Travelling Amber

Giving It My All -- Post-Bac Business School and Teacher Burn Out.

2012-02-17T09:27:00.000+01:00

I'm having some problems at the moment, as always, with my students. To put it clearly and to stick to the facts, I am a professor in a Post-BAC business school which is the little sister of a French "Grande Ecole" here in the North of France. I teach first and second year students. I've been at this school for nearly four years and I've seen things that most people can't even imagine or wouldn't even believe possible. My students are supposed to be "the best of the best", from the most affluent families. The most wealthy. The most privileged with the best education.

As I've mentioned time and time again and often complain (or rave) about (depending on the day), I'm a teacher. It's an obvious career choice for Anglophones in France but I'm also a teacher by training. I went to teacher's college and I sat through numerous lessons taught by any number of teachers and professors in a variety of subjects. I observed, I applied techniques I saw and learned in class, and eventually one fine day I took over as the teacher of my own class room.

My first day of college, I attended a class taught by one of the single-most influential teachers in my entire educational career, Dr. Dockery. Dr. Dockery was an incredible professor. The entire class was captivated when he spoke. He had a way of engaging us in conversation, drawing us in to this world of mystery -- the other side of the desk -- and I hung on his every word. I knew in that moment that I didn't just want to be a teacher, I wanted to be a professor. If anything, I wanted to teach other people how to be teachers. I wanted to instill a passion for educating in others. That was (and maybe still is) my ultimate goal in life.

Over time, I realized that teaching in general wouldn't be enough to scratch my itch. I wanted to teach other people how to teach language. I wanted my two favorite things -- educating and communication -- to be combined. I thought that working with other like-minded professionals would be the most fulfilling career in the whole entire world. Cue unicorns, rainbows, and canons exploding with daisy chains.

Somewhere along the way, my path got crossed with somebody else's and before I knew it, I was in the center of the business world doing corporate training -- this is where the demand was, and I needed a job. I knew nothing about business prior to this first experience apart from everything I learned from my business man father, which was more than your Average Joe but not nearly enough to build a career on. I faked it long enough to learn what I needed to know to work with retailers, managers, etc., and before long the school of life had filled in a lot of the gaps that were left and I was off.

I started making a name for myself. My network expanded. I still dreamed of getting back into a classroom. One fateful day I was lucky enough to get an interview. I even remember praying (back when there was still a shred of religion in my body) -- please God, let me get this job. I was 22 years old and suddenly I was faced with the chance of living my dream -- becoming a teacher at a university. I prayed so hard that the lady interviewing me would see some potential despite my age and give me a chance. I thought to myself, if I can just get this job, I'll be reaching a semblance of my dreams, and that alone would be a miracle. I'll never ask for anything else, ever again (as a unicorn runs past in the background).

Fortunately for me, the lady interviewing me saw a lot of potential -- perhaps even more than I saw in myself at the time. She hired me on and encouraged me every step of the way. I started teaching there in March 2009. The group I'd signed on to teach were first year business school students that had already been through at least four other teachers in six short months. Two of the teachers came for one lesson and never came back. I didn't care -- I believed that everybody deserved a chance and that there was plenty of good in everyone. I knew it would be a challenge, but I didn't let that stop me.

The first class period, I planned to get to know my students. I prepared some Q&A things. A girl in the back of the room said, "why do we have to do this? You're just going to leave like the others." I realized that they needed somebody who was going to fight for them and to stick around for them. I dug in my heels and planned to stay. I wasn't going to let a bunch of Freshmen in college put me off of my dream.

As the semester carried on, I think the students and I came to an understanding. By the end of spring, I was ready to come back in the fall, and with more classes.

I don't want to re-hash the past, but in the fall a number of things happened to me. Students came to class drunk with one of their eyebrows shaved off. Students threw up in the middle of the lecture. Students who weren't even enrolled at the school ended up in my class somehow, claiming to be somebody else (a student who had never bothered to come to any lessons). A boy bigger than my husband cornered me and threatened me, waiving his fist in my face as he demanded an explanation as to why his grades were low. A girl went to the administration and tried to get me fired. She might have succeeded if the previous director had stuck around for any length of time. I was forced to write a recommendation letter for a student who had never exerted even the tiniest ounce of effort in any of my classes. I constantly watched my back and paid careful attention when I was in the dark parking garage or in a secluded hallway.

Then the third and fourth year students that were causing all of the problems left for their internships and their study abroad experiences. I was left in the spring with three adorable first and second year groups that actually liked me, and we were able to have a good time. Over the coming weeks, the hurt from the first semester faded. My evaluations from the third year students in particular were so harsh that my boss didn't even show them to me, in fear that I might run out the door and leave her high and dry. My first years gave me an overwhelming 90% "very satisfied" rating. The problem, clearly, was not with me.

In the spring something great happened and I found out I was pregnant. I worried about being offered a contract to come back because by this time, I'd grown accustomed to having all of that extra money in my bank account each month. I'd just been asked by the big sister school to teach some hours for them and I felt like my pregnancy would shoot all those dreams in the foot. In tears, I told my boss I wouldn't be coming back in the fall or spring, and she reassured me that there would be a place for me when I was ready to come back.

That was September 2011. I came back with my whole heart. I was ready to teach in the new school with better materials and fewer students per class. I knew better than to take 3rd and 4th year students so I loaded up on 1st and 2nd years. When one teacher had to drop out a couple of weeks into the semester, I was there to take over her classes. When there was one class left with no teacher, I jumped in. I recruited three people to our team and collected a number of CVs of other potential people. I contributed to the coursebook and participated with my whole heart in meetings and planning my lessons.

I guess I'm tooting my own horn, but what it comes down to is this : teaching is not just a job for me. It's my livelihood. It's my passion, it's my fuel. I don't just go to work and go home. I am 24/7 in teacher-mode. A girl on the train hears me speaking English and asks a question? I help her with her homework. A colleague sends me an email asking for an explanation of a word he doesn't understand, and I take the time to help him. I never un-plug, it never stops. It's plain and simply just part of who I am. So I like to think that makes me a valuable member of our teacher team.

This year started off well but it doesn't seem to be ending on a very high note. I regularly have over 50% of my class absent at the beginning of the lesson, and then they stand in the hallway shouting if I don't let them come in late. I've had a student threaten me in the parking lot, saying, "we're not in class any more, watch your back". I've confiscated a cell phone in use during the course only to see that the text he was writing was, "connasse de prof d'anglais" -- which is kind of like calling me a bitch, only a bit stronger (in my opinion). I've had students refuse to leave when told to get out because it's not my job to deal with their poor behavior. I've been accused of not grading fairly and having a personal grudge against somebody because I gave her "the lowest grade of her life". I've been told that I don't have the right to kick a student out because "she pays my salary" since they pay tuition. That I don't have the right to email the administration about a trouble maker. That I don't have the right to use a stern voice when telling a student off or asking a student to leave, because that's "rude". (does anybody see the irony here??)

Yesterday I was peacefully working with my professional students in a warm, friendly environment. I had a number of emails from colleagues and administration alike asking me for more details -- why did you give this person this grade? Why did you write this comment? Why did you send this person out? Nobody ever thinks to ask the student why they didn't work harder for a better grade, why they didn't behave in a way that wouldn't merit a comment on the sign sheet, and why they didn't behave in a way that would allow them to stay in my class like the rest of the students.

"Do you know who my parents are?"
"I pay your salary."
"You don't have the right to talk to me like that."
"You can't do that to me."
"You don't have to be so rude to me."
"Treat me with the respect I deserve."

These are comments you can hear on any given day in any given hallway. Hidden in the mix are a few incredible kids who deserve a high quality education and a teacher who is willing to invest in them.

I continue teaching in order to reach those kids, and not the kids I've written about above. Teaching still is, and will always be my passion and what I was made for and I subscribe to the mindset that what doesn't kill me will make me stronger (and a better teacher). But if this snapshot of the university-aged population is a reflection of the future business leaders of France, then I'm not sure this is the field I want to teach in any more.

Life is Sweet

2012-02-07T21:50:00.003+01:00

As I mentioned in my last post, things are really going well at the moment and some times when I stop and think about it, I get completely overwhelmed with emotion and can't believe that everything is finally working out for us. When am I going to wake up and realize that this is just another sweet dream? Or maybe this time around there finally won't be a wicked downside waiting to sucker punch us.

So here's the outside of the new house, since I haven't posted it on the blog yet and since the loan stuff is finally done :

For my friends living in other (much more expensive) regions, I'm not even going to mention how much we spent. You couldn't even buy a 15m2 studio apartment in Paris for what we spent on this house. At 160m2, it was truly and honestly a steal. Even the notary couldn't believe the negotiated price. There's a reason Jeremie is so good at his job, and I'm glad I can occasionally enjoy the perks of his mad skills!

And speaking of our lovely new town that was recently featured on TF1, here's a picture of our little winter storm from last Friday. It took me an hour to drive 7km. Ridiculous. I know I'm not famous in the blogging world for my amazing driving skills, but if there's one thing I do actually know how to do, it's get around in the snow. Everybody else though? Well.. that's another story. There's this stretch of road in our current town that goes up a hill. On the bottom, there's a roundabout, in the middle of the stretch of road there's another, and it ends at a red light. I made it to the second roundabout without even slipping and encountered a parking lot. All of the cars were stuck and couldn't move. I slipped through, did my 3-point turn and headed back down to take the long way around. I like to pride myself on being a good samaritan, so I stopped on the hill on the way down and told everybody to turn around at the first round about instead of trying to get up the hill. And would you believe, I didn't have an accident or a single bump? It's when the road is completely clear on a sunny day with nobody in sight that I manage to wreck my car, of course. So here's Roubaix under some snow:

And on a completely different note --every morning when I wake up, there's something else that surprises me.. the little boy waiting in the crib with a gigantic smile on his face and his little arms outstretched, babbling to himself. My baby transformed into a toddler over night. I still can't believe he's so big at only 14 months. He wears 18-24 month clothes, and the 24 month stuff is a little tight since he still has that big baby belly. We're waiting for his weight to even itself out as he gets taller so his clothes will fit better.

Here he is getting his hair cut for the first time at 13.5 months old. Yeah.. he's still a ginger. I've actually grown to find it quite endearing with his big blue eyes, and have learned how to laugh off the question "where did that come from? the mailman?" ... no, that would be all the English on my mom's side of the family with their fair hair and skin. The curls are from my dad and the blue eyes are from great or great great grandparents on both sides. My reply to the mailman joke is that ours is from Madagascar (malgash), so V just isn't quite dark enough to be his, either. I think he'll be a handsome devil when he grows up.. but if not, at least he'll have character (that is exactly how I view myself -- I'm not beautiful by any culture's standards, but I think I'm hilarious and that 100% makes up for what I'm lacking in physical beauty!) Anyway, I love his little face, his pudgy little cheeks, and yes, even his red curly hair.

And this is the latest picture where I just look at him and fall in love all over again. There's only two other pictures that make me feel that way -- the first one J ever took of him with me at the hospital seconds after his birth, and a picture of V and J together at New Years a month after he was born when we went to Le Touquet. If my house was filling with water and I had to grab something other than my computer, i'd reach for those three photos of my little boy.

What do I love so much about this picture.. I don't know, the pure joy on his face? Or the fact that he looks so much like his mama? Or the snow? Or the way the picture really makes him look like a little boy and not a baby any more? All of the above? Yeah, definitely all of the above.

So what about that, then. I'm a cynical mother despite having always wanted to be a mom. My own mother sewed me a baby carrier when I was just a little girl and I carried my dolls around just like she carried around my baby brother. I had all kinds of baby dolls and stuffed animals that I mothered. But I don't have an easy personality which is I guess what makes the biggest difference. I didn't feel like motherhood was a solo job -- I felt like it was something that ought to be shared, interwoven with fatherhood, if you will. And since that's not how it worked out for us and I ended up being the 24/7 mom with not much relief for the first year of his life, that didn't really help me feel all warm and fuzzy. People often give me the big wide eyes when I say that I love being back at work full time because I feel like myself again, but anybody who has been through what I've been through is probably nodding along in agreement, well aware of how difficult it actually is to be a mom and understanding of the desire to want to carve back out a place for yourself in the workforce.

So this picture was taken on a Saturday morning right after a mini-snow storm. Victor had never been out in the snow as far as he could remember (that massive snow storm we drove through when he was 2wks old somehow doesn't count despite MY vivid memories of it!) and the second he had his boots strapped on, he hit the ground running. He could tell that his world was different, more fun even. I followed him around with the camera, taking pictures and video and I tell you what -- it was a pure moment of joy. You can see it on his face, and I wish somebody had been there to take a picture of mine, cause you'd probably see it there too.

Being the mother of a toddler (albeit a young one, but he's very much a toddler) is definitely my thing. I got such a kick out of watching him smear blueberries all over his face tonight. I get a kick out of watching him smear any food all over his face, because it means that he's able to eat and I will never for a single second of my life take that for granted. I enjoy it. If I don't feel like cleaning up the mess afterwards, it can wait and I can always do it later. But in the moment, I let him participate as much as he wants and we get a good laugh out of it. J and I both sing songs from his favorite TV shows to him, and we love watching them together. We like showing him how to build towers with his blocks or his stack cups, and what's even better is that 30 seconds after I've done it, he'll do it himself and I can just sit back and watch. It is really incredible. No more vegetable baby, no more 10+ diapers a day thanks to mystery stomach problems and allergies. No more up all night long trying to comfort him through the pain or the night terrors. It's just joy. If this is what other people feel with their newborns, then I get it. I didn't feel it then, but I feel pretty great about being his mom now. It took me awhile and it took me needing to find my niche, but I've come to realize that I just plain and simply do better when I can communicate with the person I'm interacting with. It's my job to try and find a way to communicate with people and not being able to do it with your own child is very frustrating. Now it's very obvious as to what he wants. "Tutu" he says for his pacifier, he shows us that he understands "no" by biting or hitting one of us (.. hey, it's communication, isn't it?) and he loves to hug and kiss other children that he sees. He's very social and always stops on the sidewalk to say hi to the people passing us. They get extra attention if they are closer to his size than to mine. I just love this tiny little budding social being so much. I can't wait til he can tell me a joke or laugh at a pun. That's when I think my heart might actually explode.

What prompted this.. tonight I was talking with one of my best friends back home. I met her sweet little girl when she was just a new born and now she's six months old. When she met Victor, my life was hectic and I'm not even sure I can really grasp in my current situation just how hectic it actually was. We were paranoid about V's health and travelling with him, over tired and too proud to ask for help or any relief because it felt like it was entirely our burden to bear. Tonight she asked me how things were going with him and I just wanted to scream from the roof tops that we're okay, that we made it out on the other side, that we're all better people for having lived through it and for having actually lived it, and not just glazing over it to try and make it sound better than it actually was as a lot of people have a tendency to do with many aspects of life. What I experienced with Victor as a baby, I wanted to feel it profoundly, like I do everything in my life. I live like that so that when things are finally better, I can just let the joy radiate through my body, through my heart, and out into the world through my words. I know what it's like to have nothing. I know what it's like to live with constant worry. I know what it's like to long for home, and I know what it's like to have the stress of a parent about your child that's not well. But you know what's most amazing about all of those things? It all gets better. Everything gets better. And when it does, boy.. is it good.

Happy

2012-02-01T13:28:00.003+01:00

It was convenient timing that my friend Mil in the next department over tagged me in her post about the things that make her happy. I actually left work on Monday thinking to myself that it would be a good idea to mention some of the good things that are happening in my life.

This week started out pretty hectic with Jeremie jetting off to Paris for a national conference and I was left wondering whether i'd sink or swim in his absence. He'll be back later today but that won't replace the two nights of sleep that I completely missed out on because Victor couldn't relax without his daddy around. He walks aimlessly around the house switching between "papapa?" and "dadada?" as if I've hidden him away in some closet and he'll jump out and surprise him.

My two sleepless nights led into two exhausting university days of kids that are so disconnected with the economic reality and me just feeling angry over their ignorance -- "60€ is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for a sweater! It's affordable -- anybody can buy it!" and my reply? "I can get 12 at Decathlon for the same price". They shrugged it off and said, "Yeah, our teachers are poor. The Spanish teacher only drives a Twingo and the German teacher drives a C1." I didn't really have the energy to put them back in their place, but it wouldn't have had any effect anyway because they'll just have to live it for themselves to see that 60€ has never been and will never be a "reasonable" price for a plain old sweater.

Then the cold set in, and I froze my stocking covered legs off in the -6°c temperatures this morning. My heater hasn't stopped running in days and I'm painfully aware of what this is going to end up costing me, but we have to stay warm, so I'll just suck it up.

So there was a lot going against me this week, but somehow on Monday I still managed to come home feeling awesome, and hopefully that feeling will get me through the next two days of training about technical subjects delivered in French. I feel tired just thinking about it.

What made me so happy? My new job. I guess it's not new anymore since I've been there since the end of November, but just the same, I love it. I got an email Monday night from my supervisor telling me that I can go ahead and charge the company full price for the two days of training I'm attending at the end of the week. I get told on a regular basis that I have good ideas and then told to actually do something about my good ideas --i.e. put them into practice.

In training center hell, I got used to the word "No" and the fun, sarcastic, "yeah, great idea, but where are we going to get the money to do that?" I put all of my great ideas up on a shelf. Without a lot of pause, I'm taking my ideas off the shelf, giving them a good dusting and pitching them. I haven't had a single "no" yet -- just lots of "yes". I can get used to this. You can't imagine just how good it feels to know that you work for a boss that believes in your work and in your skills until you've survived some of the horrible bosses I've had. I think that at some point in your career after hearing "no" so many times you start to question what you are doing wrong. At my new job, it's like I can do no wrong. They trust me to get the job done and to do it right, and some days I hesitate because I'm not sure I can handle such a big job, but other days I come up with good activities that remind me that I'm not so bad at the whole teaching thing and it wasn't just a huge mistake. I knew from the second I walked through the door of that company that it was the right fit for me, before ever even talking to my collaborators or meeting the people I'd be teaching. When the shoe fits, you know it fits.

Monday night was also the end of the 7-day retraction period with the notary, so bank documents pending, the house is ours and we should get the keys on April 2nd. That makes me happy. I've already started looking at color choices for paint and thinking about the floors I'd like to change. I've been dreaming of a warm, sunny spring and vegetables growing outdoors. I've thought of a chilly winter in front of a cozy, wood burning fire place and a good book. I've pictured Victor growing up, having the space to play, and feeling happy. All of these thoughts make me feel good. Looking at the pictures, I still can't believe I'm going to get to live in such a gorgeous house. Jeremie and I have really created something for ourselves in our short working lives and I hope that this is another one of our smart decisions.

Then there's Victor. I'm still hesitant to say that we've "outgrown" the FPIES knowing that it always comes back when we least expect it, but we haven't seen any traces of it since the end of 2011. He's eating small meals twice a day with both vegetables and fruit, and twice a day he has a little snack. He still drinks a liter of milk or so per day and he's growing like a weed. I made cookies on Sunday night that were gluten and dairy free, and he loved them. We're also in a sharing stage, where he reaches out his hand to give me something and then snatches it away with a laugh before he runs to the other side of the room with whatever it is. He doesn't like to share his cookies with me, but thinks it's really funny to pretend like he's going to share them. I'm thinking that if the FPIES is at bay until the month of May when he'll be 18 months, I'll try to slowly start reintroducing dairy into his diet. Part of me wants to do it now cause I know he'd love cheese and it would be so much cheaper to give him a big glass of cow's milk, but I can't rush it. We'll wait till he's a little bit older, and then we'll go slowly, just like the doctor said. I was all prepared to be dealing with FPIES for another 3-5 years. Now I'm thinking more and more that he'll get a "normal" childhood rather than always being the kid that "is allergic to everything". If that's actually the case and he truly has outgrown this, I'll never take any of it for granted for a single day. Nothing makes me happier than baking for him or feeding him and watching him grow.

I went shopping on Sunday and got a new Desigual dress. This is by far one of my favorite brands because it is so not French (It's Spanish!). The prints are flashy and bright as opposed to the drab grays and blacks of winter, and the shape is fun and flattering. Plus it has pockets! I feel like a walking wall of graffiti(in the street-art sense, not in the "f-you" sense) in my new dress and so many people have commented on it, saying they love it cause it's bright, and it really suits me and my personality. Unfortunately for my wallet, the Desigual store is in the shopping center that's within walking distance of my new house (!!!). They decided to put all these brands together in a swanky area at the bottom of some HLMs to gentrify the neighborhood. Apparently it's working because you can shop without ever realizing you're surrounded by poverty, spending your money without feeling guilty for having it. The sales out there are really good and I'm thinking of going back and picking up a sweet little Tara Jarmon dress that I fell in love with in purple.

As I mentioned before, tomorrow and Friday I'll be in training. But Thursday night's training will end at the bar for drinks with all of the other new employees. We've planned to eat lunch together as well. I'm hoping it will be an opportunity for me to make some new friends. There's a handful of people who have been really great to me so far, and I'm hoping that some of them will eventually become "friend" friends, like the kind of friends you do stuff "outside" of work with. It's so hard to make friends with French people. They have these invisible boundaries, a number of steps you have to pass before you can move up to the next level and then maybe one day you'll finally be their "friend" (and once you are, you are friends for life). One of the issues is that I'm not insecure in my lessons because English is my "thing", but I do feel inferior because they are all so smart in other areas. I guess I think that being good at something I've done for 25 years is kind of a cop-out, whereas they all have legitimate skills that they had to go out and learn. Granted I did have to learn how to be a teacher, but seeing as it's so easy to become a teacher of your native language, I could have just left the US at 18 and figured it out on my own. My education was very valuable, but I still don't put myself on the same level as everybody else. They are considered brilliant by their colleagues (and regularly compliment each other) while I'm just useful. I'm not complaining though; It's good to be useful too.

For the first time in months it feels like I actually have a future. I used to think that we'd leave the North of France after just two years, and three years later we're still here and planning on some more. Now I can see us here for 5, 6, maybe even ten more years. I know I like to move so I'll eventually get the travel bug and urge Jeremie to try and get moved abroad like we've always talked about, but for the moment we feel really stable. I'm not awesome at the full-time job and mom thing, but it's getting easier. I don't expect it to ever be perfect, but if we can find a decent balance between showers, dishes, laundry, and health and happiness, I won't complain.

Here's to hoping our little string of good luck continues.

Subconscious Fear and Nightmares

2012-01-28T13:23:00.002+01:00

I left for college when I was only 17 years old. I may or may not have talked about this before, but I chose to leave high school early and get on with my life. High school was suffocating me and seeing how miserable I was (and having a brother who'd done it the year before), my parents agreed that I could finish high school and go straight college in the spring, so that's what I did. I had to choose a school within commuting distance so I picked the only 4-year college in our area and drove back and forth for the first semester. I was rejected by my high school friends for leaving them behind, but too young to be completely accepted by my new college acquaintences. It was a strange time, but some of my best memories just the same.

A few months later, my dad relocated my family back to Iowa and my life went from being a townie commuter to being completely alone. Around the time I turned 18, we got a little house and I was officially an adult. I got a job, I went to class, I paid my bills.. things French 18-yr olds can't even imagine doing.

It was great at first because I loved having so much independence, but it didn't take very long for the nightmares to start. I was always with my family in my dream, and we were always seeking cover from a tornado that I either knew was coming or could see coming. The most frustrating part about these dreams is that I always tell the other people I'm with (usually my brothers (often my big brother), sometimes my mom, rarely my dad) to take cover and they refuse to listen. I always wake up before total destruction, but I wake up gasping for breath with my adrenaline pumping. It takes me hours to fall back asleep, if I ever even get there.

