Spanglish

Now that swim lessons are finished for the summer we are looking forward to attending the Tahoe Children's Foundation (TCF) a few days a week again. Many of you have heard me talk about TCF before but for those who are not familiar with it here it goes...TCF is a local non-profit agency in Incline Village that focuses on education for parents of infants and toddlers and is also a developmental play center for infants and toddlers. I have been a board member for almost three years now. TCF has been invaluable to our family and many others here in Tahoe. This is where I've met some of my closest friends in the area and where Ben has played with his future schoolmates since infancy. In fact, there was a group of moms including myself who were all pregnant with our second babies at the same time and have been followed by the local newspaper during and after our pregnancies. http://www.tahoebonanza.com/article/20070921/NEWS01/109210051&parentprofile=search http://www.tahoebonanza.com/article/20080511/NEWS/280292565&parentprofile=search
I guess you could say that Sam has known his buddies since his days in utero. But, I digress...
One big thing that TCF has begun lately is a bilingual program. Every Monday and Wednesday the program is run in English and Spanish. This means songs and games are translated into both languages and parents and teachers use Spanish as much as possible during other play times. Many visitors to Incline aren't really aware of the large Latino population here. TCF has really wanted to reach across the socio-economic and cultural lines and help all the children in the community learn with and from each other before they reach kindergarten.
We began attending the bilingual days from the start and I was amazed at how quickly Ben began picking up on the Spanish words and phrases. He consisitently calls milk "leche", water "agua", and cheese "queso" and many more. He knows the phrases "thank you" -gracias and the all important "I'm handsome"- soy guapo (I didn't teach him this, I swear. It was the teacher of the Monday program who loves Ben and Sam so much). It seems that every time we attend Ben leaves singing a new song in Spanish or spouting out new words.
I often find myself saying, "Ben, what's ______ in Spanish?" One morning he suprised me when I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. A bagel? cereal? toast? His reply, "I want a panish muffin." What? A Spanish muffin? It took me a minute to get it...he wanted an English muffin.