Un poquito

Several friends have recently asked about Sullivan's progress in Spanish. Here is an update:

I continue to address Sullivan (and Sawyer) only in Spanish. She currently responds to me 95% of the time in English. Still I press on! (Some days, I feel so crazy for doing this, but I just continue forward...)
She does use a handful of Spanish words regularly for certain key nouns. However, she follows all of my instructions and understands well...she really surprises me with her memory and remembers new words we've looked up better than I can.

She makes me laugh so much these days...several instances most notably:

-While swinging the girls the other day, I was thinking out loud to myself (in Spanish) for a long while about the weather, the lack of shade that time of day, the heat...not thinking that Sullivan was listening or following. I paused and Sullivan responded so acutely to what I had said. In English, she said "Yes. There are no clouds, just sun". They really ARE listening ALL the time.

-This morning, I had to wake her around 8am. She had slept almost 13hrs and when asked how well she slept, she stated, while still in the bed, "Un poquito. Solo, un poquito". (A little bit. Only, a little bit.)

-I put on Spanish Sesame Street (Plaza Sesamo, found on Sprout on Charter on Demand) the other day and she announced, "Look Mommy! They speaking Spanish...like you, Mommy!"

-Finally, we recently attended our annual Crawfish Boil get-together with our fellow residents. Beforehand, Lee and I were trying to explain where we were going and what was going to happen there. We also had her say "Crawfish Boil" a couple of times...Later, she asked where we were going and I told her that she knew, as we'd talked about it earlier. " Oh yea, " she said, "the Fish Pot Party!"
:) So cute.

The thing is about all this language business is...is that I am so humbled. I have learned SO much by adopting Spanish as "our language". My own Spanish vocabulary and fluency has increased tremendously and yet I know Sullivan will surpass my knowledge quite soon, in both English and Spanish. I have to hit the books!

PS-Sawyer is babbling away now (tah, tah, dah,dah)...can't wait to see what she will do with Spanish.