Ken gets married!

One of my oldest and bestest friends got married this month to a great girl. It was Nesta's second wedding but first time wearing a suit. Sorta- I guess baby's suits don't come with a jacket.
I thought Ken and Mary Wilson's wedding deserved a blog post:)

Beautiful day!

Today felt like summer. I've lived in Chicago for about eighteen years and the weather is unpredictable as everyone knows. I never cared if winter took longer than usual or if fall didn't make an appearance. Yes, I whined about it being too cold or too hot. I am a Chicagoan after all. However, now that we have a beautiful and energetic son, the season preferred around this household is Summer. If Spring wants to make a permanent appearance we'll take that too!! Only problem with Spring is wet play grounds and muddy backyards.
I like to take long walk when the sun decides to grace us with its presence. I'm lucky that Nesta likes the long walks too. Although he's an energetic toddler, he doesn't mind sitting in the stroller for a half hour or more. Sometimes he pushes the stroller too. We walk down to Letizia's often and share a muffin. He LOVES muffins- but who doesn't?
Today we went to Letizia's then to the park on California which was packed. He danced, he played and then ha enough. There were too many kids there, he couldn't even get onto the slide We had a pic-nic in Humboldt Park- he thought it was really funny to just sit on the grass. It didn't last long :) He saw a boy kicking a ball and soon he wanted to do the same. Nesta kept talking to the boy, except no one knows what Nesta was saying. The boy tried to share, and we appreciated the effort. Nesta noticed that the boy really didn't want to share with him, and he was okay with it and walked away. He may have been too tired for an argument. 

                                                                         Pic-nic

                                                         Dancing at the park.

Nesta at Letizia's on this sunny day.

We just found out we have to move at the end of May. We had signed a new lease to stay here until 2014, but our landlord failed to tell us that he did not sign the lease because he's selling the building. Apparently the potential buyers want to live in our apartment if they get approved. I'm upset about it. We live across the street from the park, and a block away from the library. It has been so fun to go to the park whenever we get a chance and on rainy or cold days to go to the library. I hope we can find a place we like near a park. I was getting used to Humboldt Park. sigh.

There's more to it than you think.

A lot of people think it is easy for a bilingual parent to raise a bilingual child. I mean, it's just natural and all that stuff right? Well, yes and no. I thought it would be super easy, but as my child grows I begin to worry more about it. Right now we live in a Spanish-speaking community but (as much as I love you HP) I don't think we'll live here when he starts going to school. Also, it seems that he knows more Spanish than English. I say it seems because of his understanding of commands and questions, he doesn't speak much yet. He says "gracias" "no," and "ven." He knows animals sounds if asked in Spanish, and he sometimes sings a song called "Metete Tete" by Cri-Cri. It's funny because I can just hear him sing "tetete." So I don't know what part of the song he's singing. This has lead us to believe that he knows more Spanish. However, he's so young that anything goes really. 
As the nerd I am, I started reading a couple of books:
The Bilingual Edge by Kendall King, Ph.D. and Alison Mckey, Ph.D.
7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child by Naomi Steiner, M.D., with Susan L. Hayes
In both of these books I read about a language growth spurt. Mainly, a bilingual child will not have an even growth spurt. Nesta will either show an advancement in his language development in English or in Spanish. Right now he's showing one in Spanish. This is how hopefully he will be until he gets to the point of acquiring academic English and Spanish. The authors recommend that bilingual children learn how to read in both languages at the same time. They also point out that bilingual children become better readers than monolingual children. In all the studies they did bilingual children seem to have better understanding of what they are reading. However, bilingual children may have a difficult time expressing themselves right away in writing. Their writing may be very basic without being able to explain the motives of a character, or what happened in the climax of a story. Yet, they will be able to explain it in great detail while speaking. I found that bit weird, but true. I can explain my self while talking, better than writing. I think it is because writing is such a difficult process. An idea starts in your brain, and then you have to go from your brain, to the muscles of your arm/hand and into the paper. If you are a bilingual child and the story started in your head in Polish, but the teacher is asking you to write in English then this adds to that process. Alas, things get lost in translation. They do say that if both languages are constantly supported then at some point children will be able to express themselves in writing in both languages with no problem. Key word-support. Just as a child may need tutoring in writing in English, he/she may need help in that other language. 
Something else that these authors talked about was the need for a bilingual pre-school. Many children grow up speaking Greek, Spanish, Creole, Mandarin, etc and then they go to an English-only pre-school. They go home speaking English, and that's that. I've talked to a few people who remember speaking another language when they were kids and now they don't remember that language. That conversations with each of those adults scared me. 
It scared me because, although I know a bilingual pre-school is necessary finding a good pre-school in general is hard enough. Now, I have to find an awesome bilingual pre-school. Ay! 
Something to always keep in mind if you are raising your child bilingual is this: English is everywhere, it's on the street, at the grocery store, at the coffee shop, at the movie theatre, at the playground, at the indoor play-space, at your friend's house, on tv and in the radio. Do not think that your kid will not understand English because he or she is only around you and you only speak X language. I seldom allow Nesta to watch TV or DVDs, but when I do I let him watch "Pocoyo" because this show is also in Spanish. I'm sure he'll get plenty of TV in English when he's allowed to watch more of it, but trust me in this- I will try my hardest to make some of that TV watching in Spanish. Thank you Plaza Sesamo :)

