Not Bad for a 1-year-old in first 5 weeks of a new language

A lot of you have asked how Matteus is doing and is he learning English. At first, we tried to communicate in the limited Swahili we'd learned from Didier to make the transition easier for him, but some of the early English phrases he learned and used in proper context (that I started teaching him in Congo) were "up, please" and "more, please", "OK", "cutie pie" and "I love you."

Here is some of the vocab he picked up pretty quick in the first couple weeks:

- "Tooth Brush"

- "Moto Train"
- "Moto Truck"
- "Mama moto-car" (this is #1 on the list as far as usage)

- "Cracker"

- "Milk"

- "Book"

- "Cat"
- "Dog"
- "Food"
- "Thank you"
- "Church"
- "Owie" (as he shows us where to kiss to make it feel better)

How is it going lately? Maybe the best way to answer is by sharing some things he's said in the last couple days:

- "Momma, I need my shoes"

- "I'm gonna get you" (his favorite game of tag/tickle and first long phrase)

- "Try and get me" (when it's your turn, pronounced "trawn-gimme")

- "Momma, Watch" (which is repeated many times)

- "Look" (which is also repeated many times)

- "Christ-a-mas Lights"

- "Christ-a-mas Tree"

He can mimick the ring tone on my cell phone and will come to me mimicking it to let me know that my phone rang. There are so many words he understands, it's really amazing how quickly he is learning. You'll have to forgive us if we can't help posting video footage of our 1-year-old cutie pie   

Matteus counts to ten

Now I know my ABCs

Layton brother duet "Jesus Loves Me"



I think the shorter Layton got distracted by a moto-car :)