I’ve been watching some of my favorite childhood movies lately–with and without my children–and have come to the sad realization that some of them have not withstood the test of time.  Mary Poppins, happily, is not one of them.  I popped it in the DVD player and felt some surprise that I had not already introduced my children to the movie.

I’d never watched the movie in Spanish before, though I remember my friends and I trying to say “supercalifragilísticoespialidoso” as fast as we could when I was little.  My boys and I watched it in Spanish and though I kept wanting to sing along in English, I was surprised at how much I liked the Spanish version of the songs and appreciated the creative lyrics, like “Al compás” for “Step in Time.”

I loved experiencing the Blu-Ray version on my huge TV–I definitely never watched it that way as a child.  That was a huge treat, as was watching my children finally get to experience “una de las películas favoritas de Mamá cuando era niña”.

The Giveaway!

We’re giving away one copy of Disney’s Mary Poppins 50th Anniversary Edition DVD to one lucky winner. All you have to do is leave us a comment telling us your favorite Marry Poppins song to sing along to. Then, enter the Rafflecopter below.

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I volunteer in my boys’ classrooms when I can, and we make a point of going to school events. One of my favorite things to do when it comes to school, though, is just hang out. They’re still young enough to get excited when I have a day off and can come have lunch with them in the cafeteria, and when I pick them up at aftercare on the early side, I like sitting with them and the other kids at the table while they finish writing and drawing, or wrapping up games of chess and Connect Four.

In the beginning, I got a lot of strange looks from their classmates — because I would sit down and chat with my sons in Spanish. The confusion, though, immediately gave way to curiosity and I was peppered with questions. What language is that? Is that Spanish? I didn’t know they spoke Spanish. Where are you from? Do you speak any other languages? And they listened attentively to my answers. The boys and I only speak Spanish at home. I lived in another country when I was a little girl. I only spoke Spanish with my mother. My job is helping people who speak different languages understand each other. I learned French, too, in France and in Africa.

The part I didn’t expect, and the part I love the most, is that after the questions the floodgates open and I get to hear all about their experiences. My parents went to Costa Rica once! I spent the summer in Russia with my grandparents. I learned my numbers in Spanish in preschool. I love listening to them, and I love building on their questions. Okay, let me hear your numbers. Did you learn your colors, too? Do you know how to say “school” in Spanish? And on and on we go.

In their eyes, I have become The Mom Who Speaks Spanish, and I like it. There are a few children who I know speak at least some Spanish at home, and I’ve taken to only speaking Spanish to them, as well. I think of the adults who encouraged me when I was little and I wonder if some day it might make the tiniest bit of a difference. At the very least, I hope some of them might get excited about languages.

I was walking out of school one day last week and one of the second-grade boys came running after me. “Mrs. Lane? I forgot to tell you the other day that my grandmother used to be a Spanish teacher.” I smile at him and start asking questions. Do you know what grade she taught? Did she teach it in grade school or high schoolers? That is so cool, I’m glad you told me.

I am The Mom Who Speaks Spanish.

{Photo by woodleywonderworks}

A few weeks into their third year of Spanish school, the day I knew would be coming sooner or later finally arrives. My son has figured out that going to school on Saturday is for the birds. Several Saturdays in a row, I listen to his litany of complaints. It’s like having six weekdays! I’m cutting into his weekend! The complaints wear me down — or rather, countering them wears me down. I trot out some of my usual selling points for Spanish. How wonderful it is to speak a second language. How not everyone does. How he can go to school in Costa Rica someday if he wants to. I appeal to his highly developed mathematical side — he gets 32.5 hours of schooling in English every week, but only 3 hours of Spanish.

The complaints subside and I drop the boys off at school without incident. I have no business complaining about the logistics of Spanish school — it is close to home, cheap, I get three hours to myself. But Spanish school often comes at the expense of other activities — swimming lessons, soccer leagues and birthday parties often seem to be scheduled Saturday mornings, so they’re not an option.

This morning, the whining gets me down and I am tired and grumbly. It doesn’t help my mood that on this particular Saturday, Spanish school conflicts with an event my other son — who has not complained once about Spanish school — desperately wants to attend, because his teachers have been talking about it in class. There is a story festival in our town where there will be a raffle, book readings, signings and the like, but it is a morning event that ends exactly one hour after Spanish school does. We rush to the festival, but by then the raffle is over and the authors are starting to pack up their books. I had noticed earlier, though, that the last activity of the day would be in Spanish, so we locate that room and step inside.

