I just updated yesterday, but I can't help document what the kids are doing tonight.

It is bedtime and apparently they aren't ready to sleep because they are upstairs in bed talking to each other, reading stories to each other, and singing. I'm listening through the baby monitor hoping they will eventually be quiet up there....

They are babbling away in Japanese. First Lydia was singing a song with made up words:
"blah blah something. anpanman. blah blah. something Alexander." Then Alex starts singing and Lydia doesn't like the competition so starts yelling at him "yatenai! yatenai" (don't do it)
Lydia: Book ga ii? (wanna book)
Alex: Hai. inai inai ba. (yes. peek a boo)
*** silence for alittle while***

Alex: mama iku (mama come)
Lydia: yada (no)
Alex: pee pee suru (I wanna go pee pee)
Lydia: ii yo. pee pee shite. (It's okay. go pee pee.)
**CLUNK**
Lydia: Alex? Daijoubu? (are you okay?)
Alex: (laughter) BUMP shita. (I went BUMP)
Alex: Itai (it hurts)
Lydia: ii yo (it's okay)

the conversation continues like this for a long time... and I had to go up and break up various fights and solve some problems. But it was so funny to listen to them babbling in japanese.

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.

Back from 1 month in the USA

Lydia's turned 3!:

We spent the month of July and beginning of August up to Lydia's 3rd birthday in the US with my parents. This was a great opportunity for the kids to get some more English exposure. Lydia and Alexander had such a wonderful time. And indeed Lydia switched from using mostly Japanese to using mostly English. I guess this is what I expected to happen because she couldn't get away with speaking Japanese and just assuming people would understand her.

Here are some observations about Lydia's language development during the month:

She started putting a lot of stress on the American "R" sound. ie. "Look Mama. Millie's caRRRRRR." "Lydia's tuRRRRn!" Before this, the "R" sound was more of an "Ah".

She started singing a lot of songs. Before now she only sung The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Zou-san (a Japanese song about an elephant). So I was surprised and amused when we were in the car and all of a sudden she was yelling (singing) "Da Warmer in da dell, Da warmer in da dell, Hi ho daderio, Da warmer in da dell" If you can't tell that would be "The Farmer in the Dell."
Then the next day she was singing "Heaaaaaaaaaad. Neezletoes Neezletoes, Heaaaaaaaad. Neezletoes Neezletoes." That would be "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."

She still really doesn't speak in true sentences. She uses a lot of words together but skips many small words. And example of her sentence structure: "Ball under mama papa bed! Ball way way here" (The ball went under mama and papa's bed. The ball is way under there. )

While in the US, I couldn't help but compare her to kids her age. In Japan I really don't have any English-speaking kids her age to gauge her against. I know I shouldn't compare but it was interesting to meet some kids even younger than her who were total chatter boxes speaking in unbelievably proper sentences. But then there were other kids similar in age to Lydia whose language skills in English were pretty much on par with hers. Interesting how much variation there is in the stages of language development, even with mono-lingual kids.

She didn't have a problem communicating with my parents. Well I should say that it did start out a little rough, but then my parents learned to understand her!

Roland wasn't with us for the first 2 weeks in the US. When he arrived Lydia immediately started using German with him.


Now for Alexander's developments:

At 15 months he has really become a pro at the signs he has learned so far. I should really add some more because I think he would suck them up like a sponge! For now it's just milk, eat, drink, more, please, thank you, sleep and up.

He started sort of saying "up" (pah) and done "dah" and drink "juu" or "duu" (which I think actually might be juice even though we rarely drink it).

Alexander 10 mo to 12 mo

I have decided to try Baby Signing with Alexander and actually stick with it this time. I did try with Lydia and she ended up learning 3 signs but then I basically gave up. The first sign we worked with for Alexander was "milk". I started signing it to him while nursing at around 8 months. At 10 months he started signing it.

At this point I added 2 more signs - "eat" and "more" - while feeding him foods other than milk. He wasn't signing anything except for milk but just TODAY (at 12 months), he started signing "eat". WoooHOOOOO! I'm so excited.

I think that continuing with the baby signing will help our trilingual family. This way mama, papa and the babysitter can use the same sign but say a different word. I'm hoping this will help out with the distinction between languages.

Lydia 2.5 to 2 years and 9 months

Lydia's vocabulary has finally jumped quite a bit, but not really like I expected. She hasn't really added more words, but she has added them in more languages. Also, she has started to link more words together.

The biggest development is that I really notice her separating the languages. For example, she has said "Auto" (German, Car) since just before she turned 2 but wouldn't say it in any other language. Now she says it in English and Japanese too.
A typical sentence mixing up all three languages a few months ago was "Mite Mama, midori auto see" (Look mama, I see a green car.) Interesting that she has the tendency to put the verb at the end of the sentence like in Japanese.
Papa came home from work recently and I was talking about what we did today (in english) and trying to get Lydia to tell him what we did. She pulled out the thing we bought and said to him, "Lydia Kauf" (German - Lydia Buy). I had no idea she actually could say "kauf" because she only ever said "buy" to me.

Another example, we were walking in the neighborhood and passed a dog. She pointed and said, "mama! dog! woof. woof." Then she sees a lady coming toward us and said to the lady, "Mite! Inu! ii ne." (Look, dog. Nice!). She knew the woman was japanese and she should not speak the same way she speaks with mama.

Recently, the big change in Lydia's life is that she has been going to a japanese preschool for the past month. Her japanese words have increased in leaps and bounds. She frequently tries to sing songs and games that she learns in school. Unfortunately I can't help her with them because I have no idea how they go!

The teachers were immediately quite impressed with the amount of japanese she could understand and say. That was a relief to me (and them too, I'm sure). I guess they didn't realize she was actually born here, they thought she had just arrived and was brand new to the japanese language.

For the first 2 weeks, lydia would come home after school and babble in nonsense that sounded like japanese. It really did sound japanese but I know at least enough japanese to know that it was just sounds. She'd say "Mama, Ano ne, neno nano nini. baba nini nano nano." She would use her hands and gesticulate like she was having a very serious conversation with me. It was hilarious.

Now that she has been in the school for a few weeks, she can really communicate with the teachers rather well. It's still more of them asking her questions and her nodding or shaking her head. That's what it is like at home a lot too....

Her pronunciation is changing a bit. Last week she started trying to incorporate the American "R" into her speach. She was telling me to "Parrrrrrrrk" the "Carrrrrrrrrr". And she told me about a "Farrrrrrrrrt" (yes, the english word!) and because I am used to such poor pronunciation I thought she was saying "Fork". Duh.

Poor kid with stupid parents who can't understand her!