Spanish for My Toddler - The Background

I would love for Ladybug to learn Spanish. What a great opportunity we have to teach her a second language now, while her language acquisition is so rapid. We are not a Spanish speaking household, and we don't have any Latin heritage. I am simply one of those people who believes that Americans don't do a good job learning foreign languages and that we'd be better neighbors and thinkers if we did.

So here's the rub. Despite my noble belief that Americans should learn more foreign languages, I don't speak one. I have under my belt one year of college French and one continuing ed. Spanish class, taken as part of my senior year of high school. This is a perfect example of a time when I want my daughter's education to be superior to my own. But I also need to fess up and face my fears. I feel utterly, nakedly, stupid when limping along in a foreign language. I realize that I am not alone and that many (most?) people feel this way. That realization is no comfort, and I have shied away from serious language study as a result.

A quick web search tells me that Ladybug is not going to learn a second language if she isn't speaking it regularly with a real human being, preferably a parent. I am in luck! While I have a lame track record with language, my husband is a super-star. He has done serious dabbling in Italian, Japanese, Arabic, French, German, and Latin. He has done more than dabble in Spanish and is at a respectable conversational level. He can speak with fluent speakers and got by just fine in Brazil on the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish.

Okay, Daddy will teach her Spanish then, right? Well, it turns out that Daddy is also a "lazy bum" who is working nonstop to finish his Ph.D. When that is done, he'll be working full time to support his family, so his wife can stay home and teach their child. It is a shame that I married such an unsupportive slacker, but I have accepted my lot in life.

Seriously though, I believe that if a project is important to me, it's my job to do the work. My husband does read to Ladybug in Spanish, but I am with her full time, and I am taking on the bulk of the homeschool instruction. Here is a great opportunity for me to improve myself, triumph over a fear, and benefit my child. Let's learn Spanish!

I love how motherhood inspires me to be my best.