We woke up here Sunday morning to powdery snow. It was beautiful, but I covered my head with the blankets again. I long for Spring, warm breezes and nesting baby birds.  Aye. The snow has mostly melted, but it’s still freezing here in the Boonies. And, I am beginning to think of myself as Jack Nicholson [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

Please, oh please, do yourself a bilingual little flavor and get Dan Zane’s latest album: Nueva York. Downloaded it last night and we’re bailando today. From his web site: “This CD is the sound of my band and I working with our Latino friends here in Nueva York. While the conversations about who should and [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Mami made an iMIX for Maria.We’re sharing.Be sure to listen to the bilingual Walkin’ the Dog by Dan ZanesEnjoy!

I imagine this weekend a whole lot of celebrity elite were sending gifts to the royal Latin blessings born to Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. Her father told reporters they’d already bought azabaches for the sweet twins, which no Latino baby should be without. Or at least no Caribbean Latin baby. Must ward away the [...]

I cannot stop speaking like Ricky Ricardo since we got back from Miami. Sorry. Anyway, let me tell you what I learned in the last month Maria was not in school: There is good reason we blame Mother for everything. If this child does not grow up to speak fluent Spanish it is, indeed, my [...]