– Wow, you have grown so much, how are you Darius ? How was your winter?

– I am ok, I got big too, I had otitis … on both ears, I am in kindergarten now, little kids league … and I like it very muuuuch, really muuuuch. What about you, Vlad? How are you? Are you bigger now, too? Are you in kindergarten, too?

-Yeahhhh , and otitis tooo, both ears, and twice on the left side … of the poor meee … ugh , ugh …

The above conversation could have happened, but it didn’t. Not because they didn’t want to. It simply didn’t happen because the two grandmothers, who were extremely happy to see each other, never allowed the tiny ones to speak. But, as the adults’ world is filled with mystery, the two heroes didn’t express their joy directly. ….so we had the above mentioned “dialogue”. Neither Vlad, nor Darius said anything during this time.

My little girl, who is 2 and a half years old, was looking at the scene obviously dumbfounded (without even assuming that she knows what dumbfounded means) and stretched her arm towards one grandmother and said:

-Vlad (Vladuț), daddy, granny, it’s Vlad (Vladuț)?

I was tempted to use the occasion as an opportunity to open her eyes to sociology and anthropology, pigmented with social psychology. I was tempted to make this introduction in English, because we’re at it often and it’s always at hand the “Enough” word to signal me when her linguistic interest fell sharply.

But I didn’t comply with temptation; I rather decided to explain to her that none of the grannies were Darius’s, or Vlad’s. I went on with the explanatory steps by evoking that, unfortunately, we, the ones with bigger bodies that we highfalutin call ourselves adults, often talk over and instead of the children, and we do this often in their presence.

These little miracles, with small engines that are still in training are actually adults in the making and, if don’t get it quickly, we might be surprised by their ability and propensity for “copy paste” (see the political class with their doctorates for eventual translations) ….and especially by the speed this thing happens.

Therefore, I told my little girl that I still have installed elements of faulty software, and that I could have been one of those ignoring the little ones’ ability to express only because I am, supposedly, a big one. But I am working on this and I try to stop the automatic processes as often as I can.

And, if I would ever speak on her behalf, she should stop me with love and her being, because if the baby is there daddy feels her presence near her.