Last week we had an old friend over from Mexico City who only speaks Spanish.   When my kids were young they saw her a lot and picked up a lot of words from her, but now that we don’t see her as much as we used to, it’s been mainly English in the household.

My latest scheme is to ask this friend to take care of our kids a few hours each week, and then find a skill that I can trade for it.   Which has me thinking a lot about the value of time and bartering and alternative economies.  Stay tuned.

In my quest to have my daughter to speak more Spanish (she is the younger one and therefore has less of it since she did not exist when we hung out with our Spanish speaking friends), I gave her this book called The Rain Comes to Play, or “La lluvia viene a jugar” by Emilia Arau and illustrated by Leonora Gonzalez.   It is a book in English and Spanish and has a cd that comes with the book that you can use to read along.  When you hear the special sound, turn the page.

The book is about two girls who get to play in the rain.   Rich colors fill the book, and I am taken back to childhood days filled with darkening clouds building to a crescendo in a way that only summer storms do.  A little play in the rain, and then quiet time in the house with mom.   It’s a beautiful story.

So, in my zeal to have my daughter learn Spanish, I organized a time for her to spend on this book.  Big mistake.  In fact I call it the “homework mistake”, one that all parents need to be aware of.   My son and daughter like the content of their school work; they do no not like being made to do it at home.   It is developmental, or maybe just plain human.   What I loved about my kids’ preschool was that they called the fun stuff work.  It took away the stigma.  But I made the mistake of giving my daughter an assignment.

Lesson learned.  So I put this book away for awhile.

But here is the good news -  I saw my daughter sneaking around with it the other day.   I said nothing as she clutched “her” book.  Nada.

In this book my daughter sees beautiful illustrations of girls playing, girls just a little bit older than her.  Not too much different than her.  Speaking Spanish.  And she cherishes it, looking forward to the day the rain comes out to play outside our new family  home in Guadalajara.   Having her exposed to Spanish is great, having her exposed to Spanish speaking people, be it in this book or in person, even better.

Time to make dinner plans with my old friend.   Maybe she will read a bedtime story to my daughter.