This morning I was awoken by an 'alarm' that I have been waiting a while to hear: “Wake up!! No more sleeping!! Mooommy!!” Now to be fair, I am pretty sure most of the vocabulary there was learned from watching Finding Nemo over and over again for the past 2 weeks. (Remember when Nemo plays dead and Darla is yelling at him, trying to wake him up?) But it was still impressive and made me smile for several reasons (besides the fact that anything my daughter does is adorable to me :)). #1 - Usually when Lissie wakes up in the morning or after a nap, we can hear her talking to herself, singing to herself, and occasionally crying. After letting her play in her bed for a few more minutes while I wake myself up in the morning, I go to her room to pick her up. “Good morning!!” I say, and “Did you sleep well??” To which she often responds “Good morning!!” and then rattles off some jibberish that seems to make sense to her. But when I offer to pick her up, I get a “No! No get up!!” as she reaches for a nearby book or toy or blanket. So I then allow her to play for a few more minutes while I brush my teeth and make my bed, and when I go back to her room she is usually ready to get up. So it was a pleasant surprise to walk into her room, say “Good morning!” and see her smiling and reaching out to me, ready to get out of bed already.
#2 - She called me Mommy!!!! Lately to Lissie, Tiago and I - and most other people - are called “Honey.” (Ie “Honey!? Liggoo liggoo liggoo chocolate!” means “Mommy, I want some chocolate.”) Apparently I need to lay off of using ‘honey’ as a term of endearment... So anyway, for her to actually refer to me as Mommy was a very nice change! And for her to call out to me like that, rather than crying or using her new trick of fake-crying: the icing on the cake. :)
#3 - She communicated to me that she wanted something, without the usual morning whining and/or wordless pointing! Now I know as well as the next mom or early childhood educator that nonverbal communication is an important step in language development for young children, and I have been grateful that she has been making such progress thus far. Of course our current goal is to get her to use more words (and preferably phrases or short sentences) to tell us what she wants. And with the introduction of Portuguese into her little mind, with all the new sounds and words being spoken around here, this goal was sure to slow down some as she sorts through everything and learns which words/sounds to use with which person. But I can’t help feeling relieved each time she does actually try to communicate with words what she is thinking or wanting. Especially when the words come out perfectly!!
I’ve decided that it’s kind of scary to try to raise a baby to be bilingual. Yes, I’ve heard all the advice from experts and read the textbooks in college that say that during their early childhood years is actually the best time to introduce a second, third, even fourth language. And yes, I also get that small children learning multiple languages can seem like they are behind at first, but later on actually can perform better in school because of their bilingual experiences. It’s a great thing, I know it is. But somehow it doesn’t make it any less scary when you are going through the ‘seemingly behind’ part. That is why my little wake-up call made my day. :) And that is why I smile and laugh so much when I hear more and more new words and phrases spoken and songs sung, in either language, by my little girl every day!!
Oh and as for her Portuguese, it’s coming along too. My favorite new trick of hers is when she counts “Um, dois, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, ... queijo!!” She does love her cheese. :)
