C'est ma vie

Pitstop Picnic

Pitstop Picnic, originally uploaded by afoos.

Since I'm an insomniac tonight (after sleeping 4 straight hours in the car, I'm going to regret this tomorrow when the kids wake up right as I'm drifting off to sleep), thought I'd start with a warm up pic to our trip: our first stop, picnic by a lake on the way there.

A few words about picnicing. We are a picnic family not only because it's cheaper let alone A LOT nicer to sit by a lake out in the nature rather than in a stuffy restaurant but also because I don't know if you know what it's like to try and wrestle with two kids under the age of 4 in a restaurant, but it's not fun. In fact, anytime someone even suggests restaurant with the kids, E and I always give each other a look of "they don't know what they are getting into" and "how can we politely decline?" I actually do like a restaurant once in awhile, contrary to E who hates going out to eat and is just happy with a tuna sandwich at home, or by a lake, but I know we'll get back to being able to join out of town guests at restaurant endeavors once the kids get older.

A couple years ago, we took my brother and sister to Galveston and packed a picnic lunch and their reaction was "gross". Then, when we were in Italy and I said we had a picnic lunch when we were out and about, double the reaction, "gross". Since I've lived 7 years now in France and in my new cultural surroundings, even in the most bourgeoise of families, the traditional picnic is nothing but the most common of happenings (remember, we spent a week in a villa in February with Etienne's family and didn't go out to eat once- eating out is a once a year thing), I am trying to remember in my US culture if picnics were seen as weird and I honestly can't remember. Do people picnic in the US or is it only reserved for certain social classes or subcultures? Whatever the case, wherever we go, we will BOOP (bring our own picnic), especially now that my mom got us this super cool, snazzy picnic basket/ice chest that comes with its own cutting board and salt and pepper shakers. I'm telling you, our picnics are not your traditional bologne and cheese or p,b and j sandwiches.

Come along with us the next time!

More Brittany pics to come...

A Week by the Sea

Beaches of Brittany, originally uploaded by afoos.

Words can't describe the wonderful week we spent, as a family, without internet, without worries, without the daily grind we realize we've fallen into to without even knowing it, in a little white house by the sea on the coast of Brittany.

The weather in the pic tells all- for the most part, we were able to taste the first sunbeams of spring, even though we could still feel winter's hand trying to grasp the moments when the sun would sink behind the clouds. We only had one bad weather day, the rest were full of sun which allowed us to take many walks, taste the first pre-summer burgers and sausages on the grill, and of course, explore the beach, where the kids could have stayed for hours.

Many more pics to come and my apologies for not being 'connected' this week, I know some of you are waiting for a response to an email or on facebook, but actually, I'm not too sorry, it was a wonderful taste of freedom, for a week.

We're off....

I think part of the reason my past couple of posts have been more venting and maybe dramatizing things that didn't need to be dramatized is because we were so near the school vacation period. Students and teachers both are on edge the last couple days before school holiday, and I'm not excluded from that. With all the incertitude about my past evaluation, I've been a little tense as has Etienne and we both need a little break, even if I'll be working on these papers I have to turn in. But, at least I'll be working in the fresh sea air and escape the Paris pollution a little. Sometimes, I paint a bad pic of Etienne and I regret that. He is kind of from the Middle Ages but at the same time will do things I know a lot of men won't do to help out. And, now he knows that he needs to shut his trap when it comes to my housekeeping skills! I wanted to respond about the 3rd child comments but that will have to wait. We have our own theories about that and that will be for another post.

So, we're off! No internet access for a week so I'll post when we get back. Happy week!

Peace Offering

Etienne must have really realized he had crossed the line, especially after he continued on this morning about my lack of house keeping skills and I finally went hormonally ballistic (I have threshold of what I can take and when you are going on the third day of "You don't do anything around the house", well, excuse me for blowing a fuse) because he came home with a peace offering: a pastry from our local bakery. And, let met tell you, when E brings home something for me, it really means he feels that he did wrong. But, not only did he get this for me but he also went through public humiliation to get it.

He wanted to get me "une tête de nègre", the pre-politically correct name for a chocolate covered meringue ball with a coffee and chocolate center. Since the last time he set foot in a pastry shop was probably when politically correct didn't exist, well, when he told the lady what he wanted, her welcoming smiley 'bonjour' face quickly turned into a 'you racist who do you think you are?' face. She could have at least told him what the new word for the thing was.

As I was enjoying my chocolate meringue, I secretly smiled to myself with all the trouble he had to go through to get it. Not that he deserved it, but still....

Ouside

Gabriel et Louise apprécient le retour du printemps sur le balcon, originally uploaded by afoos.

Louise loves going "ouside". Of course, balcony time is done under the closest observation because I have this profound fear that my children are going to go over the side and our balcony is not (yet) childproofed. But, when we have a few minutes and the weather permits, we enjoy a few sunny moments.

The One Where I Dump the Kids on the Husband

I've already described the cloud of fatigue that seems to hover over me throughout the day as if to say "I'm waiting for you" and then, always at the same time, when I go get the kids, this looming cloud engulfs me and from about 4:30 onwards, I am a walking zombie. I try to clean our neverending mess of an apartment, but to no avail because the kids promptly destroy what I've picked up. I try to get organized, to stay on top of things, but it just seems like I'm running this marathon in circles, never to reach the finish line.

The bottom line is that I am "supposed" to do everything. I say this because every time Etienne moves and does something, I hear "this house just isn't managed." I can infer from his sarcasm that he expects me to indeed do everything so that he doesn't have to do anything because really, at heart, he is lazy and would prefer to avoid the materialistic details of life at all costs. The problem is that there are only 24 hours in a day and even if I only sleep 5 or 6 of those hours (which is way more often than not), I just don't have the energy to do everything. So, some things get left behind and unfortunately, those things are noticed quickly and called to my attention.

