Signs from the Universe via NPR

I was making picadillo tonight — a Cuban ground beef dish — while la nina was playing with her blocks. On NPR, a Cuban-American woman was delivering an essay about how hard it is to teach her children Spanish all the way up there in the Boston suburbs. Seems we’re both from Miami. I, however, now live in wooded seclusion in Tennessee. No hay muchos Cubanos aqui tampoco.

How odd that on this stormy evening, when I hadn’t made picadillo in weeks, have been fretting daily about not speaking enough espanol to la nina, and have been working like a mula to sell bilingual baby tees, I hear another mami expressing the same fears — our kids won’t understand, won’t speak Spanish.

So, it’s a sign perhaps that I’d better keep selling the tees and I’d better habla un poquito mas el espanol.