It was just before the holidays that I started to really take stock of my child’s vocabulary. Honestly, I was starting to get worried that he was behind in his language skills. Of course that would’ve been totally normal given that he’s being talked to in three languages on any given day. But still. I was worried that he was noticeably behind.
As it turns out, he’s progressing like any mono-lingual kid at this point. And by that I mean he’s totally soaking anything and everything in. While not everything he utters is intelligible, at 20 months, he’s really trying to repeat (to varying degrees of success) everything that is said. And that is really fun–and a little scary when you actually start to realize all the adult language that you are still using even though you don’t think you are.
But the coolest thing for me this week was that baby now has two words in two different languages for the same object–that object being our dog. Baby’s second word after gato (cat in Spanish) was chien, or dog in French. And that’s what he’s been calling a dog for months now. Until this week when we went to the dog park. As he was running around, chasing all the various mutts, he started yelling out, “Doggies! Doggies!” It floored me because no one in our house says doggies. I suspect it’s something he’s picked up watching television at the nanny’s, but I can’t be sure.
But the interesting thing to me is that, at 20 months old, he understands that doggy and chien mean the same thing. Althought it sort of seems like he’s using doggies to refer to multiple dogs and chien to refer to a single dog. (As an aside–that’s the other thing that’s new in terms of development for him; he can now pick the image of a dog or a cat out of a book or off TV.) But all the same, I’m fascinated by the fact that he’s somewhat grasped the concept of a synonym.
I don’t know if that represents a major milestone in multilingual development or not. I clearly haven’t ready enough books to make me knowledgeable about what I should be doing much less an expert in doing it. It does seem like it should be. But even if it’s not, it’s cause enough for some age-appropriate celebration around our house.
My plan had always been to raise my son bilingual–French and English. I was going to handle the French (along with my mom, Mimi) and dad and everyone else would take care of the English. What I never factored in was an equal parts adorable and fantastic Salvadoran nanny.
After I pulled the trigger on hiring our nanny, one of her big initial questions was whether it was okay if she spoke Spanish to our son. I am very open to other cultures and super supportive of anything that would enrich my son in that respect, so I don’t think she even finished her sentence without saying, “Yes!” Selfishly, I also figured it would be a decent way for me to dust some of the cobwebs off of my high school Spanish.
I have zero regrets about my decision, but the results (so far) have been surprising to say the very least. Surprising is a lame word to use, but it’s hard to find a word that can capture the full range of amazement, excitement, joy, and even a little heartbreak that I’ve felt as our son has started to develop his language skills in earnest.
Baby’s first word–other than mom-mom-mom, which I don’t attribute to any specific language–was gato. Yup, Spanish for cat. There are a couple of weird things about that. First, I had thought for sure his first word would’ve been in French. After all, baby spends about three afternoons a week on average with the nanny and the rest of the time he’s parler-ing with me. Second, our cats don’t really hang out with us. Mostly because of the large dog we have added to our family. Most of the time they like to hang out in their lair in the basement, choosing to be little more than an occasional meow from the stairwell. So, how gato came out of his little mouth, I don’t know.
It made me a little sad. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy, too. Baby’s first words are baby’s first words! But somehow it felt a little like I had failed–and we hadn’t even really started yet. As stupid as it sounds, I wondered if my child loved his nanny more, if he had more fun with her, and if she was a better teacher than I was turning out to be.
Fortunately I was redeemed (and the dog, too) not too long afterward when the wee one decided that his second word would be chien. I felt like we were back in the game.
It’s a silly way to look at it. I’m just happy that our kid is learning. And I’m thrilled that he’s truly becoming multilingual. True, he’s likely going to be totally confused for awhile. And I might be, too. I’m hearing the French and the Spanish, but if he’s trying to say something in English, I’m not hearing it. I thought for a minute the other day he was trying to say “thank you,” but it wasn’t clear enough to be sure. So who knows when the English will kick in.
So, as our son rounds the corner to the 18-month mark, here’s a tally of his first words:
Baby crossed a few major milestones this summer. And while I’m sorry that I’m only now getting to catch up on them, the truth is I’ve not only been busy trying trying to enjoy them but also just trying to keep up with them. Literally.
When baby and I arrived at my parents’ house for July Fourth weekend, baby was a crawler. He was pulling himself up on furniture, creeping around the house from chair to chair, and pushing all his walker toys, but he was not what I would consider vertical. Then one day not too long after we arrived, he took the first step on his own. The next day he took three steps on his own. The day after that he took five steps on his own. And after that he was a walker.
