Despite my desire to want to post this after I'm successful (well, that would defeat the point of the blog), I'm throwing this mumbo-jumbo goal out there.
It is my latest endeavor (ahem, intention) to teach Will French.
I have a little fear in sharing this goal before I make any progress at all, and that's hearing people say things like, "French? Why don't you teach him something useful, like Spanish?" Secondary to that would be people asking him to perform. "Make him say something!"
I suppose my other big fear would stem from competitive parents. "Oh, your kid knows French? Well mine picked up Mandarin Chinese and Spanish from her many tutors, and can play Beethoven's 5th...blindfolded." I am so not that parent, and those that are, are way out of my league. They are paying thousands of dollars in tuition...for pre-school. I, well, am not. And won't be. Ever.
My wanting to do this stems from a more basic desire to just...have that connection with my son. And to lay my fears about doing it to rest!
My own internal fears come from silly places--like my brain. I spent an entire course in graduate school studying second language acquisition, and it is essentially proven fact that the best time to learn language period is Will's age and yet, I feel sort of guilty for asking him, "Tu veux du lait?" when I know he would understand me and smile and answer me if I just said, "You want milk?"
And yet at the same time, when I say to him, "Tu veux du lait?" and he looks at me and says, "lay!" I am at first encouraged that this is okay, that I won't confuse the heck out of him, and then my secondary emotions kick in--the ones that offer me this connection to my son that no one else will ever have--this ability to teach him a language, to love language, to love words, to grow his mind--and I melt. And I know it's okay.
At the end of the day, I'm still his mom, and French or not, that will always be enough.
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