I found out I was pregnant when we were in the process of moving from Belgium to South Africa. Pretoria was meant to be a 4 year stop. Little gosling was born there, but until 6 months he only heard Romanian. Then, I went back to work and he spent eight hours a day with an English-speaking wonderfully warm, cheerful and very chatty Zimbabwean nanny. At 15 months, he started daycare in English, again eight hours a day. By 19 months we had moved back to Belgium for professional reasons and he started attending a French speaking nursery. 

Before we left South Africa we realised that although little gosling heard only Romanian when together, he responded much better to commands and instructions in English. When we relocated, I felt regret at letting him lose the budding English and we decided mommy should continue speaking to him in English, daddy in Romanian and he would have French at school. And we would speak Romanian together. So far (he’ll turn two in two weeks), so good. 

His first word was “apă”, water in Romanian. The second one was “light”. And he used it a lot; I recall him vividly having us switch on and off every light in the house, over and over again, with him in our arms. And that was it for quite a while, until 18 months or so. 

I had read that kids exposed to more than one language start speaking later. According to one of the apps I was following describing monthly baby milestones, he was slower on the speech development ones. I used to compare notes with colleagues from mixt families and bilingual babies and it always seemed theirs were progressing faster. The apparent speech delay was not something that bothered me, but it was something I was following very closely. 

The more so as I had made efforts to speak to my baby constantly, since forever, to read and sing to him, to help with his speech development. I remember reading that advice when the baby was just born, wondering what does one tell a newborn, but I quickly found my words and always chatted away, commenting and describing everything I was doing (had a very detailed nappy-changing script , among others) and all that was around us. 

I had interiorised very well the fact that every baby is different. And something I had read about not worrying about speech delay before baby turns two. His pediatrician also did not seem concerned at all. He was 100% perfect to her. 

When he was 19 – 20 months, I wrote down the words that he said (to compare it against the app ): “ca” => car; “ta” => star; “ba” => ball; one; “sa” => sun; “outsa” => outside; up; “dow” => down; “fa” => flower; here; there; “sos”=> socks; bum; eye; wash. Most of the words were in English. I assumed the three weeks he spent at home with me before he started nursery in Brussels were responsible for this. The two words that came out in Romanian were “bebe” for baby (I used to call him simply that for a long time) and “apāti (a picat)” for “it fell”. 

When he was 20 months old, we spent an entire month with his grandparents in Romania. I could sense my parents’ uneasiness at little gosling understanding English (which they don’t speak) and appearing oblivious to Romanian. By the time we left them, their communication with the baby was fluid and smooth. His vocabulary in Romanian got richer. At 21 months and a half, after one month and a half of nursery in French, he started saying his first words in French. He was so funny the first time he said yes successively in all three languages “yes.. da.. oui”. Thereafter, from 21 months +, he’s been amazing us with the amount of new words he says every day. 

Mixing and combining languages is one of the perks of raising a multilingual child. Sometimes, it’s easy to get the new words, by their sound or from the context. Other times, we need to figure out first the language and then the word . Lots of trial and error involved, mostly fun, but occasionally quite a source of frustration. 

It happened already once to me that I was unable to understand what he was requesting or figure out the language. I tried asking questions, pointing to different things around us, nothing worked. He kept repeating the word in a more alarmed and frustrated tone each time, looking almost beggingly at me, and I became more and more frustrated as I could not figure out a way to understand. I picked him up, hugged him, apologised and distracted his attention. Terribly frustrating ..But it won’t be the last time this happens, I suspect. 

English is at this stage his primary language, by far. Romanian next and only a few words in French, at this stage. However, from the nursery they told us he understands everything. At least that was the case before the coronavirus lockdown, three weeks ago. As for use of words, he tends to use the language in which he first learnt a notion; occasionally, the language used is attached to a special occurrence; rarely, he uses the words in the two languages (English and Romanian) interchangeably or at the same time. 

For many months, he identified the dog with “ouf ouf” in both languages. Only recently he started referring to it in the Romanian version “ham ham”, as well.  He never says dog or cățel. The cat is always “pis” (“pisica” in Romanian). The sheep is always “ba ba”; although he knows the words for it in both languages. 

Tree is always “pom” and fire is “foc” (in Romanian) – I assume because he still remembers when we dismantled the Christmas tree and his grandad put it on the fire. Eggs is always “ouă” – again, I assume it is because he was going with his granny every day to fetch the eggs laid by the hen. Water is still “apă”; have not heard him use the English word so far. The other day, we were reading a story and he heard “water lily” and he retained the word as “apă lily”. Hilarious! 

