Baby Spanglish

Vivi has a tremendous vocabulary and isn't afraid to use it. She talks and talks to you until you're exhausted, and she expects a reply every time or she'll say "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?!" Every so often our nanny Vilma will tell me in her so-so English "She talk alotta," or "She repite (repeats) me all the time." It's true, she's like a parrot sometimes in that she'll repeat what you say to her verbatim, like "only color on the paper please." The other day when I came to pick her up, Vilma said "Good, now she talk to you." It cracks me up that clearly we are not the only ones exhausted by her! Vilma's been a nanny for almost 30 years, so when she points something out, I know it must be unique. I was reading up about the 2 year check-up (she's 21 months), and the guidelines say she should have 50 words by then. 50??? She must have 300, no joke. Every day she'll say stuff like "garbage" or "basement" that I didn't even know she knew.

It's harder for me to pick up on her Spanish, but Vilma speaks only Spanish to the kids so I know she knows more than I give her credit for. At this age it can be so hard to tell what she's saying even in English (especially since she has a lisp, so words like "thanks" come out as "thhanxth"). But I have noticed a few command words like "a ver" (let's see) and "mira" (look). Occasionally she'll just say the same thing 4 or 5 times, but I never understand so just end up saying "Ah, I see, ok." Of course I'm biased on this one, but we've also noticed she's very smart. Yesterday Nate was reading to her and asked "where's the moon?" She pointed to it, and then she found another one and said "2 moons!" and then saw more in a drawing and said "more moons!"

A muppet named "Burp" and other joys of toddlerdom

I admittedly have been lax about sharing videos since Nate has been back from Iraq. But I just had to share this one, where I finally caught it on tape that she calls Bert (of Sesame Street) "Burp" and Cookie Monster "Cookie's Water." Ok, so it's probably much funnier to me, but I've been waiting since she was born for the hilarious toddler word mix-ups, such as my little sister's "Skinny Pig" (i.e. Guinea pig) and "Baby Soup" (as in "bathing suit"). Guinea pig must just be one of those hard words to understand...Vivi calls them "Piggy pigs."

And of course, the main theme of the video is the "clean-up" game. If you're wondering, no I do not suggest this as a game. She just grabs whatever napkin she can find and starts cleaning off her doll's mouth...or, like in this video, the walls and floor. It's really amazing how quickly children pick up their gender roles. Yes, I did buy her a doll with a stroller and a shopping cart, but this is only after she started putting her stuffed animals in a box and pushing them around the house. Clearly, I did not precipitate this game.




I can't quite explain how thrilled I am that family and friends are finally slowly jumping on board with having children! I was beginning to wonder if we would be the only Gen X parents under 35. What's in store for us this spring? We're contemplating selling the house in case DC is experiencing a mini-bubble related to the $8k refund. Plus, when we have basement water issues, it doesn't exactly leave us feeling warm and fuzzy. But then again we are finally content, and Nate is adjusting to the neighborhood. Having said that, I just got an advertisement on our front door by a major company that is ONLY written in SPANISH. Really???