Brellas and Bubbolo

Ethan's vocabulary has been expanding rapidly. A few words he's still confusing include not saying the 'um' of umbrellas (I think because he doesn't say 'a' or 'the' before most words (as in 'Ethan two bicycles') and 'um' sounds like 'a', so it comes out 'brellas'). The other day when he was riding on his bicycle (ok, one of his two bicycles), he started shouting 'choo-choo train!' I thought he meant that he wanted to line two bikes up and make a train, but it turned out after some more arm waving and bike pointing that he meant 'training wheels' (hearing the train of training I guess). Meanwhile, I think he thinks that trains have three different possible names, 'train', 'choo-choo train', and 'Thomas'.

The other morning we were getting in the car and he kept saying "bubbolo?, bubbolo?". "Bubbles?" I asked. No, he shook his head. "Describe it", I asked him, but he just said "bubbolo? bubbolo?" again. Eventually I figured out that he was trying to say the name Roberto, a friend we were going to visit. Pretty cute.

The kid actually has a great ear for music and words. He blew me away the other day when he sang the complete ABC song. One month here, and he already knows his ABCs. Well, sort of at least -- he has no idea what he's singing, but he has the names of the letters and the tune at least.

The friendliness I saw in Kazakhstan is also coming back. He loves waving to complete strangers at the store or at school and shouting, "hello!". One father at the school mumbled something the other morning to the effect of, "Wow, he's got a lot of energy for so early in the morning". Yup.