The kids next door were role playing the other day in the backyard. L is 4, going on 5, and her brother S is 3. They're highly intelligent, quick thinking kids who are perfectly bilingual in Arabic and English, with a vocabulary so rich that it's astounding. It's too bad they're not being introduced to a third language at this age; at the rate their cognitive development is growing it'd be easy for them to absorb a third one.

So they're role playing in the backyard...L is the mother and S is the son. They must have been reenacting tea time because she was offering him sugar and treats.

L: 3ayez sugar? (You want sugar?)
S: Yes, I want sukar (I want sugar).
L: Here you go S. S, S, what am I doing now?
S: I don't know L, what are you doing?
L: I'm drinking sagayer right now.
S: Ana kaman. Ana kaman am drinking sagayer.

There's no way I can translate that to an English speaker in a way to make it comprehensible, and it's been such a long week that I won't even try right now.

When I was younger and forbidden from wearing makeup, I cried to my grandmother once that it was unfair.

"Ana 3ayza albess rouge kaman!" I screamed through my tears. She immediately laughed at me, which made me cry even more.

But nothing was funnier than my cousin H who, in a conversation with my father, translated "old man" to "ragel adeem".