Gerritt is not sure what to make of Ded Moroz (Father Frost)
He is not so scary after all! Gerritt dancing.
Some of the excited parents
Daddy & Sophia - pretty in pink!
The holiday table
Happy New Year everyone! I am so ready to be done with all of the holiday celebrations. Yesterday we've attended another Christmas celebration for Gerritt. This one was at his Russian daycare with a real Russian Santa (Дед Мороз, or Father Frost to be exact). All of the kids had to say a poem in Russian, which Gerritt couldn't do since he was the newest & youngest kid there. We did an English rhyme about teddy bear, but Gerritt didn't understand what was expected of him. Good thing, he got several presents anyways. There were singing, dancing, delicious tea & desserts, & all of the parents with flashing photo & video cameras. Sophia sat on Daddy's lap most of the evening & had a lot of fun watching the kids perform. She became the main attraction after Russian Santa has departed. All of a sudden, she was surrounded by the children who couldn't believe she was a real baby & wanted to touch her face, hair, feet or hands. Sophia was squealing with excitement.
My husband got concerned about Gerritt not fitting in since he seemed to understand Russian the least of all children. He even started to talk about moving him to an English-speaking daycare so he would not develop a low self-esteem since he was so behind in his Russian-speaking abilities. However, after some thought I've decided to give Gerritt more time. If we switch his daycare now, this golden opportunity to learn another language will be forever lost. It is my fault that Gerritt is not learning Russian as fast as the other children since I hardly ever speak Russian at home. Russian grandmother comes to visit only for 1 month twice a year so Gerritt's Russian language exposure is limited. He has had only Russian nannies since 4 months of age so, hopefully, he has some foundation already. Gerritt's nanny Tamara tells me he understands everything she tells him (go outside, go to sleep, time to eat lunch, let's change diaper, etc.), so all I need to do is reinforce it. We've actually started today. Gerritt, Sophia & I all went to a playground near our house this morning &, while Sophia was sleeping, I taught him how to say yellow, green, blue & red in Russian. I was surprised how well Gerritt could pronounce the Russian words, so maybe not all is lost! Tamara promised to give Gerritt & I some homework in Russian, & I am planning on buying a few Russian cartoons & books. The reason I didn't speak Russian to Gerritt were convenience (unfortunately, I am so Americanized, it is easier for me to speak English) & my fear of confusing him & possibly delaying his speech development altogether. Thankfully, I've come across this Baby Center's article appropriately titled "For kids, two languates can be as easy as one" recently. Apparently, children can acquire more than one languange simultaneously; bilingual children pass the language development milestones at the same ages as their monolingual peers; bilingual children quickly become more flexible learners making them more efficient at acquiring new information; & young brain is more plastic than older brain, making it easier to learn at an earlier age.
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