Thursday, April 28, 2011

4 Reasons Why Dylan is German

Now that we've lived here for 8 months, we're starting to see some changes in Dylan that lead us to believe he might be becoming a little more German than American.  Here are the top 4 reasons why we think this:

  1. He speaks German (and understands it): Its true, Dylan also speaks English, but more and more a lot of the words he knows are the German versions.  Here's just a short list of words that he says in German: bitte (please), danke (thank you), Puppe (doll), Auto (car), Oma/Opa (grandma/grandpa), der Ball (ball, but he always says it with the proper German article "der"), brot (bread), Schlange (snake), Pferd (horse), Papagei (parrot), lecker (yummy).  In addition to that, our German friends speak to him in German and he seems to understand it pretty well - better than I do, actually.
  2. His Diet - Dylan has a diet like a lot of Germans - heavy in bread and yogurt.  It seems like every meal involves a lot of bread and is capped off by some kind of yogurt.  He also is completely obsessed with mineral/fizzy water, which he calls "bubbles." Nothing is more German than preferring fizzy, carbonated water to regular drinking water.
  3. German Television - He loves watching German kids programs on KiKa (German PBS) including SesamStrasse (German Sesame Street) and has learned some songs, mainly from TanzAlarm ("dance alarm").  One song teaches kids the vowels but in German they are pronounced "ah, eh, eee, oh, uuuuuu", so he might be confused when we also try to teach him the English version and pronunciations of "a, e, i, o, u".  Bryan and Dylan watch the TanzAlarm song over and over again and it's not uncommon to walk in on them singing and dancing together. 
  4. He Sleeps on the Floor - Well, technically he is on a mattress on the floor, but it's at least been our experience that a mattress on the floor isn't all that unusual here.  The first time we lived in Germany (8 years ago) we only had mattresses and no bed frames, as did our friends and their kids. Maybe we were all just too poor to realize that's not normal, but from then on we always associate a mattress on the floor to living in Germany.
In addition to bread and yogurt, Dylan loves peas.  It's one of the few vegetables that he'll eat, so he gets them a lot.
Going to the fire station nearby and checking out all the trucks is one of his favorite things to do.  He tries to compete with the sounds of the sirens and screams "weeeee-ooooooo weeeeeee-oooooo!"

He appears to be a right-handed shooter.

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