Daily Blog

This week, my daily news surfing brought me to this article from NPR about the unclear future of the Spanish language in the U.S. The author, Luis Clemens, challenges the idea that the growing number of Latinos in America automatically means there will be more Spanish speakers going forward. Those of us in the middle of child rearing in more than one language are familiar with how much work and conscious planning it takes to achieve the end of producingRead More ...

Disclosure: We’re working with Hallmark on a series of posts for Mother’s Day for which we’re being compensated. As usual, all stories and opinions are our own. Time and motherhood definitely play the biggest tricks on you. Just when you think you’re wise enough to have it all under control, a little being comes into your life to let you know that there’s still a whole lot of inner work to be done and lessons to be learned. I trulyRead More ...

One of the greatest perks of being a blogger is all of the connections and new people you meet that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Since starting here at SpanglishBaby my network of other like-minded bilingual parents has grown and we have all been able to connect on different levels yet at the core is desire to raise our children speaking a second language. A few months ago I received an email from a fellow Latina mamá who had been readingRead More ...

“Es igualita al papá,” most will say when they meet my daughter and realize that her mischievous expressions, accompanied by a cynical laughter, are almost a complete replica of her dad’s. Much to her papi’s delight, Camila loves to tell and be told a good joke and is already on her way to being a very creative prankster. I, on the other hand, wasn’t born, nor did I ever cultivate, an outwardly funny bone or jokester attitude. I can’t rememberRead More ...

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 wasRead More ...

It’s always fun to see the benefits of bilingualism laid out in a colorful infographic like the one below I found on UnivisionNews.com. Monolingual VS Bilingual infographic ...

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 ...

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Dec. 7, 2009. On occasion, we re-publish older posts that we deem are still relevant to ensure our new readers are exposed to all of our content.  Although sometimes I long for a few minutes of silence, the reality is that I love the fact that my three-year-old daughter, Vanessa, talks non-stop. Her vocabulary in Spanish is extensive and I know it has to do with the fact that I’ve talked toRead More ...