American in Spain

Recently I have been witnessing one of the things I was most looking forward to as a parent, the bilingual language acquisition of my daughter. You can say “Where’s the table?” or “¿Dónde está la mesa?“, and she’ll point right to the table. The same works for her anatomy and toys. In fact one of the best tricks I’ve discovered for keeping her occupied while I sit on the couch is to say, “Where is [object not currently in this room]?”, which prompts her to run off to verify that whatever is in its place. Every day I try to teach her a little more vocabulary. Yesterday was “elbow” and “knee”; today was “couch” and “TV”. But what really amazes me is when I ask her about stuff that I haven’t explicitly taught her, and she knows what I’m referring to. That’s what really blows my mind.
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When I took Nora to her 18-month doctor’s checkup, the doctor asked questions like, “Does she do X?”, “If you give her Y, does she do Z with it?”, etc. Beaming with paternal pride, I was able to answer yes to all of them…until he said, “If you give her a pencil and paper, will she draw?” I had to answer, “Probably, we’ve never really done that,” as I plummeted down the rabbit hole of “I’m a terrible parent” guilt.

When we got home, I gave her a pen and paper, and she scribbled away like a tormented artist. She seems to slightly favor her right hand, but she’ll scribble with her left as well.
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