Tess is getting into words. Some come as no surprise (papillon which means butterfly and a-oo for avion/plane), but she’s left us speechless with a couple. She’s gravitating towards social niceties in French and English, which makes us obscenely proud…of ourselves.

To be honest, we’ve worried she’d pick up on four-letter words before phrases we actually want her to use. We’re not sailors, but the emotional use of curse words seems intriguing to little humans, so I’ve worried that stubbed toe moments would inspire her more than quiet kindness.

Imagine our surprise as we tallied up her current vocabulary:

À tes (souhaits)!

(God bless you!)

S’il te plaît

(Please)

Tank you!

Does not say this in French. No idea why.

Chat – cat. Everything that moves.
Pain – bread. She’s a carb-loader.
Papillon – butterfly. Saw them recently.
Avion – planes. Loooves planes.

Remy, Sassy, mama, papa/daddy

On the more realistic side, we’ve always used

Tant pis!

when she throws a toy, drops something, or makes a bad decision. It means “too bad/you’re loss!” Yesterday, Remy dropped his toy on the floor and waited to see if I’d pick it up for him. (No, I would not.) Tess and I looked at each other while I contemplated his arrival in her arena. She calmly said,

Tant pis!

Oops. I don’t know whether I’m proud or embarrassed that that’s what she’s taken away from our parenting tactics.

Needless to say, we’re all waiting to see what her extensive jabbering in a French/Asian-sounding direction will translate into when she gets more language, but we’re entertained and relieved by what she’s starting out with.

Remy has decided to advance like crazy in the last week. He went from almost confidently sitting to pulling himself up on the crib and cruising. On a mission to keep up with Tess! Smarter parenting happens with kid 2: we dropped his crib to the lowest rung this weekend. He’s still shorter than Tess, but as she did the great leap out of bed in December, we’re leaving nothing to chance for the little man with the giant head.