First wedding, first ocean, first orange

Malanga Baby's world expanded beyond her wildest imaginings in Key West, Florida this past week. She even had a lick of her first cupcake. It all called for a lot of clapping.

Almost Cinco de Mayo

And in that spirit, I will finally post something relating to the blog's original purpose- raising a baby in Latin New York! Malanga Baby started "Musica para mi" classes a couple of weeks ago right here in the neighborhood and we're both really happy with the class. The group is mixed age, up to 3 years, and while I was a little skeptical about this originally, it works very well. Malanga Baby watches the older kids move around and even follows after them sometimes. We sing, play with instruments (Malanga Baby loves the castinets, thus reinforcing my hunch that I've got a future flamenco dancer on my hands) and dance. Malanga Baby goes all out with the dancing, no surprise. I'm enjoying learning children's songs from all over Latin America.

I also discovered two more places to buy good Spanish-language children's books in New York, besides Barco de Papel (still my favorite)- the Scholastic Store in Soho and McNally Jackson, also in Soho. I bought a huge pile of board books for my chiquitita the other day to take with us on vacation this week. She needs beach reading, too!