One of the first restaurants we tried in our temporary neighborhood was a local pizza place just a half block from our apartment. We like it for the simple and satisfactory dishes, while Maple is in love with the waitress.

We were enjoying our dinner, when Maple started exclaiming “thank you danke schön!”

Being typical parents, we noted the smartness: see, she equates the German and English phrases for “thank you”. Isn’t that cute?

But a few moments later, she peered around the corner.

“Where’s Danke Schön?” she asked.

It’s then that I realized that Maple believed our server’s name to be Danke Schön because she heard us say it so much when she was around. That made us, and the server, note the cuteness.

Yesterday, a week later, we went back for an early Sunday dinner. Maple, who had been napping in the stroller, perked up when she smelled the restaurant. Being my daughter, her olfactory identification of pizza is genetic.

“Pizza!” she said, as I lifted her out of the stroller. She then looked behind me to see the same waitress from the week previous. A smile spread across her face, and in her loudest baby voice, she exclaimed:

“There’s Danke Schön! Hi, Danke Schön!”