Bean is 13 months old

* this post was written in January but I never quite got around to publish it. 

When you decide to raise a child with more than one language, there are certain things that you expect to encounter: envy from people who only speak one language, curiosity from those who are genuinely interested in the "how"s and "why"s, ridiculous questions (my favourite, which I hear far too often is "how many languages does he speak?"- "none, he's one!"), much appreciated advice from people who have successfully raised bilingual and trilingual children, and, of course, resistance from possibly well-meaning, good intentioned educators and health care professionals. So far, thankfully, we've only encountered one of the latter, a doctor who informed C that he should rather address Bean in his mother tongue (French), as addressing Bean in German would not work unless it was C's first language. Said Doctor could only speak French, so we shall take that criticism with a pinch of salt and carry on as we started. Me in English, C in German, Creche in English and Skyping in whichever language the person we are speaking to is most comfortable.  

Bean seems to be adapting well to 40 hours of French a week at Creche. He seems really happy there. The other children always greet him very enthusiastically. And he's already come home with a few French words. So far we have:

"..garde" ("regarde" - "Look"), "...tend" ("attends" - "wait"), "donne" ("give") and "ouvre" ("open"). All words that give you some idea as to what a determined and curious little creature we have created. He's also learnt the hand actions to a few little French nursery rhymes - although he's still obviously getting the hang of his motor skills).

In English we have: 

"Daddy" (for C), "dada" (for me... yes, seriously. I am unamused. I have managed to get him to call me "mama" possibly 5 times), otherwise we have "juice" (when he wants his sippy cup or to try some of whatever is in our cups - evidently things are more delicious when from someone else's cup), and of course "no" (although he says "nah!"- which for the moment I think I prefer). 

Currently our favourite word in English is "go!". It's usually given as an order whilst he's being carried, and is accompanied by adamant finger pointing. If you fail to "go" to wherever it is that he wishes his noble stead (that's you if you're carrying him) to go, he will actually move your face to point in the direction, point again and stare at you before saying with increased vehemence "go DARE!" ("go THERE!"). It's bound to get old, but right now it's great as we know exactly where he'd like to go and what he's seen that really interests him.

In German we have only one word: 

"Nein!" which he's adopted when "nah" does not work. 

I've decided to do a regular tallies of Bean's progress in each language. So far French and English are practically equal... but only time, and lots of patience will tell....