What does it mean?

Any Spanish used in blog posts is hyperlinked to its English translation.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The talking never stops!

We noticed some new things in the Guajolotita's speech: She is making short sentences. Two of today's sentences were:
Vamos a la calle!
*Aunt's name* toma agua!
Last week, she started to say "a la calle" as separate words (probably in her mental grammar it's all one thing, but she pronounces them with the appropriate separation). And then today she put the verb and the rest of the predicate together: Vamos a la calle!

Tonight, at dinner at "Gappa"'s house, there were 9 of us including her. There was a pause in the conversation, and she called out across the table to my sister. Then she continued her order: "*Aunt's name* toma agua!" This time as well, she put the appropriate amount of pause between the words. She was instructing her to do it, and watched until she did. None of us had offered her water in the last couple of minutes, or been talking about water before hand. I guess she just decided that her aunt needed a drink?

Then tonight, this one I especially loved. She asked to read "Tu Mama" which stands for "Éres tu mi mamá?" which is the Spanish version of Are you my mother? a very nice P.D. Eastman book which has been a favorite for months. I took the opportunity to read to her sitting on the toilet, so she could get that done before her bath, and I'd be able to strip her from the waist down, making the bathtime transition easier.

We were reading, and she was skipping around in the book. She grabbed all the pages and started letting them slowly flip by with her thumb, as she usually does when she's looking for something specific ("El gato!" "La lancha!" etc.). She was letting them go pretty quickly, so I laughed and just stated,
"You have to be a speedy reader, 'cause there's so, so much to read!"
She stopped flipping the pages and looked at me. She was thinking about something and looking at me intently. Then it came to her: "Eyes Shut!!" I was absolutely tickled that she recognized the line and said yes, of course, she could certainly have another book given the fact that she'd called it, so to speak.

So I went and got I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, as she sat there on the toilet with her bath waiting, and she turned each page and waited for it to be completely read (instead of skipping ahead) up until we got to the page with the line I'd quoted earlier. She looked up at me when I read that one, and smiled sort of perhaps to say, "See, there it is!"