Since the grand opening of Best 4 Future bilingual bookstore, I have been thinking and looking for children’s books of other languages, such as French, Germany, Spanish, Japanese and etc.

The big question is: where can I find those books? Do I need to travel to those countries, for an instance, France, to purchase French children’s books and bring them back to the US?

With limited capital I have right now, it is straightly impossible.

“So I have to wait until I save enough money from the sales of Chinese children’s books”, I thought and sighed, putting the dream to the back of my mind.

Until one day, about one week ago, I received a comment for Best 4 Future blog.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Spanish/English bilingual children’s books, teaching young children chinese | December 31, 2010 7:08 pm | Comments (0)

Two months ago, I published a post named Why she speaks more English than Chinese? I want to find out why DD speaks more English than Chinese even I have been creating a Chinese-rich environment since her birth (see How I help my baby acquire a second language?).

One reason I figured, maybe also the most important reason, is that I didn’t strictly follow One Parents One Language (OPOL) rule. I read to DD in English as well, only because sometimes she got tired of our limited stock of Chinese books and wanted something different. This is the only time I don’t speak Chinese to her.

Is it the very reason causing her to speak more English than Chinese?

I am not sure. But I do agree that OPOL is the the best and the easiest method for parents to bring up a baby bilingual.

The question is: how strictly or consistently do we need to follow OPOL?

There are a lot of theoreis and a lot of debates. I found two interesting articles from http://www.multilingualliving.com. One is The OPOL-Fanatics from Christiane Küchler Williams. The other is An Apology for Being “Inconsistent” from Alice Lapuerta.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, OPOL, teaching young children chinese | December 24, 2010 10:33 am | Comments (0)

There is no doubt that storytelling in China, as elsewhere, is as old as its civilization. People have been telling stories for millennia to educate and entertain. Chinese parents and grandparents have been using storytelling to make their children and grandchildren aware of the importance of academic advancement and filial piety. (Pearson and Rao 2003, 131–146).

One of the stories that have been known and loved by generations of Chinese children is The Magic Locus Lantern.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Chinese mythology, teaching young children chinese | December 15, 2010 10:52 am | Comments (0)

After the grand opening, the online bilingual bookstore has been receiving a flood of traffic from all over the world. But I noticed there was more surfing than ordering from these potential customers. Why?

A local mother of a two-year-old unveiled the myth.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, Chinese/Bilingual books with CD/VCD/DVD, teaching young children chinese | December 9, 2010 1:32 pm | Comments (0)

DD showed her strong will and desire for independence when she was only few months old. Now, at month 29, she definitely tried — again and again — to do things herself.

Before taking a bath, she could take off her own shoes, socks, pants, and diapers. She still had problem to take off her shirt, but she was working to find another way to get if off. During the bath, she wanted to wash face and hair, rub the soap over her body by herself. After the bath, she wanted to dry herself with a bath towel and comb herself with a brush.

During the dinner time, she wanted to use the spoon or fork to eat without any help. If I put the food onto the spoon and placed the spoon on the plate, she would damp the food back to the plate and tried it all over herself.

She already knew how to turn on TV, use the remote control to change channels, and put CDs into the CD player. Now she tried to press the keyboard, move the mouse, open or close an Internet explorer window on the computer, and take the print off the printer.

She even showed strong interests in driving! She loves to stand on the driver seat, turn the wheels, and push buttons (of course the engine was off).

Overall, she wanted to try everything we could do. Since she was a quick learner, sometimes we had to deliberately do things behind her, for her safety and the peace of our mind.

But, ironically, there was one thing she didn’t want to try— going potty. At month 29, DD still wore diapers, and showed little interests in potty training. Therefore, when she got her diapers wet or dirty, she had to come to me for help.

Baby Growth | December 1, 2010 2:54 pm | Comments (0)

For a country which has more than five thousand years of history and a rich culture, folktales are China’s earliest literature. They often include stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, and the supernatural, or stories explaining natural phenomena and distinctive landmarks.

