BK2 is a pentalingual 8 year old!

BK2 is 8!

We celebrated her second birthday in Switzerland by inviting a few of her friends to a party. As all the children sat down to eat, we realised it was a pretty multicultural/multilingual bunch. Check this out:

Child	Parents	Languages
BKs	Algeria, Germany	Arabic, French, German, Swiss, English
Boy	Australia, New Zealand	English, Swiss, German
Girl	Netherlands	Dutch, Swiss, German
Girl	Switzerland, Hungary	Italian, Swiss, Hungarian, English
Girl	Norway, Germany	Swiss, German, English, Norwegian
Boy	Spain, Australia	Spanish, English
Girl	Switzerland, Germany	German, Swiss

By virtue of living in Switzerland, nearly everyone speaks more than one language to some extent. But these children with their 10 nationalities and 10 languages are multilingual and multicultural. They live their diversity on a daily basis, switching between languages all the time inside and outside.
And we love that!

BombFire night

Every Autumn, the English celebrate Bonfire night, or as my four-year old girl appropriately calls it, BombFire night.
Fireworks can be seen and heard all over, from the end of October, culminating in huge bonfires and firework displays on the 5th of November: Guy Fawkes Night.

Incidentally, our third daughter was born on the 5th of November. So for the last two years, we have been celebrating her birthday with fireworks in the garden. How cool is this?

I choose to believe that the whole of England celebrates my daughter's birthday, rather than an obscure failed coup some 400 years ago!

So happy birthday to my bonfire child!

Multilingual Toddler

BK1 woke up crying at 4 am, complaining of an earache. It turns out her nose was so congested that it hurt her ear!
While I was tending to BK1 in the room she shares with BK2, I heard BK3 in our bedroom leaving her own bed and climbing into ours.
BabelDad: "Meine Süße"
BK3: "Du schlaf. Mama."

BK3 was 2 yesterday. She is officially a multilingual toddler :)