A busy day.

Today we had adventures. Mel had us over for a yummy German lunch. She's scheduled to have the baby on the 25th, and Liam is growing more excited by the day. He keeps saying, "Mel, baby, soon?"

You will have a new friend very soon, Liam.

We also visited another friend today... Suri. Liam went to Suri's house, and we played with a lot of toys he recognized. We also went for a walk around Suri's neighborhood. On the way home, he fell asleep in the car (and in fact is still sleeping). Even in his sleep though, he said, "Suri, Liam friend."

Too cute.

I was thinking about how we learn language. Liam uses mostly nouns, modifiers and verbs. Nouns are simple, verbs frequently in -ing form. He's getting pronouns and prepositions, but they are tricky. He rarely uses articles or prepositions, and they seem to be the hardest to learn. Perhaps it has to do with the way we learn language... pronouns and prepositions have complex, unexplained rules (ask any adult what a nominative case pronoun is, and they have no idea). Only with lots of practice and time, do we understand these rules.

Liam really is my very own experimental student when it comes to language. I think we must forget our first few years because we must be so confused during that time. I imagine going to Uruguay or Botswana, and not knowing a word of the language. To worsen the situation, everyone I know does know the language and they act like I do too. When I don't know a word, they tell me and expect me to remember and use the word properly in the future. Simply through context and some coaching, we memorize the use and meaning of every word used in daily conversation. It's amazing, really.