Monday, January 26, 2015

No more wire hangers!

 

Yeah, that's me. Crazy mother. Worst mother in the world. OK sans face cream, wire hangers, and blatant child abuse, but still. Just this morning I made my child sit at the table and forbade her to get up until she ate the last bite of her breakfast. There were no "starving children" threats. There were no "other kids don't have it this good". Nope. Simply szlag mnie trafi when I prepare a meal and my kids leave one or two bites. Not because they are full, but because after eating a whole plate of something they suddenly don't like some ingredient in it. The same ingredient they just shoveled in. The same ingredient they requested.  And it's not a case of an allergy or intolerance...it's plain old widzimisię. Yes, they see bears and I see red.  

It's not like my father-in-law's reaction to not having enough to eat as a child. As a married man he never served his own plate even at weddings or buffets. His Polish wife always did it. He always left some food on his plate, at least a bite or two. "Nobody will tell me how much to eat." In my opinion, a better solution would be to serve your own plate than to waste food. He always did the dishes though. That was their deal at home. I thought that after a childhood without enough food, waste would be a problem for him. It wasn't. I suspect my mother-in-law ate that last bit anyhow. She hated waste. My grandmother also had to do without food sometimes as a child and she reacted the same way as my father-in-law. She disliked eating and threw away the last bits of food. I just cannot do it. I hate waste and since I am not a human garbage disposal, I think the kids should have to eat what they put on their plates especially when they've only got two bites left and are chomping on their third piece of bread.

So here I am. Kid finished her plate and is now cleaning her room, voluntarily, and I still feel like the worst mom around.

The above meme is Joan Crawford portrayed by Faye Dunaway in the movie Mommie Dearest. In this famous scene Joan scolds her adopted daughter for not changing out the wire hangers from the cleaners to wooden hangers as she had been told. She then beats her with those hangers, later forcing her daughter to repeat, "I love you Mommie dearest ". In one scene, the daughter is forced to sit at the table and eat liver which she detests. She refuses and is served the same cold liver, meal after meal, until she finally attempts to eat it and vomits all over the table. There were no good memes for that.



Well, maybe this one below. That's a whole other movie altogether, but this Exorcist crochet project is pretty cool.



I hope your Monday is starting out better than mine.

Szlag mnie trafi, which I am never sure if it is szlak or szlag, means damn it or even damn it to hell.
Widzimisię is a capricious whim, but split up in Polish is sounds like widzi misie which is I see bears.
To see red n English means to be angry, so when he kids refuse to finish their meal on a whim, it makes me angry.

9 comments:

Stardust said...

I'm with you Chris, especially in this confusion about szlak and szlag. I always thought that szlak is turystyczny, you know a droga in a forest:))))
But to many people lately say szlak mnie trafia it confuses me, I'm afraid they got lost in some complicated szlak.
As for me? szalag mnie trafia jak Polacy w Polsce pisza gorzej po polsku niz ja po 30 latach emigracji.
SzlaG mnie trafia i nic na to nie poradze:)))

Chris said...

Star - I learned it from hearing it and people tend to say szlak which I too understood is some kind of path. So then I Googled it which didn't help much :) So should it be szlag mnie trafia, not trafi as I put it?

You know once I was teaching a really unpleasant guy who was angry that I couldn't translate the technical manual of some tubes and fittings from English to Polish. He screamed at me that if I am going to teach English in Poland, I have to know Polish too. It was with great satisfaction that I leaned over to his notebook and circled the word "klijęt" he had just written. Szlag mu trafił? Dobrze?

Stardust said...

Chris, I'm not that good with grammar and I don't remember polish terminology and never learn english terminology:)
But both forms are correct is just when kids drive you off the wall and you on a last rope then you say as a warning "watch out if you don't stop szlag mnie trafi"
When you circled the word "klijet" it WAS because "trafil Cie szlag"
Is just pain in an ass nuances.

Unknown said...

Trafia nas szlag.
Jego trafił szlag (szlag go trafił).
Idziemy szlakiem.

I love Polish :-)

Good one with the "klijęt" Chris!

Iwona said...

Ok, let's the professional do the talking... :-)
Szlag comes from German (shlag)and it means a big blow. Szlag mnie trafia - you say that in present tense, if it happens continuously, szlag mnie trafil you use in past and szlag mnie trafi you say when you think you're gonna explode in a minute :-)
Well done for circling "klijęt" - two errors in one word! Szlag GO trafil :-)

Chris said...

So I think I got it right in the post. I was about to lose it at the breakfast table. And yes, slag go trafil because I also pointed out that kture should be with zamkniety.

Thanks for all the Polish language assistance.

czarownica said...

"Szlag" but it is pronounced as "szlak" in "szlag mnie trafil" - same as with "jablko"is pronounced as "japko". But - to add more confusion - pronounced as "szlag" in "szlag go trafil" - beauties of Polish language :)
Chris, what would you say about a 19 y.o. still leaving toast crust, even from uncrusted toast? She's not able to provide any possible explanation. I just got used to it.

czarownica said...

Reasonable explanation, of course. It's late.

Chris said...

Hahahaha, czar, our friends who have older kids warned us about the crust wars. That's why the pro-crust campaign started early in our home, practically from birth. We repeat over and over that the crust is the best part of the bread (which is absolutely true in my opinion). Now we fight over who gets the end pieces. And let's face it, Polish bread has tasty crust.