Tuesday, November 25, 2008

my bilingual baby

Some of you have heard this story already, because I tell everyone that will listen, but for those of you that haven't heard it, here goes.....my child is bilingual. She speaks Spanish...and is pretty fluent in it. To my surprise. When she went for her 15 month appt, back in September, I had talked to the Dr. about her losing her words...I was a little worried...and he told me not to worry until she turned 2. That seemed a bit long for me, but after asking around and researching, I was going to go with it. He tells me "I don't think she is autistic, she interacts with you and has normal reactions to me, so I don't think that she is autistic. We may need to test her hearing if she hasn't gotten any more words by her next appt." Okay, so you can imagine my shock and dismay after that appt. Anyway, I will make a long story shorter....jump ahead 2 months, to now, and I was telling her sitter that she would no longer be coming to daycare....yadda, yadda... and Emilia says something and Magda say "si," and some other words that I couldn't understand because they were in Spanish...and I looked at her and asked if Emilia had said something in Spanish and lo and behold....I found out my child speaks Spanish. All this time that I had thought she was jibbering, she was actually jibbering and speaking to me in Spanish. Let me preface, I AM NOT BILINGUAL! I found out that she 4-5 phrases that she speaks fluently, and can count to three and knows her sitters name and her name. Good for her, but since Spanish isn't spoken in our house, I would very much like for her first language to be English. English, please! So, I say I don't know whether to be proud or pissed off...I think I am a little of both. However, Emilia's English words are starting to flourish, so that is good. Her new favorite word is "bubbles." It's too cute.

2 comments:

black betty said...

that is awesome! my child only knows english mixed with hick. :)

Meredith said...

Muy bien!