Belly Yankee, the next reggaeton superstar

I've done the math. Even though we will be getting a tax break for Belly, it will not be nearly enough to cover diapers, childcare, health insurance, food, clothes, etc., etc., etc. So...Ton Ton and I are hoping (fingers crossed, knock on wood) that Belly can get a part time job sometime around age 2. Ever since I got pregnant, we've been preparing to cultivate certain skills in our baby that will make him or her stand out in this very competitive job market. Our focus will be in two core areas: languages and music.

It's a no brainer that Belly will be bilingual. I am from Cuba and Ton Ton is from Venezuela, so our little Cubazuelan-American will definitely speak English and Spanish. For the past nine months, we have been stocking up on all manner of didactic tools in the inglés and español: books, flash cards, interactive games, you name it. (As an aside, there is also the possibility of us giving birth to the next great dictator, another very lucrative career. The name Hugofidel was a close second, after Lucas, for a boy.)

As far as music, as you saw in my last post, I am practically a professional singer; and Ton Ton really is a hell of a guitar player. We hope that Belly will inherit some of his talent, and the rest will be garnered from a constant exposure to good tunes. Ton Ton has been working on a special iPod playlist for baby from the moment I peed on the stick.

Ideally, Belly will fuse his or her language and musical abilities to come up with something really great (and profitable!).

In an attempt to scout out the competition, I recently googled "Latin Grammy's best children's album," and what I found is truly remarkable. The 2008 winner of the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Children's Album was Miguelito with his record, "El Heredero." Allow me to introduce him:



For those of you who do not speak the español, Móntala means "Ride her".
My personal favorite lines from the song:

"Y ya llego miguelito
Como siempre a montarla
Si no abre la puerta pues
Yo voy a tumbarla"

Very loosely translated:

"Miguelito has arrived,
as always, to ride her.
If she doesn't open the door,
I will knock it down"

Looks like Belly has some tough competition to look forward to!