Because

I love language, languages really, although the development of a passable French still escapes me, and hearing an interesting turn of phrase or expression in any language makes me smile.  Listening to Lily and Virginie as they navigate the worlds of English, French, Spanish (the language primarily taught in Barbados), and Bajan, which I tell you is insanely difficult to comprehend, is just incredible.  As Virginie is new to talking, but no slouch, she has a few key questions she asks everyday.  One of those is "Wheh? Wheh tasi?"  This is pronounced like the New Yorker that she is and means," Where?  Where is my paci(fier)?"  I think we hear this question no less than 75 times a day. If we do not answer, she asks, "Oooh?" which in French, "Ou" is where.  You see?  Learning.  There's a lot of "I'n ge' down" and "some, some," typical toddler fare and a request for "booby," which yes, I know, means it is time to stop nursing, but I particularly love rambling songs of conversation in the lost alien language that only babies and maybe the insane can still recall. It's just amazing and shocking that one year ago, I was worrying about Virginie falling on this hard tile floor from up high and now she is lecturing me like I am the teenager and she, the mother. 

Lily is a champion talker.  Seriously, if there were prizes given out, she would win all the time, and this is not just a proud mother bragging.  It is endless. Some nights I have to tell her to just stop talking, don't move her mouth or make another sound and once she finally shuts up, she passes out on her face like she was meant to do earlier, but the talking prevented.  My favorite discovery of Lily's is "because."  It is in nearly every sentence uttered and keeps the conversation, well monologue, lecture, diatribe, going for hours.  Everything is connected from Dora's City of Lost Toys to her recently turning four to her going to big girl school to Virginie's superwet diaper with "because."  Not only tall tales, but entire universes of observations, all interconnected.

I am engaged, enthralled even, when she tells me something that I thought she had not caught being discussed between "big adults."  As she recounts what she'd heard, all the nuances in speech are still there, but the hidden meanings are all lost on her four year old self.  Last night she told me, "I have to move my head from this side of the bed to this one because I am sweating like shitake mushrooms.  The conditioning must not be working good.  It is making me a piglet."  Stifling a giggle, I helped her move.  Shitake mushrooms is my euphemism for the expletive and Didier often says, "Sweating like a little piglet" at the heat of the day when everyone is wiping his brow.  The conditioning?  The AC.  And needing to move her head?  Well, that is because she wanted to be closer to Mommy nursing the baby.  I don't mind that.  I love being close to these ladies and will listen to them until they have talked my face off, just because.

(c)Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.