As for French, his very limited vocabulary so far includes words from (i) commands, generally mealtime related: “fini”=> done, when he’s finished his meal or any activity or “enco” (encore) => more, again, which he uses when he wants to get more food or repeat an activity; (ii) nursery rhymes (“bateau” => boat, “crocodile”, pronounced the French way). What happens is he comes home, says the word and the next day I ask the nursery staff whether they sing a song about it. How I know it is a song? He says it accompanied by some body movement . Then I come home, find the song on youtube and learn it so that I can sing it to him when he asks “sing that, mommy!”

I am very curious to see in time how he will evolve, but our guess is French will fast gain ground, once the lockdown is over and the nursery opens again. I have building serious stocks of reading and cartoons and spoken stories in English mostly and will plan long holidays with his grandparents for his Romanian. Being a failed bilingual kid myself (my mom dropped the second language, Hungarian, early on so that I could get along with kids in my community), I’m quite determined to make the best of the trilingual upbringing. Luckily, Brussels provides a conducive environment for this. 

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Little gosling had a phase when he was turning the pages straight to the Emperor penguins in Antarctica. He loved penguins. Then, after playing with a toy camel at his granny’s place, he would go to the desert page. After spending time in the countryside, collecting the eggs laid by the hen, he would look with interest at how chicks hatch from eggs. He laughs at the jungle page, where a parrot loudly shrieks “sqwak”, roars pointing at the tiger and makes me sing Culture Beat’s Karma Chameleon when he sees the chameleon, swinging his head from side to side to the rhythm. Also, it is the only book we have with bats and fireflies and crocodiles , and the lift the flap surprise at the end of the book generates excitement every time. 

Some weeks ago, we were naming animals and out of nowhere he points to the crocodile, saying its name with a different accent and starts clapping his hands . It could not be Romanian, there was no context for it. Thus, it must have been something he had learnt at the nursery. He’s been going to a nursery in French since last November. The next day, when I picked him up at the nursery, I asked whether they had been singing a song about crocodiles, and that is how I came to learn “Ah les crocodiles”, which we now sing as part of the daily round-up of nursery rhymes. Thank God for youtube !

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We started with the Easter themed one, which is easier (recommended for 2+). It took him a bit to understand what needed to be done and in the beginning mommy helped along, breaking down the illustrations into smaller pictures and asking about each item “is it here?”, but he quickly got the hang of it. He keeps playing the “is it here?” game on his own and almost chants “noooo” in reply . He found confusing at first to search for items depicting drawings or framed pictures of one of the characters, he was always pointing to the character, but he got it eventually. I was so amazed he could identify nuances of the same colour! And wow, what an observation sense and visual memory he has! These are great tools to help with that. 

The Easter book tells a cute little story about a chick, Piou-Piou, who loves Easter and dreams about becoming an Easter bunny when he grows up. He sets out to help the Easter bunny in painting the eggs and hiding them for the egg hunt. It is sweet, beautifully colored and a lovely introduction to the motifs and joys of the Easter holiday. Each double-sided page includes one para of text (in French) and asks kids to observe and find four items in the attached illustration: lots of decorated eggs, chicks, bunnies, sheep, birds, flowers and bells. Little gosling would ask to “read piou-piou”, brings the book, opens to the pages he wants and simply says “read that” and then he plays to finding the items. He loves finding the Easter eggs. 

The one with the seasons is quite a big format, but still easy to grasp for a toddler, and includes nine pretty double-paged illustrations filled with seasonal motifs, animals and happenings, two per season (three for summer). On each of them, kids are encouraged to identify seven items (animals, plants, activities) as well as observe what a cute little mouse is up to. There is no story, which provides so much space for story lines and language development, and the names of the items are written down (some of them, quite usefully so, with the book being in French). Again, I found this a useful, interactive introduction to seasons for my toddler. Particularly as for each season, one of the illustrations depicts the transformations the same garden goes through, in terms of tree foliage, colours, fruits, vegetables, animals. There’s a lot of information on these pages, without it feeling crammed. The favourites so far (love at first sight) were the depictions of a blue dragon-fly (“libellule” in French, “libelula” in Romanian – one of the favourite words, currently) and one of the spring illustrations showing toddlers enjoying a picnic “à la française“,  with different cheeses, baguette and strawberries. He stares at it and we inevitably end up enjoying together a platter of cheese, fruits and cashew nuts. What a treat! 

Little gosling keeps repeating the books – yes, he found all the items in both and when we go through them now he points to them in no time. But I’m already looking at other search and find books, of different sizes and different themes….

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“Lighthouse” is one of little gosling’s favourite words presently. He saw one in “The storm whale in winter” by Benji Davies and he keeps asking for the book “with Noi”and flips impatiently through the pages to get to the lighthouse. 

It’s the sequel to “The Storm Whale”, which we haven’t read.. yet. But it’s a heartwarming, easy to follow story nevertheless which speaks to the strong bond between a little boy, Noi, and his dad, to friendship, to gratefulness and to good happening to those who do good. When his dad is late from his last fishing outing before the winter sets in, Noi goes out to sea to find him; lost and scared, he is brought back to safety by the whale he saved months earlier. 

