Saturday, July 26, 2008

Planes, trains and MORE CAR!

Our little spud is finally venturing into the world of language. While other toddlers his age are conming out with fairly complete, if basic, sentences such as 'I fell out', 'He bit me' (or, in the case of our friend Einstein 'We went to the park to feed the ducks and then we ate our tea') my little pumpkin is still at the stage where he repeats random words and once in a while latches on to their meaning. Thus, everything with wheels is a 'car' including airplanes, trains, buses, motorbikes, suitcases and the wheelie thing we put all the towels into to go to the beach.

We like to think (and are backed up by all sorts of well-meaning folks) that because we are a bilingual household, this is slowing down his speech. Why, only yesterday we stopped in the street to talk to a nice French couple and their dog who informed me, after realising that he was speaking his own, personal language to their pooch, that children with two languages were 'un peux en retard'. Just what I needed to hear merci VERY much...!

This morning he was demonstrating the word 'other' and everything was 'other car'. 'Car, other car, other car, other car, other car, other car, other car, other car' ' Enough to make me go a little Other myself. At least it makes a change from 'More', a word which, once he realised it would get him 'More', the spud has worn so very thin that there is practically no more of anything left in the house whatsoever... my wizard wheeze for fixing the word in his head was that whenever he said 'More' I would say it back to him 'Would you like More?' and then give him more of whatever it was ('More Car' for example...) which led him to think that it was a magic word which would get him anything he wants under its well-known alternate meaning: 'Please feed me'.

Resultantly he is More Potato than ever, as can clearly be seen below.



We're learning 'No More', now.

We've been on the beach nearly every day this week and his love affair with it appears to growing. Today we had surfing. Or rather, we had standing in front of the surf class mimicing them and making them fall off their boards laughing. We also had this:



and this:



Please note the very, very cute little swimming trunks and lack of nappy which makes him look very sweet and grown up but doesn't unfortunately stop him peeing in them.

Ah yes, it was all joy and happiness today except for the moments when he would see a woman sunbathing topless as they do here and he would smile and, despite the fact he has not been breasfed for a year, he would point and say 'More?'.

That, unfortunately, is something which appears to translate into both languages quite successfully.

12 comments:

cactus petunia said...

That last paragraph almost made me spray wine all over the keyboard...and I'm pretty sure that anecdote will resurface around the time he's a teenaged spud!

Sparx said...

Cactus - I know... sometimes I write these things and think... 'should I?' Poor little spudlet.

Anonymous said...

Well at least 'en retard' means late... according to A-Level French, anyway. Maybe there are more meanings I have bypassed.

The pink bodyboard is a touch of genius. He looks very sweet.

Helen + ilana = Hi said...

Just so he doesn't walk up and give those "MoRe" a tweak!!! Be sure you remember that story for his wedding.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my . . . where to start on this one?! C. is growing to be such a handsome little boy - that belly makes me want to hop on the next plane and go trans-Atlantic just to zerbert it.

And just wait on the talking . . . Cooper celebrated his 2nd birthday with roughly a dozen words, and me praying for the day he would finally talk. At 3 years old, I ask him at least once a week if he will ever STOP talking. The look of pure disgust at the mention of such absurdity is priceless.

Helen said...

I love the Potato Belly! We have 'More' around our house too, as in 'More JUICE' and when we hear 'No More,' we throw our sippy cup, which leads to another term we have learned - 'Time Out.' Samantha knows 'Time Out' so well, she tried putting me in time out when I scolded her for eating her sister's toothpaste. 'You angry. Time Out!'

If Spud can get his point across to you, make himself understood and get what he wants, he is not 'en retard.' He's just fine, and may be far more advanced than he's decided to let on. Toddlers can be sneaky that way...

Briget said...

The slower-speech thing really is true for a child learning two languages at once, imop - and I'm a kindergarten teacher of 23 years experience. I had several bilingual kidlets over the years, and the parents all reported late language, if it helps...

And anyway, could be worse - one of my friends had a child whose favorite first word was "truck". Unfortunately he couldn't pronounce "tr" and settled for "f". And he loved to point and shout at every - ahem - "FUCK!!!!!" that he saw when they were out in public.

Sparx said...

Raz - thanks! Yes, I did know 'en retard' meant late... just being daft for the sake of it, bad me...

Helen - Oh, yes I will... poor mite!

Fishsticks - wonderful to see you back!

Helen - oh goodness, that made me laugh and wince in recognition...!


Briget... I just spat out my coffee, that is hilarious! Your poor friend!!!

Mom de Plume said...

A friend of mine's son only started talking properly aged 4! He is also bilingual, in English and Zulu! Now he never stops talking... Spud may use proper words later than others but he will be able to use twice as many then!

Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings said...

Jonathan is saying "Done?" when he finishes eating anything (which is rare lately) or..the other day when I was singing and he looked up and said "Done?" in the middle of my song.

Oh. OK. Guess I was "done."

He asks it because that's what I always ask him when he hands me a half eaten..whatever.

"Done?"

~ej said...

cute belly pic ;) a boy and and his shovel...
my oldest took the longest to speak and now (at 15) he is never quiet...the things we wish for ;) and he's only learned english! hehe!

Sue said...

The Bhablet's being slow in the language dept too. At least, he's been blabbering away for over a year now, only in Babble and I do not speak that, unfortunately for him.

We're a trilingual household I guess. Or two languages and a smattering of lots of others. But for the last couple of weeks he has deigned to repeat words after us. We nearly offered prayers at the local temply in gratitude.

Then I realised, who wants him to speak and tell the world what I do at home???