A Voyage of Discovery
Sorry for the lack of posting, but it's been a whirlwind for the past 2 and a half weeks and now, on the eve of our departure back to France, I am finally finding the time to get down some of my reflections from the trip. When we get back to our hectic life where we didn't have 2 minutes to ourselves, I'm not sure how much time I'll have in the weeks to come and I wanted to at least write about the main points of our trip.
It certainly has been a learning experience, this trip, because I allowed it to open my eyes to new doors and other areas I hadn't noticed or thought about. Sometimes when we are taken out of our normal environments new ideas come to us and give us a chance to explore. On my run this morning (YES, I am ignorning what the gynecologist told me and am so sick and tired of those last 10 lbs hanging on my thighs that I am getting back into the running routine), I thought about this post and what I wanted to say. So, here is what I learned the most on this voyage to the USA.
1/ Having two kids means that everything takes twice as long and that we spend 50 percent of our time caring for them. We have to applaud Gab and Louise- they have been angels during this whole trip and have done great for all the driving and changing of environments we did going from house to house. But, as Etienne said the other day, we did realize that we spend a lot of time caring for those little ones- whether it be changing, feeding, or saying 'no' to Gab. This is not a bad thing, but it taught us that we can't expect to hurry and how to be a little more patient. We affectionately gave ourselves the name of 'Family Circus' because every time we would arrive somewhere, before we could even have an adult conversation with someone, we had to unload the gang from the car, get their bottes, diapers, and appartii in order and we couldn't just arrive somewhere and just be. I, who have a tendency to be very uncomfortabe at people's house's in general and have a problem with just making myself at home, had to get over that and we kind of took over with the bottles, diapers, laundry, everywhere we went. This brings me to my second point.
2/ Not everyone likes having a 2 year old as a guest but a 2 month old who doesn't cry is welcome anytime. To us, Gab was wonderful and is going through such a cute phase right now. He repeats everything we say, he is really starting to understand us, and his fits from 2 months ago have greatly vanished almost to nothing so that we can really enjoy our time together. But, he's still a 2 year old and a boy at that and he is quite animated and curious (but Thank God for that- it's always sad to me to see children whose parents drill them to be their personal puppet, at least we know Gab is happy and well rounded). We felt that a couple of people we visited along the way took his behavior for being misbehaved because they were expecting a silent child who just sat there. This posed a problem because it made us feel really uncomfortable and like we were awful parents and that we should be disciplining our child when to us, he didn't have any discipline problems! As much as we prefer to stay with people to spend time with them rather than in some impersonal hotel room, we decided that when we visit family and friends with 3 kids in tow if that happens in the future, we need to find another lodging solution.
3/ I have a spending problem in the US, but not in France! Every time we come home, it's the same thing, I go into a store like Target and come out with millions of things we don't need because they don't exist in France or they are more expensive. We are also deeply in a culture of spending here where there is a product for every single taste and purpose one can imagine. This made me realize something about mysef- I am greatly torn between the cookie cutter lifestyle of Target, Starbucks, the Gap, Old Navy, etc... and the flea market lifestyle of reusing. Could someone tell me why on earth Louise absolutely needed the Maclaren organizer for the back of her stroller or the 3 pairs of Robeez leather shoes or the huge stack of clothing I bought for both her and Gab at the Gap outlet or cute kitchen stuff at Target that would just make our kitchen look cute? There is no reason! And, in France, I never am tempted by this stuff unless I'm at a flea market where it's okay to spend! It's time we get back on that plane because we already spent way too much now, if we stayed any longer, I'd have to get a second job!
4/ I hate fast food. Being in the US has just made me realize how disgusting fast food is. In fact, our trip has encouraged me to really get into making healthy meals for my family when we get back.
5/ Etienne and I are hooked on Desperate Housewives. I had never really gotten into this show, until we started watching it on this trip. Maybe I'm at a different point in my life now, but I can really relate to Lynette's character. Being a wife and mother is not something that comes naturally to me. I really don't like to cook, no matter how hard I try to have a clean house I feel that I am always getting lost in disorganization so that nothing is ever clean, and I'd much rather be reading or doing something else than changing kids' butts. I love my children with my life but I have never been able to mold 100 percent into that role of mother because part of me is still a single university student who doesn't want to get married and have a family. Of course we lie in the beds we make and I would not change anything to my life and these wonderful children we have, but I learned on this trip that I need to learn to be less selfish and more open to my kids' and husband's needs because I am not alone. I might not always be able to go on a run when I want, to buy exactly what I want to buy, to sit down and read at night because I am so tired and worn out from the day.
Well, there's the jist of it and we are ready to come back home! Next post from Paris!