Etienne is very French in that he only notices the things that I don't do, never the things I actually do. Sometimes, I feel like keeping a journal of exactly what I do in this house as a way to prove to him that I'm not sitting on my butt twiddling my thumbs. He also keeps reminding me that his mom, a doctor, did everything while raising 3 kids a year apart in age. First of all she's a perfectionist and had the French housewife model, something that I definitely don't have. Secondly, she did have a maid to help her. And thirdly, she came from a different time, when women were" supposed" to do everything. What were the feminist years for if I'm to find myself back in the 50s in 2008? I'm starting to believe one of my colleagues who said that French men still live in the Middle Ages.

Our apartment is perpetually in disorder. Contrary to what my husband thinks, at the bottom of my heart, I just can't stand the disorder but you get to a point when you can't spend all your energy cleaning up all the time. I try so hard to keep up with everything but it's nearly impossible. If I clean up the apartment, I can't take care of the kids, if I can't take care of the kids, they get into things and then I hear from Etienne "You aren't taking care of the kids" but at the same time he wants me to be more organized in the apartment. It's just a never ending cycle that perpetuates itself over and over and over again until there's an explosion.

So, after two whole days of hearing "Nothing is managed around here" (and he had the audacity to say that after I had made dinner tonight!), I was tired of arguing about this and said "Fine, you can take care of the kids the rest of the evening, I am going to bed." This was of course after the second night in a row when he has made indirect comments at 5:30 pm like "Fine, I can see no food will be made, I'll have to make dinner myself". 5:30 pm! We usually don't eat until 7-7:30, but if I am, gasp, relaxing a little, god forbid, and I'm not in the kitchen where every woman should be, then panic sets in and I am flagged for being a bad housewife. The thing is that he is deeply convinced that I do nothing, zilch, zero around the house and he is also deeply convinced that he does everything. I can't argue with someone who is convinced they are right. So, let him take care of the kids, give them their bath, brush their teeth, read them a story- all things that he does once a year- and I am going to have the evening off and I am perfectly conscious that I am doing nothing right now, for once.

Geez, sometimes I think I need to go on strike so that this family can really get the effect of what it would be for me not to do anything.

Oh, and I also think that we are crazy, seriously insane for wanting to add a third rugrat to the mix. Anyone have a good shrink who can brainwash us in the other direction?

Life isn't fair

I don't know who my readers are, so I always have to take that into account when writing a post. But, I will say that some unfair stuff has been happening to me and I do believe that I am finding myself in a political situation that could very well lead to a negative outcome of this year. This looming cloud has been eating at both me and Etienne the whole weekend and into the beginning of this week and it's sure to continue its ravenous hunt until mid-June, at which time I am hoping to see some form of fairness peak through a system that I am starting to lose faith in. Sometimes, I wonder, even though I am of French nationality just like all the other students teachers, if I don't have American written too boldly across my forehead and that maybe I'm too naive in thinking that my cultural origins won't impact how those who judge me look at me?

So, this next month will be fairly stressful trying to finish the 2 papers I must hand in and then preparing for the inspection that will make or break me.

I am going to try and focus on something else, something less stressful on the blog, though. I, myself am tired of dealing with the "other" stuff and hopefully we won't have to deal with it yet another year.

A whole lotta kids

Visite chez Yann et Mollie en métro lors d'un dimanche pluvieux à Paris, originally uploaded by afoos.

2 7 year olds
2 3 and a half year olds
1 19 month old

What does that add up to? Actually, Silence! We were quite surprised that the rainy afternoon at our friends' apartment in the 5th didn't put a damper on our afternoon with a bunch of kids cooped up in an apartment. Instead, they actually played by themselves for a couple hours while the adults could actually talk about adult stuff. I can't even do that in my own house! Maybe we can borrow their kids sometime to entertain our kids...just to have a few moments of down time ourselves.

The kids first Loisvethe experience

Kid approved, originally uploaded by afoos.

After waking up at 6:30 am yesterday, the kids started acting very tired after lunch and we promptly put them to bed, hoping for a good two hours (we can always hope!). Etienne decided to take a nap too because he had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before. I had caught up some emails and just settled into Proust when, an hour later, I heard Gab come out of his room and Louise's cries of "Mommy".

We needed an activity, and fast, so we headed over to Loisvethe and enjoyed afternoon coffee, juice and cookies before the tea time rush came in and then went and played at the park across the street. Aimee's cookies were finger licking good, as you can see on the pic.

After that, I decided to drive to the north of Paris to the Marché St. Pierre to get some fabric for the curtains, but after an hour in traffic and Louise started to get restless, I decided to go home, that will be for another outing.

Ok, we're going home!

Ok, we're going home!, originally uploaded by afoos.

So, after we fought for Gab to play one game by trying our best to stand in line and being pushed and shoved all over the place, we could tell that Gab, too, was not enjoying himself. There were also so many people that it was difficult for us to allow Louise to run around, afraid she would be crushed.

The bad mood you see in picture is not a result of us telling Gab we were going home, it was a result of the chaotic ambiance of the Carnival.

I don't think my impressions of the Carnival necessarily deserve a generalization of the French culture, which was my first tendency. I really think it's Paris that prevents a sense of community from being formed. To each his own and the sense of individualism that is already present in the French culture is exaggerated in Paris. In the provinces, outside of Paris, there is more a sense of community and working together, but yesterday, it was seriously as though a bunch of families were forced to be together but we didn't really know the purpose. So, obviously there will be some disorder.