Gags

"Gag! Gag! Gag!"

This is something I hear every time we go out in the car. Miss Pie is at that gorgeous age where her words are finally coming together, albeit not always sounding the way they should. Yesterday, I heard her first three-word sentence when her apple was all eaten: "Eat. More. Apple!" A proud mumma moment for me - compared to the Faery, Miss Pie's speech seemed to be coming along so much more slowly. In hindsight, her big sister was somewhat of a freak when to came to speech development (eighty words by fourteen months, I kid you not).

So much of what Mis Pie says can have several meanings, depending on the context. If she sees something round anywhere - even better if there are numbers on it - then she'll exclaim, "TWO! TWO! TWO!" Meaning? Clock. So I'll reply, "Yes, a clock" or "Yes, it looks like a clock", then she'll say "I-O-I-O-I-O". Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

When it comes to animals, she delights in making the sounds that they make. Don't all toddlers? But her latest one is baffling me. "Hort! Hort! Hort!" That part is easy enough: horse. Then the sound follows, "Haba haba haba", in a sing song voice, intonation going down. Almost like a little Arabic nursery rhyme's chorus.

I'd love to meet a horse that sounds like that, but I'm yet to encounter one.

Anyhow, back to "Gag!" Initially, I thought she was talking about bags, because that's also her word for bag. But, you know, there aren't really a lot of bags to be pointed at out of car windows, are there?

Something that is plentiful, though, are flags. The good old stars and stripes. Maybe it's just our area in LA, but we'd be hard pressed to go more than two blocks without seeing the US flag. Some blocks will have many US flags on show.

Compared to Australians, Americans love their flag.

There may be eucalyptus trees in abundance here, but there's no forgetting what country I'm in.

Mixing it up

Some very recent moments in my expat life:

- The Faery's preschool teacher asking me what a 'duffer' is - as in, you silly duffer. Yes, the Faery had called him a silly duffer. It's okay - it was out of light-heartedness, and her teacher had guessed as much because he'd been clowning around. It's not the first time there's been a question mark over appropriate language at her preschool. It got me thinking though, about what an Aussie-ism that term is. Or maybe it's just my family. It's a term I'd grown up with, but I'd never used it myself until having kids of my own - it gets used a lot in our home.

- Another staff member at her preschool said yesterday, "She's so cute! She came over and asked if she could have some 'sticky tape' and I told her that we just call it 'tape', and she said, 'Well, in Australia, we call it sticky tape.'" I have no idea where my daughter gets the need to correct other people's words from. No idea at all...

- The realisation that Miss Pie has lived more than eighty per cent of her short little life in the US. Strangers with American accents, lavishing attention on her in her stroller, is all she's really known.

- The acquisition of PB&J into our family's vocabulary - although we still call it jam, not jelly. Myself - I'd rather not mix the two, and prefer them separately on my toast. The Faery, however, is a big fan of this combination that she'd never had in Australia. I'm happy that she still asks for Vegemite at times.

- The Faery pestering me to get her an American flag. Just a little one on a stick for waving, like the Australian one she already has. The local supermarket has been decked out in patriotic red, white and blue for Memorial Day, and I think that's how she got the idea in her head. I promised her that when we see a little flag for sale, she can have one. Why not?

- Turning the car's ignition on this morning, and the radio blasting from when J drove it yesterday (I don't usually put the radio on because I like full concentration when dealing with crazy LA drivers). The song that was on the radio? "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil. Oh, how that song took me back. Back to being an eleven year-old, and first becoming aware of political issues. I had to listen to the whole song before turning the radio off, and I'm pretty sure the Faery thought I was going a little crazy as I sang along to it.

- Arriving at the supermarket later, and seeing hand-held American flags - just as requested by the Faery - for 99c. She is now one happy new flag owner. And in true American style (ie everything must be massive in size), it is easily twice the size of her little hand-held Aussie flag. I feel somewhat traitorous...