3 weeks and counting

The title of this post is a bit ambiguous since it could either refer to the 3 weeks we have til the move or the 3 weeks (ok 4!) before I have a 2 year old. In recent weeks, I've been far far away - somewhere between business trips and panic. So as not to focus on the first 3 week deadline, I'll have a look at the second and talk about Suzanne.

My fears of her not speaking English have still not been realized since she's really bilingual. I didn't know how it would happen, or if, but it has. For the past couple weeks, she's been putting words together and repeating entire sentences (as if they were one word): some more, good night, I love you, where'd it go?, happy birthday to you, oh no it fell! Chocolate Rain. She's also doing much of the same in French: tu as tout mangé?



She's also starting to use verbs and adjectives like nice, big, small, messy, raining, running, push. she seems to prefer the continuous tense. In French, she's doing much the same with words like bon, monter. (Those are the only ones I've actually heard first hand, but J tells me she's saying much more than that).

I can also see the influence of books - one day she grabbed But not the Hippopotamus and said "alone", a word we learned in Maisy Big Maisy Small. And the most exciting part of it all is that she is really distinguishing between French and English. A typical dinner goes something like this:

Me: Do you want some bread?
Suzanne: Thank you Mommy.
Jerome: veux-tu un peu de soupe?
Suzanne: Merci.

She continues to make up words, none of which I can think of right now, and is a really musician singing all the time: ABC, Three Blind Mice, and Happy Birthday. She can also fill in the blanks of nursery rhymes we often read. And she is constantly showing me "lots and lots and lots peoples" in the street as well as womans and mans.

And the coolest part is that I know she can do it in French too, but chooses not to with me. Isn't bilingualism so very cool? I just wish packing was cool too...