Justine.
I think what really woke me up from my blogging slumber was Roger finally setting the world right again. Or maybe just a coincidence in timing. Whatever, what’s important is I am able to write again. 
I won’t try to comment on a lot of the things that happened between today and my last post - there’s a LOT! So I’ll just try to remember some of them along the way. Right now, my time’s pretty much taken up by my kids, some new gadgets, and smidgens of work here and there… haha!
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Justine Pretty
So Justine is now able to converse with us, and no matter how we try to ask her to speak in Filipino, her first language - I think, sadly - is now English. As my mom said, baka nasa hangin ng Amerika yan. You can’t argue with that. And whenever we succeed in getting her to speak Filipino, THE twang is already there!
“Justine, sabihin mo ‘mabango ako’.”
“I’m bang-go.” Sounds like mango - with accent on the first syllable, as with almost all of her words.
“Sabihin mo ‘maganda ako’.”
“Ganda ako.” But to my Filipino ears, it sounded like “Gen-da akew.”
Note this though - I will try harder to make her speak perfect Filipino - not those Sam Milby-type Pinoys (kuno) whose sound grates my ears whenever I hear them say “Mahal ko kayew!!!” God forbid.
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Another note on Justine: as I said, she’s is now conversant. And a lot of times these days you’ll find me and Lian just look at each other with wide eyes. A few months ago while visiting some friends in NJ, upon waking up, here’s our conversation:
“Daddy, say please.”
“Please…”
“Please what ??”
Or this:
“Daddy, say Ate.”
“Ate.”
“Yeeeesssss?”
I don’t know where she comes up with those. And she has a lot of expressions that’s just funny to hear, like “Oh! My! Goodness!” or “Perfect!”, or “That’s awesome, Daddy!”. She’s always nice though, saying “Thank You” and “No, thank you” when needed, and her “Yes” has been replaced with “Sure!”. But the sweetest sounds of them all? She hugs me out of nowhere, saying things like “I miss you, Daddy” or “Happy Bestfriend, Daddy”, or “You’re a good friend”, or the best of them all: “I love you Daddy..”
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Upate 20080912: Tita Ces, I tried. I asked to say “Tita Ces”. She said “Tita Zuz”.
Ha,ha,ha!! Natatawa naman ako habang nagbabasa nito… can’t imagine kung saan nya nakukuha yung mga words na yun? wondrous….
please, please teach her to say “tita ces” already so she’ll know me (at least by name) when you come home.
Ate Cel said this on September 12, 2008 at 9:35 am
Hey! Kaaliw naman itong kwento na to…pero mga bata dito sa Pilipinas, ganyan din magsalita… I guess sa mga cartoons sa disney at nickelodeon nila nakukuha yung mga “kagulat gulat for kids” phrases na yan…
Maridor said this on September 14, 2008 at 5:45 am