Friday, October 23, 2009

Polyglot (15 months)

So far, you have been great in mastering all three languages. Here is what you say and do so far:

We: Hablas Espanol?
You: Si

We: Govorish li Bulgarski?/ Govorite po Russkii?
You: Da

We: Do you speak English?
You: Yes

We: Como estas?
You: Mien (for Bien)

We: Kak se kazvash?
You: Ma-ti.

Baba: Ti kakuv si?
You: Mij (saying muj = man)

You repeat iazh when we tell you to eat and occasionally you would ask by yourself by saying 'am-am'. You say by yourself mii-mii-mii when you wash your hands or see someone washing the dishes. You say djish for toplo. You say Gore when you want to go upstairs in your room (mostly when you are ready to go to bed - this started since our trip to the Outer Banks 13 mo old), or you say noni. You say booo to anything that makes loud noise - the blender, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the trucks, the hair-drier... You are fascinated with bikes and you always say bici when you see one. Same with babies - you say bebe as soon as you see one even if it is a kid 2 years older than you (only if it is a girl of course)...
You say correctly Ciao (pronounced Shaaao) and Buy and you say Aye when you want to say Hi. And every time you flush the toilet or you hear someone flush, you go in look at the water and say 'Bye'.

You identify on pictures and in person: mama, tati, baba, diado (you say gago), vuicho (you still cannot say it, but you know who we are talking about), tio Eze, tia Moni, Simon.

When your father was in Vienna and Prague for a week, you would ask for him every day: Tati? niama. Tati? Niama.
During that week I had to go work from the office and you would miss us so much that you would grab the photo that we have on the refrigerator (the one of us in SF where we've just biked across the bridge), walk with it around the house and say Mama - Tati - Mama - Tati...

You made the association that when your father is not in the house, then your baba is. So now every time your baba leaves in the evening you start: Baba? Niama. Tati!!! (knowing that he will come in a little bit)... And when your dad leaves in the morning your start: Tati? Niama. Baba!!!

My recent discovery is that you count in Spanish. One day I started counting to you:
Me: Uno
You: Dos
Me: Tres, Quatro
You: Cinco
Me: Seis, Siete
You: Ocho
Me: Nueve
You: Diez

Mommy's smart boy!!! Counting at the age of 15 months! In Spanish!

Lately, you started saying aqua and bako (meaning mliako). Cannot help but compare with Simon who also talks a lot and started talking very early - he started with the basic words, however, ensuring his survival - aqua, tete, teta, jugo, carne, etc... Whereas with you, it still costs me to figure out what exactly you want.

You know most of the songs your baba sings to you and you help her with the lyrics with incredible timing:

Baba: .... sedem palavi kozleta i edna koza/tia be maichica grijliva stavashe v zori/ sveji klonki i kopriva da gi nagosti
You: Mamo
Baba: Mamo, mila mamo, etc... Vulcho shtom pochuka nie tuka shte sme skriti
You: Aww
Baba: Aww ot glad umiram... etc. S hitrost i vzlom shte vliaza -
You: Azz

Also, there is this opera in Bulgarian going 'Tiho-tiho, subudihme deteto s nashata kavga. Ami sega? Ami Sega? Shte triabva da mu peem i da go luleem... "
And you continue: Nani
And your baba: Nani-Nani, milo detence.... etc.

You've mastered almost all animal sounds: Kucheto? af-af. Koteto? niaw (for miew). Kravata? muu. Kokoshkata? ko-ko-ko. Gargata? ga-ga-ga. Koncheto? ta-ta. Magarenceto? iaa-iaa. Vulkut? awww. Tigura? khkhkh. Pilenceto? pi-pi-pi. Pateto? pa-pa-pa... Agunceto? beeee. Buhala? whoo-whoo... Actually, you are a little bit afraid of the owl. One evening we were playing on my bed and you heard it outside and you started hugging me. When you could no longer hear it, you kept repeating whoo-whoo niama. whoo-whoo niama... until you fell asleap in my arms...

You know and correctly point to the following body parts (either on yourself or on me or on a drawing in a book): boca, ojos, nariz, pelo, cachetes, umbliguito.

Other things you say: ah-ah (meaning 'dirty' or poo-poo), pish. When you see flowers (both real or on a picture) you inhale and exhale with aaahhh... You also do this whenever you see us drinking our morning coffee - you grab hold of the empty cup, smell it and say aaahhhh... If you drop something you say o-oh...

You love your books and often you would grab one and bring to me to read it outloud. You also love the laptop of your dad. Every time someone is using it, you would ask to be picked up and then press the Windows button (next to the left Alt key) and say Goool when the shortcut menu pops-up and you see the icon displaying a soccerbal and a football and basketball behind it. And you love if we play you music videos on YouTube. You love music! You start moving your hands as if you are the conductor. And we cannot but hope you will be the next Venezuelan (-Bulgarian) Dudamel (you already have the hair for it :)).