Spanglish

There are so many phases in the early years of parenthood. Knowing what each cry means, deciphering words that a little man says with his mouth completely closed, the list goes on and on.

In the beginning, the babies don't say anything and they can't understand, so pretty much Dan and I could say whatever, and it mattered very little. Natalie started speaking quite articulately very early on, so our candid conversations ended and we began using bigger words that we thought would confuse her and of course, the ever popular, spelling of words.

But now Natalie can spell, so Dan and I have had to find new methods of communicating things that we don't really want her to understand. Naturally, that lead us to Spanish. Last night, at dinner, when Dan had some suggestion how I could improve my home cooked meal that no one suggested or gave me any hints as to what they would like to eat for dinner, or any other night for that matter, he decided to switch over to our "second language." And he informed me that el proximo vez, el pollo necesita estar mas pequeno"

This did not go above Natalie's head. She turned to me and said, "Mommy, what does mas mean?" Of course I told her-- it means more.

"More small," she says.

As with the discovery that she quite consciously writes her name backwards and upside down, I was impressed.

But now Dan and I need to learn another language...I suggested Sanskrit. I figured it would be a while before she catches on to that.