The Side Effects of Endorphins

Today I took Yafa on a little adventure. By little, I mean it is hot so we picked our spots. We packed her back pack, my backpack, water bottles, a shopping bag, her scooter and her treasured blanket.

First we headed to the hidden playground (Der versteckte Spielplatz). We did some bouncing, some spinning and made up a song for the pigeons.

Ich bin kein Vogel.

Ich kann nicht fliegen.

We did some rock climbing and headed to a little grocery store. Shopping with a three year old takes skills I don’t have. I dropped our shopping bag, and lost every argument about buying donuts. Going down the donut aisle was a rookie mistake. It took me awhile to find my wallet.

Luckily my language skills are now above supermarket level. In the final aisle she looked at me with those big brown eyes and said.

“I would like those chips.”

She was tired and asked me to carry her and the scooter. A quick diversion later, I only carried the scooter. We got home for mitagessen, and I realized somewhere along the line we lost the sacred blanket.

In my elegant German I asked the cashier

“Hast du eine Decke gefunden?”

In retrospect, I should not have used the formal Sie.

Egal

I did find the blanket in the hidden playground. She put it on the teeter totter and never picked it up.

I was a semi single father years ago. But that was in a country where I knew the language well.

My hats off to all single mothers, and even more so to those mastering a second language. You are maestros.