Sophie Henry's blog

Who's who?

Telle Mere, Telle Fille

Had a little fun with some old and new pictures.

Le baby speaks

E.V. has been doing something pretty interesting over the last few weeks. She started adding "le" or "la" in front of English words.  We have for example  'le pillow', 'la ball', 'le bath', and so on... The interesting thing is that she is always correct with the gender.  But I can not figure out why she would suddenly use the French article when talking about objects. She does not even use an article usually and almost never says "the". 

I realize I forgot to mention here that she has said her first sentence.  "I want more" followed pretty quickly by "I want it", which now has become 'awanneht' said usually three or four times in a row very fast.  The girls knows what she wants and now she knows how to ask for it. Ha, just what we needed! :-)

cognitive science

The human brain is an amazing thing and seeing it developing right in front of your eyes is one of the best rewards of parenthood.  I love those occasions where you can almost see new connections being created between E.V.'s neurones. If you listen hard you can almost hear the gears clicking :)
Here are a few examples of cognitive development.
A few weeks ago we went to Angel Island. This was E.V.'s first time on a boat. By the end of the day she knew what a "bateau" was and understood the concept (thing that floats on the water big enough for people to be on it).  E.V. is usually pretty quiet and reflective when she eats her breakfast, so it didn't seem out of the ordinary when the next morning she paused between two bites of her bagel.  I looked at her and saw her sitting silently, looking in the distance, with a concentrated look on her face.  And then, in a dreamy voice, as if conjuring a vague memory, she whispered "bateau" and her face lit up.   She then repeated "bateau" in a more assured voice.   Then said it again, this time in an interrogative tone, as if to say "are we going on a boat today?".  The images and lessons of the previous day were back and solidly anchored.  This was the first time I saw her retrieve a memory so distinctively.
E.V. has also now for a while been doing 'associations'. It started with easy things like pointing at her father's shoes and saying "Papa".  What ispretty funny and interesting is to see who she chooses to attribute objects to, me or her dad, when their owner is unclear or unknown to her. Some things she attributes to her dad, and I think it is because of their color (usually earth tones, brown or tan).  Coffee on the other hand is associated with Mom. Hmmm, I wonder why ;)
Another funny story, which shows how her little brain works, is the fish story. I bought a whole fish at the market one day and decided to bake it in the oven. Before placing it in the oven, I showed it to E.V. She immediately recognized as being a fish.  I put it in the oven and then on regular occasions for the next half hour we would turn on the oven light and look at the fish in there.  But when dinner time came around, E.V. didn't see me take the fish out of the oven.  I gave her her plate with fish in it and she ate it, but even if we kept telling her it was fish, it's hard to associate white flakes with the shiny silver animal she was shown before.  For the following week or so, E.V. would regularly place her face against the oven window to peek inside while calling "fishie, fishie". What a mystery for her! Where did the fish go? Poor thing! But when you think of it, it makes sense. This anecdote also made me realize that it's a real challenge to explain to children the relation between all these cute animals we admire at the aquarium or at the pet farm or in colorful fun books and what is in our plate?  Not enough of a challenge to turn me into a vegetarian, thank God, but it will be interesting to see what I can come up with if E.V. ever asks me a tough question on that topic.

Diversity the GOP way

Although I'd like to focus this blog on raising a bicultural bilingual child, I'll probably be posting sidenotes from time to time, on politics in particular.

Mn_republicans_debat01

Does anyone see anything funny (and sad at the same time) in this picture of the Republican candidates for the US presidential elections?

They are all WHITE MEN. All 10 of them!

Wow. That blows my mind. And they're all wearing the same uniform.  Oh wait, they don't have the same color for their ties. Woohoo.  What diversity!

Meli-melo

It is really funny when E.V. mixes up her languages.  One of the main things I remember from conversations with my aunt, a specialist on bilingual children - check out her book "The bilingual family: a handbook for parents", is that children are lazy. They will find the easiest way to be understood and stick with it. Which is why speaking to them with real words and not baby talk is so key. This is illustrated daily with E.V. in her choices of words.  She will often demonstrate that she knows the meaning of both the French and English words for an object, but will pick the one that is the easiest to pronounce.  So far, so good, it makes sense and it is pretty understandable. Where it becomes interesting is when she mixes things up, ending up in a "meli-melo" of both languages.  This can take two forms:

• The mix of French and English within an expression or a category of words.  For example, when she counts out she says "un, deu, tree". And when she labels her body parts, it's all mixed up! Eye and No (for nose) but then Bou for bouche (the mouth). And then "boob" for her belly button :). She's definitively confused on that one and refuses both "Belly button" and "nombril", sticking to that word I shouldn't have taught her :)

• The mix of the languages within one word or 'language mashups' if you want. The only true clear example of this that E.V. does is "walo". I love it! It's such a smart combination of "water" and "l'eau".  Much easier to pronounce than the two original words too.  She also used to say "tat" for hat, which I could have been a mix of "hat", "head", and "tete" (French for head), but I am not entirely sure, and in any case, that phase is gone, she knows asks clearly for her "HA" when it's time to go "Side".

