Puerto Rican abducted teen Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry were sent home safely yesterday, as more alarming details emerge from the Cleveland kidnapper case. The latest details about the sick treatment the women received from Castro reveal that he even replaced their birthdays with the anniversary of their abduction. On those particular days the 52-year-old pervert would give the girls a cake celebrating the day they were kidnapped. How twisted and horrible is that?

In a sad and absolutely heartbreaking story, Mexico City police have recently revealed that a 9-year-old girl gave birth to a baby last month and-- as if that wasn't shocking enough-- the 17-year-old father is nowhere to be found.  It's such an awful scenario that I can barely process it.

The young girl's mother told officials that the girl was "just over 8" when she first got pregnant.  "The father is a boy who is 17, but we have not found him, since he ran away," she explained.

I've been raising bilingual kids for over six years and I've been researching and writing about it for almost four and yet, I'm still very surprised when I hear people say that bilingualism causes confusion. I've found this is a particular concern of new parents who've been thinking about adding a second language, but are worried that their kids will get confused. Truth is this is just a myth. One that has been perpetuated through the years thanks to old and erroneous information about bilingualism.

Sadly some of those responsible for keeping this myth alive are unusual suspects like pediatricians, speech therapists and teachers—professionals we normally trust. 

I thought this day would never come, but it seems like this country is closer than ever to real immigration reform. President Obama just announced how he plans to overhaul our broken immigration system and I'm sure that the 11 million undocumented immigrants many of whom pretty much live in the shadows scared to death to be discovered and deported listened very closely to his words. I know I did... and I'm not undocumented. I do, however, know many people who are. Some are close friends and some others are acquaintances. The one thing they have in common: a desire to be able to stay legally in the only country they've ever know and loved. A country they call home. 

And now, it looks like this may very well be a reality.

Raising bilingual children is easier for some parents and harder for some others. In my case, for example, my husband and I are both native Spanish-speakers, so speaking Spanish to our kids all day long is not really an issue. But most parents I know are second or third generation Latinos, which means that although they may speak Spanish, it's not their native language. Regardless of your situation, the truth is that besides language proficiency, there are other key traits all of us raising bilingual kids need to do it successfully.  

The good thing is that as a parent, you probably possess all of them already.

When my daughter Vanessa was born more than six years ago, it never ocurred to me that I would speak to her in any language other than Spanish. Although I'm fluent in both English and Spanish and I have spent the majority of my life in the United States, I still consider Spanish my first language and the one I use with my family--even though they're all bilingual too. As my daughter went from baby toddler and started speaking, I realized that using only Spanish with her raised a lot of questions for me. Of particular concern were: How would she learn English? And would she be at a disavantage if she didn't learn it early on? At some point, I even wondered if I should start speaking to her in English.

These and other concerns led a college friend of mine and I to create a blog about the ins and outs of raising bilingual and bicultural children in the United States.

I'm not a professional translator, but I've been translating from English to Spanish and vice versa the majority of my professional life as a journalist. Since I am fluent in both languages and I'm a word lover, one of my biggest pet peeves is bad translations. Sadly, I have seen my share of embarrassingly bad translations. These seem to be even more prevalent now that many businesses are starting to realize the need to offer their Latino customers information in their native language. 

But the really bad translation I'm about to highlight takes the top prize not only because it's completely wrong, but also because it's insulting, offensive and mostly discriminatory.

For most people in this country, the holidays ended on January 1 with the arrival of the new year. But for many Latinos, the festivities continue as tomorrow, January 6, is Three Kings Day--a Spanish tradition that is celebrated in many countries in Latin America.

In my house, this is an important holiday as my husband and I are raising our children with the same Latin traditions with which we grew up. Since our kids are still little, we use books, movies and crafts to teach a little more about this beautiful custom. And today I want to share some of these with you.

Talk about showing you want something and you want it bad. Undocumented immigrant Isaide Serrano, a Mexican mother of six, was so desperate to show a judge in North Carolina what deportation would do to her family that she showed up at her hearing just FIVE hours after giving birth to her sixth child. She was there with her five other children ages 3 to 18 pleading for her deportation order to be canceled. The judge must have gotten the point because that's exactly what he did explaining that there were sufficient grounds to prove Serrano's deportation would cause the family many difficulties.

Like many undocumented immigrants, Serrano has been in the country for more than 20 years and has never gotten in any kind of trouble with the law. Unfortunately, she was detained at a traffic stop two years ago and police discovered her undocumented status then.