A Busy Week Best Described by a New Word--Pyssla!

We had a wonderfully busy, but very fun-filled week. We were joined by sisters Sunny, age 6, and Ida, age 3. They were absolutely delightful to have around. Sunny and Ida are visiting from Sweden for 5 months and have just recently arrived, so needless to say, they don't speak English. By having them here, I have thoroughly learned all the gaps in my Swedish speaking ability. Besides just a lack of fluency, there are a few key words which I had never learned which are very important when speaking with children. One of these is låtsas, which means to pretend. Another is klä ut sig, which means to dress up. The last and most important word is pyssla, a fantastic word which the dictionary translates as "to busy oneself", but what I have learned is that it means to do craft projects. At first I was very confused about this word pyssla and the word for puzzle, pussel. And to make matters worse, to my untrained (and seemingly untrainable) American ears, the Swedish vowels y and u are virtually indistinguishable, and at the very least, unpronounceable. So when the girls' mother told me that Sunny likes to pyssla, I thought she liked doing puzzles. I showed her all the puzzles we owned, and she obligingly smiled and nodded. I then found it strange when each time we did a project, Sunny would tell Ida that we were going to pyssla (which I of course interpreted as puzzle again). Finally, at the end of day two, when I was picking Josephine up from Swedish school, I spoke with her Swedish teacher and asked her to reveal to me the mystery of this word, at which point she patiently explained the difference between pyssla and pussel.

So the theme for this week is pyssla, as that is what we did most of the time. Sunny is insatiable when it comes to art. And I was extremely happy to oblige. So what follows is just a drop in the bucket of all the many activities we did.

The girls had lots of fun with oobleck, a wonderfully simple concoction of cornstarch and water. If you have never tried this, you must take some cornstarch out of your cupboard, mix it with a little water, and experiment. I have yet to meet an adult who can resist touching this stuff. It has the most incredible consistency. It seems solid when you reach in to grab it, but as you hold it in your hands, it seemingly melts and drips, like a liquid.

Sun and Josephine at first enjoyed sinking their hands into it and then pulling them out. It was somewhat like quicksand.

Ida was not interested in touching this strange looking stuff until I pulled out some toys to add to it, at which point she was willing to poke and prod it.

Josephine worked for a long time to fill up a plastic egg with oobleck.

The girls also played with Mr. Potato Head. It was fun to see how novel this seemed to Sun and Ida. Sun even remarked, "Potatis!" . . . as if it were odd to dress up a potato. Only in America, eh?

Everyone had fun making necklaces, and it was fabulous to see three completely different creations by three completely different little girls. Josephine made me a fun necklace which changed style every three or four inches. It starts with colored wooden beads, goes on to colored plastic straw pieces, then large plastic letters, finishing with small plastic beads. Sun actually sculpted using her beads, creating some type of animal by tying up the string. It was amazing to watch her.

Ida put a bunch of small plastic beads onto a single string and then announced that she had made a snake.

I put on our Nu Ska Vi Sjunga CD (Now We'll Sing), a fantastic classic collection of Swedish children's songs. The girls all sang along and even danced.

And then one of the songs with a very brisk march-like tone (Poliskonstapeln, maybe? -- the policeman song) inspired the girls to march.

Our days together ended with a quiet afternoon of puzzle making for Sunny and Jo while Ida dozed on the couch. I helped them with the frame, giving suggestions and hints, but then they finished up the inside completely on their own.

What was most amazing for me is to see how much Swedish Josephine was speaking as she did the puzzle with Sunny. Josephine understands Swedish completely but rarely ever speaks it.

We had a lovely week and hope to see the girls again soon.