A REAL faux pas

So my French isn't horrible...I have to admit.  Considering I spoke absolutely nothing when Jean and I met, I'm pretty impressed with myself for having picked it up without any formal classes.  I am fairly confident that after a couple years here I'll be able to call myself fluent.  That said, I know that I have many mistakes to make along the way (such as the one you are about to read).


Recently Audrey started to get attached to a lovey (a "doudou" in French).  It's a soft little piece of fabric that looks like a zebra.  Although I have never been big on these sorts of things, it helped us with her bedtime routine during a rough transition period when first moved here.

I thought it would be nice to give it a cute little nickname to avoid calling it "that zebra fabric thingy" so I came up with the name "zee-zee" since it is a zebra after all.  Audrey seemed to agree to the naming of it so "zee-zee" it was.  A couple weeks after its naming, Jean walked by her door as I was putting her to bed and I mentioned zee-zee's name.  He must have done a double take because I saw him walking backwards saying "WHAT did you just call that??"  Well it tuns out that zi-zi (same pronunciation as zee-zee) is how parents call a penis when talking to little kids.  It would be the equivalent of a "pee-pee" or a "wee-wee", I suppose.  I've tried to take the name back but it seems to be too late. Fantastic - I can just imagine having guests over and Audrey running around the house frantically looking for her zi-zi.  Sigh...lesson learned I suppose.