I had no idea it would happen that fast. I thought it would be a much longer process, one where he would spend weeks only being able to take a couple steps before crashing. I thought for sure it would take a decent chunk of time to develop the muscle strength, coordination, and balance to be toddling around. Apparently not. By the time we were packed up Labor Day weekend to head home, baby could run.
And as fast as his chunky bow legs can carry him is clearly his preferred mode of transportation. This of course means that I also am doing a lot more running than I’m used to–even with the training that I’ve been doing to prepare for the Army Ten Miler next month. (Remember you can still donate; just click here before Oct. 3!) My mornings should start with “on your mark, get set, go” followed by the pop of a pistol because, from the second my alarm clock rings, it’s off to the races, the finish line being 7pm when my baby goes vertical to horizontal in his crib.
But as I say that, one thing occurs to me: My baby really isn’t much of a baby anymore. I’m not sure I like the sound of toddler–just yet.
Back in my swingin’ single days, I used to spend all week waiting for the weekend to kick off with Friday night happy hour. Although I think it really should be called happy hours since many weeks I found myself still lugging my work bag around town at 1am on a Friday night. As a mommy now, obviously things have changed. But I still look forward to Fridays, but mostly because that’s the day I meet with my French mommy group. It’s a far cry from the happy hours I used to have, but it still is one of my happiest hour and a halfs every week.
But finding the right mommy group is hardly easy, as many of my mommy friends can attest. In fact, when I think about it, it’s kind of like dating all over again.
The ideal is to find a group of educated women who have laid-back personalities and a sense of humor, varied but complementary interests, keep to a similar schedule, live relatively close to you, and, of course, have (at least) a kid around the same age as yours. It’s a tall order by any standards. I’m not sure I had as many requirements when looking for my last boyfriend. (Thank god my husband found me first.)
But where do mommies go to meet other mommies? The options are somewhat finite:
But let’s get real… chances are you’re looking for a mommy group because you don’t work at the moment, don’t go to church (or at least aren’t active in the community), don’t get to the gym as often as you’d like to admit, don’t have time for volunteer activities, and don’t want to shell out anywhere near $70/month for a membership to a baby club. And if you had friends with babies who lived in your neighborhood, you’d already be hanging out with them.
I lucked out and found a mommy group on the Internet, through http://www.meetup.com. (I totally get why people Internet date now and would admittedly be going down that road if I was single, as it’s an efficient and economical way to meet people.) I had to give on some of the said requirements–I drive roughly 40 minutes (although it’s probably less than 10 miles from my house) to get there–but the French connection outweighed the distance.
I think I lucked out, too, in that I’m sort of an inaugural member of the group. I found out about the group and was able to show up for the first meeting, and that likely made all the difference. It’s so much easier to try something new when everyone is new at it. I definitely think it would be much harder to jump into a very established group.
With that said, I always look forward to seeing if there are any new people at our weekly meetings and even if it’s a bit awkward and forced, I feel like my group’s organizers really try to make everyone feel welcome. But I can tell almost immediately who is never going to come back. In our group’s case, it’s usually someone who realizes the second she walks into the room that her French language skills maybe aren’t as good as she remembered them being in college.
But even as one of the regulars, more or less, I still find myself trying way harder than usual to have these women like me. I literally get up a half hour early, so I can spend extra time on my hair and make-up. I also spend an abnormally long time (for me) deciding what I’m going to wear; I always feel like I want to look fresh and chic and not the strung out and underdone that I usually am. I even stress a little over what baby is going to wear.
That’s when I know this is so like dating. Only minus the drinks and the free dinner.
And perhaps that’s why I find mommy groups, at least the one I’m in, a little awkward. Basically we sit around and watch each others’ kids play and make small talk about breastfeeding, nap schedules, and our husbands’ jobs. We don’t even have coffee or donuts, which makes me think that maybe I should bring some next time. Then again, everyone is currently thin, so maybe that wouldn’t go over so well, if it became a regular thing.
Maybe this whole blind-date, first-date feeling lasts for so long when getting to know other mommies because everyone sort of knows that they either (a) would never have crossed paths or (b) never become friends, if there weren’t babies in the picture. That fact is just sort of the Barney in the room. No wonder so many of my mommy friends who have tried some mommy groups have never gone back to them; that’s kind of a hard thing to get over if the chemistry just isn’t right. And seriously, when you have an infant, who has time to make an effort to spend time with women they don’t necessarily like?
