Despite the fact that we've got Tia Patty living with us and Clara finally gets an adequate dose of Spanish every day, up until yesterday, she was decidedly monolingual. And the sole language she spoke was Spanglish. Fabulous. (OK, OK, she does seem to understand everything quite well in both languages. And I realize that is a HUGE accomplishment.)
For instance, a recent conversation with Clara went like this:
[setting: the patio, looking at the sky]
Clara: Moon. (pointing at the moon)
Mama: Yep, that's the moon.
Clara: Moon se cayo.
Mama: The moon fell?
Clara: Yep.
Mama: Really?
Clara: Moon se cayo on Papa.
Mama: The moon fell on Papa?
Clara: Yep. Se cayo on Papa. [Note: Clara hasn't seen Mario for a few days, as he's been working some crazy hours, so I'm really curious what's going on in her head here.]
Mama: Is Papa OK?
Clara: OK.
Apparently she's sneaking crack into her diet somehow. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.
But, as noted, until yesterday she speaks English with a few words that are consistently in Spanish (agua and cayo). I usually repeat them back to her in English, and she'll repeat them to me in Spanish. No problem. I've always felt that speaking Spanglish fluently is an important step to becoming bilingual.
Yesterday I saw a sign that she's bridging that gap. For the last few weeks, she's been fascinated with lids, so before preparing anything, I have to let her take off the lids to the milk jug, her sippy cups, the peanut butter, or she'll suffer a meltdown, screaming, "li, li, li . . . LID!" (not a battle I feel is worth the fight).
However, as Patty was pouring her milk for breakfast, Clara noted the lid and told Patty, "tapa", in an effort to get the lid herself.
Huh. I didn't know that she knew how to say "tapa" (lid).
And besides knowing the two words that mean the same thing (and sound very different), she knew to use the English word with me and the Spanish with Patty.
That's pretty impressive for someone who isn't quite two-and-a-half!
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