Talking Dirty

We were grocery shopping the other day when Peanut starts to tell me a story about Cat & Mouse who we know from a library book.

Cat & Mouse were going to school. Cat ate Mouse's snot! From her nose!!!

Yewwww. Yuck.

Then Cat made a poo-poo!!

Lovely.

Its amazing the phases children go through. Peanut, unfortunately, hasn't been around too many other children the past few months as we moved and I haven't able to place her in a preschool yet. So, I can't blame this one on the influence of some other potty-mouthed children. Papa & I don't talk like this. Peanut has just discovered the joys of grossing her parents out -- all on her own. I'm so proud.....

What's that steam-pipe-smokestack thing on a train called?

More than once in the past weeks I've found myself fumbling for a word when Peanut points to something in her Thomas the Train book or the pages in her Richard Scarry's Things That Go. Beyond the bulldozer and forklift, I'm clueless as to the differences among all those big, yellow machines. There's the cherry-picker, the dump truck, the trash truck, the thing that crushes rocks for roads, that other thing that paves roads and then there's the mysterious one with the long crane.

Thomas and pals have been her latest obsession and my train-related vocab is really not up to the test! Since most all of Peanut's toys ended up in storage instead of our temporary apartment, a friend was kind enough to loan us some of her son's Thomas Lego's and Thomas himself. Since he arrived, Peanut's barely let him out of her sight. He even has to come to bed with her in the evening.....

To melt your heart

Last night I was struck with a craving for a milkshake. After dinner, we asked Peanut if she'd like a milkshake, too.

"Yea, milkshake" was the quick reply and she dashed off to get her stuff ready for the car. Peanut has started saying 'yea' to questions and requests. Not 'yes', but 'yea'. I guess that shows how I speak most of the time :-) I'm not sure the last time we went out for milkshakes, but its not very often. Evidently, it was a monumental event for Peanut since she kept repeating 'milkshake' and trying to rush us out the door.

The local Jack in the Box is our shake supplier when we don't want to get out of the car and go into an ice cream shop.

I poured a little bit of shake into a cup for Peanut and papa passed it to her in the back seat. We drove off to head home.

A while later from the back seat comes a little voice "thank you, papa". Followed soon by a "Pia (as Peanut calls herself) happy". I'd never heard anything so sweet in my life - I could feel the tears swell up in my eyes.

Ice, ice, babies

Peanut likes to groove to all sorts of boppy hits on the radio. Her favorite stations are KLUV (98.7, "Oldies") and what has recently become the new 107.5, formerly a smooth jazz station.

107.5 plays "music that makes you feel good" mostly from the 80s and 90s. We were listening the other night, reliving our high school days, when Vanilla Ice hit the airwaves.

Soon, Peanut was singing along "ice, ice, babies"...."iss, iss, babies"....

No, Bau-bu!

"No, Bau-BU! No!" cries out Peanut when our cat Mauku tries to sneak out the door or climb on the sofa or gets too close to her Pooh Bear.

"No, Bau-bu!" says Peanut in a commanding tone as she lifts her leg up to nudge an awaiting Mauku aside when we come in through the garage door to the kitchen.

"Tii-tu, No!" a stern Peanut says as our other cat Miuku puts a paw on the kitchen table. BAM! goes Peanuts little hand on the table to startle Miuku into obedieance.

"Bau-BU! Bau-BU!" we hear Peanut yell as she chases Mauku across the living room.

I think Peanut's mama & papa need to work on using a gentler tone of voice when talking to the kitties and focus more on showing how to also be kind and loving towards Miuku & Mauku.

One, two, three - een, twee, drie - yksi, kaksi, kolme

With our various backgrounds we want Peanut to feel comfortable in our home cultures and languages so we had decided to raise her bilingual in English (our "speak to each other" home language) and Dutch (speak with papa and his family). While we lived in Helsinki, the thought was that she would then pick-up Finnish from the environment and when she started daycare.

Then, we moved to Dallas and life has been a whirlwind of activity since. Only recently have we started discussing adding Finnish back into her little life.

By chance, we are surrounded by many opportunities to make it naturally part of her language exposure. Peanut & I occassionally make it to the Mamma-kerho meetings and playgroups with other Finnish moms & kiddies. Our home is a stone's throw away from a number of playparks frequented by the same. And, the Suomi-Koulu of Texas has a baby class we could join. And, of course, Peanut's mama is at home with her and could add Finnish there.

There are many resources out there telling us we can do it and Peanut can do it. Now, we are just sorting out what's the right way for us.

Anyone else out there have experiences or advice to share??

Jabberlingual
Bicultural/Bilingual Families
Babycenter Multilingual BB