Notes on the bilingual process - 22 months!

My little Hudson Guy is nearing his second birthday, and he is slow with his verbal expression but at no loss to make himself understood.  He is certainly fascinated by words, and is probably starting to recognize more clearly the differences between English and Spanish, at least judging by his need to have certain books read to him in English by Papá and certain books in Spanish by Mamá.  Here are some of the words he is currently fascinated with:

Practicing sounds and words with his puzzle

Last night while playing with his toy helicopter he had me repeat the word "aspas" over and over and would try to repeat it.  He could not quite get the consonant combinations and stuck mostly to his adadada variations that are common in his current speech, but he would very clearly point to the helicopter blades, try out the word, and intently watch my face while I said the word.  He loved it.  He has done similar things with fun sounding words like "luciérnaga" and "buho", and loves hearing other animal names like "delfin" and "manatí" that he tries to imitate.  He thinks the word "zapatillas" is hilarious, and there are others that crack him up that aren't coming to mind right now.  He'll listen to the word, crack up, and then stop suddenly and look at my face and point to whatever it is he wants me to say, waiting for the awesome sound.  It goes on forever.

Hudson's toddler babble is getting more complex and creative and sounding like crazy gurgles and gronks, and he wants to try out every word.  He is getting great at identifying letters now that we have refrigerator magnets for him to play with.  He can easily name "A", "O", "B", "P", "X", "D", and can point out, even if not produce, many others.  It's so exciting to watch. 

Language production, as I said, is a bit slower with him than with many other toddlers I have seen who have many word combinations and sentences that he's not close to producing, but I'm pretty sure that from the little I've read, our Hudson is not beyond the realm of normal.  He is great at using his signs to make his needs known and even if there are many objects that have the name "ma" or "mo", the context always makes it clear.  For example, if he goes to the coffee table and says "mo" he clearly wants to watch some coins spin, but if he goes to the kitchen and says "mo" he clearly wants juice. 

It is exciting to be in a phase where every day something new happens.  I sometimes get home from teaching late and have only two or maybe three hours if we're lucky to spend together speaking Spanish, but we have the weekends, and I'm very excited to see what will happen over the summer when he's in a fury of language acquisition.  We're hoping to some day get into a rhythm of summer travel and regular visits to Spain, so that will keep Spanish alive for all of us, not just Hudson, but for now we are continuing our experiment with OPOL.  I really try to stay Spanish-only, and sometimes Ben will read to him in Spanish too, so hopefully this experiment will have some awesome outcomes.  And I'll continue investigating bilingual opportunities in the area for our family, and to share with all the other padres bilingües out there!