More in the scope of this blog, though, he’s speaking.

Well, sort of. He definitely has words, but there are only a few. I’m not trying to oversell his abilities.

A couple months ago when I mentioned that he said “nana”– yes, it turns out that definitely means banana. He also uses it for other yellow things. He’s also added “agua” to his frequent vocabulary (I have never seen a child get so excited about water, but I’m not going to complain). He was really into saying “gato” for a while, but has since abandoned that. He does, however, bark. Sometimes it’s when he looks at a book and sees a picture of a dog (or other animal) and sometimes it’s out of the blue, but he knows we think it’s funny so he’ll keep it going for a while.

We haven’t had any new words for a month or two, but in the meantime, we’re reading and talking and listening to music. Speaking of music, I was very excited to find the album “4 amiguinhos” on emusic for $5. “4 amiguinhos” is performed by the band Loto, who come from my second host city of Alcobaça, Portugal. It’s a decent album, some of it gets repetitive, but some of the songs are grown-up-friendly as well. Previously I had thought I would have to spend $25 to get the album (including shipping) from cdgo.com in Portugal, so this was a pleasant surprise.

I was a little disappointed to find that some of the recent books from Milet Publishing appear to have Brazilian Portuguese rather than European– any Portuguese is better than none, but just like we’re not teaching Nico to call trucks “lorries” I’d rather not teach him to refer to an autocarro (bus) as an “ônibus.” Our other big issue is that there seems to be a shortage of board books in Portugal, which is problematic for a prolific teether like Nico (12, nearly 13 teeth), since I’d rather not spend $30 on a book only to have him destroy it. I guess I’ll have to keep looking, and in the meantime, I need to maintain my own Portuguese. Luckily I’ve found a site where I can watch Portuguese TV stations online, and my friend from my exchange is coming to visit in June– she’s Norwegian, but we often speak Portuguese together.

Anyway, so far, it’s just nice that Nico’s first few words have all been in Portuguese (though to hear my mother talk, every noise out of his mouth is a word, haha– oh, grandmothers).
Wow, this is what happens when I don’t blog for a while– it all comes out terribly rambly.

http://apps.facebook.com/involver_krohuevx/feature/1572247/content/232843563

You can only vote once. Anyway, the video is only about a minute long and I think it’s pretty enjoyable to watch (others seem to agree with me) so I’d really appreciate your vote. Thank you and obrigada!

Oh, and if you like it, please consider sharing it. I need all the votes I can get, because the competition is fierce!

Of course, a bilingual baby may start speaking on the later side of normal, and I’ve been expecting that, and boys tend to start speaking later than girls. I’m prepared to wait a while.

So far, basically everyone and everything is “Dada” including Nico himself. If we point to him and say “Nico,” he’ll pat his chest and say “Dada!” If we try to get him to say Mamã, he’ll say “Dada” (though sometimes, he does say ma-ma, but it’s used indiscriminately just like “Dada.” He made both sounds at around 6 months, in a string of ma-ma-ma-ma and da-da-da-da, but da-da became the favorite.

BUT in the past few days, when Nico’s sitting in his high chair and I say “banana”, he says “nana.” Maybe I’m just doing the parent thing, where I ascribe meaning to random noises, but he seems to mean it.

The only “problem” is, with the word “banana” it’s hard to tell which language he’s trying to speak, since both English and Portuguese use the word (the pronunciation is slightly different, but Nico’s pronunciation is not particularly nuanced at this point so we still can’t really tell).

I’m really wondering which language will come first.

In other news, Nico has had eight teeth since before he was 9 months old, and teeth #9-12 are clearly on their way in. He’s been pulling himself up since around 9 months, and for a long time now he’s walked if we hold his hands. If we stand him up and let go of his hands, he’ll sometimes take a step or two (but we think this is accidental).

I was determined to find some Christmas board books in Portuguese for Nico, and I managed to find some on Amazon (from a different seller, though). They’re very small board books attached to a snowman and a Santa. They’re actually published by the company that published almost all of my schoolbooks when I was in Portugal, Porto Editora. That was a nice “taste of home.”

We also discovered Star Bright Books while looking for Christmas presents for Nico. They have very affordable bilingual books in many languages. It’s Brasilian Portuguese, but that shouldn’t be *too* confusing. And for $5-$7 a book for nice board books, it’s worth it!

Today I found another great thing for Nico on zulily.com (it’s one of those sites where they only sell a few things that last for a few days, with big discounts). They gave me a $10 credit, so I looked around, thinking I’d never find something in the $10 range. I ended up finding cute things from Children Inspire Design (http://www.childreninspiredesign.com/content/portuguese-counting-cards). They’re cards to put up on the wall with numbers from 1-10, illustrations, and words in Portuguese (for example, 5 is “cinco corujas” which means “five owls”). I’m so excited to have found those.

It’s kind of sad how I only post here so I can geek out about various Portuguese things, but I swear, it’s all for Nico’s sake. And maybe someone somewhere will find my ramblings useful in some form.

And maybe sometime the posts will stop being so rambly and actually have a point. Doubt it, though.

I’m looking forward to Nico’s first Christmas (Natal).
Happy holidays, everyone!

I’m editing this to add some quick Nico stats: he’s over 23 pounds (his weight gain has slowed considerably which makes sense since he’s very active, always rolling and squirming and scooting/crawling backward and now forward). He’s nine months old and has eight teeth. He’s also a complete ham and very vocal. I also happen to think he’s pretty adorable.

