children

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 ...

My second child is approaching his first birthday, and with this milestone comes the excitement of new words spoken and understood. Also, as it relates to our bilingual ambitions, this age is my favorite because success is defined in a measure that is achievable for our monolingual household. It’s cheating, I know, but at almost one year old, my hijo is completely bilingual! Actually, just today, he said “más” and used the sign for more. I was ecstatic! I continuedRead 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 ...

My family loves to play juegos de mesa: from Candyland to Monopoly to dominó, it’s a chance to have fun as a family while speaking lots of Spanish. Some games that we love can be manipulated a bit to play in Spanish, such as Pictionary, Taboo and Scattegories. But here is a list of our favorite board games to play that encourage lots of communication and reinforcement of concepts, without the need to change anything or buy a “Spanish version.”Read More ...

I rarely make resolutions for the New Year. I tend to make them year round as I see fit, that way there is a better chance I will actually achieve them. And as far as New Year’s Eve, I was lucky to be awake anywhere near midnight as I’m so tired and just ready to have my second baby (due very, very soon!) But recently the SpanglishBaby team asked us what our resolutions were as they pertained to our kid’sRead More ...