One day when I dropped Reid off at school a boy whose name I don’t know looked up and said, “Bonjour, ma belle.” In English that’s literally, “Hello, my beautiful one” but more like “Hello, sweetie.” It certainly is different from the short, “Hi,” that Reid usually offers. It’s a difference in the nature of the languages and the way we perceive them. Who is more emblematic of childhood romance than Pepe le Pew, after all? Having grownup hearing English almost exclusively, French still seems a bit exotic after 14 years (!) here in the nation’s capital. I remind myself that the francophone kids aren’t necessarily smarter because they can already speak French while I’m still working on it. I can definitely speak English better than them. Of course, it’s likely that Reid will soon speak French better than me - her accent is already better than mine - but that won’t bother me. I hope.