A little update- I looked up bilingual pre-schools in Chicago and to my surprise there weren't many. The one that I liked the most according to reviews is way up on Wilson and Kedzie. Yay to morning traffic!  If you live in Chicago and know of some awesome bilingual Spanish-English pre-schools I would love the info. Thank you.

Gracias.

Nesta is finally trying to put together words-it really is an amazing thing to see, and hear. I've taken care of children Nesta's age in the past, but of course everything is different when it is your own child.

                                                      Nesta saying something to me, just not sure what!

He's always said 'mama' but he says it to other people. If I'm not around and sees a picture of me he knows that's 'mama.' If I'm around he won't call me 'mama,' if he needs me he grabs my hand and takes me where he wants me or hands me a book. However, recently he started repeating more often after me. Usually he likes to mimic animal sounds- his favorite is dog and lion. Still, those are not words just sounds. Like most moms, I sit here saying please and thank you over and over in hopes for my child to have some sort of manners. So the other day after handing him something I heard 'gashas.' I wasn't sure if I heard it, but just in case I said 'de nada.' Something else happened and I said to him this time 'gracias,' and he repeated after me 'gashas.' It was like the sun came out and shone brightly on us both. I believe he also says 'leche' but I am not sure of this one as he uses often and not when he wants milk. I am sure he says many other words but perhaps they don't sound like words to adult ears. All I know is that my kid may have manners after all- just maybe!  

Where are the books?

We have lots and lots of books for Nesta to read. Many of the books I bought I found on sale and are not board books. Board books are of course ideal for little hands. I am also a first time mom and didn't think of this when I bought him a pop-up book. When he was about 4-5 months he loved this book, and he still does but around 8-9 months he started ripping the snake's tail, the lion's paw and so on. So now we keep these books in a shelf where he cannot reach them. One of my favorite books One Love by Cedella Marley also has a page missing that I have yet to tape back. It seems he only likes to rip my favorite books. He did the same to his Frida book. He also chewed through La Oruga Muy Hambrienta, luckily I caught him and the caterpillar is fine thank you. 
However, now that he's not really interested in eating his books I've made some board books readily available for him to pull and read whenever he feels like it. I've also bought him books at Goodwill that cost about $1.00 and I won't feel so bad if he destroys them. One of them is his Elmo pop-up book and it is one of those with buttons and music. It is a good book for the car, but of course he has pulled Zoe's leg off already. 

This little crate is in his bedroom on his playmat. In the crate there are books we own, and in the basket there are library books. He mainly pulls from the basket since he's probably sick of the books in the crate. 

This book is in the kitchen, he likes looking at this book especially. I'm not sure why, but he loves taking these books off of the shelf and he actually looks through the Food Lover's Companion and the Mexican Anytime by Rick Bayless.

Books he hasn't ripped yet:)

Where do you keep your baby's books?

Translating on the spot... interpreter training.