I bought the book in an airport bookstore (in a coastal city, precisely) more than a year ago. I liked the storyline; found the context (a single dad, a fisherman and a whale) quite singular; and I could not resist the cuteness of Noi and the whales’ baby faces. 

Baby was not very interested for quite a long time. I enjoyed reading the story to him notwithstanding. However, there was a time, he must have been 10-11 months old, when he would spend minutes looking at the depiction of the family of whales coming from deep sea up towards the boat in which Noi was sitting alone. On one occasion, I put baby down to sleep for the night and went out as a couple – a very rare occurrence. My parents were staying over. And luck has it baby woke up soon after we left and refused to go back to sleep. Only thing that managed to soothe him was the image of the whales, which he stared at for quite a while before moving on to play with his grannies for two hours more before we got home. Presently, he seems more attracted to the drama of Noi waiting for his dad and going out to search for him (thanks to mommy’s theatrical interpretation, no doubt) and to the lighthouse, of course.. 

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We have many puzzles, all wooden, the type that requires babies/toddlers to match the pieces to their respective shapes sculpted into the board. We have puzzles with animals, domestic and wild, with means of transport, dinosaurs and fruits, with numbers 1-10 and with the alphabet. 

Little gosling got them progressively since he was about 1. During a routine check-up with his paediatrician, he took interest in a big wooden farm puzzle the doctor had on a baby-size table in his consultation room, whilst we grown-ups conversed. Thereafter, we started hunting for puzzles in the children stores. 

We got one with dinosaurs – cute, lively coloured baby dinosaurs, first. He loved playing with it. I know nothing about dinosaurs and my conversation consisted in comparing them with animals, like the “swan-like dinosaur, with a long neck”, or the “chick-like dinosaur, hatching out of an egg”. 

Next, we found one with farm images, animals, a tractor. It had big pieces, with sizeable differences in shape, in theory, easier for babies to get right. It features a sun, though, which is harder to fit in. At first glance, it appears the rays would fit in any way, but it only works in one position. For quite a while, little gosling would get frustrated (and he’s quite vocal, short, punchy sounds) and ask for help to fit that one in. He lost interest in this one months ago. Too easy… 

Around 18 months we bought more. He enjoyed them so much and we found them an amazing educational and entertaining tool. He can focus on them for a long time, much longer than many other activities. We take our time to learn the attached words, maybe associate them to a song (in the case of the means of transport), to words (in the case of the letters) or the respective sounds (in the case of the animals). We tell him about the colour of the puzzle pieces, or facts about the animals or link the puzzle pieces to stories in his favourite books or to something he saw or did during the day.

The start is always slow, until he learns the shapes. He would do the same puzzle over and over and over again, until he can complete it without any help in no time. He must have a phenomenal visual memory – he was able to do the alphabet and numbers puzzles after one-two days, without knowing the letters or the numbers. 

Baby had a phase with one of his animals puzzle, when he would take either one piece (for days, the white bunny was the lucky one) or several pieces one by one and hide them, throw them under the sofa. It didn’t matter whether we saw him or not. He would then make a fuss about the disappearance. We played the game. When asked where the animal was, he would point to the place where it was hidden. We would take it out, happy sounds, and everything repeated. 

After Christmas, puzzles helped us pass the time of a two and a half hours flight. A bit heavy to carry, but worth it. We made a friend – a 3 year old girl was attracted by the puzzles and joined the game. 

The means of transport puzzle is currently a big hit. I guess that’s because we sing a song or a nursery rhyme for each of its pieces. Little gosling lost interest in doing the puzzle and instead holds up the pieces one by one and asks us to sing. Daddy is doing the car (“Vitezomanu’ Gica și-a luat mașină mică..”) and the bike (“Coana Mița biciclista a căzut….” – we’re now trying to identify an alternative poem or song to this), mommy does the train (“One way ticket”), the bus (“The wheels on the bus”) and the helicopter (I sing a song in German from a toy helicopter he got as a gift from his aunt in Germany: “Helikopter dass bin ich, kom zeig ein und flieg mit mir, es macht zo viel Spaß mit mir, ta ta ta ta ta ta ta); we do the boat together (“Barca pe valuri plutește ușor…” or the much more recently learnt “Bateau sur l’eau, la riviere, la riviere…” in French), the plane (“Avion cu motor ia-mă și pe mine-n zbor”) and the submarine (The Beatles’ “Yellow submarine”). For the rocket we do a launch sound and for the UFO we invent one. That is real family entertainment!  

