What a difference a year makes.

Holy  moly! It's been almost a year...I've been thinking about posting but never got around to it. Something to do with lack of time...

A lot has happened this year in the life of my bilingual children.

Suzanne will be turning 10 in 6 weeks. When I began this blog, she was barely speaking. And now, she's a fully bilingual young lady. She's thriving in the environment of the bilingual class at school. I can't say enough for positive reinforcement, of which there is not enough in the French school system. Her English teacher this year is amazing and I've told her as much. She's positive, full of energy and since Suzanne's English is better than the other kids in her class, she uses Suzanne as a helper. So that positive energy is really giving Suzanne confidence, something all little girls could use a little more of. (As a reminder, Suzanne is in the international section of a public school so she has 3 hours of English a week. This doesn't seem like much, but is so much more than she'd get at a traditional public school). The main issue right now is hormones and social issues. I've spent so long telling Suzanne that difference is good that she actually believe it. Yes! And now she's starting to learn to stand up for herself. I'm proud of the person she is becoming. But I'm not looking forward to the bumpy road ahead ie puberty.

Max has been more of a challenge. My little boy is turning 7 this summer. He's always been a bit anxious. But it turns out he's what the French call précoce, which in English is gifted. We've been doing a lot of reading up on what that means and basically he's wired differently than other people so his brain goes at light speed ALL THE TIME. That's why he's had issues in school in the past; that's also why he's always been sensitive (physically and emotionally) and that also why he was bored at school. As soon as we got the results, we went to speak to his teacher along with the principal of the school. His teacher was also Suzanne's 1st grade teacher whom, you may remember, was not the most skilled in dealing with child psychology. So when the principal offered to take Max into her triple level class we said YES! I'm happy to report that he is now thriving at school. There are still many social challenges, mostly because he prefers to be one on one and because he gets so emotional that some friends just don't want to deal with him. But he seems to be feeling fairly good with himself. He even read 2 chapters of a book in English. For the past year and a half, he's resisted reading, claiming he doesn't know how. But I know he does. And then the other night, I read a chapter of Little Bear and told him it was time for bed. So he asked if he could read alone. He spent the next 10 minutes alone in his bed reading out loud in English. I was amazed.  I hope that we can keep up his self-confidence because it's going to be a rough road ahead. The French school system doesn't adapt to difference...I realized last week that there are no handicapped kids in either of the kids' schools. So where are they all ????

In other news, I got my wallet stolen on a business trip to Germany. And I've spent the last month trying to deal with the frustrations of French administration. A good example is when the city hall called me to say the Préfecture needed a certain document to process my ID card; but the Préfecture didn't even ask for said document when they took my driver's licence request. Some things never change....

I will try to be more diligent with my blog. I'm working on a new cookbook at the moment. I think the old one wore me out. And the last year has been full of introspection, including a bilan de compétences , which was actually fairly emotionally exhausting. As I tell my kids, I won't promise but I'll try to get back here more often.

Max at 5

They say that you are more lacks with your second kid. I'd say it's both true and not true. When Suzanne was learning to speak and developing her bilingual-ness, I posted regularly. I feel like Max has slipped through the cracks. Of course, one kid is less work than two so I'll cut myself some slack.

On that note, Max turned 5. I had some tough times with Max's language acquisition : he was slower to speak than his sister, when he did speak it was mostly in French, he would speak French as the community language in the US and UK. But one thing Max has always been meticulous, precise and very funny little person.

Where Suzanne was always comfortable with English and communicated at any cost, mixing words, making up words...Max is Max. When he speaks English, he speaks English. French is French, with only some exceptions. If he doesn't know how to say something, he either finds a different way or says he needs to tell me a secret. It's not that he's ashamed of not knowing, but he wants it to be perfect. This personality trait carries through to everything he does : he likes numbers, is obsessed with superheroes and knows everything about them and is a whiz at legos. For his birthday, we got him legos for 7-14 year olds; he put the vehicles together almost alone, using the booklet. He calls himself a "master builder" like in the Lego Movie.

His meticulous, almost engineer like thinking crosses over into his communication; he wants to understand why and how. He makes very few language mistakes, but sometimes mixes up his grammar in both languages. Despite his precision, he has an accent. Whereas Suzanne mostly sounds like a mini version of me (light East Coast American accent), Max sounds a little French, a little Germanic and a little American. None of that seems to keep him from speaking. He's been called a piplette (a nice way to say he never stops talking) by many.

