Posts from the “Trivial Occurrences” Category

Unbreak My Heart

04/17/10

I’m an optimist by nature and the medications I’m taking only enhance that virtue. People who know me understand that behind my wry, deadpan sense of humor and my unperturbed, stony face beats a heart made of marshmallow that expects from life nothing short of rainbows and clouds made of cotton candy. So I harbor the hope that my kids will love their Colombian culture so truly and deeply that they will make an effort to make Spanish a constant part of their lives. But I’m almost 34 years old and having my mushy marshmallow heart torn apart or set ablaze in a bonfire time after time has added a healthy dose of harsh realism to my worldview. That’s why I’ve been mentally and emotionally preparing for the day…

Categories: Tips, Trivial Occurrences

No Spanish? No Shoes? No Problem!

04/16/10

I’ve often been frustrated by the limited selection of high-quality children’s books available in Spanish (though it’s possible I just haven’t looked hard enough). So in our house, the ratio of English to Spanish children’s books is at least a 3 to 1. It’s gotten to the point that I’ve actually written a couple of books myself (as gifts to my kids) though come to think of it, those are probably of much lower quality than the ones we’ve bought. But that’s just my children’s Karma and who am I to intervene? Anyway, given the limited number of books in Spanish we have, bedtime with Gabriel is interesting (Sam is still too young for bedtime stories.) We keep about 10 books in Spanish in…

Categories: Tips, Trivial Occurrences

X-Rated Innocence

04/14/10

Being bilingual is a huge privilege and a tremendous advantage, but it’s also quite a burden. A few months ago, I wrote about how being a juvenile parent secures a wealth of fun for said juvenile parent (i.e. me.) But with bilingualism, you have to deal with people in your vicinity and their individual feelings about not knowing what you’re saying (especially if you’re constantly pointing at them and giggling). What I never accounted for, however, was for a word in your native language sounding like another (less family-friendly) word in your second language Recently, my son Gabriel and I were at his grandfather’s house, where the family had gathered as they often do. I was in the process of asking my son in Spanish…

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

How do you say? Ah yeah…

02/10/10

My boy Gabriel is making this whole raising him bilingual really easy on his Papá. I just don’t deserve the smooth ride that it’s been so far (ok, you know I’m fishing so feel free to post something like: “give yourself some credit, you clearly have worked hard”). For the last couple of months, when he gets stuck on a word that he knows how to say in English but not in Spanish, he very gracefully pauses, thinks for a couple of seconds, and if the Spanish word cannot be retrieved from that beautiful brain of his, he’ll ask me how to say it in Spanish. The first time this happened, it took me a few minutes to realize that I had struck gold.…

Categories: Tips, Trivial Occurrences

Oh, No, I’m Turning Into My Mother!

12/04/09

Raise your hand if you ever swore you’d never be like your parents….wait!, don’t put your hand down yet, I have a few thousand to count. Here’s the catch for me: in order to teach my children about the old country, I sort of have to be like my parents. And how do I do that? Speaking Spanish Pointing at things with my lips Flailing my arm to create inertia that makes my thumb and my index finger make a snapping sound to indicate that there is trouble Neglecting to tame my uni-brow Going around the house turning off the lights Listening to music that deals with the following topics: life in the farm the drama and dishonor that is the loss of a…

Categories: Reflections, Trivial Occurrences

Spanglish

11/18/09

Americans think it’s the funniest thing to mock-speak Spanish by just adding an “o” to the end of English words (e.g. “take me in your el truck-o to the next el town-o”). And guess what? My sons are Americans so it’s kind of naive to expect any different from them. It must be something in the water… Come to think of it, Colombians are just as bad — we add “ation” to the end of Spanish words to turn them into English ones (e.g. amigo (friend) = “amigation”) I’m kidding, of course. What I want to share is simply the dreaded reappearance of Spanglish in my boy Gabriel’s vernacular. In earlier posts I wrote about how very early on, when he was just beginning…

Categories: Questions, Trivial Occurrences

Big Beard

11/16/09

I’ve often wondered if my children, by virtue of hearing me speak English to their mother and other, non-Spanish speaking relatives, will somehow adopt my sultry and exotic accent into their own English. But it never occurred to me that the same could happen as a result of other influences (and without sultriness). Gabriel and I were paging through a picture book the other day when he started talking excitedly about something called “big beard’ (this, he said in English). In my confusion, I assumed we had just flipped through a page featuring a venerable bearded man or a totally awesome pirate, so I flipped back to the previous page, but found no examples of such fellows. My boy, however, returned excited to his…

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

Papá’s Thing

11/14/09

There is nothing more endearing and amusing than the candor of a child. And some times, there is nothing more embarrassing. We have been trying for months to potty train our boy Gabriel but it’s been a slow go and though we’re not in any particular rush, we’re trying everything we can to make the experience, if nothing else, not a completely traumatic one. The other day, it occurred to me that if I sit in the adult potty (i.e. toilet, for those readers over 5) as we’re having him practice going in his potty chair, my boy might feel more encouragement to follow suit. And being the compulsively honest person that I am, I felt like I should exemplify an experience as close…

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

In Case of Emergency, Scream in Spanish

08/01/09

This may be just wishful thinking, but I see the following anecdote as a sign of how deeply rooted Spanish is in Gabriel’s brain: One recent night, after putting him to bed, I lumbered downstairs and started conjuring up idyllic images of my wife and me, placidly planting our derrieres on the couch to watch “I Love Money 2” or some such delightfully mindless trash. Fifteen or so minutes into our guilty pleasure, we began hearing faint whimpers coming from the baby monitor receiver in the living room. Very quickly, the whimpers turned into loud cries that alternated with words that were unintelligible to me. Now, this is not an uncommon occurrence; my boy Gabriel some times goes on rants that last up to…

Categories: Trivial Occurrences

Little Heroes

06/16/09

A few years ago, I was acquainted with a couple from Mexico who were raising their two boys (ages roughly 4 and 6) in the United States. The couple didn’t speak much English and they naturally only spoke Spanish in the home. Furthermore, the children didn’t have (as far as I knew) any English-speaking buddies and were rarely around adults who spoke English. But they had something much more precious to the young, (and dare I say, male) mind: Television! These two boys were hardcore fans of Spiderman (the cartoon version) and watched it on television any chance they got. Their parents didn’t impose any restrictions on their TV-watching, so over time, the young boys with their little spongy brains absorbed so many lines…

Categories: Trivial Occurrences