understood what he had just said in Polish, he laughed in delight and pointed out to everyone in class that I understood what he said and that I must be very, very smart.

And then, instead of saying how beloved I was, he told the class that I was such a good lover.

Awesome.

And it's even better that I had to find out what he said through my friend who was translating for me. I had noticed that things had gotten a little quiet, but I still had no idea what he said. After a silent pause, things got a little more uncomfortable as people in the class tried to decide whose responsibility it was to inform Trevor about what he had said. (Apparently the word has a little more of a promiscuous connotation in Polish. Thanks. Just when I didn't think it could get any better.)

Potato, puhtahto

I was helping Anna eat some soup last night and she was having a hard time pronouncing the word "potato." She has said it fine before, so I was helping her to fine-tune the pronunciation, as this time she happened to be calling them "tomatoes."

And this is how our conversation went.

Anna: (seeing an incoming bite of potato) "Tomato!"
Me: "No, this is a potato."
Anna: "Tomato."
Me: "No, puh-tay-toe."
Anna: "Tomato!"

We pause so she can eat a few more bites when I see this conversation isn't going anywhere.

And then I give it another go.

Me: "Say potato."
Anna: "Tomato."
Me: "Silly girl. Say puh-tay-toe. This is a potato. Potato."
Anna: "Yam!"

Priceless.

But I guess it would only be fair to tell you that "yam" is how Anna has been saying "yeah" lately. I don't know where the "m" came from, but, while it still makes me laugh that she was agreeing with me after all that, it made this little conversation an absolute gem.

Garden party

Last week, our dear friends Maria and Orlando Arzapalo invited us to Maria's mother's house for a delicious strawberry lunch and a walk to her "garden" — more on why that's in quotes later.

This is me and Anna before we left. Even when pressed, I couldn't tell you why I have such a freakishly huge smile on my face.

We ate strawberry-filled dumplings (yum) and a tasty bacon-cabbage dish. We also had strawberry apple juice to drink.

After lunch, Maria and her mother showered Anna with gifts. They have been SO kind to us. Seriously. This day alone, Anna walked away with probably 5 new outfits, two books, a Flintstones lunch box, and a big bag of chocolate, yogurt, and other snacks.

Maria's mother lives next to a park, so we walked through it to a plot of land where her garden is. Since most people in Poland live in apartment buildings, there are areas around the city (like near parks or in other remote areas) where people can build a little cottage and/or plant a garden to work in.

Maria, Trevor's behind, and Orlando in the garden

Maria's mother's garden is beautiful. There was a little cottage with a living room, kitchen area, and a bathroom. There was also a great covered patio to the side.


One of Anna's new favorite pastimes is washing. That girl loves to wash. And she'll wash anything: her hands, her toys, my papers. After we washed her hands when we got to the cottage, the only way to persuade her to come out of the bathroom was to give her a big tub of water to play in outside. Here you can see one of the dresses Maria's mother gave her . . . and some cherry juice on her face.


The flowers were beautiful. It was so peaceful and so nice to imagine ourselves away from the noisy city for a while.


We had such a fun time. The food was delicious, the company was wonderful, and it was cool to see how Polish people like to relax and get away.