My nightmares subsided every time I was back home with my family, which I thought was weird. I'd have these dreams multiple times a week but the second I was in my parent's house, I was better. The internet says that tornadoes symbolize uncertainty and turmoil, so I figured it was the stress of school, working, and being an adult manifesting itself in this form. I've always been afraid of failure yet tend to bite off more than I can chew. Going home would allow me some time to let go of my worries, relax and recover, and I'd head back to school ready to go.

When I moved to France five years ago, I didn't have any tornado dreams for months. My life was starting, and I was having an adventure. My life was the least stable it's ever been but not in a stressful way so the dreams stopped. I accepted the ride that I was on and rolled with the punches. My stress found different ways to manifest itself which still disturbed my sleep -- for two years I was up in the middle of the night going to the bathroom -- but even that went away once Jeremie and I were both employed and getting settled, despite the amount of time it took. At least I could get back to sleep.

Since the beginning of the month though, I'm back to having my tornado dreams, but I can't put my finger on why. It was easy to see why, as an 18-year old with so much responsibility, I'd have some stress issues. But what is it now? Victor is healthier than he's ever been, he's growing and learning and impressing me every single day. Jeremie's job is secure and I'm in the middle of my most interesting professional project to date. We're settling in, getting comfy, yet something still isn't right.

Last night, I was on a train with my two brothers and somebody else, speeding right into the middle of a tornado zone. The sirens were blaring but everybody else was sleeping. They shrugged me off every time I tried to wake them up. Finally, I dragged them to the floor with me to take shelter and they didn't even wake up. Once we reached our destination, I could see the sun glaring at us through one window and out the other was pitch black. I looked all over the horizon for the tornado, knowing it was there, but I couldn't see it. Then we were surrounded by family and they were all laughing at me for making such a big deal for nothing. I pulled myself from this dream, feeling sick. I finally fell back asleep around 6, and V woke us up at 6:15. Jeremie let me sleep a bit longer seeing that I wasn't well, but the bad feeling has carried on into my day. I can't figure out what's not right. I know I'm anxious about the new house and the old house, but enough to lose sleep over it?

I have to ask myself, what is it I'm so afraid of?

Black and White

2012-01-25T13:49:00.002+01:00

I'm fired up today. This has absolutely nothing to do with my typical blog subjects of renovation, motherhood, or teaching but more to do with a simple hatchet and why it can't be buried.

Three years ago when I started teaching at the business school were I am, it was before the election and being a Republican from the South had me sticking out like a sore thumb. I have so much respect for John McCain as a politican and as a man and I passionately supported him in his quest to become the president. I started teaching here in March of '08 and one of my colleagues happens to be an African American born and raised in Chicago. He heard I was from South Carolina and made the comment (with a deadly straight face) "I bet my granddaddy was one of your granddaddy's slaves." Seeing that I could either take offense to this or ignore it, I decided not to say anything more about it. Instead, I looked him dead in the face and said, "You and I are going to be best friends." I guess it's easy for me to say "who cares who our grandparents were?" (for the record, mine were farmers in Kansas, not rich plantation owners with legions of slaves) what truly matters in our lives nowadays is who WE are, and I decided I was going to be friends with this person. I do love a challenge.

Fast forward three years to where we are today. I've changed a lot but I'm still very much a Republican. I strongly believe in a state's right to choose and limiting big government/big spending and big abuse. Yes -- I'm aware that there have been a lot of Republicans who abused their position of power in history as well and that's why I'm carefully deciding who to support in the primaries and I'll be the first to say that I'd rather not vote than vote for Newt Gingrich. So my colleague asked me who I was supporting this year and I mentioned Ron Paul. He's a constitutionalist and he actually does what he says he's going to do. He's got the track record to prove it.

My colleague comes back to me to tell me that this guy is a racist, he's a super republican, he's a blah blah blah you name it, there was nothing I could say to defend the guy because my friend has his opinion and I have mine, and we'll likely never agree. The difference is that I am perfectly happy sitting down and listening to what other people have to tell me rather than ignorantly interrupting them mid sentence, calling their beliefs bullshit, and storming out of the room. I wanted to call after him and say, "hey, you asked!"

When we saw each other today I decided that I'd do what I always do -- smile and be friendly. Besides, everybody has the right to agree or disagree with anybody they want and it doesn't have to get nasty and hurtful. But today he kept emphasizing the fact that I am white, so I'll never get it, and I'm white, and oh, did I mention you are white? he said. My reply was that it doesn't matter to me if he's black, red, yellow, pink or purple -- I'll still respect him as a human being and that's that.. to which he replied, "I don't expect you to get it, you're white." Following this there was a line about how women are influenced by their husbands when voting which would have offended me even more had I not been so fixated on the race comments at hand.

So yeah, I guess I am offended. I don't care if we agree or disagree politically, that's not the point. The point is that being a white woman doesn't automatically make me ignorant. I believe that anybody who wants an opportunity can find a way to take it. I believe that you are in control of your own destiny regardless of the adjectives that describe you. It's not the first time in my life that I've been on the receiving end of anti-white jabs. I am not responsible for slavery, my family is not responsible for slavery, but I'm smart enough to know that it was an awful thing and if somebody wants to hold a grudge, they've got the right to do that. If it comes towards me, I can take it. But insulting my intelligence, my gender, and my race all at once? I just walked away, disappointed in him. I would never dare to speak to anybody that way. I don't see why anybody thinks it's okay to talk to anybody like that. I understand that racism exists but shouldn't we all be a part of the solution, and not the problem? How can I face him with my smile now and say, "don't worry, we're still best friends"? I have to ask myself what this man and his family must have gone through for them to hate white people so much. Then I have to wonder if all black people feel this way when they see or talk to white people but just have the courtesy to not say anything. Then I have to wonder if I've been naive to think that it's possible to be "colorblind". I look at people and I don't see color. Maybe I should -- maybe that's the problem -- the fact that I don't consider anybody's background when I meet them and I treat them all the same. Maybe my opening line shouldn't be, "I'm Amber from South Carolina" but "I'm Amber and I'm sorry for any racist stereotypes you've seen on television about people from my area but I promise I'm not that person."

I guess the question really is what can I do to make you forget the past when I'm not the one responsible for it? And why can't we just put our differencse aside, focus on our similarities, and be friends?

I'm sure I'll get some flames for this but please don't hold back. I'd really like to know what you think.

The New House

2012-01-19T08:54:00.003+01:00

On Tuesday, I posted on Facebook about our new house, but didn't quite get around to blogging about it. With a hyperactive 1 year old and J out of town, plus starting the new semester and having staff meetings to start prepping for the fall, I haven't had a lot of free time this week. But the good news is that the house is ours and we'll be signing at the notary next week. Then we'll wait three months, get the keys, rip up some carpet and paint some walls, and move.

It's all happened very fast and for a minute there last week I thought it wasn't going to work out for us. The lady is really pressed to sell but played coy, leading us to believe that she wasn't all that interested in us. After the second visit I laid all the cards on the table and she cracked -- her husband desperately wants to sell, he's an artisan and is hurting in this economy, and although they don't have a mortgage on this house anymore, they need to liquidate their assets. Jeremie and I slept on it for a few days, called her back over the weekend, and went for another visit. I chased after Victor while he chatted with the lady, and realized I'd interrupted their negotiating as I heard her say, "157 is OK." She said she liked us, she wanted to sell, and that she wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to sell for just a few thousand euros. Previously we used an agency to buy a house and had to put everything in writing, but this time a verbal agreement was enough. Within hours the ads on LeBonCoin.com had been removed and we started calling it "our new house". We've got a rental agreement lined up with some dear friends of ours (I know -- this might be a mistake, but we've got our backs covered -- more on that later) and now we wait.

I was worried about what our banker would say but apparently Jeremie did a good job of making everything clear to her so she knew exactly what we wanted and how. She did a few simple calculations and told us that rent income excluded, we're still under our 30% debt limit. That was reassuring enough for me to finally agree to go ahead with everything, because with rent included, we're well within our borrowing limit, meaning that even if things don't work out with our renters and our old house, we can still afford to cover the mortgage without doing damage to our current budget (and apparently there's insurance for that, too). Our payments on the new place will be higher than our current payments, but it's also a much bigger house so that's to be expected.

There's also a big social project to integrate our new neighborhood into the Roubaix City Center neighborhood. We're within walking distance anyway so whether or not it's "officially" city center didn't bother me. The advantage of being recognized as part of the down town area means that there will be a lot of funds sunk into our neighborhood within the next few years. There is already a project to clean up the run down houses in the area so the city is buying up the slums, renovating them, and then selling them to individual families. There's already two houses on our street that have had the city-hall renovations done, and they look great. There's still a few units left to do, but I'm confident that they'll be done correctly and before you know it, it'll look squeaky clean.

Everybody talks about Vieux Lille 20-30 years ago and what a mess it was. They talk about the drug trafficking, the prostitution, how dangerous it was. Now anybody will tell you that Vieux Lille is the place to be. It's been cleaned up, has become a really charming place, and is the "it" neighborhood to buy in. A two room apartment in Vieux Lille would cost more than either our house in Tourcoing or our new house in Roubaix. I'm kind of hoping that gentrifying our new neighborhood will have a similar effect because the houses and the architecture, even in disrepair, are beautiful. There's so much hidden charm here that I'm hoping we'll see some improvements over the next few years.

We're still far away from our "forever" house, if such a thing even exists (if a "forever country" even exists!), but in our 3-5 year plan, we see ourselves staying here. I'm within walking distance of both of my jobs, there's private schools (with good reputations so I hear!) scattered all throughout the neighborhood and it feels right. I've never lived in a real city before and never considered myself a city person, but something about being within walking distance of a boulangerie (bakery) yet still having my own walled in garden with a plum tree makes me feel like we could have the best of both worlds. I'm looking forward to barbecues on the weekend, teaching Victor how to ride a bike, reading books in front of the fire with the sunlight on my face.. This could really be the start of something good for us.

On Being a Multi-Cultural Mom

2012-01-17T20:49:00.004+01:00

A few days ago a pregnant friend of mine living far from her family admitted to me that she has no clue how to be a wife or a mom and asked me for "advice". I had to laugh -- me? Tips? What do I know about being a mom? I replied that it was kind of like being in college -- broke, tired, head spinning, in need of a shower, but there's no graduation date and that "hangover" doesn't wear off. If anything, it just gets worse. I was laughing to myself as I wrote to her, but afterwards I gained some perspective from it. I realize I come off negative and perhaps not very helpful when it comes to talking about mommy-hood, but won't that change one of these days, when things start to "get easier"? Or is that just a delusion? On my path to self-improvement, I decided to tune into some mommy conversations, read some articles, and think about myself -- who am I really as a mom, and what do I want out of my mommy life?

This week on Twitter there was some chatter between a few moms of different nationalities about this article : Mean or Magnifique? The long and short of it is that French moms are cruel and ruthless. They don't have any heart -- no coddling allowed in this culture. I had such mixed feelings about this when I read it that I didn't dare reply to either women having the discussion -- whose side would I take? The All-American mom raising her kids here in France like me, or the French mom living abroad, looking at her own culture with the privilege of having an outsider's point of view? For me though, it was more than just taking one side or the other. It's the fact that I am an honest mix of both, and don't really seem to fit into either culture's norms.

American moms, from what I get from forums I've read, people I follow on Twitter and Facebook, are a little intense (a lot intense compared to French mamans). They are 100% mommy all day and all night. One of the most hilarious stories I remember was reading about how it was so-and-so's first time on the potty as a girl's status one day. In the comments, somebody said, "wow! That's amazing, how old is he?" and she said, "Six weeks!". Afterwards, there was no criticism, just praise -- "wow!" and "what a great idea!" and "that's dedication!" . My reaction was more along the lines of a laugh out loud that nearly ended in tears the more the comments went on. "...yeah, you hold him over the potty and hiss at him, and then he goes!" My experience with little boys is limited since I've only got the one, but as far as I can tell you don't even need to hiss -- you just need to take the diaper off and he'll go on his own regardless. It has nothing to do with training, it's just nature. I thought to myself, why in the world would anybody waste their time with something so pointless?

That's when I realized that American moms can get a little bit too "in to" being a mommy. I mean to each their own, but as the next article that I read this week (Don't Carpe My Diem) , those of us moms who aren't 100% mommy all the time are lead to feel guilty because in our ears we're hearing we ought to be more like the others, but in our hearts we aren't convinced.

I was happiest when I went back to work. I had no problem passing my baby off to my wonderful, amazing nanny -- I knew that he was in great hands, he'd have a wonderful day, and when I came to pick him up he'd be happy to see me. We'd go home and play, then take a bath, get ready for bed, and that would be that. Fortunately I don't have bad working hours so we have a decent work-life balance, but I am a better mom for being a working mom and I recognize that and embrace it. Being a stay at home mom or being a work outside of the home mom is a choice, and the best choice for me was to get out of the house, and get back to work. I did need to find a job that was "worth" leaving V for (per se) -- my job will never be more important than my child, but I needed to be somewhere that I felt valued and appreciated in order for it to work for me. My last job didn't even come close to that.

The older Victor gets, the more I embrace some of the more "mommy" things though. Breastfeeding wasn't my "thing", but I don't mind bringing Victor into bed with us in the middle of the night when he gets cold or scared which is pretty new for us (also thanks to J's new job and less driving/better sleep schedule). I don't mind holding V's bottle for him still (yes, at 1 year old he still drinks from a bottle, apparently a big "no-no" in America. Whatevs.) or cuddling while we watch TV. I do have my warm, fuzzy moments with my son. But that doesn't change the fact that I also identified with the French woman described in the "Mean or Magnifique?" article. The French mom was described as flitting off to work after finding a care giver for her child, and never looking back. She was described as saying "that'll teach him" when her child was acting out. While I would never go to the extremes that the article describes, in the last six months I've said "let him learn" more times than I can count. People often look at me wide-eyed as my son climbs over the side of my couch and looks like he's about to fall and knock himself out. They reach out their arms and I calmly place my hand over them. "Let him learn," I say, lowering their arms. And within seconds, Victor shows them that he knows he always has to get off the furniture feet first, and they are astonished with his grasp of how gravity works. I smile, proud. If I were a coddling, paranoid mommy always reaching out for my son, wouldn't I be doing him more harm than good?

I encouraged Victor to learn how to walk as soon as he showed an interest. When he'd fall or bonk his head, I never reacted in an extreme fashion -- I picked him up, dusted him off, and gave him a kiss. Seconds later he'd be back on his feet, and the next go around he'd be fine. If I'd had a severe reaction, I'm convinced I would have given him some notion of fear or caution, and for the moment I think he's fine without either of those things when it comes to normal child development. I'm always a few steps behind him, an arm's length away, but I let him discover his environment and see the world through his eyes, with his own emotions, and not with emotions I've imposed upon him. Does that make me more like the Mean French Mommy? Maybe so, and so be it then. Now that he's walking outside, I insist on holding his hand and as he gets older I'll teach him about the dangers of strangers, cars, and dogs we don't know. I'll teach him not to pick up poo on the side walk, but I couldn't possibly have taught him how to walk without teaching him that it's OK to fall down and to get back up. That's an important life lesson, I think.

The second article, "Don't Carpe My Diem" was linked to on Facebook by a mommy friend of mine today as well. I was laughing out loud within seconds, instantly identifying with the mom described. She's made to feel guilty about not cherishing every tiny second with her kids, made to feel like she ought to not reproduce anymore because from time to time she complains or is just honest about what motherhood is like -- hard freakin' work. Nobody ever tells you how hard it'll be to be a mom. Nobody tells you what it feels like to not sleep for nearly 14 months and to constantly be living, breathing, thinking and feeling for somebody else and putting yourself last. It's not that it's all miserable or that I have any regret whatsoever, but it is something to get used to and there are days when it all quickly becomes "too much". I have wanted to shake so many "que du bonheur" (nothing but joy) moms many times. I can't wrap my mind around how any woman could honestly feel that way about being a mom -- it's the hardest, most exhausting job I've ever had. That's when the "bonheur" moms and people who aren't moms yet say, "Yes, but isn't it also the most rewarding?" To which I often say, "No". There is no pay raise at the end of the year -- au contraire -- you foot the bill! There's no bonus when you've done an awesome job. There's no paid vacation OR sick days -- no, it's not the most rewarding. But there are a lot of great moments, there's a lot of snapshots that I take with my mind that make me feel this overwhelming emotion in the pit of my stomach, and there's nothing that can replace that.

At the same time that I'm contemplating all of these different ideas as a mom, I'm also thinking about them through the eyes of my husband, who was a child raised by a totalitarian French mother. Over the last month more problems have occurred within his family (all stemming from the feuding "matriarchs" and I've come to realize that nobody in Jeremie's family sees him for the amazing person that he is, and he's likely never felt appreciated in his entire life. He was conditioned to constantly strive for acceptance but never receive it which has given him will of steel -- the gift for a life void of praise. I'm starting to understand why he's so passive (nobody ever listened to him -- no point in even trying). For the moment, we've cut ties with his mom to make our point and try to stop some of the manipulation/abuse. She's an extreme example and hasn't been a "mommy" in a couple decades so she doesn't fit this case perfectly, but if she'll serve as anything in my life, it's an example for what not to do and who not to be in life, but especially as a mother. I promise that I'll always love my son for who he is and accept his decisions because I love him and I'm going to raise him to be smart and have his own opinion, and make choices for himself in life. I'll just have to trust that he'll make the right ones. I'd never want to have a parent-child relationship like that of J's mom and the BM. It's based on fear and disapproval -- so on that note I come back to my American side because V will always know he's done a good job at school/sports/behavior/etc.. he'll never have to question his value and importance in my eyes, even if I don't allow my entire life to revolve solely around him.

These feelings that I have between cultures are so twisted. I guess I'm trapped somewhere between Mean French Maman and Warm Fuzzy Mommy, and I'll be OK with that. It fits us. We're hybrids anyway, so we get the best and the worst from both worlds. It's up to us to decide how we manage it to raise the best worldly being we possibly can, and to transform this experience into something that we'll reflect on someday by saying it was "que du bonheur".

French Banks

2012-01-13T12:44:00.002+01:00

The last time I wrote, I was on my way out the door to see a house in a neighborhood we had low expectations for. Since I work five minutes away from it, I've been back to visit the neighborhood multiple times at different times of day, and also went back to see the inside of the house for a second visit.

The problem with the first visit was that Jeremie brought Victor with him. The second we got through the door, he headed straight for the stairs and seemed perfectly comfortable moving from room to room, and running at his ease. Our current house as we've got it set up is not kid-friendly. We have the stairs of death, we have to blockade the living room to keep him from escaping into the kitchen where he could easily burn himself on the oven front or worse, get into the kitty litter in the bathroom since we have to leave that door open. It's not a place for curious babies. Seeing him walk around the new house really started to put an idea in our heads.

The second visit took place during the daytime and as luck would have it, it was a beautiful sunny day. The light coming in through the windows warmed the place up well and made it feel bright and cozy. As we continued the visit upstairs, I noticed all sorts of little details we hadn't seen the first time around. While there is a lot of decorative work to be done, the house in itself is perfectly adapted to city life and the longer we thought about it, the more this became a reality in our minds.

The only hold up was the bank. I got up this morning, ironed a dress, straightened my hair, full make up, high heels (I work at a web agency.. they all wear jeans and t-shirts..) ready to look the part. I figure if you want people to give you money, you have to look like you've already got some so I pulled out all the stops. Then right as I was walking out the door, I got a call. "Your banker is "souffrante", the girl said. "Souffrante?" I replied. "Yes," she confirmed. "She won't be back until next week."

This is the first time I've ever heard such an expression and to my foreign mind, I started imagining third world orphans going hungry -- dogs being abused -- religious persecution -- you know, people who are really "suffering". To say that my banker, who works all of two weeks a year as it seems, is "suffering", seemed a bit of an exaggeration on their part to me. Why not just say, "she's out sick"? Were they hoping to get sympathy from me? I took an afternoon off of work to meet with her, and I'm also on a deadline. The woman wants the house signed for and on its way to being off her hands by the 31st of January, otherwise she's not selling (new tax law on second properties in effect in February). I explained all of this desperately to my banker whose only reply was, "sounds to me like an unrealistic schedule anyway, whether you had the meeting today or not." So as my Friday the 13th misfortune would have it, I will not be taking my made up and dressed up hiney off to beg my bank to approve my project today. They'll have to deal with my other half on Tuesday morning (cause the bank is closed on Monday.. god, they really "suffer"..). It's really our last hope and from there we'll have to move fast if we're still going to get the house.

I keep telling myself that if we can't pull this off, it's not going to be the end of the world, but Jeremie's car got broken into the morning after we saw the house (along with 200+ other cars in Tourcoing that night) and our neighbors are driving us mad. Dogs keep shitting in front of my front door (have some courtesy, dog owners!) and I just need out. I know there will still be dog poo on the street of our potential new neighborhood, but I won't have to nearly step in it as I leave my door every morning since I'll be leaving through my garage, in my car.

So that's that. I'm punished into waiting another four days and then we'll see. Wish me luck.

Obsession

2012-01-09T16:39:00.003+01:00

2012 is off to a running start with work at my company and at my school going in full swing. I picked up my jogging stroller so I'm ready to get cracking on that resolution, but along the way we picked up another one.. operation get the heck out of Tourcoing.

It feels like just yesterday I was pregnant and it was some sort of dream to be visiting houses and actually thinking about buying one. I sadly reflect on the day I discovered our offer on the house had been accepted only to find out a few short months later that it was something we'd greatly regret as we'd done no research whatsoever on who the owners of our neighboring houses were. The pests moved in just two weeks before we did so even if I'd wanted to I couldn't have foreseen it (that's how I justify it in my mind, at least) but if I'd known it was an "Emmaeus" house, I would definitely have had second thoughts.

So as we get ready for round two we're faced with two questions: do we rent our current place out, or do we sell it? And in the mean time, we decided over the weekend that it was time to get a look at the market in other towns.. other towns being... Roubaix.

I know it's not really a step up to trade Tourcoing for Roubaix and anybody from the north will tell you that I must be a masochist for even thinking about it, but I've got it in my head that the perfect house on the perfect street with the perfect neighbors at the perfect price must exist in this town, we just have to be patient as we hunt for it.

Tonight I'm taking the first steps : I'm going to see a "semi-bourgeoise" that's five minutes away from where I work. Everything I read on the internet was hopeful until I got to the part about "avoid --- street". The house is only a few blocks from the streets in question but at work today (also in Roubaix) I was informed that it really varies from street to street, so off we go.

I know i've blogged a lot about house hunting in the past but it's because this is something I really love. I love reading the house adverts online, looking at the pictures, taking virtual tours, thinking about negotiating the prices and how we would decorate.. I'm in love with the dream, because as soon as I'm in the house I'm ready to start the process all over again. My life felt empty for the 30 seconds I stopped checking the house ads after we moved in here. Then I heard my neighbors banging on the wall and immediately started checking again.

This time around we have two very different budgets. If we decide to rent out our current house we've got one budget, and if we sell we've got another that's nearly twice as much as our "current" budget with the rental idea in mind.

I've decided I'm not making any quick decisions. The place we're seeing tonight has already said they want a "compromis de vente" signed by the end of January but I'm not going into it with that as my objective. I really want to analyze different products and find the perfect one for us all while deciding what to do with the house that's currently in our hands. In the mean time we'll just keep gaining equity and that'll only help us more in the long run.

In other news, as of this month we are also officially debt free -- no more student loans! It took us five years and a lot of belt tightening but I have a feeling we'll quickly find new projects for the extra money that's found its way into our budget.. i.e. a month in america this summer, and uh, maybe a new house before the end of the year if J has it his way.

So here I go -- off to see the house and start the hunt all over again. Wish me luck!

Maybe this year will be better than the last.

