Daily Blog

My family has always celebrated Thanksgiving, and as long as I remember it has marked the official start of the holiday season. Last year, I wrote about how mi familia comes together for the holidays, and how it makes for a crowded and busy time. Now that I have a family of my own, we alternate holidays with each side of the family, allowing our kids the opportunity to form memories with everyone in their large, beautiful, diverse family. It’s not always easy.Read More ...

Raising bilingual children is what brings us together as a community here on SpanglishBaby. The world of language immersion is not win or lose; as parents, we simply strive to expose and enrich the lives of our children. And doing so in a mostly monolingual culture is no easy feat. It takes plenty of motivation, dedication and, sometimes, the willingness to accept a Spanglish result. However, what sets our individual stories apart are the experiences that unearth our motivation toRead More ...

Every year during the Autum season, Mexico is host to one of the most impressive and mysterious wonders our natural world has to offer: the southern migration of millions of Monach butterflies (mariposas Monarcas) from Canada to the central regions of Mexico. This migration is such a wonder and a spectacle that the UNESCO has designated Mexico’s Santuario de la Mariposa Monarca a World Heritage Site–one of the 31 sites in Mexico, which boasts the most World Heritage sites inRead More ...

Editor’s note: During the next few weeks, we’re going to be doing things a bit differently here as Ana and I concentrate in meeting the deadline for the forthcoming SpanglishBaby book. We hope you bear with us. Because we’ve been around for almost three years (wow! when did that happen?), this week we’ll be sharing some classic posts from when it all got started. This post was originally published on January 3, 2011. Last week, Chelsea Kyle shared on our Facebook page an excellentRead More ...

Before Vanessa started preschool a couple of months after she turned two, I often wondered how she was going to survive for four hours surrounded solely by English. I worried that others would think she had no manners because even though she already understood the concept of “gracias” and “por favor,” she knew nothing about “thanks” and “please.” I explained the situation to her teachers and they reassured me everything would be fine. You see, up until then, her lifeRead More ...

Editor’s note: During the next few weeks, we’re going to be doing things a bit differently here as Ana and I concentrate in meeting the deadline for the forthcoming SpanglishBaby book. We hope you bear with us. Because we’ve been around for almost three years (wow! when did that happen?), this week we’ll be sharing some classic posts from when it all got started. This post was originally published on February 3, 2009.  In most parts of the world, beingRead More ...

Editor’s note: During the next few weeks, we’re going to be doing things a bit differently here as Ana and I concentrate in meeting the deadline for the forthcoming SpanglishBaby book. We hope you bear with us. Because we’ve been around for almost three years (wow! when did that happen?), this week we’ll be sharing some classic posts from when it all got started. This post was originally published on February 2, 2009.  It Can’t Hurt I never really questioned whetherRead More ...

Before I married or even had children I decided that my children would be raised bilingual, English and Spanish. Spanish was my first language. I grew up speaking Spanish to my grandparents and other family members. I watched TV in Spanish and could read most things in Spanish. Through my school years I would speak mostly English but never hesitated to use my Spanglish. As I grew older and started working, I realized how important it was to be bilingual.Read More ...