mon copain sullivan

My mom, step-dad and I weren't the only house guests chez les Lucas in Nanterre - we were joined by three-year old Sullivan, Damien's nephew. After about five minutes of being shy, Sullivan decided that I was pretty nice, and we became fast friends. He quickly won us all over with his sweet personality. My mom became La Maman and Mickey earned a lot of hugs after buying him a new toy car.

I love hanging out with French children. I don't have to worry about making a grammar mistake or mispronouncing a word. My only challenge is understanding their language. For Sullivan, "Faufons" are his house shoes (chaussons), "t'étais vous ?" instead of où, and "pourpoi?" rather than pourquoi. He asked Damien who we were, and then made up a song about how Tonton has friends. It was so fun experiencing things through Sullivan's eyes. He was so excited when the RER went fast, and burst out laughing when the elevator on the Eiffel Tower lurched forward. Damien took us on a tour of Paris by night, and although the sparkling Eiffel Tower was pretty impressive, Sullivan was more interested in the buses and motorcycles.

His new book, Le Bossu de Notre Dame - a gift from Tante Katherine - became an obsession, especially Clopin, the narrator. Sullivan understood it as le lapin, and was sweetly surprised every time he turned a page and found a picture of his favorite character. I worried that we'd made a mistake of telling him that la Cathédrale de Notre Dame was the home of Quasimodo, and that he'd be really disappointed when we didn't see the characters when we went inside. The gargoyles weren't of any interest to him - we were on a hunt for le lapin. Fortunately, Damien pointed out some animals in the stained glass, and Sullivan spotted le lapin - but he was the only one! And when the organ began playing, Sullivan announced that it was la dame (Esmeralda) who was making the music. Adorable !

Saturday night, Damien said he wasn't sure who was going to be more sad to say au revoir on Sunday - me or Sullivan. When the time came, he lowered his sweet head and pouted for a minute, then gave us all big hugs and un bisou, and bravely walked out the door.