Bilingual Mini-Milestone

I may be playing it fast and loose with the word milestone, but I had a sweet bilingual moment the other day. 

I always love to worry that she's speaking too much English and that none of the Spanish is sticking. That in three years it'll be like we never tried to raise a bilingual baby at all. You know... rational concerns.

Well, this week Gabriella started preschool again. She was on hiatus during the fall. She needed a break... kind of a "gap year," if you will, to travel... find herself... and embarrass her mother. But Tuesday she returned with gusto. 

When I came to pick her up from the playground, her new teacher approached me. We introduced ourselves and then she asked me, "Does your daughter speak Spanish?"

"Oh yes. I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that this morning." (Of course, I wasn't able to mention anything since my daughter loves to give me a very dramatic farewell.)

"No, it's okay," she told me. "We kinda suspected it. When they went to Spanish class, we told the teacher, 'We think this little girl speaks Spanish.'"

I wanted to scream! It just felt so exciting. People who'd never met my toddler... listening to her babbling and thinking, "She speaks Spanish." It just made me so happy. 

Who knows... maybe she will be bilingual one day!

This entry was posted on January 10, 2013 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

9 Responses to “Bilingual Mini-Milestone”

  2. frances12:03 AM

    You didn't know? You can't know all her tricks and secrets only other adults will get the fruit of your labor and you hear about it later :-)
    Love her tons!!!!

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  3. We worried about that too. We live in Brazil, speak almost exclusively English at home and the kids go to a Portuguese-only preschool. No one is going to think our kids are "native" Portuguese speakers, but they are getting the hang of thinking/speaking two different languages. :)

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  4. How did Ella do "finding herself"...!? HAHA loved this.

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  5. So true, Fran. Kids just love to show out for other folks. I wish I could be a fly on the wall.... And Taara, that's always encouraging to hear! Kids' minds are really quite incredible!

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  6. Yay, congrats! :)

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    1. Thank you, Carrie! We'll get to hear your stories soon.... :)

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  7. Yay! There is hope for us now!

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