It can be so frustrating sometimes. You repeat a word over and over again and she does not seem to get it, and then suddenly she'll blurt it out when you aren't expecting it anymore or she surprises you with a new "EVism" like Walo.  Oh I know, I'm not about to be done with her surprises!

Mamma, Papa

Wow, it's been a little while since I've written, hasn't it? Work, travels, approaching choir concerts and caring for a toddler all kept me away from here but I promise I'll do better. Cross my heart :)

We are just back from a one week short trip to the East Coast to visit my sister in Montreal and E.V.'s great-grandma in Maine.  It was not a relaxing trip by any means but we knew that before getting on the plane and in the end, maybe because of my low expectations, it went more smoothly and was more pleasant than I expected.  E.V. actually fared very well the entire time. The only problem we had was getting her to go to sleep the first few nights. She treated my sister's futon-temporarly-turned-into-our-bed as a trampoline the two first nights, which wouldn't have been so much of a problem had we not been in the bed ourselves trying to sleep.  She got to meet two new cousins (she now has met 12 out of 13, not bad!) and found a great playmate in her grand-dad. I never thought I'd see my father-in-law crawling on all fours with a paper bag on his head growling like a dog :).  It was a fun time.

I wonder if E.V. feels the difference between a French environment such as my sister's place and the usual American one she is brought up into.  Does she notice that the language is different? That people around suddenly are speaking her mom's language? I tried to listen to see if she was uttering more French words while in Montreal and more English word in Maine, but couldn't really hear anything conclusive.  The only thing, is that ever since the trip, she has been calling us systematically "Mamma, Papa", sometimes turning it into a little pointing game. She'll turn to me, point at me and say "mamma", then say "mamma, papa" (as if realizing that there is a second part to the mamma sentence: Mamma always comes with Papa), then turns to her dad, points to him and says "papa, papa", then back to me "mamma", and so on.   Anyway, this is new since she was more on track to calling me Mommy and her dad Daddy before the trip. 

There have been a few new words during the trip. E.V. saw snow falling for the first time and loved it! She also got to play in it and I think she tried to say the word but doesn't get the "s" so it turns into "nooooo".  We won't be able to have her practice the word and see if indeed that's what she meant now that we are back in San Francisco!  With global warming, maybe there's no use teaching her what snow is anyway. ;)

Mommy

I think tonight was the first time E. called me - very distinctively - "Mommy" instead of "Maman" and I must say I don't really know what to think of it. I think it's great that she's showing she can say the two versions, but somewhere I hope she'll stick to "Maman" because that's the way I think of my relationship to her.  I know it is a weird thing to say but my relationship to my daughter is a French thing.  My French friends and my family probably think otherwise, and on the outside it looks like any mother-child relationship in this country, but on the inside, in my heart, I think of it as something French. 
  

Is it une balle or a ball?

E.V. is a whole lot of fun to hang out with and she was a cutie most of the weekend, indulging our social selves by being very accomodating with all our friends.  She's quite a social butterfly.  She's very close to walking by herself. She wants the independence and yet she's so afraid of letting go. Will we see the same kind of look on her face when she's 18 and leaving the house? :)

She's been adding a few words to her vocabulary. Also, she's started figuring out that there are variations for one "thing".  I'm fascinated by listening to her figuring out the bilingual thing:  depending on who talks to her a ball is "ba" (open a), or "boh".  Her dad was all excited the other day because after weeks of E.V. saying "chauss" for shoes (chaussures), she scooted to him, pointed to his Converse, and clearly said "Shooooo".  So far, it's worked only for these two objects where the sounds are similar. Some other objects she only says in the one language where the word is easiest such as "boo" for book. I don't think she's anywhere close to trying "livre"!

QotD: Next On My Itinerary

What's the next country you want to visit? 
Submitted by Schomer.

Japan.  The plan was that I would either get pregnant or go there.  I got pregnant. But I still want to go there. 
Close second: Marocco (and/or Tunisia).  I love the architecture and could use some desert time.

Neither of those are bound to happen very soon malheureusement!

QotD: Call The Fashion Police

80s permed hair.  My hair is way to fine for that kind of do.  I look like a cocker spaniel on some of my high school pictures.

(in answer to: You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit? 
Submitted by Tina. )