Bon Appetit

Among life's best treasures are those moments when somebody really wants to see you, and makes sure you know that. That happened to me today, as my three-year-old buddy and grandson had his Mom message me and find out if I could come over for a "play date."

"Yes."

It's pretty special at any age when somebody invites you on a play date. As I was driving across the bridge to the East Bay, I mused about lots of potential kinds of play dates, before shaking myself back to reality.

As always, I was greeted by my little friend in the most sincere and truly loving way a person can be, and soon we were off, him riding his little bike, me hustling on foot to keep up from behind. To a park, the library (where he selected many more books than we could carry home), and then back to his house for lots of fun games.

At some point in the afternoon, he convinced his Mom to let us all cook Christmas cookies. As we kneaded and flattened the dough, he got out those cookie cutters and started sorting them by name.

Here, I was impressed that his language of choice was French, which for some time now he has more freely and openly been mixing with his English.

First, I heard him say "arbre de Noël," then "étoiles," mainly to himself, then to his Mom and me, "bonhomme de neige."

Next, he came out with "Gingerbread Man," which I'm fairly sure is what a French speaker who have to say also.

Finally, after mumbling "reindeer" under his breath, he came out with "rennes."

It's a wonderful privilege to watch a young child, thoroughly bi-lingual, work out his linguistic choices at a time like that.

Neither his Mom or I could figure out why he suddenly chose French on this occasion, bit we went along with it and reinforced the words as he came out with them.

The cookies, once ready, were quite delicious.

Bon appetit...

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