A truly rewarding experience

It’s a truly rewarding experience for me as a mother to hear my son repeating some words I say and to see him with all his might trying to communicate with me using the words he thinks represent his thoughts. My son is not even 2 years old yet and his vocabularies are increasing everyday.

Though some words are not correctly pronounced and it is very hard for me to understand what he is trying to say, I never feel tired and frustrated attending to him. I will try my best to guess and listen carefully to what he says. If I really can’t understand him and he gets frustrated (with me), he will just guide my hand (my finger) to point to the items. When I finally understand, he will look at my eyes and give me a big smile. Both of us will feel very very satisfied that we finally understand each other.

Since my husband, my maid, and I speak different mother tongues, this situation has make my son confused and he is learning to speak mixed languages. In 1 sentence he can use words from 2 languages at the same time. For example: when he says “duduk (= seat) big plane” and at the same time points at a picture of passenger seats inside an airplane. What he meant was “Those are the passenger seats inside the big airplane.”
Another example is when he sees a baby crying he will point at the baby and say “baby nangis (is crying) ya.” But my son can understand all the languages, such as when he counts up to 5, he can count using both English and Indonesian languages.

At the moment, he is only able to say a sentence consisting of 2-3 words only. If a sentence consists of more than 3 words, he will just mention the middle and the last word. For example: I want to eat apple and banana. My son will say “eat banana” and at the same time he will guide me to take (both) the apple and banana. Today finally he is able to add the word “apple” into his vocabulary data bank though he pronounces “apple” as “bobob”. At first I really didn’t get what he means every time he says “bobob”. But when I see him pointing (or showing me) the apple and saying “bobob” at the same time, then I understand him.

Some words that he can say them correctly are “big, plane, car, birthday cake, fish, goldfish, mommy, daddy, kongkong (grandpa), iyang (grandma - indonesian), kakung (grandpa – Indonesian), juice, bob (bob the builder children show), jojo (jojo circus children show), nangis (cry - indonesian), duduk (seat - indonesian), banana, dua (two - indonesian), bus, udah (finish - indonesian), abis (no more - indonesian), dude, kaikai (take a walk – Chinese dialect), spoon, and, clock, bobok (sleep – Indonesian), baby, book, boy, daddy’s car, minyak (oil – Indonesian), eek (pass bowel motion – Javanese Indonesian), bau (smelly – Indonesian), buang (throw away – Indonesian).”

Other words that are difficult to pronounce (according to him) will have new pronunciation which are close enough or sometimes too far they become completely new words invented by him… J When he says these words, I really can’t hide my big laugh (but I have to hide my big laugh though so that he doesn’t feel insulted).
For example: tempeh (Indonesian fermented soya bean cake) will become pepeh. Tempeh is his favorite food, by the way.
Other examples: jambu (water apple – Indonesian) will become babu. Balloon will become berun. Porcupine fish will become badabada fish. Circle will become kiko. Crayon will become keyan. Milk becomes miec. Drink milk becomes nenen. Eat becomes mamam, water becomes onyo onyo (this one he has invented it since he was 8 months old). Everytime he says onyo-onyo, I always correct it but he prefers to stick with his own invention… J There are more words but I just can’t remember them.

Wow, it seems only yesterday I gave birth to him and got frustrated when I couldn’t understand the meaning of his crying. Now suddenly I have a partner to communicate and an entertainer that will follow me every where I go. Isn’t it wonderful?

It really does a rewarding experience for me to be able to see him growing up and pick up new skills everyday right in front of my eyes. I love you my son. I truly do.