Maria has started speaking. She says the words "emme," "adn," and "saia." "Emme" is, of course, "Mommy." "Adn" is "Justin." This was Anna's first word (and only word for a long time). "Saia" is bread in Estonian. Today, Maria was toddling around with a dry piece of cake in her hand saying "saia,saia." Very cute.
A year ago, Anna and I returned from the US. It was a good trip because Anna switched to speaking English with me. I am hoping she makes another jump when we are there in January. She still uses some Estonian expressions in English, to sometimes comic effect. In Finland, she told me, "Look, Issi, I am such a tubli laps, I ate all my ice cream." "Tubli laps" is hard to translate. It means something like "good child," but not exactly. Still, I understood her completely. Only we can speak this special mixed language.
Anna is also reading everything, signs, t-shirts, books, magazines, labels, license plates ... she just loves to read stuff. Marta has been reading her books, both in English and Estonian. Marta's spoken English is pretty good. One word she mixes up is "locks." In Estonian, "lokid" is "curls," and "locks" is an English word for hair, (Goldilocks, anyone?) but it sounds odd or archaic. Marta will say, "Look at my locks" and touch her hair. Technically, it's correct, but ...
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