I forget about our struggles over Spanish school. From the flier, I had understood that the activity would be a reading of stories by children’s author Lulú Delacre. I had not understood that she would be there to lead the activity herself. As I sink into a chair in the back of the room, she leads the children in a round of Arroz con leche. Then she reads from “How Far Do You Love Me,” and my boys are mesmerized.  She has them guess what places the pictures in the book might represent, and my geography-loving children cannot stay quiet. They eagerly shout out the names of countries and continents, and I smile, shake my head, and briefly flash back to their full-time special education days, when talking was so difficult and their teachers used creative techniques like snacks and swings.

We are given a copy of the book and the author chats with us warmly as she signs it, and compliments the boys on their participation.  We talk briefly about raising bilingual kids. It blows my boys’ minds that their book was signed by the actual author. I can’t believe that in only half an hour, my lousy mood is gone and I’m feeling happy and inspired again. After the book reading, the children made bookmarks saying “how far” they loved a loved one. My boys wrote theirs in Spanish and presented them to me.

I know inspiration won’t always be there when I need it. But that day, incredibly it was. And on days it isn’t, well, I plan on laminating those bookmarks and keeping them where I can look at them.

Overall, I am generally quite pleased with everything my husband and I do to further our sons’ bilingual education. But I am the product of my parents’ efforts to raise my brother and me bilingual, and occasionally I can’t help but compare my efforts to theirs. When I think of everything they did for us, I am keenly aware of two things. One, with all of our modern conveniences, we have it much easier. And two, they made way more sacrifices than I have.  Sacrifices that I did not think about much then but that I am keenly aware of now

We have a wealth of books, movies and music in Spanish. Most of it I am able to buy quickly and cheaply online. When I was growing up, there was one bookstore that sold books in English. They were not cheap, but when our parents took us there, money was never an object.

We Skype the tíos every weekend–or whenever we feel like it. Often on a mobile device from our patio.  My father called his parents in California twice a month, because the cost of a phone call was so prohibitive. When he did, it was such an event that he took notes during the call and we all had fun discussing them around the kitchen table afterwards. When I went away to college, my parents also called me twice a month. Calls were half an hour long–maybe thirty-five minutes long if we threw caution to the wind.

My children attend an English-speaking school, not a dual-language immersion school–though granted, this is mostly because of their special education needs. On Saturdays, though, I send them to our local Spanish school–which is inexpensive and five minutes from our house. I do not send them to the one with the excellent reputation, which costs five times as much and is far away. My parents sent us to a private school so that our high school diploma would be recognized in the U.S. and we could go away for college if we wanted to. Initially, they could only afford it because my father took a teaching job there, in addition to running the family business, so that we would receive a tuition scholarship.

My parents made sure we visited the U.S. regularly. I do the same with my children. And I suppose here, I do make a bit of a sacrifice. I am a freelancer, so I have to work like a fiend before and after our trip, and I take work with me so I can justify the time off. But I am very grateful for cheap ticket prices. While helping my mother clear out old papers, I found the receipt from the travel agency when we moved to Costa Rica in 1980 and my jaw dropped–the prices were way higher than what we pay now.

Even when I grew to love French and applied to spend a semester abroad and didn’t tell my parents until I had my acceptance letter in hand, they sold some business equipment to make it happen. I am humbled whenever I think of that.

I suppose you could say their efforts paid off. My brother and I both need both languages every day–I am an interpreter, he is still in Costa Rica and works for a U.S. company. We both grew up able to communicate with both sides of the family.  And in moving to another country when we were still children, my parents gave us a solid foundation in both languages and cultures, whereas the very idea of packing up and moving to a Spanish-speaking country is so daunting to me that I refuse to entertain it.

My parents never said, “You’ll thank us for this someday,” but I do silently thank them. Often. I am grateful for their sacrifices. And I keep them in mind when things seem difficult. Because really, I have it so very easy.

{Photo by Katja Koller}

My brother lords it over me when we are growing up: I was born in Costa Rica and therefore can never become President of the United States, but he can.  He was born in California, and in our minds, when we are 8 or 9, being President is a realistic goal. And it is an enviable one at that. The U.S. holds a mystique for us — we love the music, the surfer slang, the brand-name clothing, the fun treats and gadgets we don’t have access to in Costa Rica in the eighties.

*****

My father, a staunch Democrat, pulls us out of school so we can go hear Dan Quayle speak at the U.S. Embassy. A few months later, we go back to hear George H. W. Bush speak. I get out of trigonometry. My own political views are still muddled and taking shape. We wave American flags. All these years later, I have tremendous respect for my father for believing that listening to what our leaders have to say is important, regardless of one’s own beliefs.

