my little monkey said his first word last week - hola, hello. we think he'd already been saying it for about a week, but last monday he repeatedly picked up a new toy phone my mom sent him in the mail, put it to his ear, and walked around saying hola, hola, hola.
f. thinks he also says teta, what i refer to in english as boobie. it sure gets said a lot around here, both teta and boobie.
it's amazing that the monkey is on his way to talking. it's such an exciting step. we weren't expecting it so soon, since the monster was 16 months when he started, and monkey is only just over 11 months.
beyond the exciting milestone and the terrible cuteness factor is the fact that monkey's first words came out in spanish. the english thing is going to be an uphill battle, i fear. i ALWAYS speak to him in english. i offer him my boobie in english. then i speak in spanish to the people around me and say that he wants teta. and then he utters teta.
the monster is doing really well with both his spanish and his english. it took him only a few weeks to really start using his spanish vocabulary when we first got here nearly 8 months ago. by the time he started preschool 5 months ago he already seemed more comfortable in spanish, but he still speaks to me in english almost all the time - sometimes with some gentle prodding - and he continues to develop an excellent vocabulary in both languages.
it is important to me, and i think it's important for them, that they speak english really well. perfectly. it doesn't help at all that f. and i speak in spanish to each other. it helped when we were in canada, but here it squeezes english into only their relationship with me, and occasional webcamming with my family.
i'll see how things go, but i may have to try to shift my communication with f. to english. it won't be easy at all - we've been speaking spanish to each other since we met, and i sooooo prefer it. we shall see...
but go monkey go! what will the next words be?
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