How we talk to Eva

From day one I have spoken to Eva in English. Sweetie has always used Italian. She goes to a Slovene daycare and they speak to her in Slovene, although apparently they sometimes translate into Italian for her (I don't know why). BTW we live 10 minutes from the border with Slovenia and there is a large population of Triestini who are both native speakers of Slovene and Italian, so her going to a Slovene daycare isn't so strange. What is strange is that we asked for Slovene instead of Italian. Some people think this creates confusion. I'm sure it does not.

Here's what I think will happen. Even before Eva's goo goos and gah gahs turn into words, she will understand both Italian and English perfectly. She will speak both English and Italian as well, although she really won't think much about it at first,  she will identify a certain way of speaking with me and a certain way of speaking with Sweetie and his family and others here.

At some point she will figure out that I speak Italian (which I naturally do when I speak with Italians) and decide to answer me in Italian instead of English. Then I will import her grandmother or export her to grandma's house in the States, and that will put an end to that.

I don't expect her to actually learn Slovene but I do hope that contact with the language will help her later on, or somehow wire her brain, or create a blueprint that will allow her to study and pick up other languages easier later on. I also hope that she will decide that Slovene is important, since it's part of her heritage that was not passed on (Sweetie's mom is a native Slovene speaker but never spoke it with him because she was married to a non-Slovene speaker and it wasn't cool to be bilingual then like it is now). Grandma here no longer feels like a native speaker so she just speaks Italian with baby and that's fine with me.

You should always speak the language you're best at (your native language) with your kids otherwise they may REALLY resent you for being a fake. I've seen this happen and it's sad because parents think they're doing the right thing but it creates tremendous tension and hurt feelings when kids "find out the TRUTH". If you're not a native speaker, fine, get your kid lessons or have a friend or caregiver speak their language, that's all good. Just don't pretend to be a native speaker if you're not. That being said, let your kids see you speak other languages with people and study them, yes, yes, do that- that's good modelling.

Eva's favorite songs are:
In English: Rubber Ducky, Twinkle Twinkle, and The Eva song, which I made up and sing when she's sad and it makes her giggle because it has her name, my name, daddy's name and the dog's name and her birthday in it... all of her favorite things.

In Italian she learned the Batti le manine song (an Italian Patty cake song) with grandma yesterday and heard it in Daycare today and Miss Samatha said "She giggled and giggled when I clapped her hands together" which I imagine is because she recognized the song from yesterday. Cool!

Eva may decide NOT to be into languages because I am. That would be a rebellious thing to do, and that would be fine with me, of course, but let's hope she likes them.

Research on bilingualism

Why you should be bilingual.

The two little pigs get a music lesson

Eva Slept Through Carnevale

We went as the three pigs. Pictures soon. They're still in the camera.

Update

Here's what Eva can do now: giggle, meow like a cat, touch your face and laugh, gurgle, pet the dog, try to sit up, stand up, bend her knees, get bored.

Will post some video soon to facebook and put the link here. Eva's keeping me too busy to update as much as I'd like. Forgive me.

This is an Optical Illusion

Eva's pediatrician thought that one of her eyes was pointing a little bit more towards her nose than the other one. Of course, what he really said was that in his opinion she had  strabismus. A lot of newborns have this problem (not that I looked it up extensively on the internet to see what we would have to do to cure it or anything) but it often straightens itself out (literally and figuratively) by the time the little pooper is 3 months old or so. Sometimes it's not really a problem at all but an optical illusion created by the cut of newborn eyes or the width of the nose.

So we went to see our friend, Dr. Paolo at Ospedale Maggiore. On the bus --Eva loves the bus!

 A little rubber frog helped Dr. Paolo check Eva's eyes by going back and forth and up and down so that her eyes could follow. Then he used a little flashlight and Eva's favorite panda toy to check for strabismus. He shined the light right between the eyes and looked to see if the reflexion of the light was in the same place (in the center of the pupils) of each eye. It was.

Phyoo! We are very happy! Thank you, Dr. Paolo!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY