Filed under: Chick Pea, bilingual | Tags: baby, bilingual, parenting, spanish
Well, I’m at least trying to raise one. It’s sort of difficult to do when I’m the only one that can speak Spanish to her. Most of my family lives in far away Miami, and the brother that does live here won’t speak it because he doesn’t like to (thanks for the help, Bear Toe!). Poor Mr Favorite would love to teach her, but he’s too busy learning it himself. And while he tries, I think our 6 month old has a few words on him. Let’s face it, Tennessee doesn’t have many residents (at least around us) that can help in the endeavor either. I rely heavily on the little grandparent dolls that my parents got for her. They sing little Spanish folk songs that I grew up with (my favorite being Los Pollitos Dicen) and she LOVES them.
It was great to be in Miami for the holidays because she got to be in the middle of the Spanish family hive. Take away the drunken slur of a certain pathetic loser brother-in-law, and I’d say it was a successful trip to bilingual town. I can’t wait to take her to visit the rest of my family in Colombia, where she would surely get a thorough dousing of the language.
Anyway, as much as I love her being a baby, I kinda can’t wait till she gets old enough to start talking just to see if my efforts will be rewarded. It’ll be fun to have our little gringita-looking baby running around babbling in Spanish!
Filed under: Chick Pea, humor | Tags: co sleeping, humor, parenting, sleep
I was always so nice to them during the glorious sleep episodes I’ve experienced in life. We used to be buds – hanging out and talking trash about that shameless neglectful hussy, Bo Peep. But they’ve abandoned me the last year and a half. Pregnancy was one big blur of sleeplessness due to peeing 5, 117 times a night, being a belly sleeper with a huge protruding bump, and other random aches and pains. OK, so maybe I scared them away with all of that, but why won’t they visit me now?
I guess a better question would be . . . why won’t they befriend Chick Pea? We’re currently co-sleeping for numerous reasons. One of which is to get her better acquainted with these lovely sheep, but they don’t seem to be getting along very well so far. Our demanding little nursling requires many sessions with me during the night and I guess the sheep must be jealous. But now I am getting increasingly impatient and jealous with all of the attention that Mr Favorite is getting from them. That’s right . . . as I lie there desperately wanting to close my eyes and drift carelessly away into a blissful state of unconsciousness with my fleecy friends, I can hear him exchanging soft little snorts with them. So chummy. And then just as Pea finally starts to drift off, he’ll snuggle deeper into his beckoning pillow – all the while, throwing a careless elbow that, allegedly, unintentionally connects with her head. Once again my plans for having quality time with my own pillow are thwarted and I find myself wishing that my elbow could stretch to make a special connection with his head.
Maybe I can put a wolf mask on him in his sleep? No – that would surely scare all of the sheep away. But then we’d be on even ground and it would really appease the vindictive minx in me. Naah, I would actually give up being spiteful in this case just to get some sleep. Ah well, I guess I’ll just keep counting and hope they show up tonight.