But for as awkward as it can be during some of our meetings, I’m so glad that I’ve stuck with the group. Of course, I love getting the chance to practice my French, but every week, I get to know the women, at least the regulars, a little better and I like them not just a little but a lot more every week.
I just hope they feel the same way about me. I don’t want to have to try to pick up another mommy group any time soon.
I love Tuesdays. Tuesdays are the days that baby goes to music class. But before I claim the title of Super Mom, I’ll just put it out there that I don’t actually take him to music class. Baby’s nanny has that joy.
And in fact, it was her idea. She came to me and asked if it would be okay if she signed him up for the free class, which is held in a nearby school. I think she thought he needed more musical exposure. I remember one of the first weeks she was working with us she took him to a children’s concert. If this tells you how sweet she is, she brought me back a CD from the concert, signed by the artist Jose-Luis Orozco with a personal note to me. I have no idea what the note says and cannot understand much of the lyrics, as everything is in Spanish, but baby loves the music. (There’s this one part in the beginning where the singer says, “Eye-eye-eye!” sort of Speedy Gonzalez style and baby always looks up and smiles when he hears that; it’s hilarious.)
I guess maybe she thought it was strange that all she ever heard in my house was the blare of two TVs–one tuned to CNN; the other to MSNBC. (Okay, if I’m being honest, occasionally she’d find one of them on Bravo, if it was a slow news day.)
At any rate, of course I said yes–Lord knows I would’ve paid for it if it weren’t free–and then Tuesdays became all about his music class.
Weirdly enough, I like how the class gives us some structure in the week. See, the first time baby went to class, he cried the whole time. The music teacher told the nanny that it was pretty typical for babies to scream their lungs out until they got used to it. But I had a sneaking suspicion that part of it was that 11:30am class feel within his normal nap time, so I was pretty sure that exhaustion led to the meltdown.
So, I started switching things up and trying to get the wee one to nap earlier, so he’d be in a good mood for all the singing and dancing. Amazingly enough it wasn’t that hard to make the change. Of course it meant my day went at a different pace–showers now were on hold until after the nanny picked him up–but it was a good move, as the next week the nanny reported he didn’t cry once and had a ball.
While I love that our nanny is enterprising enough to seek these types of activities out, I have to not-so-secretly admit that I’m a little jealous. I wish I was taking him to music class.
I feel a little selfish saying that because I get to do plenty of things with him. Baby and I, we have our gym routine and its requisite play group friends and we have French group and all of its fun times. But it’s that mommy-ness in me that makes me always feel like I could/should be doing more. Or at least not feeling as guilty about not doing it, even though I know it’s not only good for baby to have his special things he does with his nanny but it also affords me the time to work uninterrupted, which is key when your job requires you to be at least a little creative.
A few months ago, I was telling my mom about baby’s music class when she asked me what the babies did during the music class. I’m sure my guilt showed through when I told her that I didn’t know. I mean, I assumed that the group listened to music and did sing-alongs and such, but I had no idea what type of music they listened to, whether the group was mostly babies or toddlers, or even if they were speaking English or Spanish. All I really knew is that occasionally I would find the dog with one of those multicolored plastic Easter eggs, stuffed with dry rice and taped shut–a make-shift percussion instrument.
I broke down and asked my nanny to video baby during class. I felt a little strange asking her to do that even thought all I wanted was like 2 minutes of video to be able to send my mom. But in asking her to shoot a little video, I wondered if she thought I was checking up on her. Or ‘if the other parents or nannies in the class were going to look at her askance for taking video of the class. Some people are really funny about that kind of stuff even though it is innocent enough. And really I just wanted to see my son have a good time.
Fortunately, when my nanny asked if shooting the video would cause any problems, no one said it would. So, here’s an inside look at what happens on Tuesdays when I’m not around.
I don’t know about you, but I think that kid’s got real musical talent. While he may have appeared to be more interested in the other people than the music, I know I saw him shake a castanet a couple of times and do one clap. 🙂 So, here’s to Tuesdays!
Today, baby turned 10 months. (Well, technically, yesterday because it’s past midnight as I’m writing this.) We’re closing in on a year quickly, and it’s happening almost too quickly in some ways. Because as much as it’s amazing and fun to watch babies grow up, I’m finding it a little bit sad, too. They just change so quickly at this stage that you feel like you missed it even if you’ve been paying attention all along the way.
