German and Clicking

This morning, Isabel woke up at 4:30 for her third midnight snack. This is not unusual. She likes having her third midnight snack about this time. What was unusual is that she woke up fully and decided she was ready to play. I reminded her about 637 times that it was sleepytime and not yet time to get up and play, but she insisted that I was wrong about that and then she began to beat me up. First she kicked me repeatedly in the gut. Then she honked my nose several times and pulled my lower lip up over my head. She poked around in my mouth checking the fit of my night guard and after she was satisfied that it still fit, pulled my top lip down over my chin.

Once she was sure that I was fully awake, she began speaking to me rather loudly in German. She had a lot of "ichhhhh"s (that means 'I' for those of you who don't speak German) in her sentences, but I couldn't understand the rest of what she was saying. I told her I wasn't deaf, I just didn't understand what she was saying, but she kept on yakking away at a decibel level designed to make my parents (who do speak German) hear her in Kansas. I guess I'm going to have to dust off my German so that I can understand my child.

Now, I know my little girl is talented, but I had no idea she could speak Xhosa (pronounced click-koüsa for those of you not fluent in African clicking languages) as well until this morning! She started clicking away like she was a member of the Zulu tribe in KwaZulu-Natal. Then she interspersed some German with her Xhosa, so I'm not sure who she was talking to at that point. i don't suppose many Zulu also speak German. Apparently it's her own made-up language. Perhaps she has an imaginary German-Zulu friend. That's probably it. Eventually she gave up and went back to sleep.........just as it was time for me to get up. Sooo, I've been up since 4:30 AM. Greeat. Should hit me like a ton of bricks just after lunch. I may have to amend my one-caffeine-drink-a-day to two today, she said with toothpicks propping up her eyelids.