Working on the Bookshelf page

When you create a book on Little Lexicon you can choose a theme. Here are a few of the options.

The idea

About a half year ago, just after my second boy (little man) was born (winter of 2013) my older boy (big man) started saying his first tentative words. It was a total mish-mash of the two languages (Czech and English) that he is immersed in. We were super proud. 

It was also about this time that he developed a nearly unhealthy obsession with the city public transport system. Every day for his morning walk he would point to the bus stop and say "Bufu! Bufu!" This being obvious to us, we would take him to catch the Autobus, as they say in Czech. A few weeks later my mom, who is from Texas and needless to say does not speak much Czech, came for a 3 week visit. She assumed some of the daily ritual duties as grandmothers are wont to do and during these morning outings would be hamstrung by the request (more like a demand really) of "Bufu! Bufu!". She didn't understand what he was asking for and so when she went in another direction with him. This naturally lead to a complete two-year-old-style meltdown. Upon returning she recanted the story to many chuckles. 

Then it hit me. This was going to happen a lot. 

Less and less once he became fluent in both languages surely, but until then there would be many cases where he might know something in only one language. Even now almost a year after that there are times when he asks Děda for something in English. A word that Děda doesn't know.

Over Christmas break last year I built a simple prototype to see if my family would use it. They did surprisingly! Despite all the bugs, I found that they would check the word list and make comments about it later on in person. It was funny to look over all the silly mashed potato words that made up my son's very first vocabulary. The best part however is that now I can look back and remember all those little ephemeral fragments that otherwise would already be lost in the tumult that is parenthood.

Dandelion seed memories.

In the years to come we can all look back and giggle about "spabach" (spongebob) and "strawbadoodies (strawberries).

Continual Amazement

I am continually amazed by the amazing bunch of people who are working to produce content, and share their wisdom on the topic of childhood bilingualism.

I spend the better part of this morning just exploring blogs on the topic, looking for some insights into how to make the Lexicon a more useful tool for parents. Wow is not an adequate statement.

There are dozens of writers, bloggers, researchers who have spend thousands and thousands of man-hours (mom-hours?) creating amazing content and doing amazing things. The best part is that they all know each other! What a great community I've happened into.

Once I filter through some more of these amazing resources I will post up a list. So many to look over!