Sam: “Mommy, do you know what I’m going to be when I’m an indult?” Me: “No, please tell me.” Sam: “A cashier. AND an artist.” Sam: “And I’m also going to be a mail woman.” Me: “You mean like a mail carrier? Someone who delivers the mail to people’s houses?” Sam: “Yes! And I’m definitely going to be a mommy.” Me: “How …

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“So can I talk to her now?” “Sam! Mommy’s on the phone. Are you ready to talk to her?” … “She says she doesn’t want to. She’s too busy playing.” “She said that?” “Yup.” “Will you please tell her that I would like to talk to her?” Silence again. This time I hear some of that high chipper voice in the background. “Same …

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Last night at the peer group critique event, the moderator gave us these guidelines for giving feedback to authors. He called it “the sandwich”: You start with the bread–say what you liked about the work. Keep it positive. Springy and moist, not too chewy. Then comes the meat–talk about what’s not working. But please …

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I used to go to academic conferences all the time. Two or three a year. I always wore the same professional clothing. In black. Because that’s what French scholars do. They wear black. Sometimes with a jaunty little scarf around the neck for color. Today I wore thigh-high red and black stripey socks with clunky black …

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After a three-year hiatus I am once again teaching French. You know the old teacherly saying, “It seems like the students are getting younger every year?” Well, in my case, it’s true. These are the youngest students I have ever taught. They don’t remember 9/11. They don’t know who Michael Jackson was. They definitely …

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On Tuesday we counted 130 instances of the letter S during morning shopping errands. I’m trying the old “letter of the week” theme with Sam and we are starting this week with S. She’s keenly interested in that letter. She may believe on some level that it belongs to her. But it also belongs to Stop Signs and Sale Signs …

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Lobsters always makes me think of Annie Hall. Sam and I didn’t try to drop any live ones in a pot of boiling water but in our creation of the crusty crustaceans we did manage to get paint EVERYwhere, resulting in much giggling and hopping and contorting of bodies on our way to the tub. First we painted Sam’s hands and …

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While trying to organize some of the clutter in our little house before 14 people come over on Thursday for the first session of Allons-y les petits (my preschooler French class — !!!) I came across this story Sam wrote last month. She dictated it to me and after I’d written it down she illustrated it. The narrative …

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Amtrak carried us to Richmond, Virginia on July 1, where we were warmly met by Grand-mère, Pop-Pop, and Grandma Carolyn: The next day, Sam turned three and three quarters, a fact which she shared repeatedly with everyone she met. We picked up a rental car and then drove to Charlottesville, where AC and I lived for 10 …

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Sam’s first trip to the Jersey shore (that’s New Jersey, USA). We started with a visit to the Cape May Courthouse Zoo. This is a free zoo. It was nice, although we worried that several of the animals didn’t have enough room (at least as not as much as the animals at Oakland and San Diego have). Sam said that the zebras …

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