Roxana’s Blog

Although it has felt like anything but spring here in Denver thanks to all the snow we got the past three days, Vanessa was thrilled when I told her we were going shopping for shorts and dresses. While she loves the snow, I think that, like me, she’s just tired of having to wear layer upon layer of clothing! I must admit, though, that’s it’s pretty hard to go shopping for spring/summer clothes when it’s barely 30 degrees outside. InRead More ...

My daughter Vanessa is not a fan of the Lalaloopsy dolls because their button-eyes remind her of the movie Coraline, which she’s only seen parts of because it scares her to death. So I wasn’t sure how she’d react to the Lala-Oopsies we recently got from Walmart. Well… it turns out I don’t know my daughter as well as I thought!! I first gave her Treasure, the Mini Lala-Oopsy Mermaid doll you see in the photo above, which comes withRead More ...

  I have nothing against technology when raising bilingual children. Apps, online games and movies in Spanish are a great supplement in this journey — but they’re just that, a supplement. It is a mistake to think that just sitting your child in front of the television set to watch a show in Spanish or to let them mouse around with a bilingual computer game will expose them to the kind of vocabulary needed to become proficient in the minority language.Read More ...

“I’ll never shop any other way!” is what I said to my husband after I tried Walmart’s newest app. Although I don’t like doing it, I normally have to go shopping for groceries or household items with my children, which means it usually takes me much longer and I end up getting stuff that wasn’t even on the list. But with Walmart’s new Scan & Go iPhone app, things have gotten much easier. The new iPhone app basically allows youRead More ...

  My son Santiago suffers from second child syndrome. Have you ever heard of that? It refers to how most second children don’t get the same kind of attention first children get. It’s not like I’m neglecting Santiago or anything like that, I just haven’t done the same sort of things I did with Vanessa at his age. For starters, I’ve been working full-time since right before he turned one, which means I haven’t had nearly as much free timeRead More ...

Vanessa has been devouring the books from a children’s series called Junie B. Jones. So when someone told me some of the books in the collection have been translated to Spanish, I went searching to see if I could find them. And I stumbled upon something completely unexpected. I found the books, but in a place I honestly didn’t expect at all: Walmart.com. Did you know they have a HUGE selection of Spanish/bilingual children’s books? I had no idea and I mustRead More ...

There are a ton of things I miss about my birth country, but the food and the Pacific Ocean are probably the two I miss the most. The only way for me to solve this is to travel back home, but since it’s been almost two years since our last trip there, I have to settle for the “encargos” my mom brings with her to Denver every time she goes back to Peru. Through the years, the list hasn’t reallyRead More ...

I’m not a huge breakfast eater — unless I go to the French bakery by my house, which is run by a couple from the south of France who moved to Denver five years ago. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but the bakery is on my way to Santiago’s preschool and so I stop in there regularly to devour freshly-baked croissants and the best baguettes I’ve ever had outside of France. But one of the other reasonsRead More ...