Mais Oui, She is Her Mother's Daughter......

She is her mother's daughter......and maybe not in a good way. For my children, the second semester starts this week. Today, I logged onto the parent portal of Kate's middle school website, in an effort to prepare myself for what promises to be not the best of news in my eighth grader's first semester grades. I was prepared for trouble in algebra. I knew things were touch and go in honors English and Language Arts. I knew Kate has been shall I say a little too social in social studies, and her grade might reflect that. But, there it was. It stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb....a 60 on a French History project ! This was a subject in which she had a 98 average at the end of the last nine weeks. I racked my brain. I could not remember any discussion of a French history assignment.

"Kate, could you come down, please?" Bam, bam, bam as Kate's gait is part jump, part bounce, part bang down our stairs. "Kate, what is this French history project, and what happened?"

First came the long, deliberate pause, the one I have so come to dread. Then, "Momma, you could have told me Louis Vuitton was not really a French historical person." Kate, surely you did not do a French history paper on a handbag designer. Even worse, on a handbag designer who I believe collaborated with the German Nazi regime. I am sure that went over well in a French class. But she did. She did her first semester term paper on The House of Vuitton! Aunt Teeny, My Expert On All Things French, at moments like these, where are you? More importantly, where is your influence on my daughter?

I haven't seen the paper. I haven't had the pleasure of reading Kate's slant on how Louis Vuitton became a French hero. I pray that she didn't write about our Canal Street explorations in New York City, searching for the perfect knock off bag, though I would not be altogether surprised.

Kate, like her mother, loves the perfect handbag. And somehow that trait, that blasted Blakeney characteristic took over her brain as she postulated her semester project in French.... on the House of Vuitton. Needless to say, whatever she wrote, her teacher was not impressed.

I wish I could remember just one of the French curse words I once knew. Moreover, I wish I could translate the English, "Will we survive second semester?" into impeccable Francaise.