Suzanne, now 8 years old, continues to speak to him mostly in English except when they've spent time together in an all French environment like school or at the grandparents'. English continues to be more present in the house than French and we still do not stray from OPOL.

Reading though has become less and less present which is a weakness. Suzanne's vocabulary and syntax were great because I read to her so much. But with the past couple years being rather nuts (with my cookie business, my english classes and my steady job), reading has become less important. On the other hand, we still have an English speaking babysitter once a week which helps reinforce that English isn't only limited to Mom and her family and friends.

Recent Max-isms include he and his sister fighting over whether it's called mozzarella or mozzarelle. He also recently invented a new French word: bicyclable, a fairly obvious term in French to mean the bike lanes (ie piste cyclable).

My kids' bilingualism continues to astound me. But even if they weren't bilingual, they'd still be these amazingly smart, intelligent and sensitive little people whom I love with all my heart.

Happy birthday Max !

Welcome terrible 3s.

We got out of it lucky...what we made up for in lack of terrible 2s, we are now suffering through wit hte terrible 3s. And they are terrible.
Since school started in September, Max has been a bit difficult. He is still a sweet, cute and very entertaining little person. But he is also a total pain in the ass....especially around 3 in the morning.

We tried talking to him but he still comes upstairs to our room because he can't find his pacifier/his stuffed animal/has a runny nose/wants me to take his CD player out of the room/ etc...and last night we had screaming and kicking because we refused to go downstairs to "help" him find his stuff.

Besides the sleeping though, everything's on target. Max is still speaking with an accent in both French and English. One of Jerome's friends actually put his finger on it : his cadence and annonciation in French are purely American (not German like we thought). And in English, he just has a slightly French twang.

But still, I never imagined that my kids would still be speaking 99% English to me at 6 1/2 and 3! And I never imagined that they'd still LIKE speaking English and want to learn more!

I no longer keep a language journal for either of them, which I sometimes regret because they come up with some amazing expressions, but they speak so much that I couldn't possibly record everything they say.

Suzanne is starting to read in French and trying to transpose her French reading into English. But we're not pushing the English reading. It will come. At the moment, I am constantly correcting sentences like, "what is it like pasta" which comes from the French "c'est quoi comme pâte". And yesterday, I heard her say "it's find" as in it's good or satisfactory so I found myself explaning the difference between when something is good and something is found. She insists on correcting me when I say "saw" like "Mommy, I sawed it".  She also takes pleasure (I can tell by the twinkle in hereye) at correcting my French and her especially her brother's English.

Max, being 3, is still taking a lot of liberty with both English and French, saying a lot of "yaourt" as the French say when refering to lyrics of a song that you don't know all the words to so you make them up.  And Max is also effusive with his language which can be very sweet or not. It's extremely sweet when he says things like "I like you so much that I love you." And not so sweet when he furrows and brow and says "I'm very angry!" and throws himself on the ground.

But the most interesting part of their bilingualism is how different they are, which shouldn't surprise me but does. Suzanne continues to breeze in and out of each language, code switching without a problem but also inventing words and interposing structures (interlanguage) while Max code switches at the drop of a hat and never would think of creating his own vocabularly. If Suzanne doesn't know how to say something in English, she says it in French. If Max doesn't know how to say something in English, he just doesn't say it. I'm hoping that Max's stubborness is more linked to the terrible 3s than it is to his personality...but I'm not holding my breath.

The logic of a 3 year old.

I don't remember Suzanne being quite so logical. Maybe it's a boy thing or maybe it's just a Max thing...

The conversation went something like this.
Suzanne: Mommy, Max went pipi in his underpants.
Me: Max, did you go pipi in your underpants?
Max: No. I went pipi in Suzanne's underpants.

And he was right because he was wearing an old pair of his sister's underpants which had his favorite barbapapa on them.

This is a follow up to an earlier conversation he had with his father where he asked if Max washed his hands after going to the bathroom. Max's response was, "non. J'ai pas fait pipi sur mes mains." (No, I didn't go pipi on my hands).

How can you argue with logic like that?

May story time and Max speaks franglais

I'm extremely excited to announce the dates for he May storytime for a couple of reasons. First because storytime is cool. Second because storytime is super cool this month because we'll be doing a special edition and third because Multilingual Living published an article I wrote about storytime.

