Monday, November 29, 2010

What's new with V.Talia?

With her eight month birthday around the corner, Violet has been absorbing the outside world at warp speed.  Here are some new things she has learned:

-She can now say 'baba' (grandma) and 'papa' (dad).  Even though she probably doesn't know what those words mean, she is excited to see us oooh and ahhh when she says them.
-When people start singing 'ladushki, ladushki' (pat-a-cake) she claps happily
-While she hasn't quite grasped waving she does open and close her hand when someone says, "bye, bye".
- Crawling also seems to be right around the corner as she has mastered rolling over to her tummy and pushing off with her legs.  Once she gets the arms down, she will be ready to go.
-She tried bread for the first time and my oh my, she ate it up (literally).  In fact, she was so excited to eat it that while holding a piece in each of her hands, she tried to stuff both pieces into her mouth at the same time.

Speaking of pat-a-cake, the Russian version is called 'Ladushki' and beyond the first line, which says, 'Ladushki, Ladushki' I had no clue how this nursery rhyme went.  This prompted me to Google: Ladushki and lo and behold was the rhyme with the full lyrics in Russian, along with the English translation.  I have to say, only the Russians can come up with something this nutty.  

Ладушки, ладушки
Где были?
У бабушки!
Что ели?
Кашку!
Что пили?
Бражку!
Кашка масленька
Бражка сладенька
Бабушка добренька!

Here is my favorite part.....the translation!

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, 
Where were you? 
At granny's! 
What did you eat? 
Porridge*! 
What did you drink? 
A little home-brewed beer** 
The porridge is buttered, 
The home-brewed beer is sweet, 
Granny is kind!

While all the American kids are singing about baking a cake as fast as they can, the Russian kids are gloating about how they got to go to their grandma's and drink some home-brewed beer.

In the next installment of funny Russian nursery rhymes I will discuss the looping rhyme about the Pope who killed his dog because it ate his meat.

No comments:

Post a Comment