2011-12-30T21:07:00.002+01:00

I'm happy to announce that with the departure of my in-law's, I'm feeling much better. I wanted to take a minute to thank everybody for their messages, emails and comments regarding the drama I've been living. I appreciate your honesty more than you can know and I think it's a shame that talking about problems that come up in marriage is more or less a taboo topic. There was such an outpouring of support from people that I didn't even realize read my blog, and it was always the same theme -- marriage is hard, been there, done that, stay strong, good luck. If anything, it helped to put my mind at ease because we're actually pretty normal, no need to panic or freak out.

I've been thinking a lot about this year but thinking even more just about the last month. Today I was just exhausted -- might have had something to do with the 4 bottles of champagne and bottle of red wine that I split with three friends last night, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that I'm wearing myself thin. I never gave myself time to "get over" my grandma, and there are moments in every single day where I just stop and sit, and I can't believe she's gone. I can hear her voice in my ears, I can see her repetitive head nods and her "mm hmm" at everything I say (always made me wonder if she was really listening) and it's just upsetting. BM told me to suck it up and move on because "everybody has their issues, we just don't need to show them", but I think that's bullshit. I don't know that i'll ever feel "better". I guess you just feel different. Over time it sinks in that she'll never be at another family gathering, that I'll likely never go back to my parent's home town in middle of nowhere Kansas, and that as my other grandma told me once, "that was another life". There was a farm (or a house), there's a grave, but it hardly even feels real. I guess it'll just start to feel more like that as time passes. My friend Maria has been gone for nearly 5 years and I still think about her and remember her smile and laugh daily. The sun rises, the sun sets, and before you know it, it's been five years of life without a friend. I also still have Mira on my blog roll which is sad -- knowing it'll never be updated again, no more stories, no more comments.. just a constant reminder that life is anything but fair.

So this has been a year of loss for us. I honestly don't feel great about 2011 at all which is largely due to my insecurities as a wife and a mother, but I have a new job that I am really enjoying. I'm looking forward to taking Victor home this summer, finishing up our renovation projects, and eventually buying a new house. I've also set a big goal for myself thanks to my friend over at Uh Oh Spaghetti O's . I found a used jogging stroller that I'm probably going to buy, and then I'm going to start running again, maybe with the intention of running the Lille Braderie half marathon in September.

I'm off this weekend to ring in the new year with old friends, all of our cute little children, and a night in a cemetery (ok.. in a house in a cemetery).. not sure what that's going to be like but I guess you can try anything once. I should have good karma with the dead considering all the contributions to their population we've made this year.

Happy New Year to all of the people out there reading, and I'll see you all in 2012.

Hard Christmas Lessons Learned

2011-12-25T19:21:00.003+01:00

I wish I could say I was kidding about how miserably awful this Christmas has been, yet sadly this is no laughing matter. My last two Christmases have given each other a run for their money in the "horrible" category -- from last year's Christmas dinner of shredded carrots three weeks postpartum to this year's pre-Christmas brawl with BM followed by a ridiculous fight on Christmas day ( a few hours ago) with my brother-in-law and his baby mama. I'm not even going to go into it because it's not worth it, but to make a long story short, SIL's "apology" consisted of "Your words were perfectly clear to everybody, that's not the problem. It's everything else. It's just you". Cause that's what you want to hear on Christmas. I could have gone back into the whole "do you realize my grandma just died and every stupid little thing is making me thing of her?" or maybe even the "have you noticed that I haven't slept since you've been here thanks to your coughing-all-night children?" or "he's 5, stop treating him like a baby! Then maybe I won't have to make a face when you had him a bottle to wash his dinner down."...but I didn't say any of that. I just shrugged my shoulders as best as I could and walked away. I'm not wasting another second of my breath on these people, and now I've got a great reason to not drive 10 hrs to visit them the next time we have a few days off work. To summarize, this isn't a family, we have nothing in common, and I'm done breaking my back to accommodate these ungrateful crazies. Whew.

So what was good about this Christmas? My food. I made a huge effort to buy locally grown and produced products when possible down to the very last detail and I started baking last night. I made a killer sweet potato casserole leaving out the pineapple this year since Jeremie didn't like it last year, a great green bean casserole with a vegetable bouillon cream sauce instead of cream of mushrooms since nobody in his family eats mushrooms, mashed potatos without the spices and onions because the boys don't eat onions, and four cheese mac-n-cheese, southern style in a deep dish, because one of the boys hates his macaroni crunchy (wtf, right? That's totally the best part).

When I stood back and looked at my amazingly accommodating meal, I felt proud. Nobody in J's family has ever tried to accommodate me so this was my grand gesture. I even browned hamburger two nights ago and sausage yesterday morning -- if that's not an "effort" for a vegetarian, then I don't know what is.

So when I actually took a bite of my delicious-looking food, I melted. My food also tasted awesome. It was so fresh and yummy, and American. Then I looked at the plates around me : turkey. turkey. turkey and mashed potatos. turkey and mac n cheese. The jerks didn't even have the nerve to try my food before the snubbed up their snobby noses at it. I was gutted. I left out the best parts of all of my recipes for people that didn't even want to eat them -- who the hell does that? Who tells you "please don't put xyz ingredient" and then doesn't even bother to eat anything? I made my own french-fried onions for pete's sake! The least they could do was give it a try.

After the meal was the blow-up (I called out the 5-yr-old because he had his feet on the table and his dad didn't appreciate my reaction, which lead to a screaming match -- him screaming, me sitting there looking dumbfounded trying to figure out what I'd done wrong), so I gladly let them all go freeze in Bruges while I stayed home and took a nap with Victor. After our awesome nap, we played with his new toys that his cousins have already managed to lose parts to and we read some books. He is obviously really enjoying himself so that is the other good thing about Christmas -- as long as my child is happy, I can't complain too much.

The good news is that nobody is expecting us to come visit for a long time. The even better news is that his parents are likely moving to Mayotte which is even more difficult/expensive to get to than Reunion. The best news is that they are all going to be out of my house in less than 12 hours and we can finally get some peace and quiet around here. It was one thing when I felt like I had to constantly keep my mouth shut, but since even my gestures/mannerisms are bothering them, I don't even feel like I can look at anybody let alone say anything. I'm hiding out upstairs for a few hours, then they'll all go to bed, then we'll send them on their merry way.

I must have been smoking crack the night that I decided to invite them for Christmas. Never in a million years did I think they'd actually take us up on the offer and part of me wonders now if they didn't do it just to spite me. Lesson learned.

At War

2011-12-20T21:46:00.002+01:00

One might think that after a whirlwind trip to the US to bury my grandmother, I might be able to come home to some peace, quiet and relaxation for a few days. I should have been able to walk in my door, get in my bed, and pass out for the rest of the day as I had originally planned -- but no. Why, you may ask? Because of my mother in law.

We'll call her "BM" from here on out, in honor of "belle mere" in French and her similar qualities and traits as well.. you figure it out. I got off my flight and was picked up by an agitated late-for-work Jeremie. He dumped me out of the car where I walked in my house and he drove off, away for the night for work (lucky bastard). No sooner was I alone in the house that she started laying in to me. My "bordel" was all over the table (yes, we are talking about my work papers being on my kitchen table in my house because I needed my work bag for my flight...) and how she needed to go shopping because it'ssodamncoldhereintheNorthofFrancewhywouldanybodyeverwanttolivehere??

Every time I came back downstairs she asked me if I was ready to leave, but the woman is half deaf so I have to repeat everything, and I have to scream it at her. Then she wonders why I come off as "aggressive" -- might have something to do with the fact that shouting isn't something I usually do with a smile. Finally I managed to make her see that I needed to rest, and I took a nap. A few hours later I got up to find that she'd gone out on her own (how 'bout that?) but she wanted to go out with me anyway so I took her to a shopping center in Roubaix where we walked around for 20 minutes and then went home.

Victor is getting some molars and took over an hour and a half to fall asleep tonight. I started to make some food for myself and before I knew it, she was on me about making up our other guest bed for tomorrow night. Thing is, I kind of have some stuff on my mind and if I'd known that my grandmother was going to die, I wouldn't have invited anybody to Christmas. But the plans were made before I knew what was going to happen and thus I have to deal with it. So as she continued drilling and drilling and fishing for compliments ("Did you see what I cleaned? Did you see what I bought for you? Did you see what I did? Praise me -- you are in my debt..") I harped back that I didn't even need what she'd bought because I already had some. Then she went on about when I was going to make the bed, and I snapped again -- I'll make it when I damn well need to, I more or less replied. That was the wrong answer, because then she went off on how it's my job to run this house, my job to keep things clean, and the fact that her bed wasn't made up the second she walked in my house was bad manners and I need to be "socialized" in French culture and house keeping.

Oh my effing sweet baby Jesus -- is this really happening to me? I thought to myself. As we tumbled down the path into a screaming match, I mentioned that I make just as much as Jeremie and I work just as hard, to which she replied that I'm obviously not doing enough because I'm missing the ball on being a "femme au foyer" -- or a housewife.

Again -- sweet baby Jesus -- is this woman serious? This is 2011, right? Last I checked, a woman with a job is equal to her husband and thus does equal parts house work and child rearing. Jeremie and I are partners - I am not his slave or his house keeper, and when we have guests we kind of expect them to be a little bit understanding of what we've been through over the last year. You can ask my sorority sisters who were here in May -- I am not the perfect hostess, I really try, but I will give you somewhere to sleep, I will feed you, and I will make sure you get where you need to go when you need to be there. I have my faults, but I'm also not an inn keeper and gosh, I guess I just thought that was understood when you walked in anybody's door. There's a reason Bree Van de Kamp is an alcoholic.

So when I finally got Victor down for the night, I snuck off to take a shower only to discover that BM had sequestered herself in her room with -- you guessed it -- everything I needed to make the other guest bed. She hoarded the blankets and sheets from me so that I had to go into her room to take them. We had another confrontation, and then I escaped to my room where I feel too stressed to actually do anything resembling sleep. What I'd really like to do right now is pack a bag (oh hey.. i've already got two ready to go.. just got home, remember?) and turn around and leave again.

I did a bad thing and something I swore I'd never do, but I gave Jeremie and ultimatum. It's either his mom, or me. In the interest of being myself and over-sharing, life with a baby hasn't been easy on us and we hardly ever see each other with his job. Before I left for the weekend he told me to "figure out what I wanted" -- and this is what I came home to.

So I told him. It's either her, or me, but you can't have us both. His mom will never accept me and maybe I should have seen that as a red flag many years ago, but I guess I was thinking like an American. My mom doesn't accept the person I love? Then fine, she's missing out. My parents taught me that your partner, your spouse, is your number one. There is nobody else who will be there for you till your last dying day. Kids leave, jobs change, home towns erode and family members move away, but you will always have your spouse.

Problem is, that's just not how the French work.

I don't know what's going to happen next in the life of Travelling Amber. As Jeremie put it, we might not be able to recover from this -- it's almost 5 years worth of grief about his family, from having to hide weddings from them to having them accuse me that Victor wasn't his to hearing about how they can't wait for his grandma (Big BM we should call her) to croak so that they get her money.. at the end of the day, we don't share any common morals or values, and I don't want anything to do with them.

So there you have it. Any way you look at it, my next chapter is separation -- either separation from his totalitarian family, or separation from the person that I thought was my forever. I'm just living my life one minute at a time, and nothing more.. so please don't be offended if you come to my house and there's dirty dishes in my sink, laundry on my floor and unmade beds. I'm just trying to survive this holiday season the best that I can, and brace for whatever is coming in 2012.

2011-12-11T15:18:00.002+01:00

Planning a trip that involves international flights is such a hassle. Why can't it be as simple as popping over the border to Belgium? This is probably the shittiest part about being an expat. I know, I know.. I chose this life.. but I'm still waiting for those cool Star Trek teleporter things to get invented so that I can magically appear wherever I need to be, whenever I need to be there.

As if funerals needed to be more complicated, my family had the added stress of trying to plan a funeral around final exams. At least half of my cousins are university students, and I'm a professor. All of our final exams are happening now and next week, so as painful as it is, Grandma had to wait. I guess the other added difficulty is that she wanted to be buried with her husband in the middle of nowhere Kansas as I mentioned before, so at some point she flew or will have to fly back to her home where the funeral can happen. Any way you put it, it all just sounds awful. I think I'll let my family cremate me and then just spread my ashes anywhere they go around the world.. anything to make everybody else's lives easier, since I'll be dead and won't know left from right.

With everything that's been going on -- Victor's health, Grandma's death, general life stress, end of the semester, plus starting my new job, my head has been a little bit in the clouds, to put it lightly. I usually get along one day at a time, and sometimes only hour by hour as was the case this week. My house is a mess, laundry has piled up, there are dishes in my sink, but my child is sleeping and we're all alive and kicking, so it could be worse. I know my mother in law is arriving on Tuesday to give Jeremie a hand since I'm leaving on Thursday, but that's about as far into the future as I managed to plan.. which leads me to my air head moment of the year.

Because I'm locked in a classroom from 7:30 - 5:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays with very limited breaks, I don't do very much thinking outside of my lesson plans and schools. It was on one of these days that I decided we'd use some of our savings to buy my ticket home. Jeremie went back to Sete when his papy died back in August and he insisted that I allow myself this "splurge", so I went for it. He even offered to book my ticket for me. I'd tried the day before to no avail, on the phone with one of Delta's call centers in India. I tweeted with DeltaAssist and eventually just gave up. Nobody was interested in offering bereavement services when the funeral was booked two weeks in advance.. you have to buy your tickets three days before the funeral, I was told.

So, J wanted to book the ticket, and I let him. After all the hassle on the phone, I couldn't take much more and was happy to delegate this task and no longer cared about booking directly through Delta. God bless him, but Jeremie is a man.. a French man, at that. He has no concept of time or space, and he never will. I'm learning how to live with somebody that is perpetually en retard (late) and has an imaginary idea about timelines. "Jeremie, why didn't you change the litter?" ... "I said I'd do it"... "Yes, you said that three days ago." ... "Well you didn't give me the time to do it." You see why we sometimes have miscommunications regarding time? And this was the person I put in charge of booking my ticket.

As my head was well into the previously mentioned cloud, I took him up on the offer. He booked me from December 15 to December 20, just like I asked. I made plans to be back at work on December 21st, rescheduled lessons at my new job (I LOVE being my own boss, btw) and started thinking about how I'd get things organized for my MIL's arrival.

Today we were in Ikea and I made a passing comment about how I'd have "time to do something" because I'd be "back on Tuesday morning". He lowered his brows and gave me a hard look -- "you mean Wednesday". "No, Jeremie. I'll be back on Tuesday. The 20th." No, he continued, that's when you are leaving Kansas City. You'll be back in Belgium on Wednesday, the 21st.

In my delirium, I asked him to get me home on the 20th. To him, that meant leaving the US on Tuesday. To me, that meant leaving the US on the 19th and pulling into Zaventem on the 20th. And as the realization slowly hit me, I panicked. I'd get off the plane at 8 am if we were on time, and then immediately start a full day of work at 10 am back in Roubaix. Aie aie aie. I'd work Wednesday to Friday with no break and then immediately dive into the Christmas holidays with a house full of my in-laws. Oh lord -- that was not happening. I'd planned (I am a planner to a fault) to be back on Tuesday, to rest in the morning and then put the finishing touches on the gifts/house decorations/laundry/guest rooms.. and then work Wed-Friday before diving head first into the holidays. I was banking on my buffer day -- my Tuesday.

The thing is, I've known Jeremie now for six years. I know who he is and I know how he thinks, and somehow I magically expected the two of us to finally understand each other involving time just because the situation demanded precision and attention. He will never be an award winner in either of those categories.

My first fail occurred when I called the website he used to book the ticket, Budget Air. They told me I would lose the entire ticket if I tried to change one leg because I'm taking a KLM flight (operated by Delta, but not a Delta flight per se) on the Atlanta -- Brussels return. With tears running down my face, I called Delta as a last resort, rehashed my sob story, and finally, after waiting on hold over and over again, got results. They agreed to waive the 100€ KLM fee and charged me $50 to move my ticket back a day. Since $50 is a heck of a lot less than buying a new round trip ticket (as Budgetair.fr suggested), I jumped at it.

So now I'm set. MIL will be here Tuesday, we'll have a day to get her on V's schedule and then it's show time -- here's to hoping this not so well oiled machine will continue to run without me at the head. Everybody -- doctors, nurses, friends -- keeps reminding me to let Jeremie take his place but I'm so used to doing everything myself. it's not that he's not good at it because he is, it's just that I'm a little bit controlling and he knows it's easier if he just lets me do things on my own rather than insisting he take charge. So it's his time to shine. That should be good for all of us.

Roots

2011-12-07T20:32:00.002+01:00

As expected and much to our chagrin, my grandmother passed away silently and peacefully on Sunday night. There's a lot of left over emotion running between her children because the surgery that put her in this state was elective, and the more I think about it the more upset it makes me too that this was a choice. I never managed to make it out to Arizona with Victor so that she could meet him. I think I'll probably feel bad about that for years, but at least we've got stories to tell him.

And let me tell you -- on a comedic note, I do have stories to tell. A year and a half ago my mom saw me furiously typing on my computer when I was home for Christmas and she story-blocked me. "You can not write about your grandmother while she is still alive, Amber," my mom said. I crossed my heart and promised that she would stay in the background. My grandma was always very supportive of my writing hobby, so I decided to go ahead with the things I wanted to write about her and just store them away for a day far, far in the future. If I had known it was only 18 months later that I'd be dusting the stories off, I think I may have never taken the time to write them in the first place. That would have been a shame, because the woman was good for an inadvertent laugh. Once I get them all sorted and organized I know they are going to have some of you doubled over with laughter. Without a doubt, I'm sure she'd appreciate that.

Something that's giving me comfort in my grandmother's death is the memory of being with her when we lost my papa, which must have been almost 20 years ago. Two weeks after her husband died, she also lost her mother. I can't even begin to imagine what that time must have felt like for her, but I never heard her complain. At night, she'd turn on her reading lamp in bed and tell me stories from the Bible. She wrote verses on sheets of colored paper and taped them all over the house -- even the bathroom -- so that you could feel her religious healing comfort all over the house. I learned so many Bible verses in the years that followed because she didn't take them down for years. The point of that story is to say that the woman was right with God -- she probably had pages of those gold-star stickers that we all covet as children in his big book of names. If you have to go unexpectedly, she definitely had her t's crossed and i's dotted if in the case Heaven exists.

As Jeremie was comforting me earlier this week, he reminded me that he met her that Christmas in 2009. He reminded me that she liked him (that story will be coming soon) and that I should find comfort in that. Although she didn't meet her first great grand child, she knew and appreciated my husband. She also loved my brother Treg's wife, Cara.

The timing of all of this as it always is, is awful. I have more cousins than I can count who are in college right now and sitting through exams. Not only that, but I'm a professor giving exams and even one of my aunts has gone back to school. With Christmas on its way soon, we have a very small window for a funeral. Everybody agreed to push it back, and that means that Jeremie and I had time to get ourselves organized and make this trip happen for me. Yep, I'm going home. Not just "home" -- I'm getting back to my family's roots. Rural Southern Kansas -- a place where I spent all of my holidays and summer vacations, a place where an abandoned school was a playground and walking to the post office to fetch my grandma's mail was a treat. A place where there was a farm where my other grandparents lived, a veterinary clinic where my other granddad worked, and lots of graves -- graves of loved ones left behind in these little towns, but also "graves" of old houses, schools, churches.. places that were once filled with our family and that my parents called home for a huge chunk of their lives. I'm a little bit nervous to be re-visiting a place that's buried so deep in my memories. I can't even remember the last time I was in Girard or Hepler. I'm nervous about seeing all those graves. I hesitate to leave my grandmother in the cold, December earth of a place we're likely to never visit again. It's silly to think that she'll feel neglected because obviously she doesn't feel anything anymore, but just the same, it feels so final.. so.. over. In so many ways. God, I hate funerals.

I've got one week to get through before I can go, though. I'm ready to be back home with my family.

The First Year

2011-11-30T20:15:00.006+01:00

My first year as a mom is officially over. Part of me is saying, "Thank God! Bring on the good stuff!" and part of me is missing that soft, floppy baby that slept so easily in my arms (back before he weighed 11 kg!) .

As luck would have it, Victor is experiencing some kind of sleep regression at the moment, and the age he's chosen to regress back to is resembling a newborn. Last night, for example, he spent exactly 53 minutes sleeping in his crib. 53. Then he woke up screaming bloody murder and was inconsolable. At 9 o'clock I accepted that I wasn't going to get anything done that evening on my own agenda, and took him up to bed with me. For the rest of the night, he was sandwiched between Jeremie and I, tossing and turning and refusing to cling to me -- only seeking out Jeremie. When we woke up this morning (who am I kidding -- nobody actually slept) we compared the bags beneath our eyes, yawned and stretched, and willed ourselves off to work. I'm not sure who had the most challenging day -- I was on my feet for 8 hours with demanding students, and by the end of the day they were impossible to keep on task. Jeremie drove from Lille to Amiens, then out to Metz for meetings with his new staff and meetings wi

th his old customers (currently doing both jobs). I don't know.. part of me is thinking he got the good deal because he could at least stop for breaks along the way. I just got asked 130 times why I hadn't finished grading their tests yet and told to "stop making excuses" when I simply replied, "I had a rough week, guys". I realize that I can't just assume they know what I've been through over the last week and the emotions I've been trying to deal with (sleep deprivation does not help the tears) but then I kindly reminded myself that I also don't know what they deal with when they seem to be having a bad day and occasionally forget to be kind and understanding.. so it is what it is.

I've learned so much over the last year about what it means to be a mom

. Your tolerance, patience, and perspective all get a total make over, while your ability to protect and defend sharpens. I also amaze myself at my ability to handle things better and better every day. As I mentioned before, we were awake all night last night. Rather than dwelling on it, I accepted it, did what I had to do to comfort my child, and let it go, knowing that deep down in my heart, one of these days it is finally going to get better. We've seen glimpses of the child that he can be in the rare moments where his gut isn't causing him so much pain and discomfort. We've seen full nights of sleep over 12 hours long and great 2 hr. afternoon naps to boot. I know that this is possible, so I'm patiently waiting for its return. That very first night we spent at the hospital though was hell. I looked at Jeremie, who was frustrated, angry, and over tired, and I thought that my life was over. Why hadn't anybody told me that having kids was such hard

work, and so thankless? Now I can see that it's not entirely thankless. My baby knows how to give me kisses on the cheek, even if they are open mouthed and very slobbery. He also sat on the floor repeating "mama" over and over again, his pronunciation getting clearer and clearer with every chorus. He can wave and I know I've heard him say "au revoir" which usually comes out sounding more like "vwa" -- but that's a start! He knows how to climb up onto the couch and listens to me when I say "turn around, Victor!" so that he'll get off the couch feet-first and not face-first. All of these glimpses he gives me of his future self are enough thanks to keep me going through the hard times. Part of me wishes I could go back in time and tell my new mom self that the situation was going to improve, and to just breathe and wait for it. I wouldn't have listened to myself though -- having never been a mom before, I couldn't imagine what was coming next and let each step of it consume me as I went through it. I'm still not convinced that I'll ever

do this again, but at least I know that if I do, I know what the light at the end of the tunnel looks like during the dark moments.

In other news, the one-year mark was supposed to be a milestone for Victor's milk protein allergy. They all told me that most babies outgrow this kind of allergy by their first birthday. Victor's, however, has decided to stick around a bit longer. We are having more digestive problems now than we've had since July, which is not only disheartening but also challenging to handle at the moment with my new job, Jeremie's new position, and not a whole lot of flexibility in our schedules. Monday we went in for allergy tests for V which all came back negative. The nurse declared this a "great sign!" until she could see the concern on my face. Our specialist came in a few minutes later and confirmed exactly what I was thinking. V has never had an

immediate reaction to anything. His reactions are sometimes delayed up to six weeks. Doc said that these little prick tests likely wouldn't indicate any of his trigger items to us, so we'll have to plan a more aggressive route.