So the dates: the normal Wednesday storytime will take place on May 23rd at 3:30pm at the Wazemmes library. Then, we'll have a special storytime at Gare  Saint Sauveur on May 26th at 2:00pm. There is a book fair and lots of special events going on so we're part of the festivities. It's really exciting because Stéphane Servant, the author of Le Machin/The Thing, will be there for sign books. So he'll hopefully get to see what we've done with his dual language book.

I promise it will be so very cool.

Since story time has really taken off, I contacted Multilingual Living, a really amazing webzine on all aspects of multi-lingual life. And the result is this article that I hope will be helpful to anyone else looking for ideas on how to increase the multi-lingual presence in your life. So here it is: Bilingual Storytime.

On another note, Max is increasingly proficient in franglais. I've previously said that Max doesn't mix his languages...and he didn't until the past couple weeks. I'm not sure what happened, maybe it's just the age where he's trying to say more things and doesn't have the words or grammar to do so in a single language. or maybe he's finally decided that not everything is black and white and can't be compartmentalized. In the past week I've heard Max use English grammar in French sentences a few times and use a couple of words in the wrong language. For example, he said "je veux les" to his grandparents which is a perfect translation of "I want them" (and he really did want those chips!). He also said "C'est pas droit" to his grandmother when she put on his boot. She thought it was funny because it wasn't right as in the direction (ie left and right) but what he meant was literally "it's not on right" ie the sock was scrunched up in his boot and it didn't feel right.

Another thing to note is that the kids spent all weekend with their grandparents speaking French. When I spoke to Suzanne on the phone yesterday, her English sounded French. It was very strange and interesting to see how quickly her language adapted.

Oh, tower of babble...

Max : blabbermouth at 30 months

Over the weekend, we were invited to an American birthday party : L turned 5 and she invited Suzanne and Max to her party. Max and the other littles ones ran crazy most of the time while the bigger kids did fun games with the animateur. At one point, I said to my friend that this was proably the first time the kids' all realized that they each spoke French. But we agreed that they would probably still continue to speak English together because they always have (we've all known each other since the kids were tiny and usually get together without our French counterparts).

As we were leaving the birthday, I told Max to wish L a happy birthday. So he said, in his big loud voice, "Happy Birthday L!". And one of the parents looked at me and said, "Max can talk? I mean, I've never heard him speak." I was agast. I mean, Max not speaking? He's a regular chatty cathy (or the boy version of that). After the party, we went to A's house to let the kids play a little. Max was playing with 6 year old M who was showing him the bongo drums (oh boy something to hit!). Max said to her, as she put them on the desk, "put it on the floor." M turned to me and her mother, "He can speak!".  And I began to realize that Max is actually kind of reserved...outside of his close circle.

At 30 months, Max is a blabber mouth. As my dear husband says, "il remplit l'espace sonore" (he fills up the sonor space). And does he...Not only does he have a deep voice, but he is constantly blabbing about something or other to the great dismay of his sister who can't get a word in edgewise. There is one recurrent sentence at our house at the moment and it comes from Suzanne, "Max, I was talking! waaaaaa!" (that last bit is crying from frustration).

Max has no problem going between languages, but he favors French unlike his sister at the same age. Max is constantly singing songs from the crèche and talking to himself in french, whereas Suzanne used to play by herself in English. But, he speaks to his sister in English. Before putting Max to bed the other night, I told him to say goodnight. He said, "Bonne nuit Papa. Goodnight Suzanne."

He definitely has a slightly non-French lilt to some of his French, but he doesn't insert English words into his speech in quite the same way Suzanne did. I've heard him say things like "mon monster" instead of using the French monstre. But it's rare. As with Suzanne, he overlays his French with some English grammatical structures. For instance, he says "Abel papa" in French, using the structure of the English possessive "Abel's papa" instead of the French "le papa d'Abel". He also uses English adjective and noun order when speaking French like "bleue voiture" instead of "voiture bleue".

All in all, I am very proud of my son's progress and so is anyone who hears him speaking, in French or in English. His speech is "très bien" in French according to the director of the nursery school, especially for a bilingual boy (since those are two factors that can delay speaking). And his English is great. He knows most of his colors, can count to 11 (skipping over 5 through 7) and can express himself with or without tantrum. So to those who think my boy is quiet...tell me that at 5:19 AM when he comes into my room and says "time to get up Mommy," as he turns on the light and the radio. Or when he says, "I love you to moon and back" (quoting one of his favorite books, Guess How Much I Love You).

Max's terrible twos and counting.

You asked so I'll tell. Well, YOU didn't ask (since I'm not really sure anyone even reads this blog anymore!), but some people around me have been asking so I'll tell...

Max is 2 years and 3 months old and he's a firecracker, to say it nicely. Or as I often say to him, "it's lucky you're so damn cute." My son is a boy. Hard core boy. He throws, he hits, he tantrums (is that a verb) and boy does he eat! I don't think there is anything the child won't eat. Max is also a chatterbox.

This morning, one of my coworkers asked me if Max spoke English. Yes indeed I said proudly. Max's English level is actually better than his French because his English is more mature and doesn't include baby language.

When Max first began speaking, I remembering commenting on how precise he was.  Unlike his sister who would try to talk even if it wasn't perfect, Max won't say anything unless it is precise. when he speaks, in both French and English, you can tell he has taken time to formulate and think about what will come out of his mouth. And then, you can actually hear it in his breathing as he pushes the words out of his mouth (when he's not yelling at his sister that is).

So Max, at almost 2 and a half years old is not far behind his sister in verbal communication in both French and English. I have my mother's visit last summer to thank for the English push.

There are a couple points in Max's speech that I should comment on like his use of "mine" all the time. He confuses "mine" for the possessive adjective "my". He also has very gutteral speech and a way of rolling his "r" which makes him sound slightly German when he says things like "no Suzanne! Mine water"! He also has a slight lisp that I hope will go away with time. But so far it hasn't impeded him from making himself understood.

I love my kids dearly and am so proud of them. But, sometimes I wish they'd shut up.

My son thinks that the father in Knuffle Bunny is a mother. And it's all my fault...

The other night when Max handed me Knuffle Bunny to read before bedtime, I told him that I couldn't read it because it was in French, "papa's language". I showed Max the English copy and said "this is Mommy's". We read Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too and Knuffle Bunny Free all the while Max was pointing to the father in the story saying, "Mommy".

When Suzanne was his age, we would refer not to French and English but to Papa and Mommy's language often saying things like "how does papa say it?" when she used the other parent's langauge with the wrong parent. Suzanne seemed to take the information, file it away and be on to something new. But Max is different. Max is less analytical than his sister and more in the moment. So whatever we tell him, he puts into action immediately. So it's quite understandable that since there are two copy's of Knuffle Bunny in the room, and I told him one was Papa's language but they look exactly the same, so you could reason that the other book is Mommy's and therefore the papa in that book is also a mommy.

I often wonder how my children process their languages. It's an interesting phemonenon to see at the bilingual storytimes I do. You can see that the bilingual kids are happy to hear both languages because for them, their brains are already doing what the librarian and I are doing outloud.

And then there are the questions of why we speak English sometimes and why I don't speak French. A couple weeks ago, Suzanne asked me if we could speak English sometimes so we wouldn't go to prison. She seems convinced now taht we won't go to prison and that speaking English is pretty cool. But then yesterday, she asked me why I speak English better than I speak French. I explained to her that I didn't learn French until I was at school so I always spoke English at home with my family. I like her interest in other people's language capacities and find it rather reassuring that she is wondering about her own language skills. Because it's all so very normal for her to speak two languages so why isn't it for everyone else?

Kids are amazing...

Bilingual Pudding or Bilingual Max 25 months

I don't think you can really fathom what bilingual actually means until you are caught in the middle of it. I began French classes at the age of 5 and then had a love-hate relationship with it (including a 3 year hiatus and a 5 year learning anti-curve due to some of the worst teaching imaginable) until I decided to study abroad in France at the age of 20.

I've stressed, I've worried, I've even complained (probably since I like to complain) but in the end, my kids are incredibly bilingual. They are more bilingual than I ever could have imagined them to be, especially since I'm not a stay at home Mom, they are not surrounded by English and they do not go to a bilingual school (the extent of it is me coming in once a year to Suzanne's school and doing an American thingy and Max hearing some English nursery rhymes at  nursery school).

I always chalked Suzanne's bilingualism to a knack for language. She has a very musical ear, retains information and can identify different languages from an early age (like hearing Hebrew at a Passover seder - her ears perked up like a little puppy). But Max, given that he's a boy and a second child, well, he was a wild card.

At 5:30 every day, I ring the bell at the nursery school. And at 5:30 every day, I hear a little boy with a Bobby Brady-like voice scream, "ma maman!" (Max has a very LOUD and DEEP voice which makes it instantly recognizable and highly audible). And as the caretaker opens the door, Max always comes runny into my arms, "Mommy! Mommy!". Some days I'm greated with "Hug Mommy!"; sometimes it's "Play Abel. Play cars." And the other day it was, " Fun work today Mommy?" So on Friday, as Max was saying "put shoes on" to anyone who would listen,  I asked the caretakers if Max speaks English throughout the day. And they all shook their hears no because he only speaks French. This means that his brain does the switch now without hesitation, which wasn't the case before his intensive English stage (training) with Grandma.

