Doctors and Macaroons

I coincidentally lifted Zoe's hair as I was brushing it last night, only to reveal a large patch of eczema behind the top part of her ear. "Aaauuuuuch" she proclaimed as I tried to touch it. "We have to go to the doctor tomorrow", I concluded because as much as I probably could dap some hydrocortisone on it, I wasn't sure if that was the best/only thing to do. I wished my best friend who happens to be a doctor was here, but she lives in Denmark.

Hence, the week started with me getting out of bed just a bit too late, waking up a drowsy Zoe who luckily was so excited about going to the doctor that I could convince her breakfast would be a glass of milk and four crackers that we brought in a bag for the bus. Because the doctor is over by her dad's place, four bus stops away. The doctor turned out to speak only accented Swedish, which meant that Zoe didn't understand a word; the doctor gave me a piece of paper with instructions to apply hydrocortisone on the ear morning and evening. Zoe was so unimpressed that she tried to escape before I had gotten the prescription. Plus for Swedish healthcare: they have drop-in for small issues and it is free for kids. Minus for Swedish healthcare: the healthcare terminology is very weird so we first ended up in the drug abuse unit, me being slightly confused about the tattooed people in the waiting room; doctor communication quality, a bit random.

Luckily daycare texted us to which park they had gone in the morning because by now it was closer to ten in the morning and the day had been going for a while. Taking the bus back to where they were, we quickly found them and Zoe ran off with Alicia, her Irish friend. I was stressed by now and to get some peace and quite I decided to hide in a coffee shop with a flat white and write on my paper. I partly succeed although two guys from my unit came over and said hi but left quickly.

By lunch time I managed to get going on my tax issues and ended up spending two hours trying to deduct all the travel expenses I had on research travel, which had not been paid by my employer (or anyone else). I rand out the door at 3:30 to get to daycare before 4:30 where Zoe was excited to see me. "Can I have an ice cream" she asked and I agreed because it would be her treat for going with me to the gym. We walked to long way to the gym with the nicer play room and she laughed when I left her: "Mommy, this is like daycare!". I agreed and didn't say out loud what I thought: Yes, but here you don't cry when I leave. When I returned an hour later, she was doing an alphabet puzzle and the girl who looked after her was very impressed: "She speaks so many languages!". I just laughed and waited for Zoe to finish.

Zoe and her Macaroons

We went to the grocery store on the way back because we were out of milk but in the freezer we found the most wonderful thing: Macaroons. They were small and frozen but there were 12 in a pack and Zoe hugged them all the way home. "Can I have one now", she asked but I managed to keep her away from them until after dinner. At this point, it was 8pm and past her 'getting ready for bed' time. I tried desperately to get her in her pajamas but even though I only read three short books, she tossed and turned in bed, clearly not that tired. At 9pm we had been singing 7 songs, talked about how many days before we go to see grandma and Zoe had told me that she doesn't like it when I travel without her. She then sat up and looked at me. "Mom, you are the *best* there is", she said very seriously and looked me straight in the eyes. I teared up and gave her a hug. It might have taken an hour and a half to get her to sleep and I might not have time to write anything more on any papers this evening, but it was worth it just so see her little face with the sincere look exclaim something as simple as that. When I get older, these are the moments I will remember and cherish, not the moments of paper writing and email reading. She finally fell asleep ten past ten with her legs sticking out of the bed and two dolls in her arms. 

Trilingual conversations

Zoe was called in for her three year check-up at the so-called "BVC", the child health center that does all the checkups, vaccinations etc. from pregnancy through the daycare years here in Sweden. I got a few questionnaires to fill in in advance but I couldn't really do that because they asked about Zoe's language skills in Swedish. I thought she was due for another shot and I explained this for her but it turned out this was purely a developmental evaluation.

Zoe was difficult to coerce into the examination room when it was our turn because of all the exciting new toys in the waiting room, but after being promised stickers she reluctantly followed. I explained in my accented Swedish that we were Danish but that she also spoke English because of her dad and because she is in English speaking Daycare. In fact I was very curious as to how much she was going to understand because it was obvious that the nurse was not about to switch language. Instead she did what many people do when encountering people not fluent in the language spoken: She slowed down and spoke oddly loudly and articulated. To me. And she continued to dumb down each piece of information as we went along, to the effect of me having to do my best to hide my irritation and put on a fake smile. "No we don't do an MMR vaccination at this point *here in Sweden*", she repeated three times after I explained why Zoe was pointing in her arm and saying "stik, stik [poke, poke]". In fact she talked a lot about how things were going on *in Sweden* as if I was fallen down from the sky just minutes earlier.

Meanwhile Zoe did an impressive job at her test. The nurse had a few picture cards and she asked in Swedish Zoe which one you can eat. Zoe quickly pointed at the apple even though eat is a different word in Danish from Swedish. She also pointed at the card with the car when asked which one you can "go/drive with" [åka med], a Swedish expression that is not translatable to neither Danish or English. When she was asked what you can do with a ball, she hesitated and did a throwing motion while mouthing "throw". I could see she knew that word was the wrong one but she couldn't find the Danish/Swedish one. She kept doing the throwing motion and looking at me for hints. I asked her in Danish and that triggered the 'correct' answer: "kaste!", which is luckily the same in Swedish.

She was excited to be measured (101 cm) and weighed (15.6 kg) and carefully picked out her sticker afterwards. I laughed when the nurse asked if I had any concerns about her language and tried to joke about how of course I was worried about her actually becoming fluent in all the languages, but the nurse took this concern to be lack of knowledge on my part and resumed to give me a long and slow lecture on the importance of me always speaking Danish to her, and her dad always speaking English (where I again tried to joke that this is the only language he knows, but merely got a snort here) and then she will easily be fluent in all three languages. I wondered how any parent of a three year old trilingual child would never have researched these things and would really consider this information as new and useful at this point. But the nurse probably sees all kinds of people and had a hard time judging education level.

But what really bothered me was the slow, enunciating talk, which I recognize from many other native speakers (of all languages) when talking to people with accents. The division between understanding and the ability to express oneself in a language is often great, particularly for Swedish/Danish. Adjusting the language ends up seeming like they think you are a bit dumb and is deeply frustrating for someone trying to learn a language. But then again, who says I'm trying to learn Swedish.