soplar un beso

When Alison was just 6 months old, we were living in NC and I got a full time job. We weren't as fortunate as we are now to have my parents nearby to take care of her so we needed to put her in child care. Jason found a place close by that was more like a house than a child care center. It was further from any child care center I had ever seen by also being a Spanish Immersion preschool. Alison thrived. She was bilingual by the age of 2.

It is unfortunate that she doesn't have that everyday now and has lost some of her Spanish but hopefully she has a good enough foundation. It took a while for me to get used to, having barely passed Spanish in high school and hating every moment of it (I didn't know then what I know now). I had a hard time keeping up with my daughter who was eventually speaking sentences in Spanish. Before too long her teachers would teach her something in Spanish that we hadn't yet taught her in English. They would teach her (at the ripe old age of 1 1/2 or 2) to blow a kiss (soplar un beso). It was amazing she knew what to do with those words and of course when we got her home we said "un beso," quite often to get her to blow a kiss.

Daniel of course knows no Spanish words, though sometimes we try to speak it for Alison's sake but I think Daniel just deems us crazy, but one thing he does now know is the English version to blow a kiss. When asked he will blow you a kiss with a big "Mwah," at the end and it is again one of the best damn kisses I have ever received.