awareness

This week our darling "Abuela" (grandmother) is here visiting from Bilbao. Liam is finding it hard to remember a lot of his Spanish and since he doesn't have the fall-back that he has with his dad (who understands English when he slips into it), he's feeling frustrated about not being able to say everything that he wants to say....

Mummy: Spanish, Liam, say it in Spanish. You know that Abuela doesn't understand English

Liam: [tone of frustration] I know!! But I can't remember all the words!

Mummy: That's ok but keep trying...

Liam: [tone of blame] You know when I forgot the words? Remember when Lorcan had the "pupa" on his lip and you and Daddy went to Barcelona with him for a long, long, long, long, long, long time? And the doctor fixed Lorcan's "pupa" but you didn't come home for days and days and days and days and lots and lots of long, long days? Well, that is when I forgot the words!!

We were gone for just over two weeks and, although he still understands Spanish perfectly and speaks quite a bit, he's right, those two weeks of unfortunate separation form all spoken Spanish left their mark :( He's getting better by the day though, thanks to Daddy, Abuela and lots of stories about "piratas", "animales", "dinosaurios" and "aventuras" of all kinds.