Good Ol' Saint Nico

For my birthday in July, my boyfriend got me several Portuguese children’s books from Language Lizard. That was a nice boost to the collection, but I’m still dying to add more. I was all excited when I remembered the Portuguese publisher with reasonable shipping prices (Assírio & Alvim) until I looked at their web site and saw it was undergoing maintenance, and has been for weeks (possibly months). I started looking at other Portuguese booksellers’ websites, and for four or five very small books, the shipping costs quoted were €55. One New York-based Portuguese bookstore (the Luso-Brazilian Bookstore) that had an online presence is having some kind of issue with their site, which I’m assuming means that either the store doesn’t exist anymore or they’re giving up on the site.

I wish I could call Assírio & Alvim and order, but I don’t know what exactly I want. My local library has five books each in French and Spanish, and “My First 100 Words” in Japanese, Italian, French, and Spanish– no Portuguese, even though I know that book exists, because I have it!

Who knew it would be so hard to find resources to teach one of the world’s top 10 most widely spoken languages? I guess I may have to resign myself to spending more than half of the book budget on shipping, but that just feels…wrong.

Anyway, I’ll keep looking, because I’m determined to make this work.

I'm pretty sure Nico is working on a guest blog post.

From last Wednesday to this Tuesday, we were on vacation visiting family in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Nico did exceptionally well on the flights, so I have to assume he already likes travel. This is a good sign; I hope he’ll be an exchange student one day.

I am still speaking exclusively Portuguese with him, and it’s getting more and more natural. I keep a dictionary nearby for the inevitable gaps in vocabulary, and I’m still working on getting a reasonable Portuguese “library” so that there’s more to choose from and I’m not constantly re-reading the same books (at least, not until he is old enough to request the same ones over and over) but overall I feel like it’s going well. I feel like my pronunciation is improving from where it was after my exchange (as of June 20, it’s been 2 years since I left Portugal).

I’m feeling optimistic. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but there’s a Portuguese CD called Canções de Embalar (the vague title makes it difficult to find) and that has some excellent original songs, and some great singers (Jorge Palma, Sara Tavares). The songs are easy to sing and easy to listen to.

So for those who were wondering– yes, I’m still speaking exclusively Portuguese (and no, Nico’s not speaking yet )

[This post dedicated to Kaya, who's been bugging me to update ]

Nico relaxing by the pool on vacation at his great-grandparents' house.

I’m very tired, but absolutely in love, and I’ve been busy reading Portuguese books to him which were sent by his “aunt” and “grandmother” in Portugal.

At this stage, it seems like speaking to him in Portuguese is about adding “-inho” to as many words as possible. “Oh menino fofinho tão queridinho” etc. etc.

So far he’s only been read to in Portuguese, but between his father and all of his grandparents and aunts, he gets plenty of English input. I really hope his Portuguese ends up being strong. I keep wondering, can I do this? Can I be the only one to speak this language to him (especially since it’s not my native language)? Am I just doing this because I love the language? But at this point, while I am discovering holes in my Portuguese (going on exchange in high school did not familiarize me with most of the baby words!), it’s becoming more and more natural to speak to him in my beloved second language. After all, he is a menino fofinho, not a “cute little boy.”

I do have my work cut out for me, that’s for sure, but I’m excited about the journey.

Not a whole lot has changed in terms of bilingual resources, but I have gotten some books about bilingual parenting.

The Bilingual Family was the first one, and that and Growing Up with Two Languages are helpful general guides, mostly from a European perspective which is interesting. The latest one I’m reading is The Bilingual Edge, which is an American perspective and talks a lot more about my own situation of not being a native speaker of the language I want to teach my baby (Nicolai, Nico for short. A boy, if you hadn’t guessed– I don’t think I knew his gender last time I posted!)

I’ve also accumulated a few books in Portuguese– one of my cousins gave me a couple for Christmas (they were on my registry on Amazon.com, but she didn’t even know I HAD a registry or that I planned on teaching Nico Portuguese– she just thought it would be a cool idea. I thought that was neat!). These are American books but translated into Portuguese (they’re sold on languagelizard.com).

Then, my wonderful, wonderful host family in Portugal sent me several books. One is originally French, translated to Portuguese: Camila Não Quer Tomar Banho. Then there are several short books, which are all the classic fairytales and things, which was interesting because I didn’t really know how the Portuguese versions of the stories went. Actually, I didn’t know how the story of Tom Thumb went at all, so that was cool

I’ve also (re-)discovered that the Portuguese publisher Assírio & Alvim has some neat-looking children’s books, for not too much money (most are 12-15€) and the shipping is pretty good too (5€ and I don’t think it increases too much for additional books, which is GREAT news).

In other news, I’m completely sick of being pregnant. But anyway, I figured I’d update here!

Not fair!

When even the internet won’t help, you know you’re doomed… do I even BOTHER to continue my search for Portuguese-language playgroups in Maine? I’m considering trying to start a tutoring group at the local library for small children whose parents want to expose them to another language but don’t have the ability themselves, that would give my kid somewhat of an opportunity to practice the language (or I could do the lessons somewhere else and charge for them, that would be nice).

So, who knows. 5-6 months left and I’m hoping I’ll have plenty of resources before the baby’s born, because I think it’s SO important to read to babies while they’re very young, and I’m determined to read and speak only Portuguese to my little one. We’ll see.