Suzanne Garcia Mateus is the proud mami of a one-plus-year old little girl whom she is ambitiously trying to raise with three languages. Her research interests as a doctoral student in bilingual and bicultural education and life experiences growing up with Mexican immigrant parents inspired her to create a blog, Interpretations of a Bilingual Life, in order to better understand the rich nuances that living with multiple languages offers.
Twitter: trilingualbaby
As soon as the Doc McStuffins video arrived and I opened the box I was super excited to see that the main character, Doc, was a woman of color. My daughter, who is almost 3, has been noticing the color of people’s skin and I have been starting to wonder if she’s timid around darker skinned people or if I am misinterpreting her reactions. I have also noticed that most of the people she interacts with are white so itRead More ...
When should academic centered schooling begin? This has been the question I have been grappling with for weeks. My daughter is not quite 3 and was accepted to a private dual language school for this coming fall where academics and inquiry-based learning is at the heart of what they do. This past January is also when we switched her to an “English school” where a play curriculum is at the heart of how children’s curiosity is nurtured. She is emotionallyRead More ...
The verdict is in! Our daughter was accepted into the private dual language school I wrote about last month. The question now remains whether or not she will attend. We decided to start the lengthy application process because we wanted to have options. In fact, she remains on several rotating waiting lists at several daycare centers around town because one never knows. Before making our decision, there is a still a reflective process my husband and I need to goRead More ...
Baby Trend seems to have designed a car seat that is perfect for all parents, but in my opinion, they definitely had the first-time parent in mind. With my first-born we got a car seat that wasn’t as user-friendly as the New Inertia Car Seat. Not only were we able to easily secure this new seat in our car but it offers an ergonomic design tailored to fit baby comfortably. In fact, the multi-grip carry handle and overall lightweightRead More ...
Recently my husband and I decided to go through the process of trying to get our daughter enrolled in a prestigious and private dual language school in our city. I honestly did not imagine having to go through what seems like a rigorous process this early on in her academic trajectory. She is almost three, which means she qualifies for the primary school grade classrooms. We learned that there were a limited of spots (~30) with over 125 applicants! WeRead More ...
Since we have moved our daughter from a Spanish immersion daycare to one where English is spoken 100% of the time, we have noticed a few interesting things happening. We have noticed that she will try using English phrases, like “get a diaper, please” in response to our Spanish request, “Agarra un pañal, por favor.” In fact, she frequently uses the following phrase, “No, mami es… I’m sorry” in response to my “lo siento.” This kind of dialogue extends toRead More ...
Ana
Roxana
We are two Latina moms – best friends since college – who are extremely passionate about ensuring our children not only speak both our languages, English and Español, but that they also grow up proud of both their cultures, Latino and American. Over three years ago we realized there's was a lack of information available for parents raising bilingual + bicultural children, so using our background in media, we launched SpanglishBaby.
