The Knowledge I Live With

My talking skills haven't gotten that much better. I can say words like "Sorry" "Food" and "Play" but making full sentences is really difficult. When I try to make them, they end up sounding like a word mess. Still my mother understands all the words I say and what I mean when I say them. My moving skills have improved a lot. I learned how to crawl when I was 5 months old and I can walk couple of steps with my mothers help. My parents seem to understand that I'm a little faster at learning then other babies, but they think that it must be a miracle. Now I'm 6 months old. I spend my days learning how to walk and talk. I also follow my mother as she does her daily chores. My mother always puts me in my cradle with some toys to play with, but I don't really like playing with them. In the evenings I listen to my parents as they talk about the day and let my father play with me for a little.

"How was your day honey?" Mother asks.

"Normal. There isn't really much going on right now." Father answers. He always says that when something bad has happened. I guess he doesn't want me to hear this. "What about here? How was my little Lin's day?" He says picking me up from the ground. Father and mother gave me the nickname Lin.

"She spend the day playing. We even practised walking again and she was able to take tree whole steps on her own!" Mother says. "She is learning really fast. The neighbour said that babies usually start walking at seven or eight months, but she will probably be able to walk next month."

"Isn't she a smart little girl!" Father says.

"It's starting to get a little late. I think is time to put Lin to sleep." Mother says. I can't go to sleep yet! I have to hear what has happened at father's work!

"No! Don't wanna!" I say. My voice sounds really childish and my father laughs a bit.

"Sorry Lin, but little kids have to sleep so they can grow up!" My mother says. She takes me to the other room and puts me in my cradle. Well... If I have to sleep I can just pretend. Then I can try to listen to what my parents talk in the other room. My mother sings me a lullaby and I start pretending. Soon my mother stops singing and says "Good night Lin!" and kisses me on my forehead. She walks to the other room and my father and mother start talking.

"So, what happened today?" I hear my mother's voice.

"They are laying of more and more people. Soon I won't have a place to work and we'll have to start saving money." My father says. I learned that my father works as a guard for the royal palace. He guards the gates to the castle durning days, but reasonably many of the older guards have been laid off and replaced by younger men.

"I have been saving money as much as I can, but I don't think that we'll survive if you get fired." My mothers says.

"I have yet to lose my job, so for now we are save. If I do get fired we'll have to cut on our food supplies." My father says.

"If we cut more we won't have enough food to eat! Lin will soon start eating normal food too and she needs to eat something better than potatoes." My mother says. I can hear her voice trembling as she talks. Food is a big problem in small homes like ours. Having a child means one more mouth to feed and having a girl is useless for the family, because girls can't be put to work like boys. One of the fears I had at first was that my parents would abandon me, but I was lucky enough to get to a family that loves me and won't give me up.

"I can cut on my food. If I do get laid of it would be best for us to sell our house and use the savings to move to the countryside. There we can start farming. Some of the people who got laid off have tried it and told me that it is a good way of living." My father says. I don't think that farming is a good idea. Farms are expensive and they rely on good weather. It would be better to just stay here and try to find a new job for father. As I am thinking I can feel my small body getting tired. I guess my body isn't ready to stay up so late even if my mind wants to. I close my eyes and drift to the world of dreams.