Eli has had some confusion when it comes to languages. The other day he had this whole complicated talk with me after I told him that his little friend probably speaks Ojibway. First of all, he got this mixed up with Marcus' name and has occasionally called him "Subway." Then he talked to me about people speaking "Goshen," meaning, I think, English. Oh well, we'll keep working on it. In Goshen he did seem to have the concept of Spanish and English down, so we'll work on the idea of more than 2 languages. (I do have to note at this point that one time Eli did say "Gracias" to a friend from Nepal after she served him some food. Like I said, we have to work on the idea of languages beyond the 2 that are most familiar to him.)
While I'm talking about language, I will cautiously report a conversation that just took place between Marcus and Eli. Like I said earlier, Marcus doesn't seem to know English well. I gave them both some peach-flavored water to drink. Eli told him it was peach water. Marcus repeated, "Beach water." Eli said, "Peach juice." Then Marcus, not understanding, said, "Beach stupid. Stupid beach." Eli had no idea what kind of language Marcus was repeating and I quickly intervened and told him, "Talk nice, Marcus." So we'll continue to monitor their playing together. He seems like a gentle, loving boy who has seen and heard way too much.
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