Okay, are you ready? Gabriel has a sweetheart!

Gabriel has been good friends with Lola since September. We were under the impression that Lola was the only girl in his life.

Which is why we were all the more surprised to find him positively brimming over with excitement and determination one afternoon, on returning from school, to quickly gather together his array of drawing accoutrements and papers, and begin forthwith on a drawing to present to his new sweetheart.

Her name is Hermance.

He said:

"She is a princess, Maman."

Her name sure is like a princess!

He asked me (I couldn't believe it) to help draw a princess. So I did a faint outline of one in pencil ("Thank you, Papa."), and then he did the rest.

As you will see in the video, I had not drawn any feet. So I later did a sample for Gabriel on Maxime's nearby paper. Gabriel, as is his wont, decided to go with the sort of shoe he believed a princess should wear. Which were less like shoes belonging to a beautiful European princess, and more the sort of footwear an Oregon settler's wife would have worn during the War between the States. But in such cases it is always best to leave such opinions to oneself.