Grumpy Neighbor and Stinky Man

Last week we ran into our neighbor in the hall. Lukas pointed at him and shouted "Grumpy Neighbor!" Luckily, I'm pretty sure that our neighbor doesn't understand english or at least a little 3 year old's english. Of course, we have no one but ourselves to blame. We regularly refer to our neighbor as the "grumpy neighbor" since he pounds on the wall when we are too loud - he even used to pound when Lukas cried as a baby. As if we liked to listen to that ourselves..... Anyways, we rarely see our hermit-like, unfriendly neighbor so in Lukas' eyes he has grown into this mythical creature. Sometimes when he is playing, the little people or animals that he is playing with get attacked by the abominable snowman OR the grumpy neighbor.....

A couple of weeks ago, we were riding on the tram when a guy got on & sat in front of us. This man was clearly an addict and/or in need of psychiatric help, but the bottom line is he really smelled. Lukas started sniffing & stated "something stinks!" Then he sniffed the back of his jacket and stated: "he stinks!". Now, unfortunately, "stink" in English translates into "stink" in German. Fortunately, I think the guy was too out of it to hear Lukas anyways.

Everytime Lukas says something inappropriate I realize how much we are able to get away with here because of the language difference. We need to start monitoring our choice of words around Lukas more. Soon we'll be back in the States where every word that Lukas utters can be understood by all...... yikes.......