How Quickly They Learn

As Abuelita settled into her car, Daniel looked on from the doorway.

"Bye-bye, ya'll,"said Daniel while waving his small hand back and forth.

Claudia and I did a double take and prompted him to say bye-bye again just to make sure we heard correctly the first time.

We did.

Our Colombian-born son who has been in the United States for only six months has already begun picking up true southern dialect. In his own child-like way, Daniel was definitely trying to say the Southern-most of Southern words: Ya'll.

For the past few weeks it has been impressive to notice everything Daniel is picking up cognitively. He has masted walking and continues making great strides eating independently. Now, his mental energies are focused on his vocabulary and communication skills.

Claudia will ask him to repeat several random words and he makes the cutest effort to repeat a lot of them. He is at a great stage where communicating with him is becoming easier, and even if he isn't getting the pronunciation correctly it is very cute to witness this learning process.

We are also now even more acutely aware of the challenge we face in raising Daniel to be bi-lingual. Claudia and her family are native Spanish speakers and I'm getting better with time. But the deluge of English Daniel hears daily either on television, radio or during day care overwhelms the few hours a day he hears Claudia and I speak Spanish.

Furthermore, my Spanish isn't perfect so I'm certain to be only adding to the confusion he must be experiencing while trying to learn both languages correctly. At least, I pray, I'm not permanently damaging his speaking skills.

People ask how everything is going with Daniel and many times I don't know where to begin. Parenthood has been one of the most immeasurably, wonderfully unexpected joys in our lives! Most of the time, I can only describe it as awesome.

Watching this little person become more aware of his environment and world is a great experience. You get to re-live life again through your child's eyes. Sticks, rocks and specks of dust are all just as new to him as a clear blue sky.

The next time you see our son, he may just have a Southern drawl to go with that, "Ya'll."

God bless,