Alexander 18 months

Alexander is still impressing us with an increasing vocabulary...

As a result of his days with the babysitter, his japanese vocabulary and understanding is also increasing. The babysitter told me he says the following words to her: (of course, pronunciation takes some getting used to. It sounds like babytalk but after you hear it a few times you definitely can tell what he's getting at!)

Dõzo (here you go, please)
Itadakimasu/Gochisosamadeshita (what you say before and after eating)
Ochita (it fell)
Dekita (I did it)
Konnichiwa (hello)
Aruku (walk)
Pan (bread)

In English he has added some words. He now says:
Please
Play
Walk
Milk
Bye-bye (sounds more like "bye"... a month ago it was more of a "baa")
Peepee/poopoo
Ball
sock
shoe
baby

He has also started saying his name and his sister's name. It's very cute when he runs around the house looking for her and yelling "Leelia, Leelia." Or he wants to play hide and seek so he starts saying his name "Ale? Ale?" to let you know you should start looking for him.

In German, to be honest I am not sure if he has many new words because I'm not the one speaking German with him. I'll have to get some input from Roland here! But Alexander is quite good at saying danke and bitte (thank you and please). He also seems to understand papa quite well.

Lydia 3 years and 3 months

We are working on getting Lydia to speak in more complete sentences. Lydia says, "My water" (meaning: I want to drink some water please. ) and I try to get her to repeat her request in a more complete way. She's making some progress but her pronunciation is so bad and she gets really frustrated sometimes. Her "corrected" sentence becomes something like "I wannadana water, please."

We are going through the same thing in German.

I think her German and English are still pretty much on par with each other. She is very good at speaking with Roland in German. If she calls him on the phone, it's always German even if she and I were just speaking English with each other. She doesn't always know the correct word in each language. Today, for example, she was telling me why papa's shoes were outside but she didn't know the english explanation. She said, "Papa say LUFT". Ohhhh... papa said they needed some air. Ha ha.