Take, for example, the past 10 days. Ten days ago, baby and I were en vacances in Chamonix, France. He was trying to crawl, but if I were to convert his skill to ski slopes, he would’ve been on a green circle rather than a black diamond. I mean, he was sort of getting places, but he didn’t really have much control or direction as to where he was going.
But a week and a half later and it’s a totally different story. He’s crawling–and he’s standing. That’s right; he’s pulling himself up on everything and even daring to let go with one hand–and occasionally two, if only for a couple seconds. Check it out:
(As an aside, here’s a thank you to Linkin Park for writing “Crawling.” Although it’s a little intense for all things baby related, it couldn’t be more appropriately named for just such things.)
I’m not going to lie. I watch this video and a little tear or two escapes. I wish I still had hormones to blame it on, but for tonight, I’ll blame the waterworks on the couple of glasses of box o’wine that I’ve had while waiting for these videos to upload.
But there is something really sad in watching a wee one become less “wee.” Part of it for me is that it happened so fast. In a week and a half, my baby went from scooting on his bum a few inches at a time to standing (much less bouncing) in his crib.
Another part is knowing that I’m a little bit alone in watching this change, which feels so big in this little life. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love where we live and how we live, but it’s a a fact that we don’t have any family close to share some of this excitement. Not to mention that daddy is often tied up with military stuff. (I’m sure watching this video makes him sadder in some ways than I can possibly know.) So, sometimes it seems as though these big developmental moments are almost happening in a vacuum.
It’s funny how for all these tinges of sadness, I can still be totally proud of how baby is growing. With every developmental milestone, he’s closer to the man he’ll eventually be. And I so long to know that person. Sometimes I watch him and I see a spark of something–curiosity, intellect, humor, drive, sensitivity, what-have-you–but it’s hard to call it a defining characteristic at this point. And I wonder how his experiences will change–for better or worse–those characteristics.
But for now I’m going to just be happy that he’s not moving fast enough that I can’t catch him. Which will give me the tiniest bit of time to finish baby proofing.
Sometimes I wonder how my life would appear if it was played out on a big screen. I think tonight’s scene would’ve been best captured with a split screen.
First, the good stuff happening upstairs…
Baby was getting very close to figuring out that whole crawling thing. Guess mom needs to get going on baby proofing.
Meanwhile, the not-so-good stuff happening downstairs…
Sadly, that was after we’d been to the dog park. I guess he was excited to watch the Westminster Dog Show.
I can’t say that I knew baby was teething, even though looking back, I did think it was weird that when I would pick him up out of his crib in the morning, he would sort of crunch up and then try to hook himself, jaw first, onto my shoulder. Honestly, at first, I thought he was just excited to see me.
Then there was the drool.
But, having no other babies or even younger siblings of my own, I didn’t think it was all that weird that babies drooled. I mean, they are babies after all, right?
Did I mention he was cranky?
Well, really only in the afternoons. And he wasn’t really inconsolably cranky; rather, he was just mildly annoyed and irritated all afternoon. I, being new at this mom thing, just chalked it up to the fact that he wasn’t too keen on napping on the afternoons anymore.
So, I guess you don’t know what you don’t know. Even though all the teething signs were there, I didn’t see them. He was four months old at the time; wasn’t teething reserved for the 6+ monthers?
Apparently not.
After a couple of drool-y weeks where baby couldn’t stop pulling things toward his mouth–from the blankie to the totally dirty diaper that I thought was out of his reach–finally he latched on to my finger. Owww! I felt the two little nubs on his bottom gums poking through the soft, pink flesh. No wonder nursing had started to feel more like a contact sport.
But even with the tell-tale signs and the biting, I wasn’t sure. I needed a look.
Open wide....
Good luck, sister. Try getting a four-month-old to open wide enough and long enough for you to get a good gander at whatever chompers might be debuting. I mean, a bikini-clad Tooth Fairy waving a $100 bill couldn’t have made this little man keep his mouth open long enough for me to confirm that what my finger had felt was indeed the real thing. But two weeks later, it was official; we clearly had two pearly whites staring back at us every time baby smiled.
