Thanks For Helping Us Make Babble’s Top 100

We were given some great news yesterday: SpanglishBaby made it to Babble’s Top 100 Mom Blogs of 2011.

We are honored and humbled to end an already blessed year on such a high note. And we have to thank all of you, our supportive community, for all the accolades we’ve received. Although the work is hard, your feedback tells us it’s all worth it. Thank you for believing in what we’re doing here and for helping us grow into such a welcoming community for all those who are raising bilingual and bicultural children.

But most of all, we’d like to take this moment to honor all the wonderful women without whom SpanglishBaby wouldn’t be what it is: our smart, engaged and totally dedicated contributors! Gracias chicas from the bottom of our hearts!

In fact, when you click on SpanglishBaby – #46 on Babble’s Top 100 list – you’ll see that under our favorite post this year we chose one from our very own contributor, Vanessa of De Su Mama. Her super personal post The Promise I Made To Raise My Daughter Bilingual was about how Vanessa’s abuelo made her promise to teach her daughter Spanish right before he passed away.

The post was heartbreakingly beautiful, but it also touched many of us because although we might have not made a similar promise, raising bilingual children is a matter of family and connection to our past and those we hold dear and near to our heart. ¡Gracias Vanessa!

The best part about our contributors is that each of them brings something completely different to this community. They each have a very distinct story to tell and they all come from different backgrounds.

So special thanks to:

— Chelsea, our Book Editor, who for the past few months has been compiling really awesome lists of bilingual and Spanish books for our children, writing reviews and posts about literacy that we have all been loving.

— Elsie who has delighted us all with her beautiful writing, provocative posts and touching poetry. You can also find her in her own blog, Mama Feminista.

— Susan who’s raising two trilingual boys (Spanish/German/English) using the OPOL method and this year spent several weeks in my home country, Peru, immersing her children in Spanish. Oh, and did I mention Spanish is NOT her fist language? We’re in awe of her.

— Suzanne another mom raising a trilingual baby (Spanish/French/English) and has been taking us through the process since before her daughter was born and she was researching the best ways to do it. Her daughter is a lucky little girl! You can find Susan blogging in her own space at Interpretations of a Bilingual Life.

— Kim who has shared with us many a personal post about raising her twin boys, who have special needs, bilingual. In doing so, she has showed us that the myths surrounding this issue and bilingualism are just that, myths. We appreciate her candor.

— Ericka, our Culture of Food contributor, who makes our mouth water every time we get one of her delicious recipes from her. Have you seen her recipe for Choco-Mint Christmas Cookies? They look absolutely yummy! I want some right now

— Tracy, our features writer extraordinaire and the mastermind behind the hilarious and extremely well-written Latinaish. She always, always comes through no matter what we throw her way!

— Ruby, of Growing Up Blackxican, a super talented mother of two who recently joined us and has been showering us with beautiful and not too complicated (thanks!) activities for our bilingual niños.

¡Mil gracias!