We'll go back to the hospital three times in the coming weeks. Friday we've got a sort of x-ray/scan thing of V's intestines to check for abnormalities that might be causing the bleeding. Seeing as how all of his allergy tests came back negative, the doctor decided to investigate some other options. He suggested that there might very well just be something in his intestines causing him to bleed, and that we'd be able to see it on this kind of scan. In addition to this test, we've got more blood work to do, and more prick tests -- he said we'll go ahead and finish them off anyway just to make sure we cover our bases. Then, we're moving on to Patch tests, wher

e they'll put a bandage on him for a couple of days and see if there's a reaction. In addition to testing all of the food he's ever tried (since he's not currently eating anything), they have also decided to test his current prescription formula (Neocate) and his previous prescription formula (Pregestimil). I told the doc that V was allergic to "hydrolysat" formulas and then he checked the file. Nope, nowhere along the line did anybody actually test him for this allergy -- they just switched him. That means that somebody assumed they knew what the problem was, rather than exploring all options and covering their bases. He said that they should have tested for the allergy immediately, because his problems back in July may have been caused by something else entirely too. It's nice to have an action plan, especially now that I've got a one year old

who can't eat anything. It was all good and fun before his birthday because a baby can be uniquely milk fed until their first birthday. After, I'm told that this can continue on until a 2nd birthday without too much harm, but I don't want that for him either. I want to finally be able to sit down at the table and have a meal as a family without panic.

I'm looking forward to whatever comes next because I now know from experience that it's going to get better. I'm sure it won't be perfect, but he has so many more milestones to hit, so many more amazing things to discover and learn how to do. Seeing the world through his eyes and celebrating the little things like learning how to wave or clap makes me feel so h

appy. I can't wait to hear him speaking English and French and growing more and more into the little boy that he's meant to become.

So happy birthday to my beautiful little boy Victor.. your mommy and daddy love you more than anything else in the world and you've made us both happier and more tired than we ever could have imagined.

That's the smile that melts my heart. Happiest little guy in the world.

The difference a day makes

2011-11-25T13:24:00.002+01:00

Last night my dad called to tell me that things went downhill fast with my grandma, and unfortunately they won't be coming to visit us tomorrow. My heart and my head both hurt -- one is a cold and the other is grief. This should be a happy season. When am I going to get a break? Gastro at Halloween, impending death at Thanksgiving -- don't tell me what you've got in store for me for Christmas, Fate and Destiny.

I really needed this visit with my parents. I needed a week off after my first week at work managing 70+ people all asking for training at the same time. As with all new jobs, I'm feeling a little bit on the outside and hoping that I'll get more comfortable here. Today I ventured to the water machine and to the microwave -- maybe next time I'll actually sit down and eat with everybody else instead of retreating back to my office. Today just wasn't the right day.

No, I was looking forward to seeing my family because I need things to feel special in my life. I want Victor to know that he's special and to have a day where he feels special, whether he'll remember it or not. I've been so upset over the fact that he won't be able to eat anything but knowing my parents were coming took away some of that stress. Now, he'll be spending his first birthday with the nanny while I work 8 hours.

This time yesterday, I was thinking about the mini dance recital tomorrow night. I was making the guest list for our Thanksgiving Dinner party on Sunday. I was writing up a menu and a shopping list. I was thinking about taking Victor to play with his friends. I was planning what I'd do with my mom and dad on Thursday and Friday. I wanted to set up our Christmas tree together. I wanted to watch Victor try to eat the paper on his presents.

All I need today is the strength to make it through the next 3.5 hours. Then I can go home and fall asleep and forget about all of this for awhile.

Ghost of Thanksgivings Past

2011-11-23T19:56:00.003+01:00

Well Facebook sure is depressing this time of year.

"So glad to be home!"

"Mmm can't wait to eat mom's famous pie!"

"Having a great time catching up with my brothers and my cousins!"

"Best season ever!"

"Be jealous you aren't here!"

"I sure feel sorry for countries that don't celebrate Thanksgiving! OMGZ four days off whaaat!"

(this is but a re-creation of some of the things I've read over the last 48 hours)

So in case you didn't get the drift, Americans are gearing up to stuff themselves silly, cheer on their favorite football teams (American football, of course!) by screaming at the television while all of the practical people go off to nap so that they can be up by 10 pm to be the first in line for the hot deals at Best Buy.

Here in Francetown people don't really understand what Thanksgiving is. I always try to explain it but that doesn't do it justice. I don't know why we celebrate it or what importance is has when compared to Christmas or other holidays, but for me there are so many memories attached to this holiday that I can't help but to feel nostalgic at this season. It's the magic of being a child and seeing the world through child's eyes -- I get to remember things that my parents may have simply "suffered through" but to me, it was a time in my life where I could only see the good in people and in my surroundings.. I think that's what cemented a love of Thanksgiving in my heart, because you know it's not the big dead bird on the table.

When I was a child, we'd spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents (both pairs) in Kansas. I was 8 years old when my papa died and not much older than 10 when my granddad died, so when I think about this time in my life I'm remembering both of them, my entire family together-- all the cousins, our uncles and aunts, playing together, having a good time, running around the yard, walking to the post office to collect my grandma's mail.. it really was a happy time.

My pairs of grandparents lived within ten miles of each other when they were both in Kansas. My mom and dad met in high school so that makes a lot of sense. We would spend the night with my dad's parents and then drive out to my mom's tiny home town of Helper where we'd be greeted with her brother and two sisters, and their lot. In all, there were ten cousins at the time. Now there are 12 -- one that I've never even met and one that I haven't seen since she was a baby. We did a kind of secret Santa gift exchange which isn't typical of Thanksgiving, but that's when we celebrated "Christmas" a little bit too since we wouldn't drive back to Kansas only a month later. The oldest children had the privilege of going in Grandma's closet to retrieve the presents and distribute them. You have to sit with a huge stack of presents in front of you before anybody could even think about opening them, and the anticipation nearly killed all of us. In retrospect, what was even better about these presents is that so many of them were hand made by my great grandma. I have blankets and little crochet'ed tea sets that she made for us girls, and we'd all wear our slippers to run and slide all over the house. At night, if we slept in the big house, all the kids were upstairs together and we'd scare ourselves silly with ghost stories because the Helper house was haunted. Anybody in the family would tell you that.

After we moved South we started celebrating Thanksgiving with our local family (my dad's family -- his mom "followed" us east to be closer to her sons) and that was more traditional -- family around the table, lots of good food, and then shopping and spending time with friends. It didn't have the same magic as the Thanksgiving-Christmas celebrations we'd had as children, but it was good to have some time off from school and to kick off the holiday season.

Fast forward to my life in France, where it's mostly been about trying to share this part of my culture with the French. Last year it was about evicting Victor, but not until we'd gone to Thanksgiving dinner -- I'd said that from the start. I was dead set on having him in November, but I wanted him to wait until after Reb's big TG Extravaganza. We celebrated on a Saturday instead of the last Thursday of the month, and on Sunday my water broke. I tell you -- when I decide it's time for something to happen, it happens. End of story.. I got my Thanksgiving dinner and my November baby.

Fast forward a little bit more to this year where the focus is more on Victor -- and rightfully so! In one week, he'll turn one! I don't know where the year has gone. I'm less gung-ho about Turkey Day due to the fact that Victor still can't eat anything besides milk, and I feel horrible about that. We're going to mix his birthday and the holiday together and celebrate with my parents, who will be landing in Brussels on Saturday morning. It should be a good time -- I'm determined to make it a great weekend.

Unfortunately though, a lot of the magic this year is gone. My grandma, the one who hosted every childhood Thanksgiving that I can remember, is in a medically induced coma after some complications following surgery. She's been the butt of a lot of our jokes over the last few years as she's gotten older and started saying some of the darndest things, but all laughing aside, she's been going downhill rapidly -- her health, her memory, everything.

Not only am I reminded that I'm abroad because all of my friends are celebrating an American holiday and I'll be at work, but I'm also reminded that I'm nowhere near my family, and my grandma is sick.

So. For the moment, I'm keeping my hopes up for recovery, and preparing to make Victor's birthday special. I'm feeling thankful for the love I have in my life, my parents who are willing to travel to me, and good friends who will help me improvise Thanksgiving dinner from afar. That's something to be thankful for.

Day in, day out

2011-11-20T13:04:00.003+01:00

I guess it's time for an update -- it's been such a busy month that I've hardly had time to sit down just to catch my breath.

After recovering from our trip to England, I took off on a girl's trip to Metz. I don't think I've eaten or drank so much since before I was pregnant and for a minute there it even felt like being back in college -- just me and the girls, cooking together, trying on wedding dresses, drinking champagne (okay, we weren't that rich in college) watching Youtube videos of Andromeda's future wedding dance, and overall just having a great time. I'm pretty sure her wedding is going to be the event of the year in 2012, and I'm definitely looking forward to tearing it up on the dance floor. The whole dress trying experience was very interesting and while she hasn't chosen one yet (as far as I know!) she looked great in just about everything, making me think that it's high time I skinny up a little bit just in case we decided to have a "wedding" for our 5 year anniversary which is in a year and a half.

Almost as soon as I walked in the door Jeremie was asking me what was wrong. Before I could even say it, he said, "you're jealous, aren't you?" Jealous is a very strong word and not right for the situation, because obviously I'm happy for my friend and it was so much fun being a part of her planning experience and being able to live vicariously through somebody else. It's true though that being enveloped in a wedding world did kind of get me thinking about the wedding I never had, so we decided that it might be a good idea to have a "blessing" if you will, for our five years. The plan has always been to have a wedding on the Saturday and then Victor's baptism on the Sunday to make the most out of our family's trip, and by then Victor's godfather (his cousin) will have finished his catechism classes and can "officially" be his godfather. Maybe.. It's something to think about.

In other news, I'm starting my new job tomorrow! I've already been getting emails and they just keep coming. People have even messaged me on Friday night (10:30 pm) and Saturday afternoon which leads me to believe that these people spend a lot of time outside work, well, working. I'm looking forward to getting started. I think for the first time since I started teaching at the uni, I feel like I'm actually starting a "career" - I am actually responsible for something. I suppose it might get old after a few weeks but for the moment I'm anxious to get started. I'll also travel to Paris and Lyon for training sessions which is something I've never done before. I hope that I'll like it. The good news is though that if I don't like it, I don't have to continue. It's a freelance contract until July or so.

Victor is about to have his first birthday and my parents are coming into town to celebrate. We're going to have a little "party" on Sunday morning and then in the afternoon I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for 15 or so people (if everybody can come). I've already got my pumpkins ready to be turned into pies (and back up purée from Picard in case I fail miserably). My in-laws will be here for Christmas so in the three weeks between my parent's visit and his parent's arrival, I'm going to be Christmasifying our house and planning all of our meals, visits, etc. I've already bought gingerbread house supplies so that I can do that with my nephews, and I'm going to make some stockings. I've convinced everybody to celebrate American-style (Santa coming while you're sleeping, stockings filled with little goodies, everybody waiting to open presents together, presents wrapped up under the tree from friends and family, Christmas dinner on Christmas DAY and not Christmas EVE) and so far the response has been very positive. His mom is convinced we'll be eating Turkey and Caesar salad because that's basically the most American thing she can think of, but I'm planning on recycling a lot of my Thanksgiving recipes and sort of combining the two holidays so that they can get a good idea as to what it's like to celebrate in the states. There will be decorations and Christmas music, and I may even try to translate "T'was the Night Before Christmas" and teach them about Santa's reindeer.

Before they get here though it'll be a race to try and get the house finished up. We're supposed to have the painters coming next week to repaint the facade and we've got a contractor who is ready to build us a new bathroom upstairs. If it's all done by Christmas, I'll really have something to be thankful for.

So that's that.. lots of excitement, lots of things to look forward to as we near the end of 2011. Here's to hoping it all goes smoothly.

Girls trying to go wild

2011-11-05T10:25:00.003+01:00

Awhile back a young newcomer to the area asked me, "you probably don't know, but do you have any idea where the young people hang out in Lille?"

It was the whole implication that I was (and have always been) far too old to know where the hot parties are on the weekends, or even week nights. I don't know when 25 became the new 40 (or is it because I have a baby?) but I couldn't help but to be just a little bit offended.

Truth be told, when I moved to Lille I was her age, and thus did have the time and energy (and lack of obligations) so I did go out with friends. Of course we all grow up, get jobs with more responsibility, have babies, etc., so late nights out with friends are fewer and further between, but they still happen! In the words of my grandma, "I may be old, but I'm not dead!" ... I have a hard time believing that anybody actually considers 25 to be old though. Am I just in denial?

Not only do I go out, but I also have a partner in crime. Laura and I occasionally like to switch things up from staying in and drinking bottles of wine and champagne while Jeremie is out of town and Victor is sleeping, to going out to the local bars and sampling some of Belgium's finest. Lately we've been able to go out more because Victor's nights are more regular, which makes Jeremie's life a little bit easier, as in he can play his new PS3 all night without getting interrupted for a midnight bottle/diaper/burp/cuddle.

The thing is, every time Laura and I go out, we meet crazies. A few months ago, we were at a bar in Vieux Lille when we met some guys who tried to argue with us about California wine. Laura is from California AND enjoys wine, so she knew what she was talking about when she told a story about fires destroying vines and Cali saving the day. These drunken French idiots didn't want to accept her story as truth and spent the next half hour mocking us, until we finally had enough and decided to pack up and go. On our way back to Laura's apartment, some people in a window up above heard our commotion as we loudly expressed our displeasure at meeting said idiots, and they (a college aged guy and gal) invited us up. We hung out for awhile, probably mostly because it was so random but they also had a little kitten and I'm a sucker for baby animals.

Last night we went out to one of my favorite bars (why yes, I actually DO have a favorite bar!) where our friend Christophe is a bartender. I know his wife and his kids, so as he serves me up he tells me about his little Lola starting to be potty trained and gives me updates about Oceane who had a soft spot for my cat, Nacho. Who would have thought that people with children could actually work in a bar? Obviously he didn't get the memo that we're supposed to be old and boring either.

So there we were with our beers, trying to find a table. "Vous partez?" Laura asked a girl at a table who was putting on her coat. She looked up at us, and laughing, put on the thickest American accent she could muster to say, "yes, we're leaving, bye". I could see the fire burning in Laura's eyes but we kept our mouths shut long enough to claim the table and then start making fun of her because she probably sucks at English and felt the need to blatantly mock us for her own amusement. Clearly she must be insecure about something.

After sitting for awhile though a girl walked up to me and grabbed my coat. She held it in her hand and hollered to her friends who were a few tables away. "Um, that's my coat," I told the girl. "No," she said, "my friend left her coat back here and it's blue." It's a green coat that I happen to be very fond of and didn't feel like parting with -- I fell in love with it in Spain and Jeremie bought it for me for Christmas two years ago. It hardly got a season of use out of it before i got pregnant and had to upgrade to something less slim fitting. I didn't want her to walk off with my favorite coat. She clutched it in her hands and I pushed -- "it's my coat, leave it alone." By then, her friends had come back to try and drag her away but she was starting to pick a fight with Laura (who had rolled her eyes, and apparently that's super offensive to strangers). Her drunken friends dragged her away and we ordered another round. For the rest of the night we laughed about it with another table who had also watched the scene, totally perplexed.

Before too long, the sounds of English (loud and obnoxiously -- obviously not like us) filled our ears. A table on the opposite side of the room was being dominated by a mouthy brunette who kept going on and on about her classes, scheduling.. loads of boring things. Her friends around her clearly couldn't get a word in edge wise and the guy sitting beside her had that glazed over "somebody make her stop" look in his eyes as he swirled around the dredges of his beer, bored.

Turns out they were Swedish exchange students, which I hardly believe because why wouldn't they all be speaking Swedish together?

After a few hours of escape from our mundane lives (me from the boys and her from her MiL) we went on our way back home. All in all it was a good night and nice to get away and chat about our lives pre-France.

But the best part? Next weekend, we're going to Metz together. Yes, we're taking the city by storm with the help of everybody's favorite American Blonde, Andromeda.

If Andromeda manages to not break a bone while out dancing, it should be a pretty great weekend.. and since Laura will also be there, we're sure to meet some interesting people along the way. Plus, there's the whole "road trip" aspect. Can't wait! (Not so bad for a couple of old ladies, eh?)

The England Invasion

2011-11-02T12:42:00.003+01:00

Last Friday we packed up our bags and decided to cross the channel for a weekend. We'd said that we wanted to go away for part of the long weekend, and I suggested Le Touquet again. Jeremie kind of shrugged since we've already been there, and said, "why not a little further?"

After talking to a few of my former colleagues, we decided we'd take the ferry across the channel and stay nearby in Dover, and spend two days visiting the towns in and around the area. I figured for a first trip and with a baby, we didn't have the energy to take on a city like London and didn't want to make the effort to haul all of V's things on the train. We'll try that when he's old enough to haul his own things.

I have to mention here that I think I must have given Victor a portion of my brain, because since he was born I haven't had the same sense. First, I got to the airport in August thinking we actually had a direct flight (same flight number but NOT direct) which I should have inferred somewhere along the line, and the next stupid thing I did was get to Calais thinking we'd only be on a boat for 30 minutes. While in the car it hit me : there's a time difference, and thus it'll be closer to an hour and a half. Still a short trip compared to anything else, but I can't believe it took me up until the very last moment to realize that it was impossible to cross the channel in only half an hour. I don't know where my common sense has gone, but if you find it somewhere, please send it back my way.

We rolled into the ferry port as a happy little family. There was a little wait, so Victor and I got out of the car and walked around for awhile. Everything on the boat over was great except for the beer -- would you believe the girl didn't know how to describe the beers to me at all? I guess I've just gotten used to the idea that I can order something "ambrée" or "trappiste" and I'm sure to love it (okay, more like 8 times out of 10) and then in front of the girl I didn't even know what to say. "What color is it?" I asked her. "Um, not as dark as Guinness?" "and the other?" I asked. "Uh, it's more the color of a cider..." oh lord. So I randomly chose a couple of beers for us and we had a seat. The ferry was packed so we were lucky to find a table and some chairs, and after getting settled Victor even made a friend. We spent the better part of the trip laughing with some Indian expats living outside of Paris whose daughter was born the day before V. She wasn't walking yet and she didn't have as many teeth, but as soon as she saw Victor go, she felt ready to follow. It was funny to see a baby his same age and to compare. Next to her dainty little hands and feet, my son looks huge. We had a nice time chatting with them in French (we were likely the only French speaking people on the boat) and then it was time to load up and get going.

So the first thing that struck me was the sheer number of English people who come to France, and just how full of booze their cars were! We didn't see a single French plate as we waited in line, loaded, and unloaded. The next thing I was surprised at was driving on the wrong side.. sorry.. left side of the road. Jeremie did a good job managing thanks to the GPS which indicated the direction to take on the roundabouts (Thank God it wasn't me, right?!) but we also didn't have far to go. Our B&B was up the hill with a view of the castle, and we got there within 10 minutes. No sooner had we knocked on the door that this absolutely jovial man bounced up the steps with a grin on his face and an outstretched hand. That was the next surprise for me -- Jeremie and I both agree that the English are even friendlier than Americans. It's not that they are truly "friendlier", but it's a mix of the "politesse" and friendliness, i'd say. Either way, we felt very at home with our host and the other guests were also very outgoing and talkative.

The problems started later that evening. Victor absolutely did not want to go to sleep. He drank his bottle like he hadn't had anything to eat for days, and I even gave him a refill because he kept fussing afterwards. I chalked it up to a growth spurt until some time around midnight when it all came back up, and all over Jeremie. In V's short life, he's already had two stomach bugs, one that required hospitalization, so I instantly knew how to react. We needed tummy meds, fever meds, and quick. Problem was, where on earth can you get them in England? And once you get to a place that you can buy them, what do you even ask for? Our host looked at me funny when I asked what CalPol was, when an Anglo-Belge chimed in that it's paracetamol (tylenol.. doliprane). Alright. Once we got to the pharmacy ("chemist" felt so awkward to say..) I asked the nice lady for help and she kindly walked me around the store and gave me what we needed. Everybody wished my little boy well which I thought was very nice, and he seemed better after just a few short hours. Luckily for him, he avoided a fever this time but definitely got the upset stomach end of it. He slept most of the day so we decided to be "bad parents" and visit anyway.

We went out to the castle and also to the cliffs for a little walk, did some shopping and had some lunch. He seemed better. In the afternoon we went to Canterbury and had a look around. That night, we ordered Indian take out and while Victor slept sweet and soundly, Jeremie and I ate.

As soon as J woke up, he was sick too. We drove down to the ferry port to ask about leaving early because with two sick boys, it really wasn't worth it. Learning that shortening our trip back would cost the same as a round trip ticket (59€) except in pounds, we decided to suck it up and stick around for a while longer. We drove out to Deal and walked along the coast and down the pier. We had a walk around the castle, and by the time we got back to Dover, it was time to go. There was nobody on the ferry on our ride back and both J and V seemed to be doing better. J drove us back home from Calais, and Victor and I slept. The second I woke up, I knew something was wrong but I managed to make it home. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I was sick too. J and V didn't have the fever that I had, so in addition to dealing with two sick babies, I also had to fight off my own fever and upset stomach. We were exhausted. V finally fell asleep and slept better than he had the last two nights, but J and I were not ok. The worst was that the next day was Halloween and we had to completely cancel our plans. J got up and took V to the nanny, and then we spent the day resting, taking medicine, and getting better. My status improved enough by noon on Tuesday that I was able to get up and play with Victor a little bit, but nothing else got done. I have lessons all day today and have resigned myself to cleaning and organizing (and eventually moving V's room and the guest room around) on Thursday and Friday.

All in all, our trip to England wasn't horrible -- we appreciated the familiarity of it but also enjoyed feeling foreign enough to discover something. The accents and trying to explain myself proved interesting but not impossible, and if anybody was put off by my accent or my way of speaking they certainly didn't show it. I liked going to Tesco and being able to stock up on silly things like Campbell's soup, Baked beans, and Crunchies. I loved having a huge English breakfast in the morning. I didn't like the exchange rate or all of the obnoxious French people running around, but i'd been warned in advance and went there anyway, so you get what you get.

Being in America feels a little bit like reconnecting with an old friend. You know in your heart that you are happy to see them, but you've been separated so long that you don't always know what to say or don't immediately remember all of their old/bad habits. Coming back to France feels like coming back "home" since this is where we live and work right now -- whether or not it feels "good" to be here, this is where we are right now. But going to England felt like a new sweater -- something familiar but new, comfortable yet different. Even with the overcast skies and left side driving, it was good. If we hadn't gotten sick, the trip would have been perfect.

For the cost of the ferry and the ease of driving, I think we'd like to go back sometime soon but maybe stay further out in the countryside or near another cluster of towns. I'd also love to go to London but without baby in tow. He adds this new complicated dimension to everything that we do.. I'm looking forward to a day where we can take a trip as a family that he'll remember and appreciate. Someday!

Violence in France

2011-10-24T06:59:00.003+02:00

One of the subjects I'm often asked about is Americans and their guns. "Doesn't everybody in America have a gun?" My students often ask, thinking that they must be sold in shops on every street corner. Instead of "tabac/presse", we've got "Assault Rifle" shops where, starting at the young and tender age of 7, anybody can pick up a gun.

Obviously if you've spent any time in America, you know that's not true. While there are a lot of gun-related crimes and death, I have never seen a gun on a street in the states. I've never known anybody who had a license to carry a concealed weapon, and I have also never known anybody who was involved in any kind of burglary : mugging, car jacking, house jacking.. etc.

