Dec. 7, 2007 - Babble
Tonight Charlie was playing with his new favorite toys - the pieces in our nativity scene from the Usborne Advent Nativity Book. (The boys LOVE this book! Every night they fall over themselves to bring it to me to read again and to take the next nativity piece out and add it to our growing scene. Caleb even blogged about it HERE.) Charlie kept bringing the pieces to me and asking me what they were called. He was especially interested in the ox and the donkey. However he's not very good at the whole "classification" thing yet. He knows all of the letters in the alphabet and can recognize them in both upper and lower case. He knows the sounds they make. He knows numbers to 25 or so and can recognize numbers up to 10. He knows a lot of colors. He knows several shapes. But when it comes to classifying them into groups, he gets confused. He will say things such as, "The number A" or "The letter 11", etc.
This is what our conversation sounded like tonight:
Charlie (holding the donkey and wanting to know what it is called): What color is this Mommy?
Me: That's a donkey.
C: No, it's a donkey.
Me: Yes, a donkey.
C: Yeah, it's the number donkey.
Charlie leaves the room, comes back with the ox.
C: What color is this one Mommy?
Me: That's an ox.
C: An onx?
Me: An ox.
C: No, it's an ox.
Me: Yes, an ox.
C: The number donx.
Me: Ox
C: No, ox.
Me: Yes, ox.
C: The number ox.
Charlie leaves the room, comes back with the donkey.
C: What color is this Mommy?
Me: You tell me, what is it?
C: A doxey.
Me: It's a donkey.
C: No, a donkey.
Me: Yes, donkey.
C: The number donkey.
Charlie leaves the room, returns with the donkey again.
C: What color is this one Mommy?
Me: What is it?
C: It's a hockey.
Me: It's a donkey.
C: No, a hockey!
Me: It's a donkey.
C: No, it's a donkey.
Me: Yes, donkey.
C: Donxy?
Me: Donkey.
C: The number donkey?
Me: Absolutely!
There's only so much I can take, lol! But I certainly have compassion for him because I'm in the same situation - trying to learn a completely new-to-me language and surrounded by people who have no problem speaking it and seem to have no understanding as to how difficult it is to actually learn it! I'm sure some of my conversations with Spanish-speaking people sound very similar to the one I had with Charlie tonight (although, in Spanish of course!).
Oh, to have lived back in the days before the (not so) "Great Tower of Babble Babel"!
Gotta go, he's back with Joseph, holding him out and asking, "Donkey?".
Comments
Dec. 8, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by bitsandpieces
I love this and your other posts about the funny things your boys say and do! I try so hard to record these presious conversations that we will soon forget one day. You do a wonderful job of documenting it! :) Thanks for the giggles!
Carisa
Dec. 12, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Posted by http://ruthlifestory.blogspot.com
Very funny post! I just left a message on your son's blog and told him about my son Sean. Sean is 9 now and reading about your boys makes me remember how much I just love him and how much I enjoy him at every age!!
Thank you.
