mini bilingual

little brains are amazing.
the speed with which m is picking up social norms (greeting people, picking up books and speaking gibberish as if to read them)
mechanics of movement (snapping and unsnapping EVERY buckle on every kind of chair/seat/stroller she can - especially when she is not sitting in it)
and words ("yucky" "help please""pantalones")
is awesome to watch.

because we speak to her in spanish and she lives in an english world, she is getting a pretty hefty dose of both languages. the words she has acquired so far have typically been in one language or the other.

she says "medias" for socks but "shoes" instead of "zapatos"
but more recently she has gone back and forth between both the english and the spanish word for a given object or idea.

the first time was when i indicated that she had "dos" of something and she held both up and said "TWO!"

i thought at first that it was by chance that she made this connection between the different words, but after hearing her repeat this translation of the number many times in many situations i realized that she understands the concept of "two" and uses both the english and spanish word to express that concept.

similarly, at dinner the other night, she started to play the game that she has played some version of all year in which she pretends to leave and says "bye". when i ask where she is going she usually says "home". but this particular time i asked "¿vas a tu 'home'?" and she corrected me - "casa!"

on the one hand it seems logical that she would absorb both words and maybe use them interchangeably, but it struck me as particularly interesting that she wanted to use the right word in the right context - knowing that "casa" fits with the question i asked her otherwise exclusively in spanish.

finally when i went to pick her up from school yesterday, i overheard one of her classmates requesting "agua". i asked the teacher if they had started using spanish with the kids and she answered that they simply have all picked up (at least the word for water) on m's use of spanish.

as a mom and a language teacher i couldn't be more pleased :)