Tuesday Lovin': Spanish

when i was pregnant with T, I
dreamed that she would look
like Dora.  She does, sort of...

Today I decided to sign up for a parent-child Spanish class.  I considered it a year ago, but thought it was too expensive and chose Little Gym instead.

But in September, BabyT started learning Spanish at daycare.  She only has "class" 15 minutes a week, but damn, she is picking it up like crazy.  My baby can count to 10 in Spanish, sing a song about chickens (?) and knows Hola, Adios, and Gracias.  I think she knows other words too, but since neither TJ nor I speak Spanish, we have no idea what she's saying.

On Tuesdays, her class starts at 9am, so I try to get her to daycare on time so she doesn't miss it.  One day we were late, so I walked her to Spanish myself, and was absolutely shocked to notice:

1.  Ms. Lupita speaks *no* English to the kids during class.  It was rapid-fire Spanish, as though she was speaking to a bunch of native speakers.

2.  The 2 year olds were sitting quietly in a line paying attention and singing along when asked.

I remembered my high school French class on the days when Mrs. Hunkele decided she would speak no English to us, and how *physically* uncomfortable that made us.  People would squirm around in their seats, look at the floor, mumble in English they had no idea what was going on, or just shut down and stop paying attention.

But the toddlers in Ms. Lupita's class?  Rapt attention.  It was like they thought if they listened, they could figure it out.  Amazing.

Learning Spanish is on my Mondo Beyondo list.  I'm not really sure why, since I don't really have the desire to visit a Spanish-speaking country (though of course, I wouldn't turn down a free trip to Spain...).  I just like the way it sounds.  It seems like it might be more useful here than French or Japanese.  Plus I don't have to learn a new alphabet.

Since we're moving T to a Montessori preschool next month (more on that later), she won't have weekly Spanish class any more.  My hope is that the parent-child class we take together will get us on a path where we can both learn it.  I have no doubt she'll pick it up quicker than me.

Adios, amigos!