Michael and I have been taking Spanish class this Fall. It happened rather suddenly one day on a whim, and 15 minutes later we were committed for the duration of the Fall semester.

Every Thursday evening we hurry off to class and then sit for two hours stretching our brains in directions they haven’t been stretched before. Fortunately, our teacher is good at keeping the lessons interesting and doable.

Every Thursday night after class as we drive home, I feel exhausted. I’m tired of working at something I’m not good at. Some days I feel like I’m learning, but other days I realize how far we have to go.

Our whole family has embraced this project. We’ve purchased bilingual books, checked out Spanish videos from the library, and we try out our Spanish on our Hispanic neighbors. My favorite book so far is “Eres Tu Mi Mama?” (or in English, “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman) and we often quote parts of it. Luke likes the book so much that he checked it out of the library last time we were there. I tried to convince him that he didn’t need to check it out since we already own a copy at home. But after explaining several times that he could just read the copy we already have, I gave up and let him check it out.

Michael put our efforts into perspective for me recently by saying, “I figure we can spend ten years learning Spanish and then ten years learning German.” Wow. That makes it seem like we’re doing ok. If I have ten years to get Spanish figured out, I’m ahead of schedule!