Baby games

We all know how important games are for infants and toddlers. So important that, after one of the Little Monkeys' doctor appointments, we were (as usual) sent home with some written instructions. The instructions said to play with the baby games like Patty Cake. Patty whaaaat? Mama Monkey never heard of it and Papa Monkey couldn't quite remember.

That was when we realized we barely knew any baby games in English. Yeah, we knew a lot of songs, but we didn't really play in English. Spanish was covered by Mama Monkey's geekiness. Now, we make sure to play in both languages on daily bases. Not only with the new baby. The toddler still enjoys these games and he has mastered them. 

The Monkey family grows

We are back! We haven't posted for a while, but there is a very, very good reason. Since the end of April, the Monkey family has a new member. Another Spanglish Monkey was born! We are so happy we can't even begin to explain it. The Baby Monkey is really cute and sweet and he seems to be just as good-natured as his brother.

But we are also extremely busy; the Little Monkey wasn't even 17 months when his brother was born. Despite the insane amount of work, we are really glad that they are so close in age, since they will grow up and learn together. That includes their language development. At the moment, they have bonded quite a bit, and despite some occasional crazy toddler behavior (aka the terrible twos have almost begun), the Little Monkey is very caring and loving towards his little brother. From day 1 he understood that the baby was part of the family.

Baby names

One of the toughest decisions when you are having a multicultural baby is choosing a name. There are so many variables to take into account! You want a name your partner and you like, that both families, especially both sets of grandparents, can pronounce, with easy spelling in both languages, that sounds good in both countries, that works with the lastname(s)... We could go on and on. 

In our case, we also had another minimum condition. Since the Little Monkey would have American and Spanish nationalities, we needed a name that would work for both formats. As you probably know, Americans only have one last name and they have a middle name. On the other hand, Spaniards (as most Latin Ametican nationalities) have two last names and no middle name. We decided that the Little Monkey would have two first names and two last names in Spain and first, middle and one last name in América. That way he would be called exactly the same in both countries but the second last name, Mama Monkey's, which he would lose in the US.

And a Spanglish Monkey was born

At the end of November 2014, right on his due date, our Spanglish Monkey was born. He was a healthy beautiful baby that made Papa Monkey and myself very very happy. At that exact moment the challenge started: How do we raise a bilingual Baby Monkey? 

I have to be honest, I had read very little about it. Of the few books and papers we read, though, all had a common and intuitive recommendation for our particular case: each parent should talk in his or her native language (known as one parent one language or OPOL strategy) and be consistent. Well, that was our starting point. Papa Monkey would speak in English and Mama Monkey in Spanish. The rest: common sense and playing it by ear...

Are we consistent? Heck no! Papa Monkey often speaks and sings (horribly, ooops sorry Papa) in Spanish and Mama Monkey speaks more in English than she should (to be polite) when in English-speaking environments: with family, on our walks, at the store... Are we happy with the process? Yes! We will tell you all about it in following posts.