I come from the South where guns are a personal freedom, and "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is something you hear all the time. It's like trying to convince a French person that foie gras is wrong because it's animal cruelty -- they'll never buy it because it's simply what they are used to and what they've grown up with. They tell me that Americans are crazy, violent, dangerous.. why do we need weapons? I'm the wrong person to ask since I was never old enough in the states to own one, and it's not like my family walks around with holsters on their hips. I find myself saying "agree to disagree" because, like foie gras, we will never agree.

In France -- we'll say areas outside of Paris because that's all I know -- you hear about burglaries and robberies all the time. A man I used to teach took his family to the beach one day and came home to an empty house -- clothes, furniture, TVs, his wife's car -- everything. Another man I used to teach was robbed like that twice. A lady got a call on her phone one morning from her security system telling her that the police were en route because her alarm had gone off, and she also went home to a mess. Jeremie always tells me to lock my doors when I'm driving because car jackings happen, and now with the crisis and a disgruntled generation of teenagers who are too lazy to go to school and get real jobs, you hear about home jacking, or armed robberies. I've never known anybody who was home jacked, but I wouldn't want to risk it. We changed our lock and our front door, and yet sometimes there are still nights where I don't feel safe.

Yesterday two things happened. I watched a program about French "baby burglars" (teenage boys committing robberies) where they showed how easy it is to get a gun. The cops had a look at a gun made by a gun company, and then at the "toy" version, also produced by the gun company. They were identical. Then, they went into some of the ghettos of Paris and had a chat with the kids about how they get their weapons. The kids assured the reporters that they can rent real weapons, and they would never go to a robbery with a toy. I was pretty shocked, but then again the ghettos of Paris are something I can't relate to, so we left it at that. Although they showed a café in Lille that had been robbed on the program, I figured it was a café in a bad part of town. The criminals in Lille come from my city -- what's the point in robbing domestically?

Then the second thing happened. We were driving home from Belgium through a little border town (Halluin) that is superficially a very charming little city. On the border, you've got the old customs signs tiled on houses, leaving a feeling of nostalgia. There are big, brick houses with high walls blocking them from the streets and we have to wonder who lived there. It's one of those rare towns that isn't over-run with broken down factories, which is probably because it had enough border traffic to keep it alive back in the day. Yes, we often think it's pretty cute. We sat at a red light, making faces at Victor who was in his front-facing car seat (a special treat for when we take his daddy's car), munching on the donuts we bought and enjoying the sunshine and nearly 20°c weather we were having.

Then a boy in a ski mask jumped out in front of our car, pointing a gun at our faces.

Then, he kept going, pointing his gun at the car behind us. And behind them, and behind them, until an SUV somewhere down the line decided he was fed up of the prankster, and revved his engine and passed everybody, coming within inches of splattering the kid (shame he didn't, really).

The boy ran back to what I hadn't seen before -- his gang of friends near the bus stop on the sidewalk, who were all laughing hysterically. Some people waiting for the bus just looked at all of us, wide-eyed. Apparently Jeremie, who pays more attention to detail than I do, noticed the gang of dumb kids on the sidewalk before we'd come to a stop, and he wasn't surprised at all when the kid jumped out in front of us but did consider hitting him with his door as he ran past (should have..). I contemplated jumping from the car and beating the shit out of him once I realized it was a "prank" -- nobody points a gun at me, with my baby in the car, and lives to laugh about it. But then there's that little voice -- toy guns look just like real guns. You never know what that kid is actually holding and what he's stupid enough to do with it. All of the baby criminals on the show said that they didn't realize how serious what they had done was, which confirms that the next generation is full of irresponsible idiots.

Then we noticed all the ghettos that had sprung up behind the beautiful houses, and how the kids were all wearing the "ghetto uniform": wind pants, big sneakers, knock-off designer hats... and this obvious attitude of "I can do whatever I want to whomever I want" (the exact same kind of kids that live next door to me.)

It took me a long time to calm down on the drive home, but I still spent half the night awake thinking about it. Nobody in America has ever pointed a gun at my face, be it a real one or a toy. I grew up knowing that guns weren't toys, and that you just don't do stupid shit like that. It also just goes to show that despite being illegal, they exist and people still know how to get them.

Indentured Servitude

2011-10-22T14:01:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I finally collected my money from my former employer, signed my papers, and walked out with pride, having reunited with my dignity. It was buried in a deep, dark place where excuses for my pitiful working conditions were made (à la Stockholm Syndrome : "It's really not that bad", "Sometimes I have time to read a book or something if nobody shows up", "It's an easy job.. I don't care about the money"...) but I managed to dig it back out and now I can get on with my life. I feel like myself again for the first time in months.

The thing was that all of my former colleagues wanted to have a chat while I was in the office (and we were out together for drinks last night), so of course the question of what i'm going to do next came up. Thursday afternoon I had a successful interview with the director of my future company, where I'll have excellent working hours, a budget of my own, the freedom to try things on my own or prepare the programs I feel are appropriate.. Night and day compared to what I'm leaving. I decided not to hold back when I told them about it, because they should know that having the same skills as me, they could also go some where else and do something different if they were so motivated. Life is too short to let somebody else hold your future in their hands. I'd rather snatch it back and do with it as I please.

So it was pretty normal that a lot of people looked at me and said, "Wow, well done". I keep insisting that anybody can break free of the training center black hole, but not everybody is convinced. First of all, when I mention that my new contract is a CDD (limited-term contract) they say, "Oh," a bit down trodden. And then the inevitable, "yeah but your French is so much better than mine". The sad eyes, the negative comments all got me thinking about an experience I had a few years back at an interview with a French lady who was starting an English-speaking daycare in our area.

She'd asked my salary demands and I told her what I thought was fair based on the fact that I'm a native speaker, experienced, and college-educated. She withheld laughter and then informed me that I'd never come anywhere close to that sum (which was actually something pretty modest for 10 hrs a day, 5 days a week. We'll say 1500€/month) to which I quickly and sharply replied that she'd be hard pressed to find somebody that would work with babies, changing diapers and trying to teach them English for less than that. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, "No, It won't be that hard really. You can't speak French, so you won't be able to find a job anywhere else."

At the time, I was already gainfully employed but curious about her project which is why I'd agreed to the interview. We'd been speaking English because she'd just finished a masters and considered herself to be pretty fluent (but i'd say a grammatically incorrect B2 at best). In my best French (and it was my best -- I'm much more fluent when i'm all worked up) I replied to her that my French was fine, and that I had no worries about my future in France. She was surprised to hear me speak and then tried to cover her mistake by saying something like, "yeah but there are other people who don't speak French and they won't have any choice but to take a job like this." (and let me just say as a mom, why the hell would you want those people watching your kids if they are only doing the job because "it's all I can do"?...)

Put aside the fact that she was just making me angrier by reinforcing the fact that the French lump qualified foreigners in the same category as refugees, people coming from the third world, people who are illiterate even in their native language, etc.., in speaking with my former co-workers yesterday I realized a sad truth : She was right. There will always be people who get sucked into jobs that they didn't want or don't like because they don't speak French well enough to go elsewhere, and because they are teaching English, their French will never improve, and that's how 8 years later you are still making someting barely over minimum wage and yet working your tail off. It's truly a vicious cycle. I used to think that my most recent former boss was a "visionary" in the training world, if you will -- that she really had a great idea as to what a training center should be, and how to manage her staff. In more recent days, i've wanted to call her "Françoise", because that's what my truly horrible excuse for a human being former-former boss was called. Over time, the nice lady that I enjoyed working with had morphed into somebody that I didn't recognize as herself, and that was a true shame. Over time, our company had shifted from a comfortable, friendly place to an oppressive institution classifying us as employees by number.

When you add this "CDI" (permanent contract) sense of "job security" on top of the linguistic truths, that just seals the deal. You are officially stuck in training center hell, making shit pay, working long hours with no appreciation or hope for the future whatsoever. They draw you in, they trap you, and then they extort you. You are convinced you'd never have better anywhere else because "it's a permanent contract" and "it's not that hard of a job" (plus people there saying to you, "well apart from taking so-and-so's job(with a strong hint of sarcasm implying i'd never be competent enough)...") well.. that doesn't do very much for "amour propre" (self-esteem) either.

But that's completely and entirely beside the point. You are still a hard working employee and you deserve some thanks and some appreciation regardless of however you fell into the job. You have to be smart enough to know when to walk away, and strong enough to actually do it.

I know it's easy for me to say because Jeremie and I are both employed which makes it easier for one or the other to change jobs or try something new, but all of the big job changes in my life have happened during times of uncertainty for both of us. When I left the first training center for the second one, J was unemployed and it was a big risk. When I made the decision to leave the most recent training center, J was considering what his future was going to be, and moreover, where. There was no guarantee that we weren't just going to pick up and move in another few months and I'd have thrown my chances of having unemployment pay out the window (I resigned, not a mutual end of contract or a termination of contract on their part, and when you do that in France, you don't qualify for unemployment). But I guess I knew that if I didn't try, I'd never know what else was out there.

It's this vicious cycle of indentured servitude that foreigners tend to get sucked into in France, and I think it takes courage and strength to demand more. I tell you what though.. I don't regret it for a second. I'm glad that I'm finally going to have the chance to start what might actually become a career in this country, and I highly recommend that anybody else who is uncertain of their future take a look around and ask themselves what they really want. Chances are with a little luck and perseverence, you can find it too.

Unemployment Fail

2011-10-17T17:20:00.003+02:00

Friday was my last day at my former company (not business school) and to them I say, "good riddance"! The hardest part about leaving was saying goodbye to my team and saying goodbye to my students. I will never miss being under-appreciated, having my work go unrecognized, and being severely under-paid.

So here I was thinking that I'd take my three extra days per week and do some fun things : raise my child, renovate my house, go to a grocery store at off peak hours. About half way through day 1 of being semi-unemployed, I got dressed, dropped off the baby at the nanny's, and headed out to an interview.

Why?

Because I am a sucker who can't say no. And if there's anything I love, it's a good challenge. Oh, I also love stacking paychecks. But that's more of an obsession than a true "love". No, truth be told, I have a great nanny, Victor is (somewhat) fine health-wise, and if I'm willing and able to, then why not work? But I want to make sure that wherever I work, it's a company that I can get behind, and they can get behind me. I need to work somewhere that has a vision for the future and a common goal. There's a lot of nasty things that I can say about nearly almost all of my former employers, but there's a commonality amongst them : they are all training centers. When you work for a training center, regardless of what they tell you and how good of a job you do or how hard you work, you will always be a number. They feed on hopeless, jobless foreigners who will accept any working conditions and pay, therefore if you actually have some skills and get sucked into their scheme, you are treated the same as everybody else. It took me longer to see it since I had a key account where I was nice and cozy and an excellent team.. but the second I had to go back into the office to see anybody or talk about anything, it was instant anxiety. No, I never wanted to be a professional trainer, because I am a teacher.. and trainers, 99% of the time, are not teachers. They are unfortunate souls secretly wishing they could actually use their expensive degree from their home country to do a job that they care about. Nobody sets off with the intention to be a trainer.. It just kind of happens.

So today when I went to interview for a trainer job, I was prepared to say "no" and walk out with no regrets if need be. But what I got was a completely different perspective -- they want to hire an in-house trainer, a person who will be a member of their teams, work with their human resources, and help get the company prepared for international expansion. You know what? That sounds like my kind of job. It was probably the best interview of my life where I could really display my skills and my personality to my advantage, and I walked out feeling good. If I get the job, I think it'll be a cool opportunity. If I don't, well, then back to plan "mom/DIY extraordinaire/food shopping and baking galore". That would be OK too.

My biggest problem so far with being at home is structuring my time. I can't seem to figure out how to make it all work and because it's more stressful to try and plan when I'm going to do things (that I don't really want to do) I usually end up doing much less, or nothing at all. Somehow since the end of August we've had total breakdown in our house. Our suitcases for America (yes.. we got back mid August..) are still on the floor in our bedroom, and there are still some lingering summer clothes in them that should probably be washed and tucked away. I removed a couple of left over 3-6 month things from Victor's wardrobe today, surprised that they somehow found a way to slip through the cracks and stay on the shelves. I have about five loads of laundry to do, and Jeremie's decided we're going to "eat healthy" so meals to plan for next week. I didn't have to do any of this when I was working like a crazy woman.. I sometimes think it's easier to just have a job and go to work than it is to be a mom and take care of a house.

So we'll see which path life decides to give me.

What blogging means to me

2011-10-09T20:38:00.002+02:00

From the outside looking in, you can never understand it. From the inside looking out, you can never explain it..

My husband just doesn't get why I blog. He doesn't get why I have to share the craziest or most mundane details of my life with the internet. He doesn't understand why the first thing I do on a Tuesday morning is read "That Was The Week" over at Keith's blog, or show him pictures of Kim or Sharon's babies as if I know them in person, or laugh about any of our rant worthy situations or deeply sympathize when somebody is down in the dumps and feeling homesick. He especially doesn't understand what's wrong when I come downstairs crying, telling him that a blog friend has passed away. After all, you are like characters on a TV show(ok, or a book, since we write..) -- I don't know you in person, so I don't really "know" you, do I?

Au Soleil Levant was a blogger like me. We were teaching assistants, and we wrote about our trials and tribulations with France, only I had the good fortune to stay, and she had the tough luck to go home and fight cancer. But even back at home, I followed her story. I listened to the ups (she only really ever talked about the ups!) and sent messages back and forth. It was a friendship that only ever happened on the internet, but I found myself really cheering for her when times were good, and hoping to be supportive when times seemed to be getting rough.. only she never really let on to the blogosphere that times were tough, until her family posted today informing everybody that she'd lost her battle and is now in a better place. I just feel devastated at the loss.. saddened for her family, hurt for her real life friends, disappointed for her lost future.

Maybe her story touched me more because it brought back memories of a childhood friend of mine. She'd been diagnosed with Leukemia as a baby, and again in elementary school. We both moved away and eventually lost touch, but in my heart of hearts I always hoped that she'd beat it and had gone on to live the life of any normal teenager. I remember the day in my senior year of college that my dad called me to tell me that she'd died. It was the end of February, only a few short weeks after another friend and her grandmother were killed in a car accident, and I just lost it. Whether we'd lost touch or whether she even remembered me, I always remembered her, and I always prayed for good things to come her way. God had other plans, apparently. Must be the same plans he had for Mira. It's unfair. Some of us get to live "the dream" while the rest suffer, and all I can do is think about how shitty it was that the re-stock people at Lidl wouldn't get out of my way so I could choose some cheese and how La Poste didn't have my package when they said they would (15h on a Saturday, when they are clearly closed..) so I didn't get what I ordered and won't have it until tomorrow.. such meaningless problems. When you put my problems into the "big picture", my life is a rosey waltz through a garden of brightly colored flowers and green grass, and in my hand is a picnic basket brimming with cheese and wine. I don't know what "bad" is.

So going back to my original idea here, why do all of you bloggers mean something to me? Well, I don't know. It's a new level of friendship. First, I've met so many of you face-to-face and you've become some of my best friends. Second, I tell you all things that I might not even tell my direct entourage because let's face it, nobody wants a permanent ranting debbie downer barking at their door all the time. But in magical whimsical blog land, you can say and do whatever you want and people will still read.. so you often get the truth whereas the people around me often get the Reader's Digest version. I also find that other bloggers are more understanding and more sympathetic than my "real life" friends. I like it even better when my "real life" friends ARE my blog friends. It must be kind of like internet dating. You get to see the personality, hear the jokes and the stories in the privacy of your own home, and then reach out to them with the offer of meeting for coffee. They read your blog, decide if you are a crazy person or not, and the rest is history.. best friends.

I blog as an outlet for myself and to keep in touch with my family. I also do it to remind other bloggers in France that they're not alone, and that we all more or less experience the same sorts of things in our lives over here. I love to celebrate the good times with you all and have your sympathy and encouragement when times are tough.

To Mira : I'll miss your posts. I hope you are in a better place. To the rest of the bloggers in France : Thank you for your friendship, in whatever form it comes in.

Security, please escort the victim out.

2011-10-06T19:40:00.003+02:00

Today would have been an awesome day. Okay, in truth, it really wasn't half bad. I only had one lesson this morning, my colleagues surprised me with a champagne cocktail before lunch to toast my upcoming departure, and afterwards I had my entire afternoon in front of me to get stuff done. The "stuff" on today's to-do list wasn't really all that much, but it was time consuming. I needed to get my roots done.

A while back I decided I wanted to be a blonde. It was a cold, wintery day at the end of July (much like today) and I waltzed in, sat down, and walked out with a new color, highlights, and a lot less money. But it was so much fun. I loved catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I felt like a new woman. I just felt so much more like "me" as a blonde.

But then came the roots. They creep in slowly, reminding you that you're an imposter, and also reminding you that you're a mess and you don't have enough free time to waltz back in and spend three hours getting your hair done. I took advantage of my light afternoon and found a walk in place in the local Auchan shopping center of Faches-Thumesnil, called "Coiffeurs Plus".

I thought I'd been there once before and couldn't remember anything very specific about it. They had the time for me, so I took a seat and cracked open a book while I waited. Within minutes, a cross eyed man approached me pretentiously and said: Alors, qu'est-ce qu'on va faire aujourd'hui? (So, what are we doing today?) He paused for about half a second as I opened my mouth to reply, and then immediately interrupted me mid-breath to add, "en tout cas, il y a de quoi faire." (In any case, there's work to be done).

I didn't know whether to stand up and run out of there, clinging to my self esteem or to laugh because it may have been a joke. I simply looked at him and said, "fix my roots". He limply touched a few strands of my hair, turned up his nose, and flitted off. Then, I was taken to the shampoo station where he started applying the color. I was slouched down in a shampoo seat with my head back awkwardly against the shampoo sink, and he just chit chatted away not even noticing my discomfort or the plenty of free seats free on the other side of the shop. He wanted to be near his friends, where he could chat.

No sooner was the color in my hair and he'd walked away that i'd already started to feel weary. My head was burning and I fought back the desire to stick my fingers in and scratch. It hurt. I waited, but it only got worse. I grabbed the nearest lady I could find and asked her to do something. She gave me a look, rolled her eyes, and hollered to her friend. When he came back, he was smiling and said, "bah, c'est marrant ça!" (well isn't this funny!) as he poked my firey scalp. I was nearly crying in pain, begging him to wash it off. "You can wait two more minutes," he said dismissively. I refused. The lady talked him into rinsing my hair, and as he did so he just kept telling me how "funny" it was that I was in pain. The more he talked, the more angry I felt. "It's not normal, so it's funny," he said with a chuckle. I know that "marrant" can mean "funny" like, "curious" or "strange" funny, but when you say, "ah, c'est marrant!" with a laugh in your voice, I'd take that to mean funny-haha and not funny-weird. He went on to tell me that there's no ammonia in the product they use (negative publicity for L'Oreal? don't mind if I do. It was Majirel.) but I wasn't buying it. There must have been something i'm allergic to in the color, so I asked to see the packaging. He insisted that I wouldn't understand it, that there wasn't even ammonia in it. I insisted that I would understand just fine, and that if he'd kindly give it to me, if there was something I didn't understand, I'd just call my husband.

"Why, is he a doctor?" they asked with a sarcastic twinge. "No," I replied directly. "He works for the competition as a regional product director. He can tell me what this stuff actually is." And they shut up. Jeremie has been telling me for months now that hairdressers are idiots. They don't listen, they don't care, and worse, they are flat arrogant. After seeing this little band of idiots in action, I may just agree with him. So after insisting on seeing the packaging, he brought me the box and let me have a look. The first ingredient listed? Ammonia. WhenI pointed it out to him, he said, "well of course there is. There's ammonia in everything. A product without ammonia is a bad product. It doesn't lighten the hair like it should." (per Jeremie, that's not even true). Fact of the matter is, the dude's a liar.

So to get on with the story, another lady came by and blew some hot air into my hair for all of 2 minutes until the top layer was dry, and then she lead me to the register. "That'll be 51 euros," she said with her smirk. To make matters even worse, two other catty bitches were at the register with her, still commenting on how "impossible" it was that i'd be allergic to the product (which has an allergy warning large and in charge on the front of the box). I couldn't take it -- I snapped. The price, the cattiness, the quality, the itching, the burning.. it was unacceptable, and I lost it.

"I'm not paying that much for this," I said, crossing my arms and shaking my head. Like mean girls in high school, they exchanged glances, rolled their eyes, and laughed at me. "Please," she said, "Like that even hurt you". There was never once an apology or a note of concern -- it was mockery from A to Z. As I stood there, feeling appauled at what i'd just experienced, two security guards appeared out of nowhere and addressed me like the true rent-a-cops they are. "Is there a problem here miss?" Cue cliché.

This is where I should have bravely punched the bitch in the face in the name of customer service. This is where I should have started shouting, "no service, no paying!" as I'd certainly been expecting a "commercial gesture" as they call them here (or as we foreigners call them, and uh, the French just blow raspberries) . I should have just refused and spent a night in the pen for being a rebel. If only I were ten years younger.

The point is that the second I started complaining, rather than admitting fault, they called security. I, the customer, was clearly wrong, and they, the burners of the scalp, get off scott free.

So, here's my tiny little bit of civil disobedience : Never get your hair cut at Coiffeurs Plus in Faches! Tell all your friends!

-End rant-

The Winds of Change

2011-09-23T18:13:00.002+02:00

This week I took a giant leap in a direction I've been trying to go for quite some time. On Wednesday, I quit one of my jobs. For the last six months or so I've been contemplating where my professional life is going, and it became more and more obvious to me after the holidays that my future was no longer with the company in question. I'm leaving on good terms, but it certainly does feel good to have finally made a decision.

Today threw me for a loop though. I've had a lead on a new job (fewer hours, different field), but this morning the job description changed and I chose to decline. They wanted me 16+ hours when we'd originally talked about something like 10, and for the first time in my life I decided to put my family first and say no. The way I see it, I've got time to wait until I find the right fit, and time to see what I'd really like to do as well.

Despite not having another job lined up -- do I regret resigning? Not in the slightest. I've been stalling for a long time, and it was a win-win situation. It'll be great once I do find something I'd like to do, but in the mean time, I am going to paint. I'm going to paint for pleasure, and I'm also going to paint walls. And maybe do some tiling. And some flooring. And some caulking. Long and short -- I'm going to do DIY and personal projects two days a week. I'll spend the third day with Victor. The other 2 days I'm doing full days of teaching at the business school where I work, and those 8 days per month are paid as well as a full time job. To be honest, I'm in no rush to find a second job.

This experience has taught me a lot about working in France. First, regardless of how good you are, how many ideas you have, and how dynamic you might be, companies will not bend over backwards for you. My mom was talking about a new job she got and how she'd decided after the first day it wasn't worth it. They'd invested 30 or so hours in training her, so when she decided to jump ship, they talked her into staying. They saw the value of the investment that they made in her and her work potential, and wanted to make sure they kept her. That was after only one day of working. Here, you can be loyal for over 2 years, and the boss won't flinch when you hand over the letter. That tells me (more than anything else) that I am making the right decision. I want to work for somebody who wants me. Not somebody who uses me. Plain and clear to me at the last minute (I'd been going back and forth on my decision for days), I stayed the intended course and handed over the letter. Done.

So I won't be joining another company immediately after I leave, and that's alright. I'll take my 3 extra days per week and do something for my family. Maybe I'll have time to see friends, time to play with Victor, time to do loads of things that I couldn't do otherwise. Maybe I'll get my house organized and get some work done. And when the time is right, I'll find something I want to do and I'll put my whole heart into it, like I always do -- up until the moment I realize that the person on the receiving end is taking me for granted and doesn't value me for my skills and experience any more.

So that's that. Yet another learning experience thanks to my life in France. But this is a positive change, and I'm looking forward to the future of my little family.

