I realized it's been quite a while since I've written a post about our bilingual parenting. Recently, we've been experiencing a few changes with Gabriel, and his Spanish speaking. He is bilingual now, and understands everything I share with him in Spanish. However, Gabriel has moments when he will only answer me in English, and or Spanglish. It is both crazy, and worrisome. However, whenever he does it I'm sure to ask him the question again (in Spanish) and then I ask him, "How do you say that in Spanish?" He'll then take a moment, and answer in Español. Of course, I looked up this phenomenon, and it is NOT uncommon.
He is experiencing a huge surge in language, and I kid you not every day he shares a new sentence, and several words! He is surrounded by the English language, and is only exposed to Spanish with books, family, and our speaking it. I have had to continue to repeat my sentences, and be consistent with our Spanish. As you guys probably know by now, we have spoken Spanish to the boys since birth. It isn't a problem to remember to only speak Spanish to them, and it's more of second nature at this point. The problem with me is that whenever B comes home I start to speak in English to B a lot faster than in Spanish. I know it's because we end up talking about his day, and a lot of the technical/medical jargon is easier to chat about in English for both of us. Thankfully, B does remind me to speak in Spanish. But it's a work in progress!
For those of you on this bilingual journey- stay consistent. Keep repeating your words, and don't give up. We are giving our littles such a huge gift, and it'll all be worth it!
Here are a few of our Spanish language books we've reading lately! I have a few Spanish books on the way that are about our Puerto Rican heritage and I can't wait to share them with the boys!
Señorita Bienvenida en el Aeropuerto
Señorita Bienvenida en el Restaurante
