Knowing when to say no

.. or nein or nee. Dearest daughter mentioned at lunch she would like to learn Dutch beside German and English. I said two languages might be more than enough for now, but she insisted I tell her the Dutch for table (tafel), fork (vork) and knife (mes), making the astute observation it all sounds a bit like either German or English, so it would be easy.  I thought she was getting a bit blasé already and tried to change the subject to Peppa Pig (link not safe for adult viewing), which prompted the polite query what pig was in Dutch (varken). That perked her up again, noting how different and funny varken sounded. She ensued to point at random objects in the room for their Dutch names (bank, stoel, muur, boek, bloem, etc.) until she got bored (two minutes later). Then she finished her Nudeln mit ketchup und cheese, drank up her applejuice and went to the bathroom to wash her Gesicht. Despite reading no arguments against raising a child trilingually, I think two are more than enough. I hope she agrees.

German word of the day:

Katzenkindergartenerzieherin n., definition pending, as coined this morning by a Mutterkatze of my acquaintance. I guess you had to be there for this to make any sense. I’m merely curious if this will add any traffic from google searches.

Currently reading

John Milton’s Paradise Lost, V.S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival, Richard Wilbur’s Collected Poems, Michael Donaghy’s Collected Poems and Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy. My scholar friend reckons I should become more systematic in my reading. He might have a point.