*****

I see the President of Costa Rica walking down the hallway of my high school one day. I walk up to him and shake his hand, and it is no big deal.

*****

I wear my blue-and-white school uniform to the acto cívico and march in a parade on el 15 de Setiembre. My parents help my brother and me make our own lanterns for the desfile de faroles the night of the 14th. I go stand in front of my Spanish teacher when called and recite el Himno a Juan Santamaría, el Himno del 15 de Setiembre, el Himno a la Anexión de Guanacaste. We have a well-thumbed copy of Lo que se canta en Costa Rica at home for reference. At school, we change the words to the songs to make them funny.

*****

I always feel beyond privileged to walk past the U.S. Capitol Building on my way to work. I always get choked up when I look out the window of the plane and catch my first glimpse of my Costa Rican mountains. I’m always comforted by the familiar routine of the Immigration official in Dallas or Miami stamping my U.S. passport and saying, “Welcome home.”

*****

My parents take us to the U.S. Embassy on the Fourth of July. We eat hot dogs and have sack races and are surrounded by English speakers. I take my sons to the Costa Rican Embassy for el quince de setiembre. The place is loud, small and crowded, exactly the kind of place I avoid taking my autistic, noise-sensitive sons.  And it’s the only place where I make an exception and ask them to go anyway. It is important to me. We eat arroz con pollo and tres leches, and I have an overpriced Imperial.

*****

I don’t register my own children as Costa Rican citizens, for the sole reason that I know if I do, getting them out of Costa Rica after our yearly trip will be a hassle involving trámites and an autorización and timbres. I have heard about it from friends, and have been advised against doing it by airport officials. My boys have until they are eighteen to do it, which sounds good to me.

*****

I fill out long forms and am interviewed for security clearance. I am asked questions about my dual citizenship. I have chosen the United States, I say. My children were born here. My  home is here.

*****

I hear Sting, Peter Gabriel and Tracy Chapman perform at the Human Rights Now! concert, my very first one. My next concerts are Alejandra Guzmán, Luis Miguel, Ricardo Montaner and Ricardo Arjona.

*****

I go to a bar in my mother’s beach town with my husband and am immediately pegged as a tourist by a man who is trying to sell us something. I finally show him my cédula de identidad and he brings it down quite a few notches.

*****

My brother tells one of my sons that if he becomes a Costa Rican, he can go to school there someday. He starts to cry. Mama, ¿no soy de Costa Rica? I try to explain that it’s a formality, and that I am Costa Rican, which means that he is, too, but my words carry no weight. He is not buying it, and I end up feeling guiltier than I ever have about just about anything. I consider just filing the paperwork at the Registro Civil and dealing with the autorización.

*****

The woman at Migración tells me to get in the shorter line for nacionales next time. I don’t have a Costa Rican passport anymore, I tell her. Mine expired at least two decades ago and I’ve never renewed it. No importa, she says. She turns my U.S. passport around so I can see it, and points.Place of Birth:  Costa Rica. Aquí dice.

{Image by  macsflickr}

Editor’s note: We continue with our 31 Days of Reading in Spanish. Check out the book review below and don’t forget to enter our weekly GIVEAWAY of $100 worth of books in Spanish! This is the last week, so you have until July 31 to enter.

BOOK DESCRIPTION/REVIEW

We all know and love Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, right?  So I don’t have anything to say about the story itself, but I asked my sons to pick a couple of their favorite books for me to review, and this was one of them. I will say, however, that the translation was done by the wonderful Teresa Mlawer. Her Spanish rendition of the story flows beautifully, and remains true to the spirit of the original. In fact, it is quite possibly my favorite book to read out loud to my boys. ¡Que comiencen los festejos!

   BOOK DETAILS

   Title: Donde viven los monstruos

   Author and Illustrator: Maurice Sendak

   Ages: 4 and up

   Publisher/Year: HarperTrophy 1963/Translation 1996

   ISBN: 0-06-443422-2

   Price: $15.27 on Amazon.com

Editor’s note: We continue with our 31 Days of Reading in Spanish. Check out the book review below and don’t forget to enter our weekly GIVEAWAY of $100 worth of books in Spanish! This is the last week, so you have until July 31 to enter.

BOOK DESCRIPTION/REVIEW

I’ve found some children’s books in Spanish that are so beautiful they take my breath away. I spend a small fortune on them…then many of them sit on the bookshelf, unread, until I eventually concede defeat and get rid of them in a fit of de-cluttering.

