Johanna Writes

Ideal Woman and/or The State of English Education in Spain

Johanna Bailey — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:58:10 +0000

Nico: So I’ve decided I don’t want to marry a woman who wears glasses anymore.

Me: Oh really? So what kind of woman do you want to marry now?

Nico: Well, I want her to be sweet like my English teacher, pretty like my English teacher, fashionable like my English teacher, and wear tall boots like my English teacher… But I don’t want her to speak English like my English teacher because actually she really doesn’t speak English very well. I think if we got married, we’d probably just have to speak Spanish.

Into their mouths, out of my hands

Johanna Bailey — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:06:50 +0000

Last night I made Indian food and as usual, Nico devoured it all, proclaiming that he loves how the cuisines from countries such as India and Thailand combine flavors that he wouldn’t ordinarily think would go so well together (i.e. cashew nuts and yogurt). I beamed as he complimented the food but unlike in times past (when I deluded myself into thinking that it was in some way my doing), I took no personal pride whatsoever in having a son who will eat almost anything and who loves trying new and unusual foods.

This is because on the opposite side of the table sat Luca, a kid whose idea of a filling Indian curry dinner consists of several cashew nuts dipped in mango chutney. Actually, I suppose you could say that Luca’s tastes are fairly exotic for a two-year old. He loves capers, olives and smoked salmon, and when we go out for sushi, he eats the pickled ginger off of everyone else’s plates. The problem is that he will usually refuse to eat anything else (i.e. pasta, rice, pizza, etc.) and as for vegetables, forget it.

I do like to think that I have something of an influence in my children’s behavior but in this case, I’ve come to realize that it’s completely out of my hands. I have one child who is a “good eater” and another who subsists almost entirely on condiments. So the next time I take Luca for lunch at a friend’s house, only to have her confess in an embarrassed tone that her child will only eat frozen chicken nuggets, I’ll just sigh and ask if they happen to have a jar of capers on hand.

If you don’t eat your peas…

Johanna Bailey — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:52:57 +0000

Nico and I just returned from a weekend in Bristol with our good friends Sophy and Dan (plus Alf and Ivy!) The best part of the whole weekend was getting to hear an actual English person say to her child “If you don’t eat your peas, you can’t have any pudding!” The worst part was when I attempted to make a cup of tea for Sophy and she insisted on pouring it down the drain before even trying it. The following dialog ensued:

Me- “But what’s wrong with it!?”
Sophy- “I came into the kitchen to find a cup of tea with a string thing hanging out of it and an American person pouring milk that she just got out of the microwave into it. Obviously I couldn’t drink that.”
Me- “But I thought I was spoiling you by heating up the milk first!”
Sophy- “Yes, spoiling is what you certainly did.”

I think you have to be an English person to understand her logic.

Bath

Johanna Bailey — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:43:40 +0000

I love this photo that my brother took of Nico a few months ago. It is so him.

Girlyishest

Johanna Bailey — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:09:28 +0000

Me: Oh hey, there’s X and Y* over on the playground

Nico: Oh no! They’re the most girlyishest girls in my class. You’ll see, they’re going to try and get me to pretend I’m either a cute little puppy or a unicorn.

*Names have been omitted in order to protect the girlyishest.

Ikea

Johanna Bailey — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:47:27 +0000

The other day the boys and I had some time to kill so we headed to Ikea. I love going to Ikea! All over the world they are exactly the same from the big boxy beflagged building to the meatballs in the cafeteria. The only regional difference I have EVER found is that the Ikea in Switzerland has over-the-door hanging coat racks that have been especially adapted for the abnormally thin tops of Swiss doors. Other than that they are all just the same and this is exactly how I like it.

It may seem odd that I am saying this since for many years now. I have purposely chosen to live a very multicultural life. I love seeing how varying cultures experience the world differently and in general, I lament the process of globalization. The one glaring blue and yellow exception is Ikea and this is for purely personal and selfish reasons.

Basically it is just really nice to have one place to go where I know exactly what to expect. Nobody will come up and ask me questions I don’t understand (because an Ikea salesperson would be more likely to duck inside the nearest modular particle board closet than to come up and ask if you need anything), nobody will offer me food I don’t recognize, and the only surprises I get will be of the small pleasant variety rather than the large exciting but disconcerting kind. Perhaps a new line of vegetable peelers or an innovative way to store scarves. I’m not saying I’d want to hang out there every day but every so often (excluding Saturdays because that is truly a Swedish nightmare), I find it a relaxing escape from daily life in Spain.

One problem I do have with a trip to Ikea is that because we don’t have a car, it is a pain in the ass to get there. To top it off, invariably when I go, immediately afterwards I find out that someone I know with a car had just gone the day before or is planning to go the following day. This last trip was the worst though. As we headed out the door of our building, a mother from Luca’s nursery gave me a jaunty wave as she drove by in her car. Two trains, a funicular ride and a bus later (approximately 1.5 hrs), we walked into Ikea and guess who the first person we saw was? Just guess? I am thinking of getting myself a series of t-shirts printed to wear for pre, during and post-Ikea trips. One will say “I want to go to Ikea!”, The next will say “On my way to Ikea!” and the last will say “If you just went to Ikea, don’t tell me about it.”

Despite the transportational challenges, we managed to have a fun day although I was horrified to see that in about five more minutes, Nico is going to be too tall to enter the free childcare play center. This hardly seems fair since Luca is going to be old enough to enter in just a few more months. Why did no one mention this to me when I was planning the age spacing of my children? Nico enjoyed his lunch and declared that he was used to the food since he had once lived in Sweden. I’m sure the Swiss will be happy to hear that their country left such an impression.

