Both kids mildly sick this weekend with intermittent fever, sore throat, and coughs. Also nosebleeds and one mysterious fingernail bleed. We are all also still recovering from our exciting cruise on the Yangtze River last weekend, followed by a busy week and then by my mom’s departure for the U.S.

Tonight Emi declared that she does not want my signature Poofy Pancakes for breakfast on Sunday and in fact has never liked them. I inquire who exactly, in that case, has been eating her big portions of Poofy Pancakes since she was a toddler?

Emi, calmly: Invisible Mama. Because I asked her to.
Me: Oh, you just sit there and say, “Invisible Mom, come eat this pancake for me?”
Emi: No. I say “Kweta kwatiya na gua sua kwati yak.”
Me: What? Emi, that sounds like Elvish. Where have you learned Elvish?
Emi, scornfully: Mama, it’s MOON LANGUAGE. “Kweta kwatiya na sua kwati yak.”
As I attempt to record this on the kitchen chalkboard, Emi shakes her head pityingly.
Emi: It’s SPELLED with a Q. Of COURSE.
Me: OK, “Queta quatiya…” What was the rest of it?
Tucker: Ask me how I say it! Ask me, ask me?
Me: OK, Tucker, how do you say it?
Tucker: I say kwooluooluoolu queta quatiya na su quatiya!
What was surprising about this was that they both repeated Emi’s bizarre phrase pretty much exactly. So even though they aren’t speaking much Mandarin yet, a year of exposure to it has certainly taught them to repeat sequences of unfamiliar sounds fluently!

Later, Tucker confessed himself stumped by a song that I sometimes sing to them at bedtime. A person, he points out, cannot be sunshine. I attempt an explanation but after the first line Emi offers to be “the translator” for him if I will sing it again.
Me: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine”
(Emi: That means the person loves the other person.)
Me: “You make me happy when skies are grey”
(Emi: That means the person cheers them up when they are feeling sad. It doesn’t mean anything about the weather.)
Me: “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you”
(Emi: I know perfectly well what that means and so do both of you!)
And so on.

It’s always nice to know we will have translators on hand for at least some things. Now if the kids could just learn enough Shanghainese to talk to taxi drivers and bargain for us at the markets, we’d be golden. Sunshiny, even.