Leo and I are playing in his room with marbles and some cars. I lose one of the marbles under his bed and ask him to fetch it since I hardly fit under the bed.
“Sure, dad I can do that,” he responds instinctively and starts moving towards the bed.
Suddenly, he stops and turns to me with a quizzical look on his face.
“What’s the magic word?”
“Please?”
Leo nods in approval and continues in under the bed to get the marble.
It makes me think of a phrase my old physics teacher at Kungsholmen used to say, “Remember, children, that politeness is the oil in the social machinery.”
Another popular pastime: puppet theater
Trilingual issues and joys 