Mother Tongue

(scene opens in bright cluttered kitchen, Carrot enters wearing rain dotted jacket)

Gamma: Cómo estás, mama!

Me: (thinks) Asi asi.

Gamma: No bueno?

Me: Just tired, baby. (hangs up jacket)

Gamma: I want to learn Japanese! Konnichiwa!

Me: Konnichiwa. You can learn Japanese if you want, although that might have to wait until college. I’m sure the local schools aren’t offering.

Gamma: You’ll have to learn it too so you can help me!

Me: (snort) I can’t keep up with the ones I was trying to learn before and now you want me to add Japanese to the mix? Japanese is very difficult.

Gamma: (brightly) Just like me!

Me: (pauses, processes, kisses Gammas forehead) Technically correct.

Gamma: The best kind of correct.

Why I get nothing done

(scene opens in school office)

Me: (holding snack pack and water bottle)
School Admin: (enters with morose Gamma) And she broke her promise.
Me: (hands over gear) You weren’t doing your work?
Gamma: (sadly) No. It was hard.
Me: (sigh) We do things not because they’re easy, but because they’re hard.

(school staff collectively stare)

Gamma: That makes no sense.
Me: How else are you going to learn if you only do what you already know? Get back to class, behave yourself. Yo quiero tú estudias espańol.
Gamma: Sí, mama.

(cut scene, mother walks into the house, sees school binder on the floor, picks it up, sighs, swears, heads back to school)

Lingual Conundrum

(scene opens at cluttered dinning table)

Gamma: (falling apart) I don’t know how to write a sentence in Spanish for this word! I don’t know the meaning of this word! (collapses over worksheet)
Me: (temper fraying, goes to Google Translate) Uh….”gitano” means…gypsy? (finches) That can’t be right. (close up on screen repeats definition)
Gamma: What does gypsy mean?!?
Me: (flinches again) Uh…its an ethnic group…
Gamma: (wailing) HOW DO I USE IT IN A SENTENCE!?!?
Me: (closes eyes, steels herself) Can you write “I like gypsy music?”
Gamma: (in tears) WHAT IS GYPSY MUSIC?
Me: (grimaces, calls up Gogol Bordello’s “Start Wearing Purple” on YouTube)
Gamma: (covers ears) THIS IS AWFUL! TURN IT OFF!
Me: (does so)
Gamma: (laboriously writing, speaking aloud) Mi mama me gusto…