Chatter

I will never forget the wonderful opportunity I had to babysit for a two year old GIRL back in January 2006. At the time, my oldest boy was 20 months old. After only a short time with this sweet girl, my head was spinning. She was VERBAL. She talked non stop and had an impressive vocabulary. Accustomed to somewhat quiet days with my boy, I was unprepared for this verbal onslaught.

Similarly, Irina has exploded with English words this past week and she must get them out. When she was speaking in Russian, I didn't always need to engage in her chatter. Now that she is speaking so much more English it's important that I respond. It's very choppy toddler speak, but she is learning more and more every day. I'm realizing what expressions I say repeatedly, because she now also says them repeatedly. ;)

Here is just a glimpse of some things we hear…

"I know." "I know, Mommy." "I know." 
"Mommy, look." "Stop Mommy." "Stop Aaron!" "Mommy NO!"
"Mommy loves Jesus." "Mommy loves salad." "Mommy love book."

"Daddy sleeping." "Sun is sleeping." "Irina, no sleeping." "Jesus, no sleep."

"Find boys."

"Irina eleven April three." (She wants to be sure everyone knows when her birthday is.)
"Irina sleeping. Mommy Daddy prize (surprise). Mommy Daddy no sleep. April 3" (She has it all planned out that while she is sleeping the night before her birthday that Darin and I are going to set out surprise gifts for her. How do they figure these things out so fast? She hasn't ever been here for anyone's birthday celebrations.)

I had the opportunity to drive in the car alone with her recently and she was talking a mile a minute. When the boys are in the car, she can't get a word in edgewise.
"Mommy, red - stop. Green - go. Mommy red car. Mommy black mashina. Mommy gray car. Mommy sun. Mommy red - stop. Mommy 40." (speed limit, not age -- yet! ;)  (She interchanges the russian word for machine (mashina) with car. She points out everything she sees that she knows the word for.)

"Irina hot. Irina play outside. Irina bike. Irina scooter. Irina park." (She usually refers to herself in the third person.)

It has been fun to see her language grow. She also knows all her letter sounds and has started recognizing and sounding out some simple words. Irina is still very eager to read simple books to us by either memorizing the words that she has heard us read, or trying to sound them out herself.

We rarely hear her chattering in Russian anymore. Instead, if she doesn't know the English words she is more likely to talk in baby talk babble or play charades. We were told that as she loses her Russian, she would probably also regress developmentally out of frustration for not being able to express herself. We have seen this to be true too.

We Skype weekly with her friend Polina from Ukraine who now lives in the states. Yesterday during our Skype, neither girl spoke Russian. Polina has been home 4 months and forgets how to speak Russian, although she understands it. Irina refused to speak to Polina in Russian. It was a short conversation. The parents on either end did most of the talking. ;) We are determined to keep the connection between the girls and it will be interesting to watch how they interact as they both become fluent in English.