It is known that the sooner children are exposed to different languages the easier it is for them to learn to speak them effortlessly.
When our first born arrived my english was not the best, yet, and my Italian husband, raised in Italy by his American mother and having already lived in the US through college and a few years of work, seemed to have forgotten some of the correct Italian grammar, like the conjugation of some irregular verbs. No! No! NO! So we decided that he would speak English to the baby and I Italian. Little did we know, at 11 months the little fellow started to speak using both languages at the same time. When he wanted to be picked up he would say, “su-su-up!” raising his arms towards us; to be put back down he would squirm and voice, “giu’-giu’-down!” If he wanted to go back home we would hear, “casa-home“; to call our attention to something he would point and exclaim, “barca-boat!” or “cavallo-horse!“. We often wondered how messy it would be when he started to talk full sentences. To our enormous surprise words eventually fell into place in the right language, which was a big sigh of relief! Children are mysteriously clever from day one!
Not to speak of those eyes…
Anyway, our first little rascal was a might to be reckoned with, a firework of what seemed to be endless and fearless energy. When he wasn’t physically active his little brain was working full throttle (even more alarming!) and he would plunge into all kind of awkward situations. Once after looking for him for a while, my mom and I finally found him in a corner to the back of the house nobody went to; he was sitting on a low stone step fully concentrated on following with his index finger, and squashing, a line of ants on the ground. When asked what he was doing, with a proud smile he answered …”Ant jam!” (DAH!) We then realized that he was actually eating the little critters. Well ants, dirt, organic proteins and who knows what else… he wasn’t going to die.
Thankfully there was never a problem feeding our little fellow more orthodox food. One of the meals his nonna would prepare during the summer was zucchini ripieni, stuffed zucchini; a complete, simple and healthy meal that our busy chap happily devoured to refuel his growing body’s bottomless energy… SOB!
