Language Explosion

Diego is just cracking me up these days. I want to remember all these things so I can tell him when he's older, so I'm writing it here.

He talks sooo much. Some of it is really clear, but other things sound nothing like what he's trying to say. I have to admit, it feels good to know that I'm the one person who understands his crazy little language more than anyone else. Marcelo comes in a close second, but since I'm with him more, I understand just a teeny bit more. I love to translate his sentences for people. And he definitely needs translation sometimes. We were playing in my mom's backyard, and he started saying, "Oh no, ba-o-fy gone," over and over. After seeing my mom's confused face, I explained that ba-o-fy was butterfly.

He just comes up with the funniest things to say. Sometimes it's so random and I think, where did he learn that? The latest is that when I'm changing his diaper he says, "Hurry, Mommy, hurry!" Because he needs to get back to playing ASAP, I guess. Today, he looked at my shirt and said, "Wow, nice shirt." What?? And it's soooo cool to hear him forming sentences. He was helping my dad cut down trees the other day, (all he was doing was dragging braches away) so afterwards I asked him, "What did you do with Tato today? Were you helping? Did you cut down the trees?" He said, "No. Tato cut trees." Duh, Mommy, I can't cut the trees myself. It's so funny when he corrects you. Last week, I went to my mom's house and when he saw that her car wasn't there, he goes, "Tata está?" (Tata donde está? He mixes English and Spanish a lot.) I said, "Tata's not here. Tata is at school." We went inside and he played with my grandparents for awhile. Later, he went into my dad's office and said, "Tato, where Tata?" My dad said, "Tata's working." Diego spun around and looked at my dad and said, "No, Tato. Tata school." My little genius.

Since we've been spending every single day with my parents and grandparents for the past two weeks, Diego has picked up a ton more Spanish. He already understood a ton, but now he's saying a lot more words. Here are a few things he knows in Spanish:

• Numbers up to 15
• All the colors
• All the names of transportational vehicles (car, bus, motorcycle, train, bike, boat, etc.)
• The names of a few animals (cow, cat, dog, frog, duck, monkey, lion, fish....can't think of what else)
• The names of lots of outdoor things (tree, grass, sky, clouds, flowers, street, house)
• The names of body parts (eyes, nose, mouth, feet, hands, head)
• Mucho frío
• Así no
• No pinta
• Ay! and Uy!
• Afuera
• Vamos (He usually says, "Es vamos".)
• Zapatos
• Agua
• Leche
• Comida
• Te amo

That's all I can think of right now.

Sometimes, if I don't understand him in English, he'll try telling me the word in Spanish. He was telling me the other day, "I want you one." I was like, huh? He said it again and I kept guessing what he was trying to say, and finally he thought for a moment and said, "I want azul one." YOU was blue. Ohhhh. Also he told my mom, "Tata, has peas," and of course, she was totally lost. When she didn't get it, he said, "Tata, manos peas." Meaning, Tata, hold my hand please.

Okay, Marcelito is calling. More next time.