I've also mentioned before that Suzanne is my greatest ally and continues to be so. Proof was yesterday when we were at the beach (yes, we went swimming in the North Sea in October...). We were counting out something or other and Max began counting. "One, two, three...four, five." J and I looked at each other as Max continued all the way to 10. Jerome was bluffé meaning that his chin dropped so far he was almost eating the beach.

And so, to any parents out there reading my blog, struggly with or even considering OPOL, hang tough. I've realized that there are always moments of doubt, impatience and moments when you wonder if it's more effort than it's worth. It is. Trust Suzanne and Max. And most importantly, trust yourself!

Full sentence...

And just like that, Max is speaking in full English sentences. Oh wait, if we go back a couple months and look at previous posts, it wasn't always so easy.

At the beginning of the summer, Max was speaking to me in French, remember? My parents arrived at the beginning on August and the kids have been living in near exclusively English since then. My mother noted that Suzanne is using contractions. This is big progress since, although Suzanne's English is as good as any native 5 year old's, it was still very formal. My daughter now says don't and won't.

When my parents arrived 2 weeks ago, they could understand him. He was beginning to put 2 words together like: big truck or cold water. But somewhere between last week and yesterday, Max began making sentences. Just this morning his said, "cup multifruit juice please mommy dear" followed up "want more sugar in it" and "gimme more cold water". So, I think I can start to relax. My son't English will be fine...

Max will be starting school next September and Suzanne will be going into First Grade where she'll learn to read and write in French. So, next summer, I'm hoping to spend a solid chunck on time in the US so we can reinforce English skills for both kids before they dive deeper into the French school system.

I've mentioned in the past my distaste for French education. A few months ago, my husband made a comment that I like to keep in the forefront of my tortured brain: we both went through seperate systems yet ended up at the same place. While I was in Paris last week, I was talking to an American married to a Frenchman who lives in DC. She is getting certified in Montessori. We were talking about our mutual aversion towards French eduction system with its public shaming and habit of breaking you down to build you back up. And we concluded that you can go to a Montessori school in the US and still feel inept. Or you can go to a French school in France and come out feeling good. Because it has a lot to do with what you have in your home life.

So, there's still hope....

Max and the maximonsters

In French, Where the Wildthings Are is translated as Max et les Maximonstres. It definitely loses something in the translation if you ask me. But no one asked and I'm a really bad translator anyway.

My little monster is 2 years old today. He was born at 5:52 in the morning. I felt like I was giving birth to an alien (Sigourney Weaver like), but I will spare you the gory details. But I will never forget the midwife's first words upon seeing him, "wow! la taille de ses mains...et les pieds!" (wow! The size of his hands...And his feet).

I always wanted a little boy named Max. And in fact, we almost had a Nathan or a Samuel instead of a Max. But I could imagine Max being anything except Max. And I couldn't imagine Max being anything but a curious, talktative and sometimes loud and devilish little beast of a boy.

Max is going through the terrible twos. And we get the feeling he's making up for his sister's angelic two stage so it's doubly terrible two's at the moment. He's a biter and a hitter. He's a screamer and the kind of tantrums. He's an acrobat, a bull in a china shop and as stubborn as a mule. He especially doesn't like when his food is cut (pas broken!) or change like when we try to put new shoes on him.

But he's also sweet, like to cuddle, likes to sing, like to laugh and play jokes on people and he's a smart little thing.

Max understands everything, in French and English. And he also picks up on non-verbal cues. He observes and watches people and remembers everything (just like his sister does).

So to my little man, whom I love for better and for worse, Happy 2nd Birthday!

Max: Leaps and bounds (leaping and bounding)

If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have told you to talk to the hand. I was feeling rather down about Max and his speaking skills. In the past month, I've been away for work for 2 days at 2 different times. When I got back from the my first trip, it was like Max had forgotten how to speak English. So I told myself to chill, relax and all the other things I don't know how to do.

But then, over the past two weeks, Max has made a huge jump, both figuratively and literally since he now realy knows how to jump. Suddenly, there was a click in both physical and verbal skills.

