March 15, 2006

Josiah’s vocabulary has really picked up recently. He is at the stage where he repeats what we say and we sometimes find ourselves spelling out words like I-C-E C-R-E-A-M and goodies like that when we want to discuss whether or not we will indulge without sharing with our little mister. But with all that in mind, since Josiah IS learning two languages at the same time, it has been fun to listen to him go back and forth between the two using the words he does know. For example, when he counts in English, he says, “1, 2, 6, 9.” He was counting from one to five for a while, but finds that “1, 2, 6, 9” works best for him now. But when he counts in Chinese, no problem, he knows that after one comes two and then three. So we often hear our little man saying “ee, er, san, ee, er, san,” which translates into “1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3.” He usually does it when he is either lifting something heavy or trying to get on a chair or something that requires a bit of strength for him. Of course if a Chinese person hears him, they love the fact that he can “speak” Chinese and are just thrilled.