M is for memories

I'm sure everyone on Facebook, including the great Zuckerberg himself, has a love-hate relationship with it. Some aspects of FB annoy me so much (top of the list is when friends of mine like their friends' photos that are publicly visible, bombarding my newsfeed with 209423804723 giant photos of people I don't know), while others are so endearing. Lately, my favourite has been the 'memories from this day' feature, which regularly pop up super old photos and videos of what was happening in my life on this date years ago. I was so thrilled when a photo of me from 8 years ago popped up and Viv remarked, "You look the same." Because Viv doesn't lie (no, not even to compliment), this really meant something.

What really makes my day are the photos and videos of Xena that pop up. Of course, I have every single photo and video of hers saved in my photos folder, but these 'memories' on FB give me a clear view of exactly how she was when she was 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and when I compare them to the now 5-year-old Xena, I can't believe how much she has changed.

A few days ago, this video popped up from the time she was 3. Other than the hilarity of the 'remixed' stories and the eight instances of 'suddenly', one more thing struck me, and not in a good way. I 'suddenly' realised that her Hindi was sooooo much better than it is now. Rather, she used to speak soooo much more Hindi compared to now.

Before we sent her to preschool, I used to talk to her in Hindi all the time. Because she'd be taking it as a subject in primary school, and her preschool only offered Chinese, it was important. However, we also wanted to make sure that when she went out there into the big bad world of preschool, she didn't pick up Singlish before picking up English. Not to mention the fact that English is a complicated language with more exceptions than norms. So we straddled both English and Hindi, and somehow she was turning out okay in both.

Lately, however, I hardly hear any Hindi from her, and this video supported that view. Even when I ask her something in Hindi, her natural response tends to be in English, until I prompt her. These days, I just say, "Kyaaaaaaaaa?" when she responds in English, and then she giggles and quickly switches.

I've also bought some bilingual books for us to read together and they have been a great help. I suppose that now I'm quite happy with her English (she still makes some mistakes, but they're so endearing I'm almost tempted not to correct them - "Mama, close the windows. It's raining so hardly!!"), I need to get our focus back on Hindi.