Froggy y su papá is not one of those books, but it fits neatly in my new philosophy when it comes to children’s books: I don’t care what my kids are reading, as long as they’re reading. And one of my sons has latched onto the Froggy series. I found this one at a yard sale, and it’s been such a hit I’ve picked up a few more of the books. If you’re familiar with the original, the text is repetitive (with lots of yelling, “Frooooggggyy!”), there are fun sounds — ¡toink!–¡ta-chán! — that we love to yell out loud together. It’s Father’s Day, and Froggy drops his father’s breakfast, bonks his father on the head while playing mini-golf, and makes a hole-in-one. It’s not one of those books I would covet if I saw it at the bookstore. But my son adores it — and what’s more, his Spanish reading skills have improved remarkably since we started reading this series. And that makes Froggy okay in my book.

   BOOK DETAILS

   Title: Froggy y su papá

   Author: Jonathan London

   Illustrator: Frank Remkiewicz

   Ages: 3-7 years

   Publisher/Year: Scholastic/2004

   ISBN: 0-439-76557-9

   Price: Varies (Used copies on Amazon; $3.71 in Scholastic’s Club Leo)

In my father’s grand tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving in April — or whenever else he felt like it — he and I didn’t celebrate my birthday in May. We did celebrate it with cake or maybe a family gathering. But I always got my big gift, the one I looked forward to all year, in July.

Back in the eighties there was only one place to find books in English in Costa Rica — where I grew up. It was called simply The Bookshop, and it was small, unassuming, and staffed by friendly English speakers. And every year, in July, they had a huge sale. My father would take my brother and me there for our “birthdays” and we would emerge, after what seemed like hours, with piles of books. Money was never an object, and I understand now how important it was to my father for us to have access to books in our minority language. It was the place that introduced me to Enid Blyton, Madeleine L’Engle, James Herriott, and countless other authors I remember fondly from my childhood.

I realize now that I had total control over what my boys read when they were smaller — and I always, always read to them in Spanish. Books I found in Costa Rica, Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss translated into Spanish, and my favorite, lots and lots of children’s poetry, some of which I remember my own mother reading to me when I was little. For quite a while, in fact, they were literally a captive audience — their cribs were crammed in a room so tiny that I could sit between them and read to them that way.

Once they were able to read on their own, though, that all changed. They simply did not want me to read to them out loud anymore, period. They were giddy with their ability to pick out books and read them themselves, without my help. For the most part, I’ve been letting them, and I spend their reading time with them while reading myself.

The books they choose, however, are almost invariably in English. While they read, they chitchat about what they’re reading and we talk about the books in Spanish. But I’ve recently realized two things when it comes to reading around here. One, even though we have shelves full of books, my boys can be pretty predictable and they read the same ones over and over. Two, they’re outgrowing their collection of books in Spanish and I haven’t done anything about it. 

So this spring, I’m taking action. I’m going to try to be merciless and get rid of the picture books they no longer want to read. I’ll also be more selective when it comes to book shopping — I won’t buy books just because they happen to be in Spanish, as I’ve done in the past. And, most importantly, my boys need to be involved, and it needs to be fun and exciting for them, as it was for me.

We’ve started to do some online shopping together, and although it’s not quite as fun as browsing in the bookstore, it’s working out really well. I can also target their narrow interests. For Primo, it’s snakes, sharks and math; for Secondo, it’s airplanes and trains. After a quick Google search the other day, Primo and I found a beautiful hardcover book, Serpientes y Reptiles. We ordered it together, and counted down the days until it would arrive together. Secondo and I just tracked down a book called Aviones Comerciales, which he is beyond excited about.

My sleepy toddler who listened raptly to the poems of Gabriela Mistral and Carmen Lyra has been replaced by a gangly first grader, who shoves his book in my face so that I can fully appreciate just how scary the picture of the black mamba is. But he’s reading, and he’s reading in Spanish, so I’ll take it.

{Photo by sean dreilinger}

It’s spring, which means it’s IEP season again. Time to get together with a team made up of my boys’ teachers, special education teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, the school psychologist and a school administrator or two and reevaluate the school year. We will talk about how much progress my sons have made in reaching the goals we set for them last year and decide on new ones for next year.

This year, only half an hour has been blocked off for each meeting, but when the boys transitioned into a regular-education setting in kindergarten, we were there for almost four hours. I’ve left some IEP meetings feeling pretty good about things; once, I had to pull the car over on the way home afterwards because I was crying too hard to see the road.

