A first-time mom, a Miami exile, and a very committed Spanglish speaker.

I grew up in Miami surrounded by Cuban everything — my abuela’s café at all hours, Sábado Gigante on Saturday nights, Walter Mercado’s horoscope treated like the evening news. That world raised me as much as my parents did.

Now I’m raising my own kid in a North Florida town where the closest ventanita is a road trip away. There’s no abuela down the street, no Spanish at the grocery store, no cousins yelling over each other at Nochebuena. If my daughter is going to grow up with any of it, it has to come from me.

So this is where I write it all down: the Spanish that sticks and the Spanish that doesn’t, the Cuban traditions I’m rebuilding from memory, the books and shows that actually earn their place, and the days we get to bedtime and realize we spoke English the whole time.

Some days we speak beautiful Spanish. Some days we don’t. Both count.

I’m not a linguist and I’m not a teacher. I’m a parent doing this in real time, sharing what I find as I find it — which is exactly the kind of writing I was looking for and couldn’t find when I started.

Say hello — I read everything, even if it takes me a week.