In awe of the little ones

It's pretty amazing when a baby starts doing things that indicate it will not stay a slobbering short-sighted wailer forever. Sitting up, rolling over, crawling, walking... they are all greeted with pride and wonder, but discovering language has to be the most exciting development of all. Seeing a child grasp the power of words, even before she has many, is just awesome.

Molly is nearly 21 months old and words are finding more and more importance in her world. She has her favourite labels for her favourite people. Mama! Tata! Elzie! But she has also mastered the art of copying sounds.

Molly, can you say sausage?

Sausssesh!

What about chicken?

Shikken!

The truly incredible thing though is seeing how Molly is making sense of her trilingual context. We are so used to Elsie switching from one language to another - coming home from school and carrying on her play in French, then welcoming her Daddy home in Polish and telling me about her day in English. With Molly though, at her tender age some words are already very ingrained in one language or another and the amazing thing is that she translates without seeming to think about it.

Molly, can you say water?

De l'eau!

Molly, powiedz jablko

Apple!

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