My little sister picked up a good bit of Italian from the neighbors she would play with.

At Christmas Mom told her to show our friend Joe what she'd learned and he blushed scarlet. Turns out it wasn't the sort of thing you'd expect from a three year old girl.

I had a teacher who spoke multiple languages, as did her spouse. If they wanted to talk as adults, they'd speak in something other than English. Unfortunately for them, they had smart kids who quickly picked the additional languages up from context. (Their eldest went on to a perfect SAT score. )

Yeah, my dad and his friends were never taught swedish, but learned enough to follow the adults' private conversation. He's lost most of it, though was surprised to find that he was unconsciously able to follow some swedish tourists' conversation one time. The minute he realized it and actively tried to follow, he couldn't. Weird.

But if only one person talks to you in boring language, and you know he doesn't have to, isn't it more likely to get you to rebel? Even if you're two?

Research suggests no. My feeling is, if you're two, how do you even work out he doesn't have to? It's not going to be the only way your dad treats you differently from everyone else.

There's a related thing here, it's common advice for parents raising a bilingual child that (assuming this is practical) each parent should speak to them exclusively in one language (so, for instance, I should speak to Ryan in English and Wallybee should speak to him in Chinese). The idea is for them to pick up that they're separate languages and learn them distinctly. However, while it makes sense, the research suggests it's unnecessary. Kids will experiment with mixing the languages anyway, and they will also work out the differences anyway.

We may still do something like that. It's an easy way for us to be sure we're giving him enough exposure in each language.

Hivemind question (aka, I'm scared to google) - if you are going to have a reaction to a flu shot, in what timeframe would that normally happen?

My feeling is, if you're two, how do you even work out he doesn't have to?

Well, the kid worked out resistance via not listening was an option, which certainly wasn't a choice I ever had with my parents. So something was going on.

Do you mean like developing flu-like symptoms? Dr. Google says 6-12 hours, but they should last 1-2 days

I got both the regular and N1H1 shots on Tuesday, so my current headache is not related. I guess that is good but was hoping I could blame the shots.

God, I'm totally obsessing about how to get to my interview tomorrow. The bus that goes right there doesn't run at the right time, and I'm only 75% sure I can actually walk from the other bus to the place. Oy.

Edit: Saved by Google Street View! Good times.

where is the interview, Jesse?

Edit: Never mind!