Big Frogs on Campus

2011-09-14T12:45:00.002+02:00

In America there's the frat boys and the athletes. The sorority sisters and the cheerleaders. They walk around campus wearing their letters or their jerseys, flexing their muscles or flashing their pearly whites. It's about wearing the right letters or the right colors and looking good in them as you parade yourself around, constantly surrounded by friends. You've got them at every American university and it's unavoidable -- you can try to beat them à la Revenge of the Nerds, or you can join them.

In France though, you don't have sororities or even sports teams at school. Without these to separate your degree of coolness, how can you tell in a crowd who the "it" kids are? At public university, I have no clue how it works. Does it even feel like college since they all live at home with their parents? At private business school though, it's clear who the privileged are -- They walk around campus in tight clusters, usually with a cigarette in one hand and an iPhone in the other. The girls flip their hair and flaunt their name brand bags and clothes, and their glasses are both large and round. The boys have that very ironic "just got out of bed" hair made famous by Edward. But the most obvious, can't possibly miss them sign that you are looking at the popular crowd is that regardless of the temperature outside, they wear matching bright colored pull over wind jackets with logos and mystery acronyms embroidered on the back, front, and sleeves. They are adorned with curious nicknames and undecipherable symbols, and I'd almost describe their walk as a "strut", if it weren't for the tight jeans (or saggy jeans) hindering their swagger.

My first experience with the in-crowd was last year in the canteen line. I went to the front of the line because I was a teacher, and they promptly did the same. The waters of common students parted upon their arrival, and the popular crowd flipped their hair and waltzed right on past the rest of us. From the outside, they look ridiculous. Their jackets are unnecessary in the early fall and late spring, but they wear them anyway. Their nicknames are a joke and if you ask them about them, the snicker to themselves, obviously, as the keepers of the most hilarious secret in the world ought to. But from the inside, i'm sure the rest of the crowd can only dream of being that cool.

The coolest kids on this campus are members of the sailing club. They were the original wind-jacket faction of hipsters (if you will) wearing bulky red jackets with obnoxious white text. This year, I've noticed that everybody seems to be wearing a wind jacket (or now hoodies seem cool, too), which makes me think that next year they'll have to find something else to wear. Perhaps a forehead tattoo?

What I find the most curious about this is that the clubs aren't necessarily exclusive. There are hundreds of kids who seem to be involved in the sailing club, for example. And on top of that, wind jackets aren't even cool in France -- this seems to be something that they pretend to have taken from American culture, but you'd never see a Frat marching around in matching coats. Matching shirts, hair cuts, jeans, shoes, jewelry.. sure. But not matching ski jackets. Although I bet if it were possible to fashion a fancy "PKA" onto the back of a North Face jacket with a hard earned nickname such as "Drunky McGee", i'm pretty sure they'd jump at the occasion.

So back to the French elite. Maybe you get a little bit curious and you try to ask them about the sailing club, how often they meet, what they do. It seems that they get together once a year to compete in a couple day regatta, and that's it. No real meetings until just before the race, but participating gives you the right to proudly wear the coat for the rest of the year, and all of the following years. It also qualifies you to be able to say that "you sail" on your "hobbies and interests" section of your CV. Maybe you only went along for the ride, but you are a tried and true sailor.

They call these clubs "humanitarian associations" which makes me cringe. It's a fancy word for "charity". Even calling their club an "association" makes me vomit a little -- it's a club, just call it a club. They don't seem to understand that. No madame, it's an association. It's a group of students networking with each other, working towards a common goal. It works like a company.

.. sounds like a club to me. But in the interest of sounding serious, they stick with "association".

I'm sitting in the staff room between my classes which overlooks a quad-type area where all the little chimneys get together during any break they get to smoke. Most of them are off to the sides, chatting with friends, and then suddenly the sailing club arrives. Conversations stop. All their heads turn to watch them walk by, envy sparkling in their eyes as they pass. Once they are gone, the commoners go back to their cigarettes, feeling underprivileged and unlucky in their second rate jackets representing lesser clubs. Why oh why, they wonder to themselves in angst, didn't my mom and dad pay for sailing lessons for me instead of teaching me chess?

There's another way to distinguish the cool kids on campus and that's in the parking lot. There's usually a row of old 4L's lined up, covered with wacky, tacky paint and stickers from sponsors. A team of kids takes the crappy car on a road trip to deliver school supplies to African children (or so they say). After the rally, they'll drive the cars until they won't go anymore, and then they leave them in the parking lot for all of the other students to admire.

So there you have it. French Frat boys (and girls) -- separating the tadpoles from the frogs.

Good things coming

2011-09-13T22:05:00.003+02:00

I feel so positive tonight that my heart could burst, which is really out of character for me lately. First, I just love my little family so much. Today I kept answering my student's questions about myself with the subject pronoun "we". Finally one of the kids piped up and said, "so who is 'we'? Do you have a boyfriend or something? Or did you move here with your parents?" To which I replied that I am very lucky and have two special men in my life. After a pause for suspense (shock?), I filled in the gaps with the appropriate titles "son" and "husband", explaining that I have a little family and we move a lot. I can't talk about myself without mentioning them. I just feel so much better about being a mom.

I don't know what it was -- maybe things are getting easier, or seemingly easier because i'm just dealing with it better. Maybe I needed a total breakdown so that I could rebuild from scratch. Lately i've been picking V up from the nanny, coming home, and immediately jumping into our nighttime routine. I'm drawing it out longer so he has more time to relax, and more time to spend directly with me. As a result, he's been eating better, and he goes to sleep like a charm (this was never our main problem). He'll wake up once before midnight with a night terror which was a little bit terrifying at first, but now that I understand it i'm okay with it -- nothing I can do, so let it go and it eventually stops. He'll wake up once or twice during the night for a cuddle (mostly weaned off nighttime bottles) and then back to sleep. Every night it gets a little bit better, and i'm hopeful that once we're on the other end of the dreaded 9 month sleep regression, we'll be in a better place.

So i'm feeling good. Normally on a night when J is travelling, i'm a wreck -- my dishes don't get done, my laundry piles up, I eat junk food and watch TV feeling sorry for myself and eventually sulk up to bed where I lie awake half the night. Tonight though, I prepared for the cleaning lady to come tomorrow!

This was a decision that I had to talk Jeremie into accepting, but when he finally saw how miserable I feel in a messy house but how little control I have over that at the moment, he caved. And what's best of all is that it's our rockstar nanny who will be coming in to do the job. She'll have V in his playpen with all his toys comfy cozy at his house, and all the while she'll mop my floors, vacuum and dust -- basic cleaning stuff that builds up and needs to be done on a more regular basis, nothing fancy. Since I have cats who shed a lot and white floors, it'll be a huge help and i'll be able to focus on the bigger things over the weekend or just spend time with the boys instead.

There also seems to be a change on my job front for me too. Nothing is set for the moment, but i'm finally in a good enough place to potentially take the plunge and start seriously working on some of my side projects. I've always been an expat match maker -- I make a point of networking with foreigners and remembering what they do (it's my job to be good at details) and when I hear about something opening up, I usually know who to call to make the match. This year I helped to recruit two of my friends to work with me at the uni where I teach, which makes my job more enjoyable and also helps out my boss and my colleagues in the process. I'm always trying to help others, and it dawned on me -- why not help myself?

So today when my boss asked me if I knew anybody who had a few extra hours free, I jumped at the occasion. I agreed to take them, and work out the details of my other obligations later (knowing that i'm now in a position to let A LOT of them go, after a lot of stalling and excuse-making...) because it would mean enough work in those two days a week that i'd have the rest of my week to do other things. It's really hard to leave a CDI (permanent contract) though since that's basically the only way you can get a loan from a bank. But I have a house, a car, and we're only months away from paying off the last of our student loan debt -- meaning that I no longer "need" a CDI contract. It's also hard to leave a job where you are relatively happy, albeit bored (not my uni job). It's comfortable and familiar, but you still have this little voice in your ear asking "is this all?" and a brain and a heart trying to decide if they are OK with that. I think at a different stage in my life, I would be. But where I am right now, I need to see what else I can do for myself and maybe take a risk. So i'm thinking about stepping away from the CDI world and into a realm of uncertainty that could be really fulfilling. And then I have to wonder where I got this idea of "permanent" from anyway. I'm American -- "permanent" doesn't exist in my country, so why have I attached so much importance to that over the last nearly 5 years? At home, your life can change from one minute to the next and with no guarantee of Assedic (unemployment). I get so caught up on these cultural things that matter here that I start limiting myself to their standards and requirements, when in reality I should just have some confidence that i'll find a way to make it work in my own unique way.

So that's that. The big push i've been waiting for is finally at my back, and it feels right. No hesitation, no second-guessing my skills or knowledge. It really feels like the right decision. And you know what? If I fail, I still win -- I can always go back to the job i'm doing right now (training pros), and if worse really does come to worst, i'll always have my little family behind me.

Our Fun Weekend

2011-09-11T17:37:00.006+02:00

Today is such a sad day for Americans everywhere and originally, I didn't want to blog about it or comment on it. I woke up this morning with a feeling of dread -- I've been reading the

"Yahoo!" stories all week posted on their front page, and they always end in a tear-fest. The o
ne this morning about the 9/11 orphans particularly tugged at my heart strings and made me
appreciative for this day that I get to spend with my baby. Last night Jeremie and I watched a program that featured many of the heroes of the day and he held my hand as we remembered where we were when it happened. I often wonder if I would have had their courage in the same place. I am proud to be an American, and in honor of all of the people who gave their lives
for others, I wanted to appreciate my life this weekend and enjoy what I've been given.

I've spent a lot of time over the last year feeling angry -- angry about being alone, jealous of others who always seem to have it easier, resentful for not having made better life choices, bitter about people and disappointment -- toxic, negative feelings that can really consume you if you aren't strong enough (or awake enough) to fight them.

All the while that I've been feeling so negative, I've been overlooking all of the awesome things that I do have in my life. For every crappy person I have to interact with, I've also go

t somebody that's supportive. For every difficult moment I have with Victor, I have a hundred good moments. For any grief I have with Jeremie, there's plenty of "bonheur" too. Trapped in my pit, I've been blind to what's around me. I've decided to really focus on trying to get my eyes open, to appreciating the good times, and accepting my life for what it is right now. Nothing is going to change or improve over night, but I can certainly make an effort when it comes to my outlook. I need to wake up and face my day positively.

So today, the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 when I could be feeling spiteful for not being able to live this with my fellow Americans, I decided instead to get out of the house with Victor and have some fun. I decided that we ought to be thankful to be alive and healthy, and that rather than spending our Sundays dreading our Mondays (particularly this one because they called for a storm all day..) we should get out and live a little.

Saturday was a day we spent as a family. For the first time, we loaded Victor up and took him out without really worrying about his schedule, or fussiness. We figured we'd see where we got and head back home if necessary. In the morning, he and I strolled over to the park and let his daddy rest, and when we got back he went down for a nap. When he woke up, we we

nt to the DIY shop and then did some grocery shopping. He can sit in the cart now and enjoys looking all over the place and putting the cart coin chains in his mouth. We let him choose between ham, chicken and veal for his next food trial, and he helped pick out a few other things too. When we got to the toy aisle, his little eyes lit up and we realized that we now have a very interesting baby -- he wants significantly more than just food and milk. He likes toys, too. We let him choose a little Playskool animal-shaped car, and he went for a red chicken over an orange one or a horse. He seems to have a preference for color and for certain objects. We think he's chosen his "doudou" (lovey) too, which is really funny because he carries it around with him. Before we could go somewhere without bringing toys, but now it's something he really has to have. He has bath toys, dinner table toys (usually just an extra spoon to get him to open his mouth..), car toys, stroller toys, nanny's house toys, bedtime toys.. so many toys.

Also on this week's list of developmental milestones are standing unsupported (for a few seconds, but that's progress!) and clapping. We stopped his morning naps in favor of a longer, deeper afternoon sleep, and he's become a real chatterbox. He says both "mama" and "papa",

and we're not really sure but it does seem like he knows what they mean. I left the room briefly earlier and as I did so, he cried out "mama!". He also knows when Jeremie isn't around and will babble "papapapapa". His other sounds are "B" sounds -- "bobbobbob" or "bababa". We met a 1 yr. old at a play center today who wasn't much further ahead of V movement-wise, and his mom was shocked when she found out how old he is (and made a comment about how he must "eat well" -- if only she knew how untrue that is!). We don't see any kids his age on a regular basis so I had nothing to compare him to, but I think he's making pretty good developmental progress after seeing quite a few kids that are a few months older. Then again, he might stay right at this stage until he's a year old, but I still think he'll walk before then. I see speed in his eyes. (Ricky Bobby: "I wanna go fast!")

Tom and Victor going for a drive

Happy with the events of Saturday, we woke up Sunday morning and prepared for the play date. We met up with our friends Katy and Tom at an indoor play center in a nearby town called Royal Kids. It's close to my company's offices and i'd seen it a lot but had no clue what it was. When she suggested we meet there, I came armed with toys and distractions for V in case there was nothing safe enough for him. Tom is 13 months older than he is, so we often watch him play while V sits with Katy and I.

Baby zone!

To my delight, the center had an entire zone for the under 3 crowd, and even better -- he was free! There was a shallow ball pit, a climbing area, two padded short slides, a low to the ground swing, over-sized legos, so he had a ball crawling all over the place, throwing balls and touching the legos. He was hesitant to climb up to the slides but once he got going he was unstoppable. Katy and I were even able to sit nearby and watch them play independently without much intervention unless we were tempted (which we were.. ball pits are fun!) He and Tom even interacted, mostly with Victor trying to follow Tom around, but even in the couple of hours we were there I could see a change. He's obviously still very much a baby, but he's watching what's happening around him and trying to participate.

In the ball pit

Once home, he slept for over two hours and now we're enjoying what's left of our afternoon by playing in the living room with toys scattered everywhere. This kind of chaos would normally make me really uncomfortable, but i'm trying to learn how to live with it as part of the acceptance that my life is what it is.

(I HIGHLY recommend Royal Kid in Villeneuve d'Ascq to anybody with young children! Affordable, spacious, well-lit, light meals served at reasonable prices, a pool table available for dads to play, lots of high chairs, kid friendly toilet facilities.. overall a very positive experience and we'll definitely be going back.)

My Quarter-Life Crisis (and Victor's 3rd quarter)

2011-09-05T20:16:00.005+02:00

Victor has changed so much over the last few months that you'd hardly recognize him, except that he's still got his signature blue eyes and chubby cheeky grin. Last week he turned 9 months, and with that came a lot of change.

Playing at the park with his nanny

I don't have any clue how tall he is, but in July before we left for the states he was 71 cm and 9 kg. I'm happy that he's put on so much weight because just a few short months ago doctors were saying he was experiencing "failure to thrive" (one of the worst things for a parent to hear!) and I felt so helpless. Since then our situation has improved two fold and we now know how to give him what he needs and to pay attention the warning signs when it comes to his food protein intolerance.

Standing in his play pen at the nanny's

While we were in America, it was with a heavy heart that I added bananas to his black list. He'd been eating them for just a few days before we left, and on the plane the symptoms started. By the time we were at the beach and he'd been off them for a few days, the second he went back on them he reacted and I knew then it was time to stop. Because he'd failed a food trial, we then went back to only apples as a sort of detox, and once we were sure his system had recovered, we started again with oatmeal.

Two weeks later, oatmeal was still a success and we confidently added it to the "safe foods" list. Last Thursday we started a lentils food trial that's going well thus far, so we're finally looking towards the future and hoping that there might be and end to this. Our next food trials will be peas and then turkey. By his first birthday, he might actually have five foods! That beats the four i'd been hoping for, and it also means we might be able to serve him a Thanksgiving dinner, and hopefully make some sort of apple pie with an oatmeal crust for his birthday "cake". I would never want to deprive my child of that sickeningly sweet sensation of smashing food all over his face, so i'm going to spend the next three months trying to find a way to make that happen for him AND respect his allergies.

The problem lately is that i've been so blue -- the allergies just add extra stress because I have to scour the grocery stores for things he can eat, or make it all from scratch, and I can never let my guard down. I thought part of it was also just post-holiday doldrums, like everybody gets, but it carried on for awhile until I figured I must just be getting bored and looking forward to going back to teaching students. I've tried everything to make myself feel better -- getting a massage, going out with friends, shopping for new clothes, getting my hair cut and colored -- and nothing has worked. They've all been bandaid fixes, and shortly after I start feeling gloomy again. It doesn't help that J's papy died, or that I hit a scooter, either. I seem to have stumbled upon a web of bad luck, and am having difficulty finding a way out of it.

Today was "la rentrée", or back to school. In America we don't have this "all at once" mentality so whenever French people ask me what we call "la rentrée", I give them a nice French reply like a raspberry and a shoulder shrug. It's just "the first day of school" for me. Going back as a teacher is a lot different than my first days as a student. I loved my classes in college and I enjoyed a lot of my classes in high school, too. Last year's first day of school was super charged with motivation because I knew i'd only be teaching for a week before I went on maternity leave. I've been looking forward to going back to my students since May when we started planning my lessons and organizing the schedules. I was just sure that seeing fresh young faces in front of me would fill the gaping hole that seems to have invaded my life and sucked out part of my soul. Maybe teaching was what fulfilled me.

It's a bit soon to say that I was wrong, but this year's first day of school hasn't exactly got me singing the praises of the joys of teaching. I had a run-in with an enemy of sorts, and squared off with a few kids who were being disrespectful (talking while I was talking, texting under the table -- as if I wouldn't see it in an ampitheater.. derp). The girl on the phone actually had the nerve to tell me that she was just "tired", and she'd been at school since 8 am. Newsflash -- me too, and I'm exhausted, not because I was out drinking last night with my friends and carrying on when I knew I had an 8 am class, but because I have a little boy who still doesn't sleep through the night and is constantly on my mind. It's exhausting to be both mother and teacher.

So I told her that these were the choices we make, and to choose better tomorrow. When I came home, I was really happy to see Jeremie and Victor waiting for me, reminding me what's important in life. Although I feel like a teacher failure for today, they are there to show me that tomorrow is another day, and that eventually i'll find something good to cling to outside of my home that'll help me to feel better as a person. I think i'm hyper sensitive to the bad stuff today too, because I had built it up so much in my mind that this was going to be a good thing.

I was just bummed.. I was hoping it was teaching that I was missing. I was hoping that being in front of a class would remind me who I was and reassure me that I haven't completely lost myself.. and it didn't. So my quarter-life crisis continues.

I'll get my career kicks by living vicariously through Jeremie, and my successful parenting kicks by living vicariously through my friends on Facebook who are constantly talking about how amazing their kids are because of how well they sleep. Maybe someday that'll be me and Little V. Someday we'll both feel better.

Scooters and Roundabouts

2011-08-31T16:43:00.003+02:00

This really has not been my year. Oh, and why am I allowed to drive in Europe? I suck at it. As per the title, I am ashamed to admit that today I had another car accident, and this one involved an enormous roundabout, and an unfortunate middle-aged man driving a scooter.

I was on my way to work at the uni because classes are starting back on Monday. I had everything going for me today. My travel cup was full of coffe, I was showered and wearing fresh new clothes, and my mind was positive -- this was going to be the day that I finally took back the control of my life that seems to be perpetually spiraling away from me. I was looking forward to a fresh start, and what I got instead was a painful reminder that my life seems to work in patterns: one step forward, and one giant shove backwards. For anything good that happens in my life, I know that there will be an opposite, significantly larger reaction. Amber's Law.

First, i'd like to mention that I hate the city of Roubaix. It's not easy to drive through and it's kind of like Tourcoing in the sense that you never know when you are going to go around a corner and get eggs thrown at your car (that happened to me last week). We had blue skies and sun this morning, so as I reached the dreaded roundabout of doom and gloom, i'd been lulled into a false sense of comfort radiating out of that glowing ball in the sky. I reached it at a point where there are three roads clumped together. The furthest left lane is entering the roundabout as is the furthest right lane. The center lane is an exit going towards the hospital. I get off at the very next exit past the three road clump, so I have a lot of things to check before pulling out into traffic.

One, I look left. Two, I look at the lane to my right (the exit, and the entrance) and three, I pull out into traffic. Today, my left was completely clear as was my right, so after a safety check, I accelerated.

Before I knew what had happened, I heard the crunch. I pulled off to the side of the circle and glanced back to try and figure out what i'd hit. Did I miss a curb or a street sign or something? To my shock and horror, there was a man and a scooter lying flat on the ground, and I was now the proud owner of a freshly dented left end and a broken hubcap.

I fled the car, running in the direction of the man frantically (i'm not good at keeping calm, and I didn't even turn the car completely off...) arriving at the scene were any number of spectators who had seen the accident and who immediately started calming me down while also tending to the man on the ground. Somebody called the police and somebody called the firefighters. He'd been wearing a helmet and the crash happened at a very slow speed so he appeared fine, until he lifted his hand. His finger was hanging on by a thread, and at the sight of all that blood I nearly puked.

I ran to the curb to collect myself and call Jeremie, and then I came back over, tears streaming down my cheeks, my heart racing a million beats a minute. Everybody kept telling me to calm down and that it could have been worse (i've heard that about a hundred times already today) but I couldn't bring myself to just accept the fact that I had run over a man (ok, ok.. knocked him off his scooter) first thing in the morning. Yes, it could have been worse, but hitting another human being with your car is pretty bad, and i'm not sure i've ever been so ashamed.

So enter a band of police men/women who had obviously just started their shift, as they started giving each other cheek kiss greetings and wishing each other a good morning. They had a good laugh at me in my state of panic, and one of them lead me away from the accident to get my information.

I showed him the damage to my car as I handed him the papers and he looked perplexed. "You hit him?" he asked me. I stared blankly -- had I stuttered? and nodded yes with a bit of uncertainty, because I really had no clue how the accident had happened. The guy had literally come out of nowhere. So pointing to the damage on the left rear end, he mentioned that although I was at fault, the driver of the scooter had actually hit me, and come to find out it was because he was exiting in that center lane and hadn't seen me either and hadn't slowed down. He had apparently just entered the circle at the next entrance over to my left and was hugging the curb (it's got at least 4 lanes) which is how I must have missed him upon second glance. I managed to calm down enough to explain how I had perceived the accident and to set the police right because the witnesses had sworn that I was already in the circle and the man was the one trying to enter, and not the opposite which was actually the case.

They rushed the man off to SOS Mains (the hand hospital in our area) and sent me on my way promising that nothing bad would come of this for me except more of a "malus" from my insurance (my negative points which drive up the cost of my insurance -- for the record, mine is already huge and I don't even want to know what it's going to jump to because of this...). He assured me that there would be no lawsuit, no damages, and that my insurance would handle it calmly and promptly. After Jeremie got there and made a couple jokes with the cops, he and I were both on our way and our days carried on as normal.

I don't really know what to say or to think about the situation -- I feel horrible. The police said they'd contact me to let me know what happens next if anything. Jeremie suggested that we send the man a card, but i'm not sure that's appropriate.. i've never had an accident that involved bodily injury to anybody.

So there you have it. My Wednesday morning. I'll be on the road tomorrow around 9 so if you're in Le Nord, beware...

Life and Death

2011-08-19T19:53:00.003+02:00

We got the call this morning that Jeremie's grandfather has passed away. He was 86 years old and had a number of medical issues, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still really heart breaking for Jeremie. I didn't even know what to say when he called me to tell me, but we immediately booked a flight and made plans for him to leave.

I've mentioned before that my relationship with Jeremie's family isn't exactly perfect (okay.. far from it) but I never had a problem with Papy. He was always respectful, using the formal "vous" with me and calling me "madame". This might have been because he had no clue who I was every time he saw me, or it might just have been because he was that kind of person. We went to Sete for vacation three times in 2010 : Easter break to tell everybody we were having a baby, summer break for two weeks, and then Christmas when Victor was only two weeks old, because we just weren't sure how much time we had left and if there would be another opportunity.

