Flog! Flog! Flog!

When I started this blog, I knew that would happen - I would commit to something that I simply could not keep up to date! Shame on me. Life is really hectic and I apologise for that. Here is a summary of what has happened recently:

Julia is about to turn 2 and I can confidently say she fully understands English, Portuguese and Oshiwambo. She doesn't say many sentences but honestly she chats SO MUCH that I am sure she is saying much more than couple of sentences, but mummy and daddy simply can't understand. It's her own language. She does say few sentences like "mummy shower" frequently, or "é a vovó" (that is gramma), but that's all I can get.

She says lots of words in both English and Portuguese, quite good vocabulary. The last few weeks she started repeting a lot of what we say, and she loves new words like aranha (spider), acacia or marula (both indigenous trees we planted recently). Tia Lina (Auntie Lina, my sister), is i-a-ina (repeated 50 times a day). I don't know about Oshiwambo because I can't understand a word apart from greetings, but when she is with Maria, Nampa or Kornelia they are only communicating in Oshiwambo and she is totally into it. She says a lot "nene alala", which is a mix of Portuguese (neném) and Oshiwambo (alala, no idea how to write it but that's the sound) - "baby wants to sleep".

From Michael's notes -- Oshwambo speakers normally mix the Ls and Rs, so they might say light when they mean right. One day Julia and Michael were watching The Muppet Show and she start jumping and yelling Flog, Flog, Flog when the frog appeared (she loves him). Michael looked at me and said, oh yes, she IS INDEED learning Oshwambo. :-)

I think it's very clear for her that mummy and daddy speak different languages. Some words she says in both languages (i..e. flower/flor), she tends to point to me in Portuguese and to her dad in English. So I guess she is starting to get into the "One Person One Language" mood. Also, something funny is if Mike tries to talk to her in Portuguese (for example read a book), she laughs and gives him a hug. Sort of "good try dad". So cute. Alternatively she gets mad at him and start yelling "no! mummy mummy, mummy". The same if either of us try to speak in Oshwambo! She doesn't take us serious, which is hilarious.

The challenge over the last few weeks is that she is already out of nappies but needs to communicate correctly if she wants to go to the toilet, otherwise - accident! Toilet training is already a challenge in itself, but she is facing a bilingual toilet training, mostly because I was the reference for her in the process and of course I used the Portuguese vocabulary. However most of the time she is only with Maria, or at the kindergarden, and in both cases they use English words (now I come to think that I'm not sure if Maria uses any Oshwambo word in this situation). She knows the toilet vocabulary in both languages, but I think she still mixes a lot (pee-pee/wee-wee/pipi/xixi/poo/cocô) regardless the recipient of the message. Last week I noticed she was saying xixi to Maria who did not notice it. I talked to the teachers and they said "oh yes", and told me of 2 accidents that happened probably due to the bilingual process. So now they all know, but most important she knows and she is getting better at that.