Tuesday, May 24, 2011

una maravilla

on sunday, i went to bed.
my chest muscles were hurting from the romp
in the water that Elena and I took.
You know, holding the forty lbs. of kid does not hurt
{in the moment}
On Sunday...it HURT.
So, I went to bed.

Then, as I lay there, I heard something so grand.
Music to my ears!
Eva vino corriendo por el pasillo--
hablando frases completas en Spanish!
Eva was running down the hall talking y talking y
all of it was in Spanish.
To Andy it was babble.
If I had been looking at her or holding her,
I might not have focused my ears so much.
That is how {almost} two year olds talk.
She said this:  Enenenenena (Elena) vente pa ca, Enenenenana
One tas? Enenenananenena {Where are you? Elena?}
Then, she spied that the door to the bedroom was closed, and I heard:
Mama, Mama??? Tas mi mi?  Tas mi mi Mama?  {Mama, are you sleeping? }
Yailin alli tas?  Tas mi mi Yailin--She got confused, b/c usually if the door is shut
in the day time, her little friend is asleep in there..
This was music to my ears.
A mystery solved.
Eva does talk to Camelia all day, and Yailin too.
She is just like Victor and Elena were.
They spoke Spanish too, at one point.
Sentences, and now, NADA!
But this mystery continues to unravel itself.
Elena will listen to me talking to Camelia, she listens and then
about a week later she will give commentary of some conversation that Camelia
and I have had.
How did she know what we said I think to myself???
Maybe she understands some words and picks it apart?
This is all a very interesting little linguistic situation we have here.
I do not force any of my interests on my children on purpose.
If they want to learn Spanish, they will listen hard.
If I want to listen to music in Spanish etc. I do--if that bugs them, well
sometimes I let them pick etc.  (I try to keep it somewhat even, vamos)
But whatever Spanish they get will be driven by their interest or what is unavoidable,
or what their brains do, sin ni pensar--
stay tuned....

1 comment:

Bethany said...

Cute Eva!! That's cool... don't underestimate your influence just in exposing them - I ended up in 4 years of french b/c my Mom loved the language and spoke what she knew to us as kids. :)

Spot on!

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