Just words?

"I'm not going to wake up him!"

"Where I should put this?"

A. is speaking like an ESL student. I don't like it. I want her to take that final leap into perfectly constructed grammar. I hear her friends at pre-school, so I know this isn't just typical 4-year-old language development. This is the result of a child constructing sentences in a new language.

Not that she hasn't pulled off an amazing feat. She has. In less than one year, she has all but mastered English. It's not surprising that she doesn't have perfect language skills.

So why am I always correcting her these days? What's my issue?

I'm thinking about her in kindergarten in September. I don't want her to stand out, to stand apart. It's my ego, I know, but there it is.

Because looking at her, it's obvious to no one that she's adopted; I don't want her way of speaking to tip off the world. I'm not ashamed of her adoptive status, I simply want her to have the freedom of telling or not telling others her story. Because it's her story and she should be able to tell it when and how and to whom she wants.

Right?