Once I When I Was Teaching, A Kid Was Upset And Came And Asked Me Something In Spanish. I Walked Him Back To His Table And Explained To The Other Students The Importance Of Sharing And Then Directed Them To Give Him Back His Scissors. AND After They Apologized, THEY TOTALLY DID! This COMPLETELY HAPPENED Even Though I Speak, Like 10 Words Of Spanish With Any Confidence. Which Can Only Mean One Thing. I'm A Magic Spanish Speaker. Obviously.

Overheard from Katie's room while putting away the laundry upstairs:

Katie: Oh, heya, la laa falup tu ittty.
Ellie: Meya hi la oin fram is nally gram.
Katie: Sulla?
Ellie: Sulla!
Katie: No! Tramish grati sabad oinala uti ma sulla!!
Ellie: NO! ME TROYA THAND IS SULLA!

That's when I whipped out my SuperMom cape and busted through the door.
(Start humming theme song to "Cops". I did.)

Me: HEY! Excuse me! I don't know what's going on in here, BUT IT STOPS! RIGHT! NOW!
Katie and Ellie: (looking like baby angels, puppies, teeny tiny chinchilla kits and scoops of vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles: all innocent like) What?
Me: (mom stare, you know the one, it comes with a disbelieving raised eyebrow) What. Are. You. Doing?
Katie: We're just speaking Spanish!
Ellie: Yeah! Like DORA! (add fluttering butterflies and rainbows here, because that's how people who are four years old talk)

And then I left, SuperMom cape metaphorically stuck firmly in the phone booth door.

Also, someone, please, tell me that there's a pair of siblings way off in Mexico City, sitting in their bedroom talking in complete nonsense, completely convinced they're speaking English. I have some pen pals for them.

Pin It