Co-sleeping and the Family Bed: Why I'll Miss It

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Today I'm flying to Salt Lake City for the Altitude Summit summer conference--a meet-up for bloggers and designers. I didn't expect to attend because of the cost, but a corporate sponsor gave me a ticket after one of my posts for Every Mom Counts.* I'm so incredibly grateful, and I can't wait to meet Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom and to hear speakers like Martha Stewart and Joy Cho. But as excited as I am to go, I expect I will miss sleeping with my family the most.

That sounds a bit odd, I know, because we Americans (and okay, the French too) are not a family bedsharing culture. Unlike most of the world, we generally give our children a separate bedroom starting from early infancy. While preparing for motherhood, I didn't have any reason to think my children would be raised any differently. My husband and I bought a crib and figured our little one would use it at some point, if not right away.

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When Camping Isn't Roughing It: Tips for A Fun Family Experience

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Friends, I just booked two nights of tent camping at a lakeside campground on Mt. Hood, so this will be our third summer in a row with a camping trip. I have many friends who simply stopped camping when they had children--after all, they didn't camp much before children, and the early years of parenting can seem rough enough. But honestly, if you haven't camped in a while, or if you haven't yet gone camping as a family, you ought to know what you're missing.

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Child-Friendly French Events in the Pacific Northwest, Summer 2014:

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C'est l'été (it's nearly summer, anyway)! Here's a list of child-friendly French events in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. taking place this summer:

World Cup / Tour de France Airing at St. Honoré Boulangerie (June/July):

St. Honoré Boulangerie has such delightful French ambiance and authentic pastries (at any of their three locations around Portland) that it's always a treat to visit, but this month you'll have the excuse of enjoying a pain au chocolat with your child while watching the World Cup soccer games on a surreptitious flat-screen télé. Return again in July during the Tour de France programming to enjoy another perfect pastry.

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Summer Children's Activities for Practicing French at Home

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Does it feel like summer to you yet? It's so close here--we have friends visiting from out-of-state, and this is my husband's last week of teaching before his summer break. I've been thinking of simple summer activities that we can do to keep French integral to our days since my family will be spending more time together and we will be conversing more in English (my husband doesn't speak French). Here are my suggestions for simple children's activities for summer fun in French (and most of them can be used to practice another language as well):

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Our Family's Bilingual Journey: Regrets & Current Successes

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Since she was two years old, my daughter has generally spoken English to me. Before then, she spoke a fair amount of French words, but it seemed that as soon as she learned an English word from Daddy or an extended family member, she'd stop using the equivalent French word. She did continue to use some French nouns, but the predominance of English as her main language happened rapidly.

Lately I've wondered if pretending not to understand English would have prompted my infant daughter to speak French with me. I've heard this can be a successful technique--but my children always seemed to grasp that I understand English perfectly well since I speak it with my husband and everyone else.

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Eyes Wide Open: What Children See & Recognize

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My five-year-old daughter and I sat in blinding sunlight yesterday and read a picture book that deeply impacted me. The Man With the Violin follows the story of little Dylan, who notices many things that his mother doesn't. One day he hears a musician in the subway playing beautiful violin music, and though he wants to stop and listen, his mama rushes him on. There's more to the story, since it's based on this American cultural experiment:

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C'est le Weekend: Links You'll Like

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Yesterday my children had a French playdate at our home, and afterwards my mother-in-law dropped off some homemade Thai food. Later, my husband arrived home early and made dinner for some students who stopped by while I was planting raspberry canes in the backyard. Quelle bonne journée! I hope you have some equally lovely moments this weekend as you make the jump into June. Enjoy these weekend links I compiled for you:

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5 Ways to Learn French (or Another Language) Without Taking A Class

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When I was a high school French teacher, I told my students that high school was the last time in their lives when they could take a foreign language class for free. Now that I'm raising my children in French, however, I see that my statement wasn't entirely accurate. Here are five ways to learn French or improve your knowledge of the language for free without enrolling in a class:

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