Musings of a Language Nerdo Mami

The manzana really doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I think my daughter is a Langauge Nerdo too!!  Yes, at age 3!  I hope I haven’t overdone it….but really, how can I stop being me? Ha ha…whom am I kidding?  I LOVE it! 

We are fortunate enough to live in a very, very diverse area of the country.  So a trip to the supermercado can often replicate the lunch line at The United Nations.  Whenever we are in a store and Sofía passes someone else hablando Español, she will tell me.  “Esa señora habla Español también, Mami.”

One day we were in Target and there were two women speaking Portugués.  Sofía walked up to them, stared, and then looked at me and said, “Las señoras están hablando Portugués, Mami.” (The women are speaking Portuguese, Mami.)  The women, were shocked as well as I was!  They immediately started to speak to us en Español.  I explained that on YouTube, Sofía often watches some of her shows (Mickey Mouse Club House, Pocoyo, Hello Kitty, or Pulgarcita) in Portugués.  CONSTANTLY.  We make a conscious effort to always point out in which language she is watching. Reoccurring languages are Portugués and Ruso.  It is interesting because she watches the same show over again in the same languages.  She’s intense and she knows what’s going on.  As we were walking away, one of the señoras said, “Oh what a good ear she has!”  I beamed!  The Academy Awards of a Language Nerdo Mami’s ears! 

This post is part of February's Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism hosted by Perogies & Gyoza. 

Angelina Ballerina

Sofía, the performer, has shown a great amor for bailar, cantar, and performing for people.  She told me that she wants to take clases de ballet, so I signed her up for the next session of lessons.  Meanwhile, we stumbled across the series Angelina Ballerina.  We love it!  There are so many things about the series that I love….the animation, the morals, the appropriate language and gentleness, the music, and the kind way the characters treat one another.  If you aren’t familiar with Angelina Ballerina, she is a gentle little mouse who loves ballet.  There are many You-Tube videos out there in English, but almost nada en Español.  I started to search for videos but without much luck.  After a little research, I ended up calling the company that produces Angelina Ballerina, Hit Entertainment.  I spoke to the first person who answered the phone and told her that I was looking for the DVDs of Angelina Ballerina en Español.  She was SUPER! To make a long story short, she ended contacting someone and getting a list of all the DVDs that have audio en Español.  She then emailed me within the hour with that information!  Can you believe that???  I was super amazed at what great customer service I was provided by an employee of Hit Entertainment that could have just shoved me to the side.  This wasn’t the customer service number….I just called the company directly!  So I placed an order for two DVDs.  I think that what happened was that Amazon just didn’t include all the product information and listed English as the only language track.  Here is one of the few long video clips I can find of Angelina Ballerina en Español on YouTube.  і Disfruten!

Sofía Montando la Bici SOLA

Sofía loves her triciclo.  When we were outside with it, she never seemed to be able to pedal although I thought she had enough strength.  So I took off the push bar, cleaned it up and brought it in the house.  I suspected that the combination of the asphalt and the weight of the bici might be making it too heavy for her to be successful at it. 

I was right (I love to be right!). Sooooo without further ado……..Sofía montando la bici SOLA por primera vez!

іFeliz Día de San Valentín!

іWow…Papi sent us some flores…..unas rosas preciosas! (From Colombia of course!) Later all three of us went out to dinner at a restaurante called, La Rosa Mexicana.  We got home so late that night that we had to give Sofía her regalitos the next day!  No one wants a three year old eating chocolates at las Nueve at night!  We also gave her this great little tea set made by Green Toys Inc.  The tea set is made from 100% recycled materials, can be used to really eat from, and can be put in the dishwasher!  This means we can eat REAL food during our tea parties! 

іFeliz Día de San Valentín!

A Round-Up….El Show!

I was thinking of what I could write about that would summarize what Sofía has been doing lately or what her interests have become since I took my little hiatus.  I think this video sums it all up!  Sofía has been watching Mary Poppins (Or Muffin Poppins as she calls it) lately and she has become enthralled with the music, dancing and singing.  She now sings and dances like she is performing on Broadway every night.  The best part is that she makes up her own songs (sometimes words) and moves.  This video is one of the first that she actually allowed me to record.  It is also one of her earliest performances.  USUALLY she doesn’t get embarrassed to perform which amazes me, but de vez en cuando….a little stage fright will set in. 

The video is a bit long and shaky because I was on the bed moving around as she moved and I only had my celular!