The only thing I am not at all pleased with about the day was that Luca found an attachment object which he now insists on taking everywhere with him. Up until now, his two main sources of comfort have been his fingers (for sucking) and his hair (for patting and stroking while sucking). This meant that unless I shaved his head or signed him up for a toddler’s carpentry course, there would be no chance of any tragic losses. Now, however, we have “Daton” (Luca’s version of raton which means mouse in Spanish), a tiny brown mouse that has already been lost (over the course of about 72 hours) no less than 36 times. It’s gotten to the point where I think that hopping back on that funicular, two trains and a bus might just be worth it, if only to buy some more datones for insurance. So if ANYONE IS PLANNING A TRIP TO IKEA IN THE NEAR FUTURE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Recently Reading:

-Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

-Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

-How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

-The Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt

-Palimpsest by Gore Vidal

-The Warden by Anthony Trollope

Patriotic Pancakes

Johanna Bailey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:52:38 +0000

Yesterday was President’s Day and today is Pancake Day!! It’s a great combination so I think today deserves its very own illustrated recipe! By the way, I have decided to specify the materials I use to produce my illustrations from now on. All of my drawings are done by hand and then post-tweaked in Photoshop.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL ILLUSTRATION!

“Patriotic Pancakes” Graphite pencils (hand drawn)

American stomach

Johanna Bailey — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:46:13 +0000

Speaking of Nico’s Spanish, I forgot to mention that despite the fact that he is fluent, he still has trouble rolling his Rs.

Nico- I can speak perfect Spanish except I can’t make the Rrrrr sound.

Me- Well, a lot of Americans have a problem making that sound.

Nico- Ohhhh, so it’s because I grew up in YOUR American stomach. That’s why I can’t do it.

As usual, it’s all my fault. By the way, I saw this morning that someone arrived at my blog by searching for “Dark-eyed rebel Johanna Bailey”. I am intrigued.

Anacardo

Johanna Bailey — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:56:24 +0000

So in yesterday’s post I forgot to mention the state of affairs when it comes to my own foreign language acquisition. Sadly I am not a child with a sponge-like brain that effortlessly picks up and absorbs every new word. On the plus side, I am potty-trained and I can usually correctly count change. My Catalan is almost non-existent aside from a few useful words such as frog and bellybutton. As for my Spanish, I’d say it’s pretty good at this point but definitely still not fluent. I can get by fairly well, the only drawback being that I am much more stupid, boring and humorless when speaking Spanish. In other words, I have a ways to go and I’ve decided to start taking lessons again. Luckily I met a mother at Nico’s school who has offered to give me classes for free! When I told her that I had to give her something in return, she asked me to draw her a cashew. In Spanish, cashew is anacardo and since her name is Ana and her husband’s name is Ricardo, the anacardo is a symbol of sorts for them.

So here it is- I loved how just coincidentally, the shadow that these snuggling cashews cast was shaped like a heart. They don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day much here in Spain but I thought I’d post it as a nice shout-out to all you love nuts out there!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Geeko!

Johanna Bailey — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:04:16 +0000

It is hard to believe that we’ve been living in Spain for almost four years now- two years in Madrid and now two years in Barcelona. For me, the very best part of it all is giving Nico and Luca the chance to acquire new languages. Of course, since their father is a native Spanish speaker, they would most likely grow up at least understanding the language fairly well. However, up until the time we moved to Spain, Nico had always responded to everything in English and I think that probably would have continued if we hadn’t come to live here. Now he is completely fluent in both Spanish and Catalan. It’s incredible to me how he can just switch from one to another, depending on which parent or friend he’s talking to and he very rarely confused the languages. What he does do is take expressions from one and then translate them into another which can often be quite funny, especially when he had the original expression wrong in the first place. For example, apparently his teacher often tells them to grabar (tape record) something in their heads when she doesn’t want them to forget. As luck would have it, the word in Spanish for staple (grapar) sounds quite similar to grabar which means that Nico is convinced that she is telling them to not to tape something in their heads, but to staple it in their heads. This means that when he really doesn’t want me to forget something he is likely to exclaim in English, “Mommy, this is very important! STAPLE it in your head please!” I actually quite like the expression. Other translations don’t work as well. “Oh Mommy what a good paint those strawberries have!” for example, is something that sounds much better in Spanish than it does in English. I never correct him though since the older he gets, the less often it happens and it makes me realize he’s growing up. Only last month he finally figured out that “riving room” is actually pronounced “living room” and that the things at the top of our arms are “shoulders” rather than “soldiers.”

With Luca, the language thing can be a bit more complicated. He isn’t nearly as verbal as Nico was at the same age and although he is talking more and more, his pronunciation is usually pretty off. Also, when Nico was two, his primary language was definitely English while with Luca, his words are much more evenly distributed between English, Spanish and Catalan. This means that not only do we have to decipher what word he is saying, but also what language he is speaking in the first place. Plate is dato (plato in Spanish), apple is poma (Catalan), bib is pitet (also Catalan), shoes are patos (zapatos in Spanish), look is gook, socks are gocks and so on. When saying words in English, he definitely favors a hard G which means he calls himself “Guca” and his brother is “Geeko.” A sentence might be something like “No dato Geeko! No Gookie! Mio! Geeko! GEEKO! Gookie mio! Mama EP ME!” One who is in the know would translate this to mean “Nico, stop touching my plate Nico! That cookie is mine! Mama help me!” You can see how it would get confusing at times but hopefully he’ll get it all straightened out eventually.