Kimberly Stevens Lane was born to a Costa Rican mother and an American father and was raised in both countries. She is the mother of four-year-old twin boys, both of whom have special needs and are in full-time special education programs. She has a Master of Arts degree in Conference Interpretation and is a freelance translator and interpreter in the Washington, D.C. area.
Secondo’s days of excessive repetitive motions involving toy vehicles are for the most part over, but he still has a tremendous passion for airplanes, buses, cars and trucks. The centerpiece of the boys’ room is a rug made up of an intricate design of roads, runways and parking spaces. It gets a lot of use, so I finally remember to throw it in the washing machine one day. I hang it up to dry, though, and forget to bring itRead More ...
We don’t go to the movies much…I’ve taken my boys to two sensory-friendly film screenings at our local theater and we didn’t make it to the end of the movie either time. So I tend to prefer watching movies on DVD at home, and we were excited to preview Hop, the story of E.B., a computer-animated, would-be Easter bunny, and hapless slacker human Fred. I enjoyed the plot well enough, and was especially amused by the appearance of David HasselhoffRead More ...
They’re much milder now, but my boys’ speech delays were so very pervasive for the longest time. We went from no speech to echolalia (our own speech parroted back to us) to practicing simple requests over and over and over. I was always somewhat amazed by other children their age when I heard them speaking on the playground, stringing together such complex thoughts so effortlessly. A friend of mine, whose daughter is two years younger than my sons, once askedRead More ...
Editor’s note: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this holiday season we asked all of our regular contributors – we’re up to nine! – to just send us a photo that expresses what the holidays mean to them for this collection of Bicultural Christmas Photos. What kind of photo would you have sent in? ...
As my boys get older, they’re more into books, elaborate building sets and Mama’s iPad, and have outgrown the babyish Spanish-“speaking” toys of old. That’s why I liked Ingenio’s Sounds Amazing cards. There are fifty double-sided flashcards, grouped into categories (our favorites were Transportation and Musical Instruments), which include a picture of an object (such as an ambulance), information about the object in English and in Spanish, and a bar code. Scan the bar code with the included wand, andRead More ...
¨Hurry up and put your shoes on,¨ I tell my son, “or you’re going to be late for Spanish school.” He stops fidgeting and looks up at me with a big grin. “Mama, did you know that for some kids Saturday isn’t a school day? For some kids, Saturday is a Mommy and Daddy day.” ************* We’ve made the decision to enroll the boys in Spanish school on Saturdays. Like most parents who are raising bilingual children, I worry aboutRead More ...
Ana
Roxana
Just two mamás raising bilingual kids
