our secret language

For a while, speaking Japanese felt like a long uphill lonely road. At times, I felt sympathy for Tesla while mommy babbled away in weird sounds since there was zero context to reinforce what I was speaking. I had quite a few blank stares, not of simple boredom, but of bewilderment ... of her seemingly saying, "what are you trying to communicate, dear poor mama. you are a strange being indeed."

A little after her 2nd birthday, when I sensed that trying to explain my disciplining to her in Japanese, such as "you can't do this because of that," was utter frustration for both of us, I relented and started mixing in English. There was a shift. We could communicate better, and this worked for us. I worried that I was being too lax, and letting in that she could get away speaking English with me. English grew so naturally for her. I had to consciously target certain words I wanted her to learn.

I remember when learning French, there were spikes and plateaus. There were moments I felt all of a sudden words flowed, like pieces of a puzzle settling into place. Then I'd stall, for weeks or months, where I couldn't retain new words and made the same mistakes over and over.

I'm understanding that this is similar for T. And after a long plateau, these last few weeks have been a growth spurt in Japanese. English too, but I'm noticing and celebrating the Japanese because it's more work. She easily repeats what I'm saying, not because I ask her to, but because she just does so. And I can rattle off sentences and she seems to get it. I'm not hearing sentences from her yet, but she gets so much more than before.

I bought a Ponkiki video (the characters have a blog) when in Japan. She loves loves loves dancing to it (making us crazy). She can repeat the dance movements, but also is starting to repeat the song parts in Japanese.

Then tonight, as I carried her to bed, we sort of chatted in Japanese. I could be wrong, but I think she now feels we have our own secret language that is special. As we lay in bed together, I said, "mama Tesla daisuiki yo." She grinned and said it back. So worth it.

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