Accents

I asked Zoe to look in the fridge to find out what we were going to have for dinner. She pulled out some (cooked yesterday) rice and salmon as well as some soy sauce. She then pulled over a chair so she could reach the stove. "Mom, you have to turn it on, but I'll make the rice" she said. I complied. "So I'm the boss cook and you are my assistant", she continued and asked me where the cook book was. I pointed over at the other counter and she brought it over, opened it up at a random page and started reading. "First you put the rice in, then water and then it has to cook for 6 minutes", she said, as she meticulously pointed her finger underneath the letters. Nevermind the fact that she can't read anything but her name yet. "I have an idea Mom, let's be American cooks!" she said and switched seamlessly to English (so far everything had been in Danish). I followed her lead and while stirring the rice and cutting out salmon she started talking with the most amazing Southern, American accent. I had no idea she even knew a Southern accent. Her default accent in English is an adorable Scottish/Irish*/British/Danish accent and since I rarely hear her speak English, I don't really notice it unless someone points it out. All I know is that she is completely fluent and mainly mix English words into her Danish, not so much vice versa. But she had it all down with the American drooling "Ain't that a shame" when she spilled soy sauce and "We don't need no butter", when I took it out to look for something else. I resisted the temptation to go find my phone and record it because it would take the presence out of it all. In the end we set the table with an extra chair for her doll ("the restaurant guest") and she spent most our meal telling me how we would soon have to go out and tell everybody who had lined up in front of the door, all the way down the hall and all the way down the stairs, that we didn't have more food and that they had to come back to the restaurant another day. But she really didn't want to disappoint them all. Still in her perfect Southern accent.

*Her best friend in her daycare in Stockholm was an Irish girl, but she went back to Ireland after the summer