Either way, these meetings are intense. I’ve realized that I find them draining because really, the meetings are mostly spent discussing what are euphemistically called your child’s “areas of need.” This is logical: the areas in which your child needs support need to be broken down in detail in order for him or her to continue to receive the most appropriate services. There’s also a section called “present levels of performance,” in which the child’s strengths are listed.

But even when there’s so much good, even when you feel encouraged by how much progress your child has made, talking about your child’s needs in such detail can be exhausting. Especially when you add it to everything else that’s already going on — behavioral issues, emails to teachers, calls to see if the child psychiatrist has had any cancellations because you urgently need to see him.

Last week, I participated in a SpanglishBaby LIVE hangout on bilingualism and children with special needs. Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz, a fellow mother of a special-needs child, said something that particularly resonated with me because I’ve often thought the same thing: There are many reasons that I think learning Spanish is great for my children, but given the many challenges they face, one especially cool thing about it is that it gives them something at which they excel.

A few weeks ago, I picked the boys up at their Saturday Spanish school and their teacher wanted to speak to me. She was having a hard time keeping them busy, she explained. They finished their work quickly and she couldn’t get to them while she was busy helping other children. She wanted to move them up a grade. She had already spoken to the second-grade teacher and it was a done deal, if I agreed to it.

Read more: How to Raise Bilingual Kids with Special Needs

As I expected, my change-averse boys balked at the very idea at first. I tried to play it up, and even after I promised that they could go back if they didn’t like it after they’d tried it, they were skeptical. After the first class, though, they changed their tune.  They couldn’t get over the fact that in their regular school they were in first grade, but at Spanish school they were now in second grade. They loved their teacher and gleefully showed me the plastic figurines they’d used to learn about animals. And I was tickled when they bragged that they’d learned all of the pronombres personales, singular and plural, and proceeded to recite them to me. I never heard another word about wanting to go back to their old class.

As they get older, some things get tougher at school. Other children are increasingly aware of their quirks and when I visit the school they’re not shy about asking me about them. For now, they’re more curious than anything, but I worry about teasing or possible bullying to come. But also for now, Spanish school is their safe place, a place where there’s no pressure, no IEPs. And I love that, and am very grateful.

{Photo courtesy of Kim Lane}

Watch our SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout on Bilingualism & Children with Special Needs:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atqgFndE53A

In Costa Rica, I was always known as gringa or macha (Costa Rican speak for blonde), and my very American-sounding name was mangled every which way when I was growing up. Then I moved to the U.S., and my name was suddenly easily pronounceable, and blending in was much, much easier. I loved it. I don’t like drawing attention to myself — I can be shy, I’m not a natural-born storyteller at all, and although as an interpreter I often have to stand up and speak in front of large groups of people, I’m speaking someone else’s words for them and that somehow quiets my nerves considerably.

Early on, in fact, one of the most difficult things for me about raising my sons bilingual was that I was constantly calling attention to myself. Whether I was chatting with my boys at our table at a restaurant or yelling for them across the park, I was out there every day speaking to them in Spanish, and that sometimes made people stop and stare. It made me hugely self-conscious at first — it was less a matter of caring what people thought and more a matter of simply being uncomfortable with the attention. So I put my blinders on and ignored it all.

Slowly, though, I’ve started to embrace it. I can’t actually remember an instance of anyone reacting negatively to our speaking Spanish when we’re out and about. People are generally nice, and interested in hearing more about bilingualism. Older Latina women, especially, are often really tickled when they realize that my two towheaded boys speak Spanish. I’ve even met several Costa Ricans in my neighborhood. In every case, they’ve approached me after hearing me speak to my boys — they’ve pegged me as a fellow Tica from my accent. Whereas once I might have kept quiet, now I often start conversations with people if I can tell they speak Spanish.

I even unintentionally started dressing my boys for the part. A couple of years ago, they each received a red- and yellow-striped soccer jersey from their uncle, lest they forget which soccer team to root for. I immediately decided that with the bright colors, they would make perfect airport shirts, and now I often have them wear them any time we’re out where there will be a big crowd. We’ve struck up conversations with immigration officials. Security guards. Two British Airways pilots. A Costa Rican gentleman in Miami who wanted a picture so he could post it to Facebook and show his nephew. A guy on the Metro who was from Arizona and knew a whole lot about Mexican soccer teams.

And so on. I never would have imagined it, but being adamant about bilingualism has brought me out of my shell. And it’s been an unexpected, wonderful side benefit.

{Image by National Assembly For Wales / Cynulliad Cymru}