Seriously….I hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

Fulanito RoRo

This morning I woke up and was so lamenting the fact that I didn’t take fotos at Sofía’s fiesta that I became obsessed with making sure I video-taped her opening presents.  Then I planned on going through the house and taking the fotos that I could from what was left.  Everyone was still asleep, so I figured I could do it quickly and not be so regretful later. 

Sofía and I went downstairs to open presents.  I video-taped it, I felt like I was kind of redeeming my motherhood.  Then that all got shot to pieces.  I walked into the living room and noticed one of our baby gatos, Fulanito, was lying like he was sleeping, but he wasn’t sleeping.  He wasn’t moving-he, like me, wasn’t breathing, but he was lifeless.  It was a horrible image that seems to be burned in my eyelids and I can’t erase it.  What ensued was horrible.  I sobbed and sobbed for hours and days.  I cried so much that Sofía kept saying to me, “No llores más Mami”  Don’t cry any more Mami.  Nacho and Fulanito are/were our first babies.  They both are/were with us constantly, whatever we are doing.  Since I stay home and don’t work outside of the home,  that means I am with them almost 24 hours a day, so I feel a huge void that he is gone.  After the fiesta, he sat with us and snuggled and played, like usual, so I didn’t understand what happened to him because he wasn’t sick.   Our vet told us that he had feline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy disease.  It shows no symptoms (unless an ultrasound of the heart is done) and is painless, and affects young healthy cats.  When a cat passes away, it is usually instantaneous and painless as what it seemed to be with Fulanito who apparently died in his sleep.  Our vet did an ultrasound of Nacho (on her personal time with her personal sonogram machine) and it seems that although the disease is hereditary, Nacho does not have it!  So we are all mourning the loss of our baby Gato.  Sofía didn’t seem to understand at first that FuFu wasn’t coming back EVER.  We told her that he is now the Ángel Fulanito and that he is always watching over us.  Nacho looks for his twin brother and it is very, very sad, but he seems to be doing better now.  (Maybe better than I am!)  I feel like I’ve lost a child!  And I suppose for those of you who had Baby Animals before you ever had kids, then you know what I’m talking about.  The vet gave us paw prints of FuFu and that was very calming for me.  My husband walks around with Fulanito fotos on his celu.  FuFu was suuuch a good gato.  Sooo the after-the-fiesta-fotos that I thought I was going to be able to take…never happened.  I also cancelled a neighborhood fiesta that we were going to have for Sofía because we just plain weren’t in the fiesta mood.  FuFu was so young and we just weren’t expecting something like this. 

Besos para mi Baby Fufu……

La Fiesta de Hello Kitty

Lately I seem to be slipping with my daughter’s cumpleaños and fiesta fotos.  I forgot to take fotos of her party!  Last year, I was so meticulous about it and this year…..it completely slipped my mind!  So I was able to salvage a few shots of a few things.  This year, our theme was Hello Kitty!  We repeated some of the same things as last year such as the Ground Hog Cupcakes and adult goodie bag with Sofia Godiva Chocolate bars.  Our party favors this year were awesome Hello Kitty lunchboxes.  One Abuela made apple and cheese strudel and the other made Alfajores.  Of course there are no pics of that!  We don’t even have a video this year!  I don’t know where I left my cabeza!  In terms of entertainment, the one thing that we did diferente was to have a water table set up….it was a “splash” with the little tots!  Ha ha! There was LOTS of food!  Yummy, yummy food!  (no fotos of that either!).  Luckily I had asked Sofía’s godfather to take fotos of her blowing out her cake.  We wouldn’t even have a foto of the cake had he not STOPPED me from cutting it first!  So here are our memorias from La Fiesta de Cumpleaños de Sofía!

іFeliz Cumpleaños Sofía!

Sofía turned tres años today!  We still can’t get over it!  She used to be this little tiny cosita that my esposo held in one arm from his hand to his elbow and now she is soooo tall that she is off the charts!  (Literally she is off the charts!)

We went to a restaurante a few days before her birthday and celebrated there.  The waiters all came out and sang to her with a HUGE piece of torta.  Sofía isn’t sure how to handle certain types of attention and when the singing came as a surprise….this is what her reaction was! 

We actually had a small gathering today at our house with the dos abuelas and cake and helado.  I accidently erased those precious fotos.  I’m soo bummed but I suppose I can reenact it with our little famila next week…so maybe not so big of a deal!  Our big Hello Kitty Fiesta is this weekend!

іFeliz Cumpleaños Gatita!