Christmas was very difficult for me with the family and with a new baby, but one thing I loved was that every time Papy saw Victor, he came over smiling and cooing as if it were the first time he was seeing him. Alzheimer's will do that to you, I guess.. but if you have to forget anybody, why not have it be a baby? Every time he looked at him his eyes lit up as if nothing was wrong with him, but spending too much time around the family showed the wear -- he would go off on long, incomprehensible diatribes after dinner to whoever was sitting around and would listen. He'd snap at the children for being too noisy. He didn't seem to know who very many of us were but did recognize that he ought to know who we were, and you could see the frustration on his face. If we spoke too quickly, too loudly, or too many of us at the same time, he'd get frustrated and point to his hearing aid. Sometimes I wonder why he didn't just turn it all off -- not like any of that noise actually matters anyway.

Something that made Jeremie happy was driving his Papy around to have a look at his property. Last summer we went out to see the Joutes of Sete and that was one of the times i've seen him happy. He even refused to sit, insisting that I take his seat.

I suppose at the end of the day, there's not much to be sad about -- 86 years old is a very long life and considering everything he lived through in France, that's quite impressive. But I can't help but to be sad for Jeremie.

Rest in peace, Papy Bernard. I'm glad we got to introduce Victor to you, and i'm glad we've got this picture of the three of you together.

Homesick

2011-08-16T20:01:00.002+02:00

Well we're officially back "home" -- good ol' rainy, not as cold as I was expecting north-o-France. Our friend Julien greeted us at the airport with a big teethy grin and enthusiastically asked us questions about our trip while I just smiled politely and kept to "yes" and "no" answers. I just didn't feel like coming back to France this time. I could have just as happily stayed in Cincinnati, or Charlotte, or even Ocean Isle.. Victor changed and grew so much surrounded by his family and lots of new little friends.. the sunshine and the heat, although exhausting, was a nice change of pace..people were so friendly and helpful everywhere we went.. France through my new mommy eyes is just not what it used to be anymore.

Last time we went home, we came back with a project. We'd been house hunting for the last six months and talking about babies. I came home in January 2010 ready to turn a page. This time, I found myself coming home bummed out about my job because it's just more of the same sort of monotony every single day, reminding me that in this country, i'll never be more than a trainer and i'll never be worth more than something slightly higher than minimum wage, i'll always be isolated from my family, speaking will always be somewhat of a chore, and the battle that I fight with bureaucracy/what ever else I routinely rant about, will always be uphill. I hate to be such a debbie downer, but there are so many restrictions on life here that it's hard to be optimistic when you're feeling blue.

For example -- I had a thought while we were travelling, "hey, I could work for an airline or in an airport". The airports in the US are chock full of foreigners. Oh but hey, that's a civil servant job in France, meaning you have to be French or you have to pass bureaucracy tests and fit into their "mold" and anybody who knows me knows that I don't fit into anything that's pre-formed. That would probably be an overwhelming strength for an American company, but here in France it's a death sentence.

Anyway.

Our trip was awesome despite two broken faces (thankfully nobody in my little family unit!) and a little jet lag on the return. I feel like a travelling pro now thanks to our stellar experience with Delta Airlines -- they really aren't kidding when they say that they are "family-friendly", and that goes for the airports we visited too. But i've got a lot to say on that so i'll have to save that for another day. In the mean time, i'm going to lay here in bed and watch some American TV while the baby sleeps soundly (I hope..) across the hall, and try to forget that just a few hours ago we were hugging my mom goodbye. Never in a thousand years did I think i'd have such a strong urge to go home.. funny how babies really do change everything.

Change

2011-08-01T20:21:00.000+02:00

Every time I sit down to write something in my blog, I come up blank. That's a pretty good description of how i've been feeling lately. For the first time in months, there's nothing eventful happening on our end. Nothing good, nothing bad.. just regularly programmed life, and i'm okay with that.

We've been renovating a lot. Our kitchen is now a lovely shade of blue and we've got black tiles as the backsplash. We're going to install a fan and a few more cabinets, everything grace à Castorama. I know I teach there so i'm biased, but I really do like this company and their products. Every paint we've bought there has been good quality with good coverage and low odor. It's nice to see my house coming along and as my fellow Lilloise Laura said, "it's cheerful". In the north of France, it's definitely nice to have a room that feels cheerful. Our kitchen backs onto our patio garden and has a large sky light in it as is customary in 1930's houses which only have one window for three rooms on the ground floor. The blue paint just makes me happy.

We've also got a new front door and a new lock, which will help us to relax a little when we're on vacation. The last front door was one rainstorm away from crumbling inwards with rot. We put it on the street last month during "garbage amnesty" and even the gypsies didn't take it. They took all the metal off of it, but not the door.. that should give you some idea as to what state it was in.

On a gloomy, rainy day where it was no warmer than 10°c, I went in to get my hair done. I told the woman to make me blonde and trim a little off the ends, and walked out three hours later rocking the blondest, brightest hair i've ever had. Unfortunately my skin is too pale and my eyebrows are too dark, so i'm looking forward to spending an entire week on a beach in North Carolina, sun-bleaching my eyebrows and tanning my too-pale skin.

Oh, and did I mention i'm going to the US the day after tomorrow? It'll be our first trip with Victor and J and I haven't been back since Christmas '09. We don't get home that often but luckily my family likes coming to France. We'll start in Cincinnati at my parent's house, and then drive south to the Carolinas, which is MY home. I haven't been back since I moved to France in 2007.

We're really looking forward to a visit on my turf, and following, we're going to try and make it work so that we can go to Reunion for Christmas this year. Would you believe that J and I have been together five years and i've never once been to his homeland? It's so depressing, but the first time we wanted to go we were too broke (back in the Normandy days) and the next time we had the opportunity, I got pregnant and would be delivering a baby just a few weeks before, so both times we had to stop our trip in the planning stages and put it away for another day. We've decided that Christmas '11 or summer '12 will be the ticket. It'll be fun to take Victor to discover the other part of his heritage!

To prepare for our big trip to the States, we went on a cleaning and organizing spree. Babies are magical creatures in the sense that they cause you to be so organized and so disorganized all at once. I've got a long list of everything I need to pack for him, and only vague ideas of what to pack for myself (and i'll probably forget tons of things and need to go shopping.. oh what a pity...). His room is the brightest, cleanest room in the house, and the junkiest and messiest is ours. Some nights I can't stand the clutter and i'll go sleep in one of the other rooms. Because I needed to do an inventory of what we have in order to know what we'd like to buy, I started cleaning. I've done about ten loads of laundry, sorted and organized all of my clothes and put all of J's clothes in the same place (his office.. where I shut the door and walk away, because it's not my problem). I put away all of V's clothes that are now too small, and I pulled out all of his 9 to 12 month items. His 74cm jammies are a perfect fit at the moment (although he's not that tall just yet) so I wanted to be prepared for how much he'll grow in the two weeks we'll be gone. I said au revoir to all of the 3-6 month things that were lingering but no longer worn, and also packed up the majority of the 6-9. It's the first time i've actually felt bittersweet when packing up his things. I realized that this little kid before me that's standing and holding on to things with one hand while walking around his playpen, is going to be a toddler in the blink of an eye. Last week my friend Katy and her son Tom came to visit. He's 13 months older than Victor so he'll be 2 in a few months, but he's already such a little boy! He walks all over the place with such confidence, and he mimicks Katy by saying "oh dear!" and knew to speak French to Jeremie, always asking if he "peut fermer la porte?" (close the door). I realized that a year from now, i'll also have a little toddler-baby in my life, and my baby-baby will be gone. In just four months, he'll be a year old. I'm confident that he'll already be walking by then. I don't know about the talking but with as much as he looks at us, babbling, I get the impression he's got a lot that he'd like to say. Anyway, it was with a heavy heart that I pulled out what feels like is the last of his "baby" clothes. After this, everything gets so much more mature -- proper pants, shoes, button downs and blazers, t-shirts with "Flash McQueen" on them -- clothes that belong to a little boy, and not a little baby. I never thought i'd feel sentimental about his growing up, but I have to admit that despite his food allergies, his sixth and seventh months were pretty good. So far eight is even better. We went out to a restaurant today where I realized he could have sat in a high chair had we not brought the stroller in, and after we went to Casto, where he sat in the baby seat in the cart. It's amazing how he just keeps growing and fitting into things that in my mind are reserved for much older children.

Enough of mom ramblings. Now on to something related to France.

I drive a Peugeot 1007. It's a car that I absolutely love because it's spacious, convenient with sliding doors and flexible seating, and I get good gas mileage. It's not a very powerful car but it's easy to drive and it feels very safe. When we got out of the car at the restaurant, the power sliding doors opened and I hopped out to see a man standing there with an astonished look on his face, saying, "amazing! Everybody should have a car like that!" so we got to chatting, right there in the parking lot about my car. And then it lead to talk about our upcoming vacation to the states. And by then Victor was in the car seat, so the man's wife was commenting on his beautiful huge blue eyes (they really are, for the record. Don't know where they come from as J has dark brown eyes and mine are green) so we exchanged polite conversation a few minutes in the parking lot, commenting on the weather (32°c and not a cloud in the sky!), the restaurant, life with a bilingual baby, ("he's so lucky!") and so forth.

What i'd like to say about this exchange is that it's not the first time it happened to us, nor will it be the last. As we walked away smiling I mentioned to Jeremie that it's a big reason why it would be with a heavy heart that i'd leave the North of France. We might have the shittiest weather in the country, but we've got the warmest people. They are simple, friendly, and open-minded. I'd dare to make the generalization that most people in the North didn't grow up in the lap of luxury. My nanny tells stories about how she and her mom had to work on the production line at Peau Douce and then clean offices all night in order to get by after her dad died. She talks about a France that I never knew. But when she talks about it, it's not with bitterness. Although they haven't had the easiest life, they are still happy for what they've got. You don't encounter jealousy or greed on a daily basis, and rather than walking away saying, "lucky little bastard", "rich jerks going on vacation in America,", the couple we spoke to walked away with smiles saying, "wow, what a lucky little kid" and wished us happy holidays in the Carolinas. It makes me appreciate what i've got, but it also makes me proud to share my experience and my life with the people that I meet. I like to think that meeting me gives them a positive impression of Americans, and might even ignite a little flame of desire to go and experience it for themselves.

(I wanted to post pictures, but Blogger isn't participating! Next time...)

Update

2011-07-22T19:58:00.002+02:00

I've got good news and more good news. Can you imagine, after all this time, how happy it makes me to be able to say that things are looking up?

First things first. I was more than concerned about the status of my residency card, and very disappointed in the Caen city hall for dropping the ball and not doing their job. For the first time in my life, somebody asked me if I wanted to speak to their supervisor when they could tell that I was unhappy. And wouldn't you know, speaking to that supervisor solved my problem! Yesterday, I received my "acte intégrale de mariage" in the mail, so we are officially good to go. I will have a recipissé by the time we need to leave the country, and some time in the fall i'll be the carrier of a ten-year residency card. For all i've been through with administration, I really do feel like I deserve it.

The other good news involves Little V. His loving daddy took him to the hospital this morning for what I hope will be his last rectoscopy. The tater tot has had a rough week. If he had a diary, it would look something like this:

Friday -- doctor's appointment at hospital

Monday -- new milk. Not so bad

Tuesday -- grace matinée until 7:30 -- I feel like a new man!

Wednesday -- vaccinations.. spiteful woman always finding a way to rain on my parade.

Thursday -- my name day!!! (shit, my mom forgot and I didn't get any presents, jerk...)

Friday -- camera in the.. well.. you know where. So that was my present.. do not like.

Needless to say, it wasn't his or my best week ever.

I went with him the last time he needed a rectoscopy done and it was gut wrenching. I couldn't look and I cried most of the time. I felt like such a foreigner when the doctors and nurses spoke to me. It seemed like I should be able to understand them, but the words just had no meaning. Not only did I feel bad for my son, but I also felt homesick.

I was glad that J was able to take him this time and let me go to work in peace. Before I knew it, he was calling me and telling me that it was over, and Victor had once again charmed his audience. Nurses of a certain age were fawning over the two of them, and they both came home grinning. It went as well as something like that possibly could.

The doctors did some biopsies that we'll have to wait on, but the initial diagnosis was that all of the sores in his intestines are milk protein allergy related. They are the same type of sore that they saw six weeks ago. That means that Victor's allergy is a very serious one, and that even the slightest traces of cow's milk can really mess up his digestion. The good news is that we'd already started his new milk on Monday (per my insistence!) so we were already ahead. And the other good news was that because it doesn't appear that the sores are coming from food (for the moment), we can start re-introducing food to his diet, one by one, taking a week or two to test the foods before we move on to a new one.

Today, he ate an entire jar of apples. He drank four or five bottles, and he played with his friend Tom all afternoon. At bed time, for the first time in weeks he wasn't fussy. I put him in his PJs and rocked him while reading, "Me Talk Pretty One Day". It might seem silly, but at bedtime I get so worked up that I also need to take some time to relax, so i've started reading to him from my books. It's time for me to do something "for myself" but also for him. And since that book just happens to be made up of a bunch of short essays, it works perfectly. Just a few short pages in, he'd already settled down into my arms and was listening intently. Just before the last page, his little eyes shut, and he slid off into dream land. I finished reading him that chapter and then put him in bed. For a split second, my heart stopped as his little eyes fluttered open. I braced myself for the temper tantrum we'd grown accustomed to facing at bed time. But to my surprise, he looked at me as if to say "good night", rolled over onto his side, and fell asleep.

I can confidently say that our life is getting better, and I rejoice in these tiny little victories. Jeremie is off at the gym with his friends for the evening, so i've got some time to just lay on the couch and unwind. Although my week started off very rocky, I think we've got a bright weekend ahead of us.

2011-07-20T05:38:00.003+02:00

There aren't words for what i'm experiencing right now.

Last night was the first night that Victor has ever drank or eaten anything that he can actually digest without getting upset stomach, and although I really wasn't aware of just how bad he felt after every time he ate, it hit me like a ton of bricks this morning when I woke up and had a look at the clock -- seven hours of uninterrupted sleep for me. That has only happened once or twice since he was born, and it was due to pure exhaustion on his part.

I thought to myself -- maybe it's because he was so tired last night, and I shouldn't start counting my chickens. But last night wasn't even particularly difficult, nor was his day yesterday (including almost three unprecedented hours of napping). As I laid there in my bed, I was overcome with the realization that this is the first time in Victor's life that he's eaten something he can actually digest, and now I finally understand his allergy. I finally understand how serious it is, how much pain he's been in, and what a struggle it must have been for him for the last almost eight months to feel full, to be comfortable, and to be happy.

I feel so refreshed after my seven-hour night that I couldn't even pretend to lay in bed and go back to sleep, and so overwhelmed with a mix of relief and guilt that I could cry. I'm relieved because this might finally be over -- we might finally get to experience life with a healthy baby, and not a baby who is suffering. No more upset stomach, no more colic, maybe even no more excessive diaper changing or cracked and bleeding skin on his back side. This might finally be his chance to recover and move on.

The guilt stems from the fact that because he's not a very fussy, demanding, or high maintenance baby most days of the week (not counting the ones where he's getting teeth..), I didn't fully grasp to what point he was hurting. In my heart I knew something was wrong, but even doctors couldn't see it -- he looked fine, fat enough, heavy enough, tall enough... part of me was beginning to wonder if I wasn't just crazy.

I know now that i'm not. It's not a fluke that he went to bed so easily last night, and that he's slept ten hours straight without waking up. It's because his belly was finally full of something his body could manage.

I think that in less than 12 hours time, Neocate has already changed our lives. I'm seeing a bright future for my little guy... finally.

Since he was born, i've been looking for the "bonheur" that all of my mommy friends talk about, because as i've mentioned time and time again, I feel like we've been fighting an uphill battle and there's very little time to just sit back and enjoy the "bonheur" or "happiness". Sure, we smile and laugh and have some fun with our little guy, but in the back of my mind and my heart, there's always been some weight, pressure, or stress bearing down on me. It's like being on the beach on a cloudy day. Things seem okay, it's still warm enough to enjoy the fact that you're on a beach in the summer, but at the end of the day you've got a killer sunburn to remind you that all the while, something painful was cooking and you didn't see it coming. That's what my life as a mom has been. For all the joy i've felt, i've felt ten times as much worry and heartache. I've bawled my eyes out to doctors, begging them to listen to me and to address my concerns. I've spent nights awake with him in my arms, rocking him, praying, crying, begging him to sleep, begging him to burp or pass gas or something so that he could just let his little body relax.

I have to admit that i've been sick with jealousy when reading other blogs and looking at friends with their babies on facebook. I've felt so jealous every time i've heard that somebody had a great birth, or that their baby was already sleeping through the night at only three months. That jealousy just makes me feel all the worse because I should be happy for what i've got (which don't get me wrong; I am) but wondering why I always get the short end of the stick?

To think that we might finally be able to get to enjoy having him in our lives instead of spending all our time wondering when it's going to get better is such a huge weight off of my shoulders.

Wanna shoot the whole thing down (no, that's not a threat, it's a nod to my dad.)

2011-07-18T10:19:00.003+02:00

Well this has been a fun morning so far.

I was lucky enough to only have one lesson today so I decided to try and get some paperwork done. I've got a meeting at the prefecture next week and the last thing I needed were a few photocopies and a copy of our "acte de mariage".

So first thing was first. I listened to the messages on my voice mail and low and behold, the city hall in Caen had called to tell me there was a problem and I won't have my acte de mariage in time for my meeting at the prefecture next week. That means I won't have my recipisse (a temporary carte de sejour for immigrants) in time for our trip to the US, and that means that upon my return, I will be in an "irregular situation". While I may not have a problem getting back into the country, I will have a problem trying to renew an expired carte de sejour.

Anybody dealt with this before, because i'd really like to know if I need to make a side trip to the embassy while i'm in the states to cover up this potential visa issue.

I sent Jeremie off to the city hall today to try and get an ID card for Victor before we leave because with all of this uncertainty, it doesn't need to look like Jeremie is trying to get two people into the country who don't belong there. We'll take our livret de famille (a little book you get from the city hall that shows who the members of your family are) but that's really all we can do.

I hate that this'll happen at the end of our trip and that i'll have to spend two weeks wondering if we get to go home as a family or not. I don't like the foreigner climate at the moment -- all the "racism" i've been experiencing right here on my street, all the difficulty i've had trying to call just to ask simple questions and the accusations that I magically did something wrong.

I understand that as a foreigner in this country, it's an obligation to follow protocol and that it's my responsibility, but I can only do 50% -- get the paperwork, show up to the meeting, smile. The other 50% is in the hands of the civil servants who, with the snap of a finger, can decide that I won't have a document I need in time for my appointment.

Regardless, i'm going on vacation. If they don't let me in, then Victor and I will just go back and stay with my parents for a few more weeks. It wouldn't be the end of the world.

Monday really is a spiteful bitch, isn't she?

The good and the bad

2011-07-14T20:46:00.003+02:00

As a follow-up to my last post, we're going to see the specialist tomorrow at the hospital. "Wow, that's mighty fast!" you might say, knowing what a pain it is to get in to see a doctor either in the US or in France. And to that, I have to say that I fought tooth and nail to get in sooner than October, because that was the originally proposed appointment, and I was informed that "all pediatric gastro docs are fully booked until then". It took a near melt-down on the phone (and nearly 45 minutes being passed from one person to another, repeating again and again what I wanted before somebody finally booked me an appointment) before the woman said, heaving an exaggerated sigh, "let me see if it could be possible to get you in before." Heaven forbid she go out of her way to, say, I don't know, do her job?

Within seconds she came back and offered a little slot on Friday afternoon, so I jumped on it. I'm grateful that they'll be able to see us before October, but she had to go and get me all worked up beforehand. That, I don't appreciate. Ah well -- I guess we did win that one.

Another win was at the American restaurant in Villeneuve d'Ascq today. We decided to go out for lunch with Little V and our favorite family-friendly restaurant usually has good service, good prices, and good food, so that's where we headed. I was underwhelmed -- our server acted like he was put out by having to order my salad "without meat" and when I announced loud and clear that "I could change if it was really too much of an inconvenience for him", he replied that the kitchen would probably ask him what to replace the meat by, to which my husband and I both rolled our eyes and said, "more salad? more vegetables? more guacamole?" before he also heaved a very unnecessary sigh and walked away. At the cash register when we were paying and the manager said, "ça était?" I gave a little eyebrow raise and a tiny frown as my husband answered, "oui". Then he raised his eyebrows and said, "obviously not for madame." So I decided to go for it. If you're going to call yourself an American restaurant and go as far as to order all of your desserts from the US, why not provide American service? I explained what I was upset with and that we're usually really happy with the service (so happy that we even leave a tip, which we never do because a tip is included in the price of the food). Then, rather than being defensive as you often get when you complain about something in this country, the man nodded and explained that they were training new staff, that he was sorry, and proceeded to dock the cost of all of our drinks from our bill. Since we'd had three beers between the two of us at about 5 bucks a pop, it was a pretty significant gesture and I left feeling satisfied. Maybe for the first time since i've lived here, somebody actually cared about the quality of their customer service and acknowledged me for what I am -- the customer, and thus, I am always right.

I have to admit though that I was already pretty wound up by the time we got to the cash register because we were sitting next to a couple that ought to be sterilized. They had a child who was probably four or five years old with them who was bouncing off the freaking walls. We were seated on a bench that ran the length of the wall and had a number of two-person tables pulled up to it with chairs on the opposite side. The kid kept walking over to me on the bench, and then he started rolling around, knocking things off our table with his feet. Every time he did it, his parents said, "Alexis, stop" with about as much oompf as a corpse. Meanwhile, our little baby sat happily in his stroller, smiling and giggling at anybody who gave him the time of day, making us feel proud for having a nice, well behaved child. But seriously -- this "king child" syndrome thing -- you won't be seeing it in our house. Jeremie and I both agreed that if ever Victor was behaving in such a manner, we'd take him out to the car and spank him. J said he wouldn't even bother taking him out to the car -- he'd spank him right then and there. Although I don't think violence is the answer, I do think that a child of that age knows the difference between right and wrong, and knows what behavior is acceptable, and after explaining it a time or two and correcting the behavior, the kid might need a little bit more persuasion. I'm glad he and I are on the same page, because in the past we've had some disagreements about discipline and reward when it comes to raising kids. I guess we'll just have to give it time and see what happens when we get there.

And speaking of Victor, I can't help but to mention some of our milestones. He's got his first tooth! It appeared yesterday, and i'm sure there's two or three more that are well on their way. Then, at nap time today we thought it was strange that we couldn't hear the music from his mobile when the baby monitor went off. So J went upstairs to check things out and come to find out, V was standing in his crib, playing with the monitor and the remote to his mobile. His crib was still up high, so we immediately lowered it. He's pulling up on things left and right, giving us heart attacks when he lurches forward but rather than smacking his head on the tiles, he catches himself on his hands. I'm guessing he's going to be an early walker, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it happens by 9 months at the rate he's going.

Then again, that's something i've said since the day he was born and he had such good control of his head. He's a strong little guy and he's determined. If he wants something, he finds a way to get it other than crying for mommy to bring it to him and I like that a lot about him. I'm glad to be raising an independent thinker who knows what he wants and how to get it.

But that's enough about V. He's actually driving me crazy today with his stubborn personality, deciding that he doesn't want to sleep in his new lowered bed, and his roly-poliness which is making diapering and getting dressed very complicated.

So, time to enjoy our evening by drinking a cold one and watching a dvd. Hope everybody else enjoyed their Bastille day.

Food Allergies

2011-07-09T10:45:00.003+02:00

(WARNING: Mom overshare -- easily queasy please abstain!)

From the get-go I said that my blog is about my life in France, and after getting pregnant and then having a baby, I swore that I didn't want my blog to become over-run with baby stuff and with mommy stuff, because that's only one of the many hats I wear.