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I got the Ladybird big book of “Favourite Nursery Rhymes” months before he turned one. I was looking for short poems to recite or sing to him before bedtime or when he needed soothing. Very soon he wanted to play at turning the pages. It’s quite a sturdy book and the pages can withstand some baby action, but his very young, uncontrolled and imprecise movements quickly made some victims. Nothing that mommy could not easily fix with some scotchtape, though. I would read the rhymes that most appealed to me. My favourites were the three little kittens who had lost their mittens and the owl and the pussycat who were married by a turkey on a faraway island. 

When little gosling was about 16-17 months, he started bringing rhymes from “school”. First one he asked for was “Baa, baa black sheep”. For months it was one of his favourites. He would come to me and ask “ba ba” or later “sing ba ba”, whilst moving the weight of his body from the left to the right foot and reverse. Then came “Mary had a little lamb”, to keep to the same animal family. Good thing one can listen to them on youtube to learn the melody. As a non-native English speaker, I was not familiar with them. 

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes” came next, exercise included. We do it together, facing each other, and never just once. This is a particularly entertaining one (at least for us, parents). He can locate the different body parts in the song, but struggles to keep up touching them with the singing of the song, no matter how slowly I sing it. He tries to anyway. He manages to sing and do the first and last movements of the verse (head…. toes…..eyes….nose). And he has fun throughout. 

“Incy wincy spider” followed. The idea of up-down and sun coming out was what retained baby’s attention. And now he asks for the song every time we encounter a spider in other books (“sing that”, he would say to me, pointing to the spider). 

“Hey diddle diddle” is the current favourite. He knows all the nouns in the poem, but none of the connectors. He wants to repeat it so many times, as if he wanted to learn it by heart. He listens carefully and, like filling in blanks, I take a pause and let him say the nouns: cat… fiddle…cow jump…moon…dog…(ha ha – cause I add wherever I can, funny sounds)…fun…dish… way (his version of “away”)…spoon!!!! The last word is always said with excitement, almost victoriously. 

He finds the sound of “cock-a-doodle-doo” funny. He’s so happy when he shouts “cock-a-dooo”!!! Then we play the same game, I recite it and he completes with the last word of each verse (shoe…. “fiddlestitch”…doo!!!). 

At “Two little dicky birds”, he likes the ample arm movements we do when we tell Peter and Paul to fly away or come back. 

He also has his favourite songs in Romanian – the one with the fox (“Vulpe tu mi-ai furat gasca” or “Oac, oac, diridiridam”) and he recently started bringing home songs in French from school. 

We have fun reciting or singing nursery rhymes. We learn words, repeat them, move around theatrically, add animal sounds, laugh a lot. They are also one of our tools to have music in our daily routine. 

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And pasta… pasta more, I think. Babies must be born Italians  :D. Anyway, I don’t remember when he first ate pizza, but by the time he was 13 months old, he was enjoying our whole wheat home made pizza. And today, pizza is our go-to home delivered food if we have to or the choice of restaurant for eating out (if fish and seafood are not available). We eat it quite regularly. I enjoy it with a bit of spicy oil or sauce on top and we always have some in the fridge.

Last time we had pizza at home, baby held out his hands to my spicy sauce. I explained it was very spicy (“ouf ouf”) and he would not enjoy it (some months ago, he managed to get a bite of a similarly spicy rice from my plate and he started crying instantly and pulling on his tongue out), but that for the next time, I would buy a sauce that was good for him. He accepted that. I subsequently completely forgot about it.

Today, his daddy made an incredibly tasty 5 cereal mix wheat pizza. As usual, I brought out the spicy sauce and spread some drops on a slice of pizza. Baby looks at me and I recite my usual explanation as to why he cannot have it. Without fighting it, he asked “buy sauce bebe?” And just then I remembered. I was half laughing half ashamed I had forgotten. So so amazed that he had recalled our conversation. He’s only 23 months old… I was so in awe of my little gosling. Daddy and I exchanged “wooow!” glances. I apologised to baby for having forgotten about his sauce (mind you, we could have even given him some of the tomato sauce with spices that we had used for the base, but we had just washed the bowl..) and promised again I would make sure we would have sauce for him the next time around. Daddy vouched for this, as a reinforcement. Baby accepted without discussion.

A couple of seconds later, baby looks at me with a serious face (as he had kept it throughout) and says “sad bebe”. More “wooow” glances exchanged. When did he get so self-conscious? When did he go from simple one or two syllable words to such a complex process, involving memory and emotional assertiveness? Once I got past my awe, I hugged him, gave him a loud kiss on his cheek (that is what we do when someone is sad), told him I understood that and that I was sorry.

I am so proud of my little gosling.. It is such an amazing journey to witness a baby’s development step by step, day by day. It makes one understand and appreciate things we take for granted. And it makes one so much more aware and mindful about own behaviours and reactions – we’ve become role models for a tiny human.

We have to be mindful now to have some sauce at hand on our next pizza day. We want baby to learn that we keep the promises we make and know that however big or small, we care about his needs and wishes.

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