If life keeps interrupting your language plans—and every time something big happens, you feel like you have to start your box over—this interview will hit close to home.
In this clip from TalkBox.Mom Week, Lisa shares what kept stopping her family from moving forward again and again… and why this past year was different, even while life was still completely upside down.
Hi, I’m Adelaide from TalkBox.Mom, where we help your family talk in a foreign language the same day you start our program.
And as you read, notice the shift that took her from repeating the beginning over and over to moving forward—and why that mattered more than having a calm season.
Add your thoughts in the comments as you read. I love going through them!
Adelaide: What are things that have stopped you in the past from having your Fluency Family vision come about? Like, what are things that, you know, you had mentioned that like, these things would’ve stopped me.
Lisa: So in the past, if we went through a, a difficult time in life, like having a baby or something, then it was like, okay, we’re gonna put Spanish to the side and then I would just want to start all over at the beginning.
So we went through box one and two probably. Five times. Like, I’m not even kidding with box one. ’cause something would happen and then I’d be like, okay, I feel like I need to start over ’cause life has been turned upside down and like, let’s, let’s start again. And then when we did Consistency Crew and just having that consistent, like, well, we’re making some progress forward.
Even if we take a break for a couple weeks we start back where we were at and we just keep going forward. So now we’re on box seven, so that’s really exciting.
Adelaide: I love that box one five times to now being on the seventh box.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s very exciting.
Adelaide: Yes. And then your, your schedule is pretty busy, right?
Do you wanna share anything about that? You don’t have to go into quite detail. Yeah. But just how full is your schedule?
Lisa: Well, so it’s not so much, I try to not have a full schedule actually. It’s just been one of those crazy years where life just keeps happening and you never get any breaks. So, we started, so just in the last year, like calendar year, not even going like the last 18 months of craziness, we were in Arkansas.
We thought we were gonna be there for another year with the military job, but that was dependent on an exception to policy. And the commander had requested it. And so we, it was, it wasn’t us requesting it, so we’re like, okay, this will go through. It didn’t, and we didn’t know that until last minute. So we had two weeks notice that we needed to pack up our house and move.
We had about a month to find a job and we were going from military to civilian, so that was extra tricky. Right about that same time, my daughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, so we’re trying to deal with like Crohn’s disease, dietary changes, all that while moving cross country and then. Dealing with, she had really negative side effects from the medication.
It gave her psoriasis. She lost half her hair. So it’s just been that kind of thing. So it’s not like a busy schedule, it’s just like life has been nonstop of just-
Adelaide: Yeah, I was, I was trying to write it in the email and I was like, I don’t know how to say like, I mean it’s busy but it’s not like you were choosing it to be busy. It was like inflicted upon you.
Lisa: Yes.
Adelaide: So I don’t know how to describe that, but I was just like, man, she can’t catch a break.
Lisa: Yeah, it’s just been crazy. So I’m sitting in the parking lot while a different kid is getting vision therapy ’cause she got a concussion and that was affecting her vision. So it’s just been like those types of things.
And so normally when you’re moving cross country with two weeks notice, I would’ve packed the the TalkBoxes away and we’re in a temporary house where we’re looking for long-term housing and so those would’ve just stayed in long-term storage and we wouldn’t have even done Spanish this last year. Just, it wouldn’t have happened. But because we’re getting those constant emails, even if we miss a day or two here and there, because we’re at the infusion center or whatever, we pick it back up. And so just having that constant reminder has helped us just keep progressing.
Adelaide: Yeah. And why, I mean, why is it that you wanna keep going during these busy seasons?
Why do you wanna be a Fluency Family?
Lisa: Well, I’ve always wanted to be able to speak Spanish, and I’ve taken Spanish. You know, A, A plus student in high school. I did some, some A plus college Spanish, but I just never have been confident enough speaking it. And my brothers, two of them are fluent in Spanish.
Both of them married people who speak Spanish. So one of them is my sister-in-law lived in Mexico in junior high/high school. And then my other sister-in-law is from Mexico City. So when we’d be together for family gatherings and stuff, there’s a lot of Spanish being thrown around and just where we live, there’s a lot of Spanish.
And so I just, it’s something that would be useful and just cool to be able to do really. And so we just keep plugging away at it and eventually, I’m hoping we will be to the point that we can carry on conversations with all the other Spanish speakers in our family.
Adelaide: Yeah, I bet you, I bet you guys can do, can do a lot already.
I know it feels intimidating sometimes, but I just think it’s so fantastic. What do you, how do you how do you prioritize Spanish when you’re having all these things come at you? Like, give us some advice.
Lisa: I’m a struggling perfectionist and so I had to just honestly lower the bar, but I don’t think that’s been a bad thing.
So it’s just like we did it, like we showed up and we did it. And do we remember to use it perfectly? No. I was supposed to tell the kids, put their shoes on before we came here, and I’m just realizing I forgot, but. We’re showing up and we’re, we’re just building the habit. And it’s been cool because even though we’re not doing the awesome job I have in my mind of how we’d all be speaking Spanish for like an hour a day or, or whatever.
My daughter, my middle child, she will just run around the house randomly, like doing these silly dances and she’ll just have Spanish fall out. Like she was running around the house the other day being like, “Claro que sí,” and like saying it so funny. And she didn’t even know what she was saying, but this just like the Spanish is getting in their mind and I’m like, you know what?
I’m gonna take the win and, and be excited that the Spanish is getting in their mind. And they’re, they’re building the habits of working on this and like being more receptive to it. And when we go through the second time, maybe we’ll add something on, but right now we’re just showing up.
Adelaide: I really love that. And that’s so true. When you loop through again, there’s gonna be so much that more you get out of it because if you had waited through all of these things, you wouldn’t be able to add on to what you have. And, and I think you’re gonna have this moment where you’re like, wait, we can do all of these things already, and it is just gonna like, you know, settle and come together.
So I think that’s, that’s nice and that’s kind of like part of, part of your life right now. Like things are happening and then soon it will settle. So I think it will mirror with language. So I think that’s really, really cool. How do you show up when you’re like, have an appointment? You, you have things that you have to go, go to.
How do you show up to practice?
Lisa: I, I’m a person of routine and so if it doesn’t happen before like 9:00 AM we tend to struggle with it. But. I’m trying to just be like, okay, when I open my email and I see the email, I’m like, oh yeah, that’s right. We needed to practice Spanish and we didn’t because we had a doctor’s appointment, but now we can gather everyone and do it.
So having those emails have has been really helpful and just trying to, amidst the chaos, trying to keep some sense of structure. ’cause our family really thrives on routine. So trying to stick with the routine as much as we can. And then if we can’t stick with the routine, just like do it when we remember.
Adelaide: I love this. This is so awesome. You shared so many amazing things. Is there anything else you wanna share?
Lisa: Just i’m so glad that we did Consistency Crew because it has made such a huge difference and having those videos and allowing my kids to have some independence with it because I have some kids that very much want to be independent.
And so having me involved even in just the sense of like, here, let me play the audio for you. Can some days be a no go for them. And so if it’s like I’m in the kitchen washing dishes and you guys are doing Spanish at the bar, they, they take ownership of it and they love hamming it up for the camera basically.
And so that has been such a game changer of like having the independence but also like the silliness of the camera and hamming it up for the camera. It has been a total game changer. So I’m so glad we did Consistency Crew for that, ’cause like honestly, just the video aspect alone is totally worth it.
Adelaide: That’s so awesome. Thank you so much for sharing and we do love watching videos when your family submits them.
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