The impetus to begin Bilingual Buds came about six years ago when the author, pregnant with twins and commuting into New York City, was reading about the numerous cognitive benefits for children of acquiring a second language early in their lives. She was surprised to learn that even by the age of six months, children begin to lose the ability to hear sounds that are outside their native language. She was born in Queens, New York to immigrant parents from Taiwan who did not make learning Chinese a priority for her. As an adult she gradually began to see the missed opportunity of not learning Mandarin or any other languages. The determination that her sons should have this opportunity fueled the energy and drive she needed to create a Mandarin dual language immersion school for young children, Bilingual Buds. In this article, the author describes the evolution of Bilingual Buds.