Monday, March 12, 2012

"Mia" o "Mira"?

He’s such a smart little booger!  I know every parent marvels at seeing their children learn new things and how smart they are…and I’m no different.  I’m not going to say that my baby is smarter than all the other babies out there…especially since I’m about to have two of them...but he sure is smart and amazes me all the time with what he knows and what he can do and say.

A couple of weeks before his 18 month birthday we were out in the back yard and he made a running beeline for the riding lawn mower that was sitting outside of its normal hiding place in the shed.  I watched him from my chair on the porch not thinking much about it…mostly just that its so cute how much he likes the “tractor” as we call it.  With no hesitation or break in stride he climbed up onto the cutting deck, over the “shifter” and into the seat!  I was shocked!  When did he learn to do that?  HOW did he learn to do that??  And he did it like a pro!  He sat there holding the steering wheel looking like the cat that swallowed the canary and then occasionally would try to move the “shifter”.  He’s a natural born tractor man apparently.  After sitting in shock for a few minutes just watching him I realized my less than 18 month old baby was waaaayyyy across the yard sitting on the tractor unsupervised and then started picturing all the different ways he could fall and hurt himself so I hurried over to rescue him from himself.

Now every time the “tractor” is out of its “barn” Jimmy is climbing on it or riding on it with Daddy.

I’ve known for awhile now that a lot of Jimmy’s gibberish has actual words in it and most of them are Spanish.  I wasn’t convinced that he was using them correctly though or that he even knew what they were but that he was just repeating something he had heard.  He understands A LOT though in English AND in Spanish and has for awhile.  The sitter talks to him mostly in Spanish and Daddy and I talk to him in mostly English with some Spanish liberally sprinkled in.  Even though I don’t speak fluent Spanish – enough to carry on a conversation – I can still converse relatively well with my 18 month old.  Well…converse isn’t the right word…more like issue directives in Spanish.

Words/Phrases I use the most:

“Que quieras?” (what do you want?)
“Quiera la leche?” (Do you want milk?)
“Callate” (HUSH!)
“Que paso??” (what is it?)
siéntese” (SIT DOWN!)
“Mira!” (Look!)
Mom told me a few weeks ago when she was watching him that he was saying “mia” a lot.  I hadn’t really noticed him saying it much but over the last week or so I’ve noticed it more.  Yesterday we were out in the garage and he had dropped a little yellow ball that he had found by the refrigerator the night before and he kept pointing at it saying “Mia, Mia”.  I told his Daddy that he had learned “mia” but when Daddy listened to him he realized he was saying “Mira!” !!  For some reason that made him even smarter to me!  He was telling me to look at the ball and not telling me that it was his ball!

It’s very interesting and fun differentiating the real words from the gibberish…especially when they’re in Spanish!

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