But I didn’t really think past those first teeth. I never really considered the teething process–like how long after one tooth appears will the next one show up, whether the signs will be different for front teeth versus molars, or even how long before he’s got the whole mouthful of teeth. I had sort of hoped that baby would get some sort of reprieve between each debut, where he would go back to his normal self for a little bit before the drooling and crankiness started back up. But my cousin assures that I’m dreaming; once the teething process starts, it doesn’t stop until all the teeth are in. Of course at that point, the babes start losing them, but let’s not go there for now.
Besides the shoulder mauling, what pains me the most about teething is that baby turned into a real cranky pants in the afternoons. And he’s generally a pretty easy going little guy, so this was disturbing to me. Even more disturbing was that even if I fed him, he wouldn’t sedate. He’d gnaw on a bottle nipple or, worse yet, decide to check out something else in the room while nursing, pulling with his not-yet-developed pearls on what I used to consider some delicate pink parts. I hate that.
The biggest change I made once I realized he was indeed teething was I started him on solids. (You can check out my post on baby’s first solids here.) And it seemed to do the trick–at first. But then the newness wore off and I still had a cranky, drool-y baby on my hands.
So, I turned to teethers. I have to admit that I always thought that teethers were a crock. They seemed like they were just something over-tired parents bought in hopes of getting another 15 minutes of sleep or 15 minutes more in front of your inbox. Here I am a month+ after the first teeth appeared and I’m pretty sure that’s really all that they are. Here’s my proof:
Needless to say, we’ve tried a lot of teethers. But as much as I’d love to tell my mommy-friends that I’ve got the fool-proof teething solution, I don’t. Honestly, sometimes I think my baby is happier munching on the nose of his stuffed Tigger than any of the other approved teether toys I give him. Which is sad. Because I really love these little guys:
How many bites does it take to get to the center of a mesh teether?
There are a number of manufacturers, but I happen to have the Munchkin Fresh Food Feeder. And although I feel like they should be easier to open, I love them. And I don’t even really use them for their primary purpose, which is to give babies a chance to gnaw on some food to get some flavor without worrying about them choking on it. At this stage, I mostly just stick an ice cube in it and hope that it numbs whatever dull, irritating pain baby must feel in his mouth constantly. I’d love to say that it works, but, despite how genius I think this contraption is, it doesn’t really solve the whole pain problem. But nonetheless, this little thingy tends to make it into whatever new-mommy-and-baby gift basket that I happen to be putting together. I really think that if it’s not now, it’ll be soon enough when I get my money out of this thing.
My husband keeps saying that I should rub some vodka on his gums–that’s what his grandmother used to do for the babies in his family–but I feel like he might have gotten that wrong. I always thought it was brandy, but maybe Polish people do it differently. But baby’s not so unhappy now that I’m ready to medicate, in one way or another, so, I guess for now, I’ve just got to remember not to stick my fingers inside baby’s cage.
Food, glorious, food. That pretty much sums up my take on eating.
Food is completely at the center of my family life. It’s not only what most of us spend our free time doing–we garden, we read food magazines and Web sites, and we watch foodie TV shows like “Iron Chef”–but it’s the reason we get together. From backyard barbecues and fish frys to Thanskgiving and Sunday dinners, bring the food and the family will show up. The act of designing, preparing, cooking, presenting, and sharing a meal is our most comfortable expression of love.
So, given the starring role food plays in my family’s life, you can imagine how ecstatic I was when I took baby to the doctor for his four-month check up and he said I could start introducing solids–rice cereal, oatmeal, and a first fruit and veggie. Happy, happy, joy, joy!
Now, it might seem a little early, if you believe a lot of what you read. Lots of expert sources say to refrain from introducing solids until six months of age. But I really felt baby was ready. He’d more than doubled his birth weight–he’s pushing 18 pounds already–and if that rule of thumb wasn’t enough, he was definitely starting to get very interested in whatever I was eating. I caught him eyeballing an apple a few weeks ago with such desire that I held the gnawed-on core up to his face so he could smell it, if not get a little taste on his lips.
So, it was with much glee that I hit the solid food aisle in Target for baby’s first meal. What was it going to be? Plain old rice cereal? Oatmeal with bananas? Rice cereal with fruits? I wanted to buy them all, but I settled on two boxes–one big one of the plain old rice cereal and a smaller one of oatmeal with bananas.
Once home, I immediately put baby into his bouncer chair and I busted out a bib for its inaugural dirtying. While some mommy-friends suggested putting some cereal in a bottle at first, I decided to live a little dangerously and opt for a first spoon feeding.
Here’s the first-hand account of how it went:
It was so fun! And I couldn’t believe how quickly he caught on. After three feeding attempts, he pretty much got it (you’ll see clips from five feeding frenzies in the video). It was such an exciting moment that I found myself cheering, rather loudly as it would seem from the unedited versions of the video, when baby would take a big swallow or (better yet) actually grab my hand and try to pull the spoon into his mouth on his own.
I’ve never felt better about making a bigger deal out of a smaller thing.
Of course as a mother, I’m totally biased when it comes to my kid. Every day longer that I know him, the more I love him. And at this point–aside from the dirty diapers and the spit-up–what is there not to love? He’s not all that complicated–he likes food, sleep, and clean underoos.
But what happens if he grows up and I don’t like who he is?
In some ways, I know that’s an impossible scenario. Parents–at least the halfway decent ones–come programmed to always love their kids. No matter the mistakes they make and the disappointments that follow, there’s a reason it’s called unconditional love. But some kids just end up sort of rotten, no matter the quality of parents or the enormity of their efforts, and I fear for that.
It’s no doubt quite premature to be stressing about this sort of thing. I have a happy baby, with the emphasis on baby. But I had an encounter not too long ago that got me thinking about the what ifs of my sweet baby turning into a monster.
Late in the summer, I had a visit from my childhood babysitter. She stopped by to oogle over baby just as she had oogled over my brother and myself when we were wee ones. This babysitter is a lovely, lovely woman. She and her husband ran a daycare out of their home for decades and it seemed like everyone with whom I went to elementary school had spent a good chunk of time at their house, from playing on the jungle gym in the backyard in the spring to building snow forts in their side yard in the winter.
This is a woman who adores children. And children adore her, too. All the kids who went her house have wonderful shared memories of tomato soup lunches, homemade Play-Doh afternoons, garage sales where every kid got 50 cents to make purchases, and personalized cookies for every holiday.
But after all the years that I’ve known her, I saw a lone spot of darkness in her demeanor during the afternoon she visited. My mother and I had asked about her two children and their children. My longtime sitter raved on and on about how well her daughter was doing, but when it came to her son, she just sort of kept to the less-than-glamorous facts about his current situation, which admittedly was troubling.
Finally she said, “Sometimes I just don’t like him.”
I was so stunned that she said that. This wonderful woman, who had so much love in her heart for so many kids for so many years, had reached some sort of limit. It was hard to imagine that someone like her, who also was exceptionally religious, could just be exhausted like that. I mean, it’s not like she had shut him out of her life. No, not at all. She was supporting him emotionally and even financially. And she clearly did so out of love, but there was also a very tangible sense of obligation. I could tell there was little pleasure in helping him, ostensibly because his needs were never ending; it was almost as if she felt like he was undeserving of her support and yet resigned, as a mother, to continue being a crutch or a handout or whatever role she was playing in his drama.
“It’s so strange,” she said later. “Two kids, who grew up the same way, in the same house, and they’re just totally different.”
With that, I knew she also felt guilty, like somehow she had failed her son. But how? It was a question that she must have often asked herself and yet found no tangible answer.
Although this little exchange was such a small part of our otherwise happy conversation, it scared me. I’ve always wanted to believe that nurture could win out over nature, but this situation suggested that the opposite was more likely to be true. Even if I could come in strong on the nurturing side of things, I now have serious doubts that it would be enough to even help course correct if my wee one started to head into trouble. I don’t have half the heart, the patience, and the discipline that this woman possesses.
So, what do I do if my baby evolves into a boy (and then a man) that I don’t particularly like? I could say that I could set limits, but I’ve never seen a parent who’s been able to successfully do so. Most parents talk the talk about tough love, but few walk the walk, despite what they tell their friends at cocktail parties.
I think I’m probably better off just saying a few novenas and hoping for the best.
But the coolest thing for me this week was that baby now has two words in two different languages for the same object–that object being our dog. Baby’s second word after gato (cat in Spanish) was chien, or dog in French. And that’s what he’s been calling a dog for months now. Until this week when we went to the dog park. As he was running around, chasing all the various mutts, he started yelling out, “Doggies! Doggies!” It floored me because no one in our house says doggies. I suspect it’s something he’s picked up watching television at the nanny’s, but I can’t be sure.
mum's the word 