你会想到什么？
So, I finally got around to reading Ayo the Chinese children’s book entitled 你会想到什么？with the awkward English translation: “What would you imagine?”. We borrowed it from the library the other day and it...
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Back into the swing of things..
This was taken through our screen window this week at some obscene hour of the morning. I can’t believe I sleep through such a magnificent light show most every morning. It made me think of a few...
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Flirtin’ with Asia
An evening watching Whale Wars, an entertaining show about stopping Japanese Antartic whaling Korean roasted wasabi seaweed snacks A first taste of Chinese church last Sunday Listening to Chinesepod....
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Copywriting fun.
Great advertising combined with playful copywriting gets my creative juices flowing. Does it yours? It brings me back to the fun side of my advertising days. When copy is done well, I am able to...
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新年快乐
Happy Chinese New Year! We had such a blast celebrating Ayo’s first Chinese New Year at church. It was a bilingual Mandarin/English service with music, dance, short preaching, kids performance, tasty...
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Bend, Not Break
Unexpected packages are the best! Well, non work-related unexpected packages, that is. The other day, that sort of package arrived on our doorstep. It gets better. It was addressed…to me! It was from...
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Hindsight is always 20/20
I recall sitting in a cozy café, sipping a frothy cappuccino while reading all the books I could find on the subject of multilingual parenting atop a basketball-shaped belly. I read dozens of theories...
View ArticleLanguage at 16 months
Language and speech is one of the most exciting areas of child development to me. If you know me at all, that comes as no surprise. Well, life is barreling ahead and so is that little language...
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Introducing Mandarin
Ayo’s first introduction to Mandarin was uneventful. I didn’t take him to some toddler class. Oh no, it wasn’t that glamorous. I have come to realize that the best language learning opportunities do...
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Bilingualism: 3 Myths
It is amazing how much unsolicited and unfounded advice you receive when you expose your children to multiple languages. These misconceptions often come from individuals who never had a bilingual...
View ArticleDitching Brittany
I sat in my favorite solid wooden chair at our kitchen table and stared out the window. Many an “aha” moment has come to me on this comforting chair with its rich mahogany varnish. This moment was no...
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Expecting a multilingual baby!
What a life-altering experience it is to welcome a first baby into your home. Like many first time mamas who find themselves in this age of information overload, I felt like I couldn’t read enough....
View ArticleThe school question
Over the past couple of years, as parents of older kids discussed preschool, my eyes would glaze over. We have time, and we won’t be living in the United States then anyway, I thought to myself. I...
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Learn about Asia through crafts & activities!
Today, I have the immense honor to host the March Multicultural Kids Blog carnival on the topic of Asian crafts and activities. In fact, I am posting this on my son’s birthday (who was coincidentally...
View ArticleGood grief.
Late last night, I mustered up the courage to flick through my old blog that accompanied me like a best friend from graduate school, outlasting even my first two real jobs. Some of you old faithfuls...
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Sibling dynamics in multilingualism
Choosing and implementing a language strategy with your first child is often more straightforward than when the next child comes along. We generally speak more to our first-borns, we spend more time...
View ArticleBilingual Avenue Podcast
I am really honored to feature on this week’s episode of Bilingual Avenue, a weekly podcast with insightful tips and advice from language experts and normal parents like us, raising bilingual kiddos....
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Adventures in China with small kids
Not so many Western families travel to China with young kids for a vacation. That was the first thing that struck us as we flew to Shanghai a few weeks ago. If you don’t count the American-born Chinese...
View ArticleLanguage-learning: an alive, natural, changing process
When I first thought about this month’s Multilingual Carnival topic on “lost languages“, I didn’t think we had all that much to share. Our kids are all under four years of age and they have only gained...
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New language goals!
You might remember how down I was on New Year’s resolutions in 2015. I didn’t set any goals at the beginning of last year other than the resolve to just “be” in each area of life. It was a quiet banner...
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Ignore the kids!
There is plenty of advice out there about getting kids to speak a second or third (weaker) language. One of my absolute favorite ways to get the kids speaking a minority language is… to ignore them!...
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Holidays are for world-schooling
Well, we’re back from our adventure to Italy. Wow. The film director and family were staying at our place between the London film premiere and a London award ceremonies (yeay!). Our kids were on...
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Third Culture Kids in love: Jackie’s story
Welcome to the third and final part of the “TCKs in Love” interview series. Join me as I interview part Chinese-Malaysian, part Filipino-Chinese Third Culture Kid Jackie who is married to her...
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The day they asked me to speak to them in different languages
Some of our family’s best conversations happen around the dinner table. I’ll reassure you, some of our worst happen there too. Dinner in a home of young ones is a fleeting moment that wraps up the...
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