OMG I spewed on the doc

Bear with me here:

Sleep: Czech parents ‘spat’, their children ‘spinkat’ (excuse the infinitives)
Drink: Czech mums and dads ‘pit’, their kids ‘bumbat’
Eat: Grown-ups ‘jist’, their offspring ‘hamat’
Sick: You and I ‘zvracet’, little babies ‘blinkat’

It’s kind of cute that Czech children have their own set of words for the basic functions. And they’re such nice words too. I always thought another cutey-kiddy-sounding word was ‘blit’ (it sounds better if you decline it), another verb meaning to be sick (vomit). And since I have always been hesitant about using ‘zvracet’ – the consonantal cluster at the beginning makes me all hot and bothered – for ten years or so I have been using ‘blit’, thinking it’s okay, I’m a foreigner, they’ll think it's quite endearing. I used it with the sniggering workmen – yeah, the baby won’t stop being sick; the aghast parents-in-law – we can’t come over, Hatty and Edwina keep being sick; the unflinching doctor – I feel really sick, doc.

Tonight Hatty explained to me that ‘blit’ is most definitely not a children’s word. In fact, it’s worse than spray painting the loo, worse than barfing, much much worse than chunky blasting. I can imagine that Glaswegians might have something close, but even they wouldn’t say it to the doctor. It’s on a par with telling your mother-in-law I f*cking crapped my friggin’ pants, bitch. I’ve been acting like Mr Bean obliviously flipping the bird on Sunset Boulevard. Why did no one tell me? I feel… oh God, you know how I feel.

Bad vibes

Hatty: I need to check these two invoices in the computer. You Knitted Pages, Cunt Publisher.
Turkey: Erm, let me take a look at that. Oh, okay, United Pages and Kant Publishers. Just a sec.

Elocution lessons

Edwina: Say "ma"
Victoria: ooaahwee
Edwina: Good. Now say "Thirty-three hippopotamuses"
Victoria: [silence]

Barbie... sheer quality

I was a bit disappointed when Teta told me Jezisek had probably brought me some cuddly toys for Christmas. I mean, that's for babies, isn't it? I thought I might at least get a Barbie, and I saw from the shape of the present that it probably was, but then I was worried it might only be a pretend Barbie. You know, the ones that can't dance. When I took the wrapping paper off to find it was a real Barbie from Mattel I was so thrilled. Mattel Barbies are sheer quality. You know why? You can't rip the heads off their bodies. Look. See? Kristynka hasn't got a real Barbie from Mattel.

Serenity

"Fuck off!" Doosh. A (Central European) size-27 foot comes crashing down on my head with all the might a four-year-old girl can muster. No reaction. "Stupid, sticky man!" Nothing. Her English stock of insults used up, Edwina resorts to Czech. "Blbce! Pitomce! Teplousi! Drz pec!" The way they trip off the tongue suggests we are on more familiar territory here, and yet... Faggot? Shut your gob?

Her pops are nothing compared to her mother's Kalashnikov. "You utter bastard!" Slap. "Bloody lazy arsehole!" A wet towel thwacks down on my left cheek, jolting my head to one side as the right cheek cowers. “Call. Yourself. A fucking. Father?” Slap slap slap kerpow. As her ammunition is spent I hear the catatonic drone of her depression welling up with the tears. This is not good. Better to have her manic and thrashing than depressed and moaning on the bed, spittle in the corner of her mouth, eyes staring into oblivion, wallowing in the injustice of it all. In the next room, Victoria whimpers for her mother’s breast.

Edwina's sun-shaped energy-friendly bedroom lights bathe my blobby body as I lie arched on my back over her fluorescent-green beanbag. A temple exalting my immoderate belly, boxed in by limp intellect and stubborn warts. Edwina is running a temperature and tonight I have been appointed her nurse, ready to administer liquid Nurofen and ice-cold towels and soothing words. But I have not slept for two days and nothing will wake me. Hatty is here, she will look after her child. Our child. And I can slumber, oblivious to the insults and punches raining on me.