So when I got back from my second business trip, I was pleased to see that he remembered how to speak English. When I picked him up from the crèche last Friday, the director said ,"Max commence à très bien parler. On comprend tous ce qu'il dit." (Max is starting to speak well. We understand everything he says). She asked if it was the same in English to which I replied no, but it's coming a long. Some examples of Max's progress are:

• he said "P come" when I picked him and the neighbor's kids up the other day
  
• he says to us "come see" when he wants us
  
• he is beginning to use verbs in the present progressive form like reading, crying, eating, sleeping, etc. He especially likes to tell me when someone is crying espeically, "Suzanne crying".
  
• he is stringing nouns and verbs together, often in franglais but who cares
• he has begin some real code switching like saying "de l'eau" to his father and "water" to me.
• He has begun creating words like waleau, dada (to sit on a lap), shoeshoe (which is a mix of shoe and chaussure).
  
• he self corrects when he speaks to me in French, upon being prompted.
• he repeats instructions such as "careful of the pit" when eating a cherries
• he is beginning to recognize colors, which the crèche tells me is usually not until about 3 years old. We started on colors early because of the high risk of Max being colorblind.
  

Much of this is thanks to Suzanne. When it's the three of us, I hear her speaking to him in English. I can also hear Max mimicking his big sister when he says things like "puhleeeezeeee" when he really wants something.

And since Max is finally, albeit obsessively, into books, they are my second best English ally at the moment (the first being Suzanne). He is obsessively reading Baby Bear, Baby Bear What do you See by Eric Carle. And although it is quite redundant after you've read it a dozen times in a single day, it is helping Max pick out words and colors. Luckily he is also willing to allow Polar Bear Polar Bear and Brown Bear Brown Bear into the rotation. It's interesting how obsessive he is about his things and how decided he is about what he wants. He is obsessed with the "Happy" episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, which to our dismay, is his favorite show (for anyone who doesn't know Yo Gabba Gabba, it's kind of like Sesame Street on LSD).

Max is also an extremely decisive little person. He never flipflops or takes time to make up his mind. If you ask what he wants to drink, he answers instantly and then repeats it until he has it in his hand. This leads to a lot of tantrums since you can't always get what you want, in the immortal words of the YoGabblerz and the Rolling Stones before them.

But, I stick by my theory whole heartedly that OPOL is the way to go.

Here is a video of Max reading Baby bear to himself. You can hear him saying, "Mommy bear Mommy bear what do you see?", "Mountain goat what do you see?" and "digging" when he looks at the praire dog. At the very end, when he hears the sound of skype, he says "Melie" my sister in California:

Max 22 months and hitting

I realize I'm not staying on top of the Max bilingual updates like I did with Suzanne. This is a really important part of the blog for me because I know that it helps inspire and reassure other parents raising their children bilingually.

I've said a lot recently that Max isn't speaking as much in english as Suzanne did at the same age. But it occurred to me over the weekend that Max isn't speaking as much PERIOD. Max hits and bites which are both signs of his frustration at not being able to express himself. Suzanne never did either of those because she was able to communicate in both languages at 22 months (and because she's not a boy).

At 22 months, Max understands everything in French and English. Words flow more naturally out of his cute little in French. I've mentioned before that he's in a nursery school where he hears 5 adults speaking all day long whereas Suzanne was at a nanny's with only 2 other kids and the nanny so most of her conversation came from me and our Wednesday anglo-escapades.

Max uses English freely when it concerns food. He also says thinks like reading and lie down, good night and I love you which are all me things since I am around more often than my husband in the night time rituals.

That said, Max has put together a couple of words. This morning I got very excited when he said "can't see" as he hid one book under another. I then realized he was saying "cacher" (to hide).

I was away for two days last week and when I got back on Friday, Max was 100% French. But I let it wash over me and by Sunday afternoon, he was back to speaking English : a 70/30 split which is better than nothing.

Here is a video of the kids over the weekend. It's a good example of how we function and I hope that other parents out there will find some sort of solace in the frustration/resiliance of raising bilingual kids in my home :

My bilingual kids: doting mother.

Sarah at Bringing Up Baby Bilingual has just posted an profile of my bilingual kids. If you don't know her wonderful blog, you definitely need to spend some time there. She has a wealth of resources for bilingual families, links and experiences, as well as profiles of bilinguals all over the world. And she was the inspiration for my bilingual storytime! She did a profile on Suzanne about 4 years ago. Here is the link to the updated profile of Max and Suzanne.

