Paranoia and other pleasant things

Last week’s lightbulb

I love calling my kid a variety of names. There’s little squirrel, wee one, li’l bug and sugar bite , to say just a few. A month or so ago however, whenever I called her “sugar bite” she started to answer with a furious “No! Balen!”

“What? Ballet?”
“NO! BAALEEN!”
“Erm ..ok … Robi, do you know what that could mean?”
“Nope”
Well, last Monday I went for the first time to a gathering of the local Hungarian young moms. There was a swarm of kids running around on the lawns of the Catholic high school, tons of pizza and chatter . Timi saw a trike under a tree and claimed it as hers, according to the third toddler propriety law (”If I got to it first, it’s mine”). A taller boy rushed there and argued the lawfulness of the acquisition. I, seeing that the kid was a lot larger than mine, intervened in favor of my daughter. The matter was settled after the kid’s mom told him “Balint, let her play since you don’t play with the trike,anyway! “

The chitchat grabbed my attention after that and so I left Timi to pedal around. When I looked after her she was off the trike and coming towards me hand in hand with her previous aggressor. My jaw dropped. I turned towards the mom:
“Does he go to the Catholic kindergarten too?”
“Yes”
“They seem quite friendly to each other”
“Oh yes, he tells me sometimes about little Timi and how much he likes her.”
“What did you say his name was?”
“Balint”
Balint? Balen! The term of endearment she’d prefer to hear more than anything else was actually this kid’s name? The certainty kicked me in the chest. Holy cow, my daughter has a crush. Well, at least he’s cute. I have to have a talk or two about abusive relationships and the importance of getting your partner to share, though

Posted under: chestii