en Espanol

- By Schnockered Mom Natalie

When Kate was 4 months old and I went back to work we hired our nanny, Maria, to take care of her during the day. Maria is a native Spanish speaker and we encouraged her to speak Spanish to Kate all day, every day. We bought baby books in Spanish. Spanish flash cards. I even spoke to her in Spanish when I could. At least until she started critiquing my accent. "Don't speak Spanish, momma. You're not Nana! [laughter]. I knew my accent was bad, but I didn't know it was laughable.

By the time Kate started preschool last Fall she only spoke the most basic of terms in Spanish - milk:leche, water:agua, mouth:boca, etc. But she understood Spanish nearly as well as she understood English. Kate's preschool does not offer Spanish lessons to kids her age. Although we have encouraged one of the teachers' aids to speak to Kate in Spanish so she will continuing hearing and learning the language, most of what she learned in her first two years has essentially been forgotten.

Recently, Kate has expressed a renewed interest in Spanish. She uses Spanish to prove her point however wrong it may be. For example, we drove down to Mission Beach last weekend. Kate pointed out the window and drew our attention to the lake next to the highway. I told her that it actually is the San Diego river. It was low tide so it looked more like a wetland than a river. But "river" is the proper term for that body of water. She paused a moment and then replied while knowingly nodding, "River is how you say it in Spanish."

And again in the car tonight we were reviewing the meaning of green light, yellow light, red light. Green light means...."Go!" Good. Red light means...."Stop!" Uh huh. Yellow light means..."Speed up!" Actually, yellow light means caution or to slow down. Again she uses her mastery of the Spanish language to correct me. "In Spanish yellow means speed up." After thinking about it for awhile I decided she might be right.