Many thanks to Sarah! This really helped me put my kids' bilingualism in perspective. And I'm feeling much more secure about Max's bilingual development (even though he said "au revoir Mommy" this morning as I left the house).

Happy reading!

The Max project

Since my last post about Max's progress, I did some thinking. And thinking brought me to acting. I realize that I am hard on myself and I try not to be so hard on my kids...But I also realize that I have been a bit lacks with Max, especially in comparison to Suzanne at the same age.

So, over the past two weeks I've been testing Max : when he speaks to me in French, I tell him that that's what Papa says and what does Mommy say. He continues to say please or more or thank you, which are all very nice of him. But, I continue to insist. And he doesn't get what he wants until he speaks English. And you know what, it's working! After two weeks, he is now saying more instead of encore and more instead of un autre (we're still working on another). I have also been reading him more picture books, something I haven't done much up to now because of his short attention span. We've been reading about half of Maisy's Amazing Book of Words every night.

The first night, I couldn't believe how many words he knew in French: escargot, parapluie and serpent. But I'm equally impressed that he knows the words in English, upon prodding.

Suzanne turned 5 last Friday and I found this video of her at Max's age. I have put it in perspective and now realize that Suzanne has a very musical ear which I think has strenghtened her language skills. So happy 5th birthday to my little girl!

And we have code switching!

When I got home this evening, I found my family in the kitchen. Everyone had a glass (or cup) in their hand. Suz informed me that they'd started aperitif without me, since I was late getting home and we go on vacation tomorrow. So I poured myself a glass of ginger ale (known to French people as Cah-nah-da Dr-eye). As I filled my glass, Max said "sparkly". So I turned to my husband and asked if he'd had some. He said yes, "et il a dit que ça pique". Is it so surprising that Max should speak English to his mother and French to his father? No. Is it exciting? Extremely!

Go Max!

Bilingual Max at 20 months

Once again, I have They Might be Giants to thank for my child's introduction to numbers and letters. Max, an avid fan of the very appropriately chosen song "E Eats Everything", has been pointing to letters and numbers saying "E" in his little man voice which sounds very much like Bobby Brady in the episode where his voice changes.

Max still hasn't made a complete English sentence yet so I can let my guard down just yet. But, he is making a lot of progress speaking in both English...and French. It's all normal, I keep reminding myself.

Just yesterday, he pointed to the sky and said blue (more like bleu), said "airplane sky" and then pointed to the beater I'd used to make whip cream and said , "Mommy whisk!" He is also able to name more animals and vehicules. He is favoring French for many things but for others, he seems to have understood that there are 2 words.

Last week as I was getting him ready for bed, I turned on the tub and he said "hot....chaud...hot...chaud". Unlike Suzanne, he's not making franglais words but seems to choose one language or the other. He says "milk" but prefers "eau" (Suzanne made up waleau). He says "pain" but prefers "apple" (where Suzanne said bapomme). He will only say "oui" and "pas" but will also only say "read", "car" and "truck" so I think it's a good sign that his English is strong. My theory is that Suzanne was less socialized than Max, being at the nanny's with limited contact to other adults and children and therefore chose English because she heard it more at home. Max, on the other hand, is extremely socialized at the crèche with 20 kids and 5 care givers at any given time. That aside, his English is still progressing well because at home he hears a lot of English because Suzanne and I have constant chatter going on.

There is a lot of mimicking going on which is great. Just this morning, I caught him counting to three just like his sister. His comprehension is great in both languages, which is to be expected. And, besides being incredibly loud and extremely bullheaded, I think I like him...Everything my dear friend E told me about boys is true: they grunt, they climb on everything and they are very very loud. The loud part is a discussion for another post ie loud American genes...

For an idea of what Suzanne was saying at the same age, there is this post from Jan 2008 and this one from Feb 2008.

I'm not really sure how we've done it, but it seems we have made 2 loquacious, language sensitive, intelligent Franco-American beings. Actually, I do know how we did it and I can't attribute it all to good gene pool. I have to pat myself - and my husband - on the back for sticking with it. I honestly think that being rigid and strict with the language system (OPOL) has been the key...Go us!

Spring stuff

It's been a week since the first storytime...I know, I know. I haven't reported on it! I just haven't had the time to sit down and think about how to really convey how it went. I promise I will in the next couple days.

In the meantime, I'll just say that post-Grandma's visit, my kids are speaking so much better! Suzanne sounds a bit more fluid (my mother said her speech is so formal and she's right) and Max's English vocabulary has doubled in the past week. This weekend alone, he added more and again (both in English finally!), slide, truck, outside...and has strung 2 words together. He pointed to papa's dog poop encrusted shoes outside on the deck and said "shoe outside".

