Umbrella, car, bus, OK! And the words come tumbling out!

AR is at an age where the experts say that the words come tumbling out for monolingual kids.

Since he is being raised bilingually, he has twice the amount of words to process and learn as a monolingual child. Needless to say his linguistic production is a bit behind the monolingual kids his age. However, being a first time mom, I can't help being a little over anxious about the situation, worried that he will get left behind (but intellectually knowing that he won't). Fortunately, through conversations with friends of bilingual children, I see that he really is on track. Added to the complication of being bilingual, according to his pediatrician, it's quite normal for celiac children to lag behind other non-celiac children their age. Should I breathe a sigh of relief or just worry some more??

How many of you understand baby talk? You know, the unique way toddlers have of expressing their wants, needs and desires (between emotional meltdowns). Sometimes real words, sometimes their own words. Difficult huh? Especially if it isn't your child. Now try understanding baby talk from a child who speaks a different language. Ha!

How many of you understand Spanglish? You know, that unique way that some (U.S.) Latinos speak among themselves effortlessly blending English and Spanish in the same sentence. Now try understanding Spanglish baby talk!

That's the language of AR! It really is quite amusing and you need to be a cryptologist to figure out what he is saying at times. For the most part I understand him because I have the advantage of understanding Spanish and being his mother.

His word for train is "tah-tah". We don't know if it is Spanish or English. One day we were waiting for the surface level metro when he suddenly said "ahí tah tah tah ahí ahí tah"! He was clearly excited as the train came slowly to a stop. To others it might have sounded like babble, but his mother clearly understood his Spanish/English/babytalk. Of course he was saying "Ahí está el tren/the train. There! There it is!"

This really is a fascinating ride!