every time I think that Carl has completely forgotten his French...

Two anecdotes from Elizabeth, Carl's mom:

Yesterday after his nap, Carl came downstairs, looked at the bookshelves, and picked out the French-English dictionary. After looking through the pages quietly for several minutes, he brought it over to me and said,"Mommy, I want to show you 'voiture'." So I showed him how to find V for voiture, and how the dictionary shows it means "car," and then we found "car" in the English part and how it means "voiture."

Why, yes, he was at his cousin Griffin's earlier that morning, why do you ask?

I tape our Christmas cards to the dining room wall every year for decoration. Carl was looking at a card with 'Noel' on the front. He said, "That card is from Tatie, because it has a French word on it."

(Sarah adds: Yes, this three-year-old can read!)

Songs, Snow, and Sparkles: A Search for Silly French Christmas Carols

While Griffin's collection of French CDs and DVDs continues to grow (thanks to Ebay, amazon.ca, and generous friends), we have very few examples of French Christmas music. Two CDs, in fact. One of them consists of songs annoyingly presented in both French and English, leading to contorted translations set to (mostly) cheery tunes; the other is sung by an Anglophone (or someone who never learned to pronounce the gargly French R sound).

Neither, therefore, is something I want to subject myself or my "more, more, more now!"-saying toddler to.

Any recommendations for specific artists, albums, or songs about winter or Christmas in French? I can probably find some of the classics--"Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle," "Il est ne, le divin enfant," "O Holy Night" (this is a recasting of the French original--but I can't remember what it's called and am too tired to Google it for now).

But what I'd really like are some more modern, less secular carols that will appeal to young children. You know, the Gallic equivalents of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" and even "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," that sort of thing.

I'm also interested in hearing holiday songs in French from countries other than France. There are probably some Canadian, some Swiss, some Belgian carols, but I have no idea if Christians in, say, Tunisia sing about Santa and his camels. Can anyone tell me if French-language Christmas songs that reflect other areas in the Francophone world exist?

The one winter-themed traditional song that is representative of a particular culture that I know of is "Etoile des neiges," which if I remember correctly from my study-abroad days in Savoie is about young men from the Alpine countryside who would leave their 19th century villages to work as chimney sweeps in the big city but ultimately return to marry their sweethearts. The title of the song refers to the sparkle of sunlight on snow. (I could Google this one too--I would love to find a link where you could listen to it--but again, I just don't feel like it now.)

Here's hoping that those of you who celebrate Christmas have had a joyous one with your family, and wishing all of you lots of sparkles (snowy and otherwise) in the new year!

Can you find Bobo-Dioulasso, Tabriz, and Longyearbyen on a map in 60 seconds or less?

Yeah, me neither.

How about some easier ones, like Honolulu, Baghdad, and Mumbai?

In honor of Santa and his eight marvelously fit, geographically savvy reindeer who were pulling that sleigh long before MapQuest and Google Earth, I'd like to share with you my newest "Hang on, Griffin, I'll change your diaper in a minute" distraction: Globetrotter XL, a dangerously addictive, frequently humbling free online geography game. I haven't made it past level seven yet!

Good luck and bon voyage.

Which kitchen appliance is your child?

Here's my newest theory about language acquisition in children. Or not a theory, per se--more of an analogy. Kids learning to talk are like kitchen appliances.

Sometimes they're toasters: you tell them a new word and right away they use that word correctly (just like when you insert a piece of bread and it pops out as toast thirty seconds later). This happened the other day when Griffin and I were shopping and he noticed a decorated Christmas tree for the first time. Fascinated, he kept repeating the word "sapin" ("sapin de Noel" is "Christmas tree" in French) every time he saw a Christmas tree, a wreath, or a garland.

Other times, they're blenders: you add some new words to a conversation involving familiar words, mix it up, and you end up with a concoction that only somewhat resembles the individual ingredients. Like when I'm nursing, and I ask him if he's ready to change to the other side: "Tu veux changer de côté?" One day, he anticipated my question and annouced "More côté!" in that imperious way that toddlers and royalty do best. "Pardon?" I asked him, clueless. "More côté pwease!" [More side please!] Many of Griffin's sentences elicit similar "huh?"s from everyone except Ed and me. We know that "pompier out" means "remove the firetruck from the box," but it's just a smooshed up smoothie to most people.

Finally, and perhaps the most exciting one for we parent-chefs, is the slow cooker. You throw in a bunch of disparate elements, turn up the heat, and leave them to mingle for a long time. Just when you'd have forgotten about that stew if the crockpot weren't right there under your nose on the kitchen counter, dinner's ready. A whole sentence emerges, unsolicited.

Earlier this month, Griffin and I were reading a book that had a picture of a candle on a mantlepiece. "Bougie," I pointed, and "bou-ee," he repeated, agreeably. "Bou-ee."

He paused, and added, "happy."

Sure, I thought. Why not? Candles are happy.

I could tell from his expression that he was still pondering the idea of happy candles. He looked up at me, back down at the book, and back at me, and then said, completely clearly, "Happy birthday."

I boggled--Griffin had never actually said "happy birthday" on his own before. But he wasn't done yet!

"Happy birthday to you Grandma," he clarified, and then turned the page, calmly, as if that wasn't longest sentence he'd ever said unprompted, as if we had celebrated Grandma's birthday (with candles on the cake, of course) just that morning, not several weeks prior.

Yep. That's my boy, learning languages like a crockpot!

Don't do this! (not that any of you would)

In my Reading Buddies program at the library, there's a 9th grade girl who has been a volunteer for several years. She has a Latino last name and parents with Spanish accents, so on occasion I have asked her if she'd like to help a child from a Spanish-speaking home practice reading en espanol. Each time she shakes her head and reminds me that she herself doesn't speak Spanish.

A couple of weeks ago, a mom who doesn't speak English wanted to sign her son up for the spring session of our reading enrichment program, but I hadn't updated and printed the Spanish applications at that point. I was using my best librarian Spanish to try to tell her that I would mail her the Spanish info in a week or two (a la "Me Talk Pretty One Day," probably saying something along the lines of "I you letter the solicitation in one weeks and you me it give in desk in bookstore to put the boy in the program"), when the above-mentioned student shyly joined us, picked up the English application, and translated each question for the mom and helped her write her responses.

Afterwards, I thanked her profusely, and then asked why she had always denied her bilingualism. Here's what she said:

"My mom always makes fun of me when I speak Spanish. So I don't."

eau de nostalgie

Walked past my favorite local coffeshop and caught a heady of whiff of espresso and pastries that danced with someone smoking in the parking lot, and all of a sudden I was a foreign exchange student in Chambery again.

Some days I really miss France.