October of James 3.5 Years, Sydney 5.5Years

From BilingualWiki

October 10, 2007

Sydney's principal in Kindergarten is "Mr Holmes" She was telling me something he said and translated his name to "Senhor Casa." Funny how the 2 languages thing helps me get inside her head.

School hasn't seemed to make her speak much less Portuguese except when she gets really excited about telling a story. I try to translate the words and when she hears the Portuguese word for something she said in English, she'll use it instead of the English word in the rest of the story, but sometimes her ideas are pouring out so fast there's no time without constant interruption and changing the flow of the conversation. At those times, I react with surprize and reword what she said (in Portuguese) as if I'm trying to get all this right. "You mean that he dumped the sand right on her head?" It's working fairly well. When she slips in the English expressions, she does so very quickly. They are usually high idiomatic.

October 13, 2007

My dear friend Jenny called today from Australia. She said she checked in from time to time on this part of the wiki. Gave me incentive to write more. Lately with both kids in school I find myself MORE busy than before. But I'll work on it if I know people are listening.