French | Lessons from my daughter

It is time for me to tell you again….

This is a crowd favorite when I need to tell a story where I make a fool of myself.

I hope you enjoy it!

Summer 2003, Emily just turned 5

There isn’t much to do where we live now so we decided to go to the aquarium. It’s a small aquarium with a touch pool and 2 seals. I’m sure they had other things but those are the 2 exhibits I remember.

If you’ve ever taken French class you know that seals in French is “phoque” which sounds exactly like Fuck.

French, my mother tongue.

Up until a couple of months prior to this visit, Emily’s universe was French. She was the only person I could speak French to in our new world. So that day, I was speaking French to my daughter.

Like all the kids at the aquarium, Emily got excited when she saw the seals. I felt it was the perfect opportunity to make her practice the “f” sound which she doesn’t have in her repertory as of yet.

Because I am an “amazing” mom, I get on my knees to be at my daughter’s height and tell her (in French) that those 2 mammals are “phoque”

Emily: “Poque”

Me: non Emily “Phoque”…. “fffffff” phoque!

Emily: Poque

Me: Mais non Emily, regarde ma bouche….. fffffff phoque (no Emily, look at my mouth…. fffffff phoque)

And we went on like that for a couple of minutes.

Suddenly this older lady standing next to me says out loud that she prefers to wait before teaching her kids that word…”

………

That’s when I realized that Emily and I were alone around the Seals exhibit.

Parents were moving their kids away from us while covering their ears.

As I looked around, I finally saw my dear husband in a little alcove laughing is ass off.

I was slightly embarrassed!

Come on, the guy could have told me.

Have you ever made a fool of yourself?

Find more about about Cri du Chat syndrome at 5p- Society

Emily has a her own page in the family stories , you can find it here: Emily

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If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you must have read or picked-up on the fact the I am from Québec. People outside of Canada call us French Canadian. People from Canada call us Quebeckers. We call ourselves Québécois.

Emily was also born in Québec.

It’s really cute when she says “I’m French you know”… She says it in English… 😊

Almost 10 years ago, my mom sold the house where I grew up and moved closer to her family.

When Emily was younger, we would go home (my home) once or twice a year.

Over the last 10 years, Emily made it to the Gaspé coast maybe twice…

I miss it and I know my mom misses it too. It’s difficult to go back home when there is no longer a home there. We only go home for funerals and last November, after the latest funeral, I told mom we had to make a trip just for fun.

So this past August, we did it!

I packed suitcases for Emily and I and left home super early one morning. Mom hopped on the bus around the same time and we all met 5 hours later in Carleton.

We ate breakfast and went up the Mont St-Joseph (altitude of 555m). We drove up and I will forever be in aw of the people walking, running and biking up there!

After that we continued the drive to my hometown of Paspébiac.

We spent the week driving around the south part of the Gaspé coast, walking through towns & hiking trails and speaking French.

For the first time in Emily’s life, she went to bed willingly at night. Exhausted physically from the walking around and exhausted mentally from the French speaking.

I knew she understood French. I knew she could kinda speak it but I had no idea how good she was. She speaks mostly English at home and knows we understand English but in Paspébiac or Percé… I made her speak French! She was awesome.

Here are some pictures of our week!