It’s Liza with a “z”, not Lisa with an “s”...

Like telling your child that Santa isn't real, or the Easter Bunny, or that the tooth fairy is just a story.... so was this moment between my precious little girl and myself....

L : Mom, how come my Spanish teacher has "pagrino and magrina" spelled different? She keeps spelling it "padrino and madrina", (godfather and godmother).

Me : (Almost with tears in my eyes and very shocked so I have to go up to her and kiss her sweet face) Aww, it's because that is how you have pronounced it since you were a little girl. They never wanted you to change it because it was cute and special to them but the correct words are "padrino and madrina", with a “d”, not a “g”.

I could not read the look on her face, partly because I was taken aback. Partly because I was busy imagining her correcting her teacher. But why was I caught off guard? Why... when it wasn't something to believe in like the Three Kings? After all, her "pagrino and magrina" are real. They are two people who love her dearly. Why did it cause me as much sadness as when we had to tell her the truth about Santa? Grant it, she took the Santa news better than I did, but nonetheless, tears formed in my eyes...both times.

I am somewhat sad. I know why. It is the last vestige of the memory of her childhood, in a way, that will not be the same. I held on to those words with love in the knowledge that they were words she created and she never realized it so it they never were corrected. She has always had this uncanny ability to know when she was mispronouncing words and would “fix” them without my correcting her. When she was in three-year-old preschool, her teacher was impressed with how clearly she enunciated. My mother was upset when she stopped calling her “aguita” (literal translation-little water) and one day correctly called her “abuelita” (Spanish for “grandma”). Going to the “sukermarket” quickly was “going to the supermarket”. Very early on “baba” was a clear-sounding “bottle”. She was not even one year old!

“Magrina and pagrino” is specific only to her relationship with her godparents and not even her cousins use that word with their godparents. She was isolated that way and no one, especially the godparents, wanted to correct her.

I am not this way only with my daughter. To this date I make “peanut chelly samiches” for lunch as my nephew Daniel used to say. The color yellow is still “lello” as my other nephew David pronounced it.

So now she knows the truth. Will she pronounce it the “proper” way. Not likely to her godparents. They will demand the endearing term. I am really not complaining. She is turning into a wonderful young lady. So if she calls her godmother “Magrina” with a “g” not “Madrina” with an “d” that will make two people happy... the godmother and me.

"The trick is growing up without growing old."
~ Casey Stengel