If you took a foreign language in school, do you remember the first time you actually thought in that language rather than your first language? Do you remember ever dreaming in your second language? I remember that happening in Spanish and American Sign Language both, and they were pretty exciting milestones.

My son Caleb, has hit some of those milestones. When he talks in his sleep, I have noticed he no longer does so in Chinese, but rather in English. He no longer thinks first in Chinese and then translates his thoughts into English to say what he wants to say. English is the language he is thinking in these days. However, instead of pure excitement, there is sadness as well...because he is losing his Chinese.

I knew it would happen. Research points to this end again and again, but I was going to be one of those parents who would defy research. No matter that we tried it with Micheline and Haitian Creole and failed. She was only 4 and delayed in her native tongue, and I was nowhere near fluent enough to help her keep it. She still understands some simple Creole phrases that I use daily, but for the most part has lost her first language.

I had determined it would be different with Caleb. After all, you can't find movies on e-Bay with Creole dubbing like you can Mandarin, and I was only able to find one website with Creole written materials for children, and their offerings were pretty bleak. With Caleb, however, we have Chinese materials on CD, the internet, DVD's, VCD's, Rosetta Stone language materials, books, even Chinese TV.

Caleb reads Chinese books daily, listens to music in Chinese, and watches movies in Chinese. He doesn't have anyone, however, to speak with in Chinese on a daily basis. As a result, his comprehension still seems to be intact, but his expresive skills are fading fast.

Just last week, we went to breakfast to celebrate Alyssa's promotion from middle school to high school. As we sat at the restaurant table waiting forever for our food, Lynn asked Caleb the Chinese names for the colors of the crayons he was using on the kiddie menu. He hesitated as he answered a few of them, but then she asked him what the Chinese word was for "orange." Not a difficult request. He thought and thought and then thought some more, but the word just wouldn't come. He's only been home with us for 4 months, but something as simple as color words are starting to slip away.

You may ask, "What's the big deal?" After all, he knows the word for it in English, so the world won't end if he doesn't know it in Chinese. The fear is, he is heading down a road that many older international adoptees find themselves on..."a child without a language." They lose their first language faster than they pick up their new first language, and it contributes to cognitive deficits as they are unable to express themselves.

Next...why our children are learning a new first language, not a second language.

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