Spring has sprung, finally! And life is good...if only I had a little less work. But there's something about crocuses and daffodils that makes the sun feel sunnier.

Selective hearing 2

Imagine my surprise when Max began screaming "crane, crane" as we walked past the building site on the way home from the creche. I called Jerome to tell him. And he said, I know, he did that this morning. He said "grue".

Now I obviously think my son is brilliant but I am realistic about what an almost 18 month old is capable of. So there are 3 options to this condundrum:
1) our son is amazingly bilingual and can already code switch
2) he has combined the french and english words to create a new one.
3) we both have selective hearing.

But what I find most fascinating about Max at the moment is how much he can say. It all came suddenly and has been reinforced with Grandma's visit . The problem is us trying to figure out what it actually is he's saying at times. But everything has meaning.

For instance, when I get him at the creche, he repeats "mion" over and over. I thought perhaps he was refering to his friend named Primo. But it wasn't til this weekend when he was trying to play with the toy house repeating "key, key" that we realized : maison. There are certain words that he has begun using in both French or English, depending on the prompting such as water. And there are other words, such as encore, that he refuses to say in the other language.

And since he's obviously capable of saying anything in French or English, we did a little test a few days ago. I said a few words and he repeated after me : diaper, bath, poopy, morning, Maisy. For all but the last one, he spoke English without hesitation. He just looked at me and said said Mimi (Maisy mouse's French alterego). I love these little games because it's like getting a glimpse of how his bilingual brain works.

And in the past couple weeks, Max's vocabulary has increased enormously. But to my dismay, Max is speaking mostly French (it's like déjà-vu because this is the same debate we had for Suzanne. But most of the feedback I've had from people outside our household says he speaks mostly French). The up side is that Max is a good communicator and, even if we don't understand the word, he uses a lot of gests and contact to explain what he wants. He now says go, water, shoe, stop, read (although my mother thinks he said lire), book, cow, cereal and apple. But helas, he insists on calling Maisy mouse Mimi!

Through Suzanne's speech, I picked up one of my language ticks : I used to say "huh" at the end of most sentences. Now it's Jerome's turn to have his language ticks thrown back at him. Every other word (that isn't Mommy?) out of Max's mouth is "beh alors".

One of Suzanne's fossilized mistakes in English was not using the relfexive. She would say "She hurt sheself" or "I hurt me". Somewhere over the last couple months - and completely without my noticing - she auto-corrected. This weekend, I realized she now uses the reflexive correctly.

And since my mother's been here, Suzanne has conquered other language fossils. Sometime over the fast 2 weeks, Suzanne began saying "I saw it" instead of using seed as the past participle. Go Suzanne!

The Grandma conundrum

I am a worrier. It's part of who I am and what makes me both lovable and annoying as hell.

And although I come off as being pretty low-key, calm and collected, I'm not. I spend most days with the feeling that all of my organs have low-frequency waves going through them making me constantly tremble.

The point is, that at this stage, I shouldn't be so worried about Max's language progression. But I am. Suzanne is bilingual. Max is saying more and more every day, much of it in English, and he clearly understands everything. But, I do worry which is why it's so important for Max to get the most out of my mother's annual February visit.

When Suzanne was Max's age, she spent 2 weeks with my mother every February. Max can't do that because my mother can't really handle both kids for 2 weeks during vacation. So as February vacation approaches (my mom arrives in 17 days!), I'm trying to come up with creative and realistic solutions for Max to get the most out of my Mom without 1)totally draining my Mom and 2)without putting anyone at risk. My mother had back surgery a couple years ago and isn't completely stable on her feet which makes carrying an energetic 18 month old boy up and down the stairs a little complicated. I may be able to take a couple days off work to help out, but it isn't the same as 2 weeks with Grandma!

I want them to bond the way Suzanne and Grandma have in the past. And I want Max to drown in an American bath (so to speak). I was thinking that maybe Max could go to nursery school in the mornings - since he sleeps anyway - and my mom could get him after lunch a couple times. That way they get to spend a few half days together which is better than no days at all.

And let's face it. Grandmas are just awesome. They spoil us, make good food and when Grandma's visiting, the kitchen sink is always empty of dirty dishes.

So if anyone out there has some ideas (on how to relax or how to maximize Grandma's stay), please share.