It would be my wish that for every book in English we own, we could have it also in Spanish. It is not possible because the choices at B&N are not the best (especially in board books) and I am not a fan of buying books online. However, the Humboldt Park Branch of CPL just opened a little bit over a month ago and I could not be happier. Nesta spends a lot of time there. Today he went there with his dad, and dad reported that they had to leave shortly after getting all their books because Nesta kept going up to random people and screaming at them. I wonder what he said to them? I'm sure they wonder too.
Our library rules are as follow:
- Have fun!
- Get an equal number of books in English and Spanish.
- Get board books.
- Walk around, play with puzzles and make new friends.
- Read non-board books.
- Return books, renew books, check out new books.
I'm a book hoard, I have 15 books checked out right now. However, we have to have some in English and some in Spanish. Thankfully, there are bilingual books. Bilingual books usually not story books. They're the books that have one word with a picture. I am sure there are bilingual books that are stories but so far I've only seen one and I can't remember the title. It had something with sitting on mom's lap. 
Sometimes Nesta really attaches to a book in English. He brings it over and hands it to me, then sits on my lap and is ready to hear the book read. The first book in English that he really enjoyed was Where The Wild Things Are, luckily we had that one in Spanish. The next one he liked was Where's Spot? This book has flaps for Nesta to lift and find Spot. This book was the first book that I was translating on the spot (ha!) This book is very easy to translate. Each page is one sentence asking if Spot is under the stairs or piano etc. The next book was a bit more challenging. He really liked Color Kittens and this book is mainly read by dad. Dad does a really good job of reading this book, and Nesta enjoys it. However, one day dad was at work and the book was brought to me. This book is long, and it has paragraphs that rhyme. It's a cool book because it shows what colors can be mixed to get other colors like green, purple or brown. Because of all the rhyming I could not sit there and translate every single thing. At this point I just decided to shorten the story. I got to the point and took away some of the rhyming because as much as I translated literally it did not make sense, and it wasn't rhyming anyway. When dad heard me translating the book to Nesta he was appalled! He said "but that's the best part with the poem." I fully agreed with him, but I just couldn't do it justice in Spanish and so he took the book and read it to Nesta. I don't read in English to Nesta. Our one rule is that I speak in Spanish (or read) and dad speaks in English and reads the books in English. So, I will continue to translate books he likes to Spanish to keep up with that rule. I don't know if this is the right thing to do or not, but he doesn't seem to notice the difference. As long as his favorite book is being read to him he's happy. We've been lucky that many of the books he likes are bilingual. These are the books that are very simple, and he mainly likes that the pictures in the books are real pictures (not cartoonish). He also can't sit still to very long books. Color Kittens is probably the longest book he's been into. 
My rules for translating books:
-Translate literally as long as it makes sense.
- If the literal translation doesn't make sense, translate the main idea.
- Always translate it the same way (post its come in handy).
-Read the full sentence before translating.
I've taken Nesta to Story Time in Spanish and I noticed that some of the books they use for story time are in English, and the instructor translates on the spot as well. I think I can get away with doing this for a few more years until we start teaching him how to read. Hopefully by then he'll know when he's expected to speak Spanish and when he's expected to speak English so that I can also teach him to read in English.

Some cool bilingual books that we like are: Ruedas, ruedas a rodar/Wheels, wheels let's roll, Insectos/Bugs, Asi me siento/This Is How I feel, Casa/Home, Crias de animales/Baby Animals, Los germenes no son para compartir/Germs Are Not For Sharing, Mi mama me quiere porque.../My mom loves me because.
Some books in Spanish we like: Un dia ajetreado, Las lechucitas, Buenas noches a todos, Adivina cuanto te quiero?

Of course when it comes to books I have my favorites, and so does everyone else. One good thing is that lately Nesta has been more open to reading new books. He still misses his old books sometimes though. The adults in the house are the ones who get sick of reading the same books, so we're the ones who go to the library and get a bunch of new ones. Nesta doesn't get that yet. At first we would be too excited and we would want to read all the new library books in one night, until one night when Nesta had had it with the new books and went to the book shelf and got two of his old books and showed him to his dad. POINT TAKEN KID! Now we mix the books we own with the library books. Duh! 
Something else that is fun is how he now loves to read during the day. It isn't just a night time routine anymore. Yes I do get sick of reading Ruedas, ruedas a rodar ten times, but I also love that he wakes up in the morning and goes looking for a book. He looks at his books throughout the day, and sometimes you can hear him 'reading.' It's super cute. I just hope this book loving lasts forever!

Check out this blog

http://www.multilingualchicago.com/blog/

Lots of good information on learning a new language.