Used to be, when we wanted to talk about something without the kids understanding, we’d spell. But lately, the Captain has gotten so good at spelling that he can still guess at what top secret thing we’re talking about. So has started to use a kind of pigdin French of his own invention as his new code.

For example, here he is asking me about a gold-coloured Thomas train he found in my underwear drawer:

“Est-ce vous connais que… il y a un train d’or dans… le dresseur?”

And here I am, letting him know that it’s for the Captain’s Christmas stocking:

“Oui, il est pour Noel, pour… le chausette… giant.”

Then we giggled. said recently that after the Captain starts French immersion next year, he’ll be able to understand us again, and we’ll have to come up with a new code. And I said that I really don’t think he’ll be able to understand Monkey French anyway, and we can go right ahead and keep using it!