My own little Everest

This cannot possibly be as cool to anybody else as it is to me.

I have been reeeally discouraged for the last, oh, year, about the progress, or lack thereof, of Anna's Irish. Mind you, I believe she understands everything I say, but she wouldn't ever use it with me. We have always had bilingual conversations in which I speak Irish to her and she replies in English, minus the odd Irish noun tossed into an otherwise English sentence.
"Mommy, can I have some bainne?" (milk)
"I'm not tuirseach." (tired-adjective, I know)
"Look at that puiscin!" (kitten)

I was just about to get downright depressed about it. I knew many people at the University of Toronto who had been raised with their parents speaking something else to them (Mandarin, Arabic, Bengali, you name it), but they always answered in English. They all reported understanding the parent language but being unable to use it themselves. I did not want this for my girls! I wanted them to SPEAK it.

Not wanting to give up, I tried to find ways to be more proactive. I joined an online group for parents raising their children with Irish (to which my brother-in-law said, "Wow, there really is an online group for EVERYthing."). I've gotten some great ideas and most importantly, encouragement, from other parents in there. I sought out Irish blogs to read, worked on my own Irish blog more which was surprisingly helpful, and made the general daily effort to be as exclusively Irish speaking to them as possible. In some literature I got from another parenting resource in Ireland, when it is only one parent seeking to pass on the language, it is recommended that that parent uses the language exclusively with the children. Ouch, I said to myself. Not possible, but I'm trying!

WELL! It has happened! Finally! Anna started using it with me all the time and I am simply ecstatic! That is part of her motivation I'm sure, that she has seen it gets her approval and some big mommy smiles, even when she might have been about to get in trouble. (no, it doesn't get her out of trouble, try as she might).

I don't think I can communicate why or how thrilled I am at this, but it feels so huge to me. Growing up in purebred mono-lingual anglophone Midwestern USA, bilingualism seemed so exotic, foreign and untouchably elite to me. I never imagined it for myself (even though I am not calling myself fully bilingual yet, since I'm not fluent at all in Irish) and to be passing it onto my kids is just thrilling. It feels like I have conquered a huge personal mountain.

Cool. :)