Some folktales are beautiful and touching. Some are entertaining and comforting, and some educational. The same as western fairy tales, many Chinese folktales have deep morals for the children to learn and inculcate in themselves. The mentalities and values conveyed in Chinese folktales have impacted many aspects of Chinese culture and personal belief patterns (see Fairy tales for children, now in Chinese).

One common theme of Chinese folktales is love. In old times in China, marriages were arranged, with little or no consent by the parties to be wed, it is not surprising that relationships based exclusively on love were rare.

Yet the persistence of the theme of true love suggests that, despite the harsh constrains of traditional Chinese society made romantic love a distant dream for most, people still cherish this dream secretly in their hearts.

Although the results of romance are often tragic in Chinese folktales, lovers are sometimes allowed the happiness they desire, as shown by this atypical Chinese folktale The Snail Girl.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, Chinese classics, Chinese folktale, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, teaching young children chinese | November 20, 2010 2:18 pm | Comments (0)

When I looked for children’s books to sell on my online bilingual bookstore, I found a popular French educational picture book series, created by French artist Thierry Courtin and published by Nathan Jeunesse. The protagonist of this book series is a curious 3-year-old-boy who looks like a penguin named T’choupi.

I want to know more information about this book series, so I did a research about T’choupi and its creators.

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, French children's books in Chinese, teaching young children chinese | November 14, 2010 1:03 pm | Comments (4)

At month 28, DD definitely had more control of her movements. She could walk upstairs and downstairs holing two balls in arm. She could twist the knobs and open or close doors with no problem. She could even balance on one foot with support for few seconds.

Her attention span was still short for her age. She always found a way to make the house messier. And it was not just toys and books strewn everywhere. Now she could move the stool close to shelves and drawers and climb up to get things that used to be beyond her reach.

She drew on walls and coaches, banged wooden spoons against refrigerator, spilled juice and milk, tore papers (she finally stop tearing books and magazines after repeated lectures and warnings), and took off her socks and left them everywhere.

Although I understood that part of her upheaval was just her live-in-the-moment mode and part was caused by curiosity, it still took time and practices for me to get used to this ever-messier house. I had to keep my expectations for tidiness low when she was climbing this learning curve.

The only time, except bedtime, when she was till was TV time and story time. When she watched Dora The Explorer, Go Diego Go! and other favorite Nick Junior shows, she was so absorbed in the TV that she would resent my interruption. So I made transitions easier by warning her in advance, as in, “You can watch TV for five more minutes, but then it is dinnertime.”

The same, I told her how many books I was going to read to her before the bedtime.

Other than bedtime, I normally catered to her needs and read as many books as she wanted, sometimes half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and sometimes one hour or even longer.

This month, DD’s vocabulary was improved significantly. She could say mine (clearly and loudly), eye, nose, mouth, up, down, rope, now, go-go, I know and guys in English. She broke the barrier to pronounce the letter B and finally could say some “b-words”—like bye-bye and baba (daddy in Chinese).

Baby Growth | November 9, 2010 8:20 pm | Comments (0)

To vaccinate, or not vaccinate, that is the question.

I asked this question on March 24, 2008, three months before DD was even born (see Baby vaccination). On September 5, 2008 when DD was three months old, M and I M and I decided to follow Dr. Sears’ alternative vaccine schedule, after reading his book The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (see Alternative vaccine schedule).

Today, this topic was revisited when M forwarded Dr. Mercola’s article on Hepatitis B vaccination.

Baby Vaccination | November 6, 2010 3:34 pm | Comments (0)

I sat in front of the computer, staring at the screen of the monitor.

The web browser displayed, clearly, “The website cannot display the page. Most likely causes: the website is under maintenance; the website has a programming error.”

What is going on? I wondered. I just checked this website address (www.Best4Future.com) this morning. Everything went on perfectly. How come the site was down?!

Bringing up Baby Bilingual, chinese for children, chinese language for young children, Chinese learning for babies, teaching young children chinese | November 1, 2010 1:00 pm | Comments (0)