When our girl was just eight months old, a friend with an older child (also German-French) told me about baby signing and lent me some books and DVDs. I had been sceptical before, thinking it was just the latest fad, but now I read about it, I wanted to give it a try. The books […]

Two days in a row I managed to capture my little girl talking to herself, in what I’m told experts call “jargon”. Please listen to these two soundbites: “bap” talk And watch her read:  

After two weeks of two-on-one (that is, Mommy and Daddy with Baby 24/7 or pretty much so), our baby girl has returned home with many new impressions (such as 17°C North Sea water is very nice, fine dry sand on the beach above however is not), but with very little new expressions. If pressed, I’d […]

I’ve often thought about mixing. I don’t mean a young child mixing, I mean a bilingual adult mixing. The other day I was reading “Mit zwei Sprachen groß werden” by German author Elke Montanari (a book I recommend as an introduction for anyone newly confronted with the subject), and what she had to say got […]

A friend of mine in the U.S. of A. is a professional voice artist. She has also adopted our little girl as her granddaughter and is planning to teach her English long-distance, via the modern means of communication. To start with, she sent a picture dictionary and an MP3 of her reading it. A sample: […]

This is a translation of my post in French below. The other day we had the dubious pleasure to share our B&B breakfast table with a group of four Bavarians, at least one of whom spoke acceptable French. Our landlady explained to them the various breads, cakes and jams on the table. I was already […]

Today we were visiting with family. At one point we were at the table, and my little girl was sitting on the floor, playing. Her new red hat  was lying on the ground beside her, and she was turned away from me. “Please give mommy the hat.” When she picked up the hat, turned around […]

While waiting to catch her saying “mommy” again, here’s a recording I made of her babbling away in the bathtub – hence the slightly hollow sound. Towards the end, you’ll also hear her splashing around. Just click on the bathtub:

  She called me mommy last night! I apologise for the (possibly misleading) German title of this post, but the sentence resonates with me in my mother tongue more than it does in its English translation. Funny, that. But let’s get back to the event itself: After a couple of weeks during which I’ve heard […]

You know these little “prisons” whre you put your baby when it starts moving around? They are called “playpen” in English, which makes sense, since the baby will play there (if you put some toys in). In German they are called “Laufstall”, “walking stable”, which makes a lot less sense because that’s exactly what they […]