Tag: bilingual

  • Koala update: Three years.

    Koala, if you’ll wait patiently over there a minute (ha) while I tell the future parents/new parents a little secret: One thing I’ve learned this past year is that the ‘terrible twos’ is a misnomer. The alleged phase starts way earlier than two, and by the time that two is turning into a three, it’s…

  • The magic of being bilingual.

    On the way to gan this morning, Koala spotted a firetruck on the road. Obviously, this made his morning, and for the rest of the way cried out in excitement, “Fire truck! Fire truck woke up! Fire truck is here!” He was still talking about it as we walked up to the gan door, so…

  • There’s a sabra living in my house.

    First of all, today, for the first time, my kid בא נראה’d me. Secondly, OMG *this* just happened. The scene: Bebe is finished with her cottage cheese and I offer Koala the rest. Me: want to finish Bebe’s cheese? Koala: yes, I want this. <takes a bite> Koala: cottage! Me: yep, it’s Bebe’s cheese. Koala:…

  • The ‘Ima’ mystery, solved.

    Recently I noted that Koala picked up on the fact that Ima = mama. And when I go and get him at the gan, he runs up to me with his big hug and says, Ima! like all the other kids. But since the week started, it became apparent that Ima has another expressive use…

  • That was fast.

    I thought it would be a couple more years before this happened, but here we are at a month shy of two: Koala came home from gan today calling me אמא (Ima). He’s been calling me Mama this whole time, and maybe I prompted this myself; last night out of the blue I asked him,…

  • Immigrant parenting fail.

    Ok, maybe I don’t exactly fail yet. But I’m headed in that direction. I attended an event tonight for the ‘gan mothers’ for which I had to push myself to go, and, not surprisingly, a room full of women + socializing + not knowing anyone + doing it in Hebrew is a mess of a…

  • Bo, mama.

    I  may correct your Hebrew now, but sometime in the future – possibly the near future – you will be correcting mine.

  • Today’s moment of Zen.

    I said to Koala: “Are you a קוף?” And he looked at me and… coughed.

  • Guess he drinks more at gan.

    My baby woke up last night in pain from teething. We gave him his motzetz, his blankie, Acamol, but what he finally ended up calling out for, through his sad, sad baby tears, was… “!מים! מים” Huz and I looked at each other as he mouthed to me in surprise, ‘mayim?!’ It’s not Koala’s first…