His first word was “Hola!” and soon he learn to wave the hand at the same time, making all the tram passengers go nuts as he incorporated and combined “Hola! Hallo!” looking at them. He also got the polite custom of saying “Hola!” every time he entered a place, including a shop, the tram, an empty home,… it is fantastic but it has also put me in weird situations because people talk to him, and I just smile because as I have no idea what is going on, until it is too uncomfortable and I have to reveal that my German is very poor. Other words came after that: “papa” and “mama”, “agua” (water) and “banana”, “pizza” and “pan” (bread) his all time favorite foods.
He also started quite early with sentences, his favorites is “dónde esta?” which means “where is it?”, he uses this when he hides a toy and wants that you look for it but also when he is looking for something that you have no idea what it is, and he keeps asking “where is it?”, “where is it?”, “where is it?”.
Now it is a very advance parrot that repeats e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g you say, which is amazing and a bit scary at the same time (yes, I already said some “mierda” (shit) that was copied with a lot of enthusiasm). I know humans have been doing this language learning thing for quite some time but I am very impress with this skill development.
He also have the issue of learning two languages at the same time, which at the moment is just one language for him. By now he should know in average about 20 words among the two languages, and he has surpassed that. These days he says in Swiss German: “mehr” (more), specially when he wants some food, “malen” (paint) and “kommst” when he wants to be hold or that you go somewhere. We must have missed some other words but we will learn. He is also teaching Spanish to the other kids at the kita, so far we know they are learning “agua” (water) and “hola”, I wonder what their parents are thinking when the kids say spanish words at home, funny.
Saying “YES” to the “NO” phase
Now he is the NOOO toddler, he is able to say “no” with different intonations, strong and direct, kind of singing, in a descendant voice, is kind of his own language as it is his go answer for everything! I though this phase started around 2 years old (isn’t this called the “terrible two’s”?!) but he was well into it at 15 months already. The pediatrician and my mother said that is the self affirmation time of his life, which I find quite funny with so many noes around. I have become a professional of the double negation which is just funny for me but it does not improve the situation.
He is becoming his own individual, he is learning that he can not do anything he wants and wants to know how far he can go. Our strategies to survive this phase has mainly consisted in
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look over there! strategy or redirecting and distracting him in order to avoid getting into a full tantrum mode,
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Strategic ignoring those not dangerous situations and wait to see where it goes, sometimes the magic happens and the good action comes along and then we are the most cheerful parents in the world!
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Help me strategy or ask him to do something that will “help” us, like could you help me to move these toys or put some dirty clothes in the basket if he is not too far into the tantrum it works,
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breath in breath out strategy, when the tantrum starts quickly and we received a high doses of NOES per second, breathing and explaining very calmly why something can not happen, asking him for a hug, seat next to him or propose a new activity to move away from the “trauma” as son as possible,
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doing real work alongside adults strategy, e.g. we got a learning tower and we let him check and do some kitchen stuff or just watch what we do, we gave him lots of stuff for cleaning the house that he seems to enjoy specially if we are doing that, or let him eat by himself and as we do most of the times,
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the show me strategy, many times is just a frustration of being not understood by two incompetent adults that do not understand baby talking appropriately, so we try to stand and give him the hand and ask him “show me what you want?”, sometimes it works and we start walking to a place or he just forgets about the problem
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saying yes when possible :)
Exciting times with this talking business, looking forward to the “I/me” phase.