One of the most beautiful sentences in the English language:
“It is now safe to turn on your electronic and hand-held devices.”
iPod on the plane! iPod for La Nena, actually — an expert flier who travels well but can color only for so long.
Before every trip we’ve taken for the last three years, I load the [...]

click to enlarge. it’s worth it.

So ya, se acabo the school year. What a delight. Maria got to sleep in until 8:30 a.m., and I myself didn’t roll out of bed until nearly 8 a.m. It is Saturday, but I hope the trend continues. We both have been dragging. And, while I am all warm [...]

There are some wonderful things about living in The South — magnolias, croaking frogs and green hills. And, “Thank You” cards. People still send them regularly and oh happy me, look at the one I just got:

“Grasias Pel Webos!”

Which translates from a 5-year-old’s phonetics to “Gracias por los huevos.” (Thanks for the eggs)

The note of [...]

Two of my favorite and dearest friends in Nashville are German. The next time I see them, I have an experiment to conduct. We will shout out words in Spanish and German, consider whether they are feminine or masculine and talk about how those words make us feel, what characteristics we would give them.This NPR [...]

…can be easier said than done for some of us.If you’re not a regular reader over here, I give some background and tips today over at Spanglish Baby,  everything from using free podcasts to spraying my Tennessee cubanita with Agua de Violetas.I told you a couple of days ago, how cool Spanglish Baby is. I hope [...]

A reader recently sent me a note about a book she discovered and enjoyed with her granddaughter, a nena much like my Maria. A fancy one.
I looked up the reviews and decided to add it to our Amazon store. The book also is on its way to my house, where we’re all about spinning skirts, [...]

“Mami, some people don’t speak Spanish.”“No, they don’t, Maria. Pobrecitos, huh?”“Yeah.”
So, I’m making a bilingual snob. Poor things who don’t speak Spanish, I tell the kid. It’s really about my brainwashing her to continue her learning. I’m trying to keep us from going back to the days of: “Mami, I don’t speak Spanish, I don’t [...]

The summer break is nearly here and Maria and I have been thinking about all the cool things we’re going to do — play in the creek, ride our bikes, learn to embroider. She’s going to attend a music camp for a week and we will go to Miami to see the familia.
As much [...]

We are in recovery from Spring Break here today. The casa and the office are “de patas p’arriba,” so this is a brief love note and referral.
A couple more Spanish learning podcasts to add to your playlists: Voices en Español and Cody’s Cuentos. (I included some others in a post here last week.)
Voices is a [...]

It is mid-March and there’s a slight panic building about my slack-ass ability to keep pace this summer with Maria’s phenomenal progress in learning Spanish. The espanola she hangs with all day is very proud of her and tells me so as she wrinkles her brow at me and my slack-ass-ness. She is gentle about [...]