What I didn't expect was how much having a baby in France would change my "life in France" perspective, and it's opened a door to a whole new mess of possibilities for making life hectic, stressful, and exhausting. If you think that the prefecture, la poste, or Orange are pains in the ass, wait until you've had a child. Then you'll discover the realm of pain in the ass pediatricians, creches, and i'm sure schools once we get there. You'll discover a whole new level of condescension, and a completely different kind of struggle to be heard, to be respected, to be acknowledged.

I've mentioned before that Victor has a milk protein allergy. This allergy is linked to a soy protein allergy and a goat's milk protein allergy, so none of those foods are in his diet. Because of this allergy (which isn't actually an allergy but a complete rejection) he's hypersensitive when it comes to food.

So for people without kids who might not know these things, what the experts recommend when it's time to start introducing foods is to introduce one food and wait three days to see if there is a reaction. With kids who have food allergies, you can't just wait three days. You have to wait three weeks, and maybe even longer before the allergy shows itself. So before you realize that your child has food protein allergies (it's not obvious) you've probably already introduced a number of foods following the 3-day rule (at 7.5 months we've got nearly 15 foods in his diet) and by the time you start seeing the symptoms, you've got too many factors in front of you and the only way you can get a do-over is to do a complete detox and start over at zero.

Victor's symptoms are a little bit different and a little less extreme than some of the cases i've read. He has bright red, sticky blood mixed in with diarrhea, and his skin on his backside is so red and irritated that it bleeds at the slightest touch. No, it is not this blood that i'm seeing in his diapers because this blood is like any normal cut and bleed. The blood in the diapers is like snot, but instead of being green, it's bright red. He also gets skin rashes, and his face does swell which is confusing because he doesn't have any teeth yet (despite a few bumps that we've been waiting to cut for months now) and puffy cheeks can also be due to teething. As if we needed any more confusion.

He's also got colic. Screams at the top of his lungs, stomach hard as a brick colic.. just like when he was a teeny tiny baby. And when it's really bad, he vomits everything that he's eaten up all over me.

The treatment we've followed has been a prescription milk (Pregestimil, for the curious) and he's had a rectoscopy to check his intestines out. He's tested positive for a milk protein allergy and the intestines showed that the blood was coming from lesions inside that were caused by the allergy.

When it was time to start eating foods (5.5 months) we went food by food as I explained before, and he quickly started gaining weight and learning to enjoy eating. He hated vegetables but he loved fruit. He enjoyed sharing peaches and bananas with me. He made his daddy proud by liking pork mixed up in sweet potatos and chicken mixed up in carrots.

But the blood came back, and this time around it's impossible that it's coming from milk, soy, or goat proteins, because there are none. Something else is causing his little body to react, and with such a long list of foods, we have no idea which one it is.

So today is our first day of the detox -- only milk. No cereal, no fruit, no veggies, no meat. When we see the doctor on Monday morning, i'm 99% sure we'll leave Pregestimil in favor of Neocate. Then, after a few days of Neocate with no symptoms (if we're lucky), we'll start re-introducing his foods one by one and in three-week chunks. That means he'll eat nothing but apples for three weeks. Nothing but bananas for three weeks. Nothing but carrots for three weeks. And we'll keep a list. We'll write down every detail of every poop, pee, bottle, and meal. In parallel, we'll keep another list of "safe" foods, until we've identified enough foods to keep him fat and happy and get him to his first birthday.

Which brings me to my connection with France, and expat life.

The other moms dealing with FPIES (food protein induced entercolitis syndrome) have the luxury of having test-kitchens. They have separate bakeware for their little ones so as to avoid contamination. They have extra-hot dishwashers for sterilizing spoons, plates, and bottles. They have expert pediatricians on call 24/7. But truly the best luxury they have is language. They have the ability to nuance their words and stress their words in such a way that they can be clearly understood. They have the ability to understand their doctors clearly or to insist a doctor explain things in plain English, whereas I don't.

Although I speak French pretty well, when I don't understand the doctor I don't know if it's because he's speaking like a doctor or if it's just because i'm unfamiliar with the French he's using. When I say something like, "he's got blood in his diapers" Jeremie rolls his eyes and whispers to me (while i'm on the line with the doc) that it's in his "poop" and not in his "diapers" and that I need to be more specific. When I'm rambling insecurely, the doctor informs me that i'm "difficult" rather than reassuring me that everything will be okay. I am fighting an uphill battle against culture and language with a sick baby in tow and without the comfort of a sterile kitchen (as if I have time to clean my house working full time to pay for all of the above) or special bakeware just for V (where would I store that again?) or a super hot dishwasher to remove beyond a shadow of a doubt the germs and toxins that my baby could ingest. I wash everything by hand, I buy as much store-made food as I can for the "contamination" issues (at 1€+/jar at organic food shops -- the only place you can find anything without milk proteins) and that's the best I can possibly do.

As for doctors, mine works weird hours and he's hard to get in touch with. Before I can call a gastroenterologist or an allergy specialist, we have to see our GP. I often have to take time off work to get him into the doctor, and then it's a fight. Victor has had more "gastro"'s (stomach bugs) in his short seven months than I have had in my life. Just last night the doc on the phone said, "sounds like a gastro to me. Wait for it to pass." And in my small, defeated voice, I told him that he was wrong and that it certainly does look like a stomach bug, but that it's not. Then he called me difficult and told me he couldn't help me.

So i'm arming myself for Monday. I've got an appointment bright and early in the morning before work, and i'll insist that V gets referred to an expert.

In the mean time, we'll carry on with our detox which disrupts sleep and moods because he's hungry all the time when he can only drink milk, but we'll get to the bottom of it.

And now for my wish list.

There's a lot of things I need but just don't seem to have the time for : a clean house ( a cleaning lady or a cleaning fairy would be nice) and a chef would be on the top of my list. i'd also like a personal shopper to go out and run all of my errands for me. I need somebody to fold and put away our laundry, and a groomer to come and shave my cats because i'm fed up with their fur.

It's disheartening because yet again, I have nobody I can call on to come out and lend me a hand, and that just makes me feel all the more bitter about living in this damn country -- I have shitty neighbors, I'm fed up with being overqualified at my job (and basically just going bored out of my mind) and i'm alone.

"It must be so glamorous, living in France!"

Why yes, yes indeed. So, so glamorous. And so very lonely and so very frustrating.

Marre.

2011-07-05T23:03:00.003+02:00

I really, really hate to say it.. I mean, it kills me. i've got sick feeling in the pit of my stomach -- but the sooner I admit it, the sooner we can come up with an action plan and get our lives back on track.

I made a mistake buying a house in Tourcoing.

I wanted to put the rumors to shame. I wanted to say, hey, you don't always have to spend a ton of money for a mediocre house. You can get a decent place for less money if you are willing to "broaden your horizons" (ahem, live next to welfare cases and alcoholic rednecks).

As i've stated before, the welfare cases moved in only a month before us. The other neighbors who are shitty are slowly making themselves known, crawling out of the woodwork and planting themselves in front of my house. Somehow, I have made myself a target, and not for a good cause.

I don't even have the strength to write about what happened to me tonight, but a long story short: some different kids, unrelated (I think?) to the neighbors next door came down the street to harass me by making lots of noise outside my house. Rather than saying, "would you please leave?" as I did last night at 11pm, I told them the French equivalent of "Scram!", which i'll admit wasn't very nice, but i've been playing the nice card for too long.

Scram they did, and return with a small army of adult men (yeah, 12 year old girls running around with 35 year old men who aren't their father. Because that's normal). So I opened the window and let my opinion be heard : it's past 9pm, some people work tomorrow (apparently the overwhelming majority in this town don't..) and I need to sleep.

His reply? "I was born in this neighborhood. You haven't even been here a year -- who do you think you are telling me what I can and can't do? I'll do whatever the hell I please" with a few curse words thrown in here and there.

So I did what I always do when I feel threatened by racist rednecks: I called my buddies over at the commisariat. Unfortunately, there aren't nearly enough cops for our area so I knew i'd be in for a long wait. Seeing as how Jeremie is out of town (more on that in a moment), I then proceeded to call the other people in this area that I know who were "born here" -- Victor's nanny and her husband.

They kindly got dressed (they are among the minority of people around here who work) and came out with their dog. Together, we waited on the sidewalk, trying to show our presence -- trying to say, "I'm not scared of you". Sure enough, they felt insecure and before too long, the guy who was missing half his teeth but seemed to take himself for somebody important strutted down my sidewalk and parked himself in front of my house, talking passive aggressively to himself, "It just keeps getting worse and worse. More and more foreigners think they own this place. I can't do anything around here anymore."

So I said in my most neutral voice, "why couldn't you have just respected my wishes and played elsewhere?" to which he replied, "hey, you want a fight, i'll take this thing to the very end. where's the cops, eh?" as he stepped closer to me.

"Don't take another step," I said, clutching my fists together.

That's when the nanny's husband stepped between us and said clearly and firmly, "Leave her alone and get lost." And the dog started barking and the nanny held me back.

So that continued for a few more minutes with the nanny and I wondering what was going to happen and if we'd have to call the cops back, but eventually they left. And not too long after, the cops showed up right as the kids were rounding the corner and they were all put up against the wall, searched and questioned.

With the gist of the story out of the way, now I can talk about how this relates to Jeremie.

He's in Paris today and tomorrow for training and meetings with his boss about his annual results and his future. There's been a lot of talk about a promotion but nothing concrete yet. Another company has offered him the position of commercial director. It's a much smaller company but still a nice company with people he enjoys working with where he could be happy AND he'd work in the region/be home every night, so we've got good choices on the table. So when I called Jeremie, he said we've got to leave. We have to cut our losses and get the heck outta dodge. We'll finish what we've started, put the house on the market (maybe six months to a year from now?) and maybe try to buy a place far enough out in the country (either country outside of Senlis/Chantilly if he goes to work in Paris, outside of Nancy if he goes to work in the east, or closer to Douai if we stay in the North) and that should give us lower prices and an okay place to live. I'd take a cave in the side of a mountain right about now if it meant I didn't have to listen to any more stupid rednecks making my life hell on a regular basis. As I type this, the neighbors next door are shouting in the hallway, and it's 11:30.

Anyway, as soon as we know which job Jeremie is taking, we can decide what we're doing and get the ball rolling. My son might have been born here, but he doesn't need to be raised here.

And what's worse -- I decided to post something about this on Facebook before I took it to my blog and all the comments I got were about Arabs because that's what Roubaix/Tourcoing is known for. Let me tell you, and i'll be clear -- the only people in this neighborhood i've had a problem with are white trash piece of shit rednecks. The only arab on my street is the trashy family dad but we have as little interaction as possible, and his half arab kids. There's an arab lady who lives around the corner whose car was burned a few weeks ago and when we see each other on the sidewalk, she is always polite and says hi. I don't want anybody to think that these are race issues -- the only racism i'm experiencing is French against Foreigner, and that's even more upsetting because I chose this country.. I chose to make my life here and to have my baby here and to contribute to this economy. But regardless of how hard I try, this country just doesn't seem to want me very much.

That's not English : Concours 2011

2011-06-29T20:16:00.000+02:00

I thought that today I would provide some friendly advice for any students who are considering attending the competitive entrance exams for a business school in France.

Every year I get a good laugh out of my candidates (remember last year's spastic pianist?) and this year is no exception. But something I am growing tired of is the misuse of expressions and vocabulary. There are a few phrases that I would like to banish by the end of a day.

The other jury members and I imagine that they've got these checklists in their mind of 30 or so words that they have to try to fit into a 20-minute conversation. We joke about turning it into bingo and shouting out "bingo!" in the middle of a speech, or the old favorite, taking a shot for every "moreover", "indeed", or "such topics" and "burning issues" that we hear.

In case you know anybody preparing a concours for a business school, please pass along this list as a helpful suggestion as to what not to do and what not to say when trying to impress an English jury.

Random words that nobody ever actually uses in spoken English:

-- Indeed, there is a ...

--Moreover,...

--Nevertheless,...

--Albeit

Expressions I hope I never hear again as long as I live, so help me god:

"Moreover, there is a contradiction..."

"In a globalized world,..."

"It's a burning issue"

"I would like to dwell on an issue..."

"We can now wonder about the topic of..."

"a counter example"

"the uncertainty of the economic situation..."

"That is to say..."

Overkill:

--To raise a question

--To take measures

--To foster (anything) or to be fostered

--Concrete policies

--A counter example

--A crisis, the crisis

--Paradoxically

--To implement

--To be involved in such a cause

--To be aware, to make awareness

Just plain mistakes:

"In a globalization"

"internationalization"

"I am integrated into a society" or "I want to integrate your business school"

"A BBC, which is to say, a barbeque."

"3 days ago, I went for a month in the US." (I'd like to borrow his time travel machine..)

---

Indeed, I am unequivocally behaving in a certainly pretentious manner, but there is clear evidence that the uncertainty of the economic situation has driven the students to take clear measures of establishing concrete policies in a globalization where we can wonder if students are subjected to memorizing lists of mundane vocabulary. Moreover, the paradoxicality of the situation is fostered by the internationalization of the prep schools, and the fact that one is forced to dwell on such issues for an entire day has raised awareness that given such circumstances, many of the students speak rather like this.

Whew.

My love for books

2011-06-28T22:19:00.001+02:00

As an English teacher, I carry on a lot of (meaningless?) conversations per day. I often get asked questions about my hobbies and interests, and my quickest reply? I like to read, and I like to write. Most are surprised to hear that I have a blog but don't inquire about where to find it. Others think it's cool that i'd just as happily spend the rest of my life painting and writing for children while teaching for pleasure and not to earn a living, and others ask me about my favorite books.

I always have a book in my bag, and 99.5% of the time, it's a book written in English by an anglophone.. I say 99.5% because currently the book inhabiting my bag is French because I got this crazy idea that I should probably read how many expressions are written (example: "à peu pres" and not "un peu pres" as I had understood (and in my defense, there's a northern accent partially to blame for that one)) so I read. I love all kinds of books. My e-reader has the Hunger Games (a series that I could literally read and re-read over and over again) and also Pride and Prejudice. It's got "whodunnit" Agatha Christie books and Oscar Wilde plays. Getting an e-reader changed my expat life and also got me through a few long, rough nights with my little baby. Suddenly I had the world of English language literature at my fingertips. I could download whatever book my friends in the states were talking about on Facebook, despite being across an ocean and in a land where it costs a small fortune to buy English books.

But before my e-reader and in parallel to my e-reader, I do cherish my paperbacks. I love turning pages and I like the way books smell. I like looking at the cover and reading the notes at the beginning and the end, and dog ear-ing pages with particular things that I like. It didn't have the same effect when I "bookmarked" a page on my e-reader in Thoreau's Walden. But in my paper copy, things are highlighted, underlined, and little corners are folded down for convenience. My paper books have personality.

I also find that my expat pals are quick to lend a book, whether we live in the same region or not. That American Blonde Andromeda always comes with a few things to read. My Canadian friend Stephanie that lives here in Lille is also good for sharing books, and most recently, on a trip to visit my other Canadian friend Crystal, I came back with yet another book (move over French lit.. you're starting to bore me anyway..) and the promise to "read it and tell you what I think".

You know, that's what's missing with reading English language books in France. You can read it and fall in love with it, but rarely can you have a conversation with somebody about it. When my students ask me what I like to read, we awkwardly try to figure out what the translation would be in French to see if they've also read it. But even if they have, there's no guarantee that it's the same thing, what with all those obnoxious footnotes explaining cultural references and all. We've tried to speak about books in the past and it usually ends up as a discussion more about the info in one of said footnotes and not about the actual story or the quality of writing, or the psychology of the characters we grow to love and hate. It's more, "do you really play a game where you twist apart Oreo cookies in America?" and the conversation derails.

So long and short is that I find that other expats also enjoy reading, and when I do get the opportunity to recommend a book or to borrow a book, I jump at it. Often it's followed with, "be sure to tell me what you think" and there's usually some sort of discussion as well.

On deck at the moment is Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi, and afterwards i'm going to discuss it with Crystal, the friend who lent it.

But why stop there? Why not share books in our expat "community" (of bloggers) if you will, and why not have a place where we can talk about them? Why not read things that are relevant to our lives (living abroad, being women, married, raising children, trying to figure out our careers, loving on our pets, getting married, breaking up/getting divorced)? Why not read things that are light and fun and help us forget that this will be the fourth (or fifth??) 4th of July that I haven't spent in my country despite my best efforts to try and get there this year? Why not read something and talk about it with real people who have interesting things to say in a place where we can all comment and speak freely?

So i'm tossing this out to the internet, to you the expats who might read my blog and you who might be interested in participating in a conversation about the written word.

Afterall, we're all writers.. we might not be gracing printed pages any time soon, but clearly we have plenty of things to say.

If this seems like an interesting idea to you, please comment and say so or please feel free to re-post it. I'm hoping that this could be a fun project and i'd be curious to hear any thoughts.

The 3-Year Slump

2011-06-11T14:28:00.003+02:00

I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on Jeremie. I had no idea who he was and might have even missed him had I not been waiting for somebody else to walk through those gymnasium doors. I remember the moment because my friends and I were trying to stuff our bulging eyes back into our faces and be a little bit more discrete -- the four hottest guys we'd ever seen in our entire lives had just entered the building, and I would never be the same. They were all tall, fit, all French. That day, our semester changed for the better, but for me it was a lot more than just one half of a year of my life. It was my 'forever' that changed.

That fateful day I was actually waiting for one of Jeremie's unfortunate classmates, Julien. I'd met him and most of the other French kids at a party the night before. We'd mimed through conversation and stayed up late laughing and talking in a big group mixed with both American and French students, and the next day we'd planned to see each other again at the Culture Clash buddy match-up. I'd told all my girl friends that i'd met a cute guy and was anxious to point him out to them, but after having seen Jeremie and his friends, Julien just didn't measure up anymore.

He traipsed in a while later, but i'd seen what else France had to offer, and he was a grocery store macaron in a Laduree world. Because of my sudden lack of interest in him, he of course fell in love with me which just repulsed me all the more, and I found myself spending more and more time with the band of hotties who would be studying (and partying) at my school for the next four months.

We were charmed by their ignorance and their aloofness. They'd come over to our sorority house and ring the bell, in need of something for their kitchen. We'd go item by item through the kitchen -- "aluminum foil?" nope. "A frying pan?" nope. We ended up baking them brownies once (or more than once?) just for the heck of it. Finally we discovered what they were after ("Oh! Saran wrap! Duh!") and after some good, awkward laughs, they'd be on their way but only after inviting us out to a party/dinner/show/whatever they were up to, and they were always more than happy to have us tagging along. In hindsight, I can clearly see that we were the french kid groupies, but as a French speaker, I enjoyed my role and didn't mind the view that much along the way, either.

Jeremie and I were often in the same social circle, but never really spoke. I'd catch his glimpse from across the room and he would mouth to me, "Amber Touch?" while wiggling his back side, mimicking one of my signature party moves. I thought it was cute, but also a little different -- a man who wiggles his back side at me, well-dressed and well-groomed.. that could only mean one thing. My roommate and I concurred : he must prefer the company of other men.

Of course that's never been a problem for me either. I had loads of gay friends in school and still swear that they are the best date : they pick you up and tell you how gorgeous you look, they take you out and buy you drinks and dance with you all night, and at the end of the night, they drop you off safe and sound at your front door and say, "see ya later, girlfriend!". You can definitely do worse.

One night my roommate Lindsay and I did decide that one of us ought to just kiss him at a party to test his reaction (gay or straight?) but then in a fit of giggles decided neither of us would actually have the guts to do it.

As I said a few lines up, I really do remember the first time I saw him. But to hear him tell it, the first time he saw me -- and not "saw" me, but really noticed me -- was at a house party he was at with his then-girlfriend. Yes, my roommate and I were wrong, and I remember watching them all night, wondering, "are they?" and then she'd reach for his hand and my heart would drop. At some point, I must have said something to his friend Virginie, only to be stored away in her memory for a later date.

Jeremie and the others went back to France, but I was sure to exchange phone numbers with some of the group so that we could get together a few months later when i'd touch down in their mother land. My first week in Nantes, I contacted the boys in Montpellier and they assured me a party would be had if I were to make the journey down to see them. I didn't say yes right away, but I did plan on making the trip at some point.

But then another boy got in the way. He was tall, dark and handsome too, and he just smiled at me every time I opened my mouth. I thought he was perfect, until he started standing me up. Again, again, and again. One night, I was on the tram on the way back to our school's halloween party (a few weeks before actual halloween) and I was bawling my eyes out. Why did he seem like he liked me so much only to stand me up every time we'd scheduled a date? Reluctantly, I went to the Halloween party, but along the way I checked my facebook (yes, this was a "modern" relationship for its time).

To my surprise, not only had Jeremie written to me, but he'd also left me his phone number and an invitation to come to the south. I hesitated : I didn't have that much time left in France, but I figured it couldn't hurt, so why not?

To hear him tell it, I must have ran to the phone, hugged it to my chest while jumping up and down, and then frantically dialed. He swears he'd only just sent the message when his phone rang. I remember there being a little bit more of a time lapse than that.

We bungled through a mix of French and English, and then it was settled. Over Thanksgiving break, i'd go visit Jeremie in Montpellier. I booked my tickets and impatiently started the wait.

The dreaded French "gastro" stomach bug hit me pretty hard a few nights later, and I was laying awake around 2am when my phone started buzzing. The texts were pouring in : I want to come visit you in Nantes. Are you free this weekend?

We wrote back and forth to each other (and he'll never admit it but i'm pretty sure he'd been drinking with his friends) but unfortunately my answer was no. I had a trip planned with my mom to Paris, so coming to Nantes would have to wait till another time.

We started texting non-stop and writing facebook messages to each other. The day came for me to take the train and meet up with my mom. The next night, I got a text from Jeremie, only not a typical text.

Meet me at Gare du Lyon at 10pm.

I left my mom at the hotel because it was a little too soon for them to meet. How would I even introduce them? This is my boyfriend/friend/acquaintence/facebook friend that I text with? I went out to meet him and stood impatiently, nervously, on the platform.

My feet danced back and forth as they have a tendency to do when i'm nervous. I cracked my fingers over and over again, obsessively stared at the clock only to remember that "a watched pot never boils" and forced myself to look away. Would I recognize him? What would he think of me? We hadn't seen each other in months, and here we were meeting up face to face.

If I remember the moment I saw Jeremie for the first time, then this was the moment that I must have fallen in love with him. It was a culmination of the facts that he was not only beautiful, but that he'd come all the way to Paris, and he wanted to see me.

We saw each other twice that week and I swore to my mother that I was going to marry him. When he stepped off that train towards me, that sealed it for me. I was done -- there would never be anybody else in my life who could make me feel like he made me felt, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let some other broad get her hands on him.

Three weeks later, he drove me to Barcelona from Montpellier. I cried like a baby as a hunkered down into my sleeper seat on the train back to Nantes. Would we ever see each other again?

Four days later, he showed up in Nantes as a surprise and spent a long weekend there with me.

We spent a total of eight days together, face to face, over a two month period. Three months later, he flew to America and proposed to me.

I don't suppose i've ever told any of these stories on my blog, but I guess I ought to because they are beautiful. He was in China, and I was in the US. He was in Reunion, and well, I was in Iowa. And yet, it worked. I went through the worst six months of my life (a close competition with the six months i've just left behind me post-partum) which included burying a dear friend and her grandmother after a tragic car accident, coming home from study abroad only to find that my "place" in my friend circles had magically disappeared, and that school no longer interested me. I enrolled in 23 credits of classes (the minimum that I needed to fulfill my degree requirements) finished school early, and came back to France. Truth be told, we really didn't even get the chance to talk that much between my course load and his. We'd call each other once a day most days, just to say hi and that we were thinking of each other, and that was it. We'd skype when we could, but as I was dealing with a lot of stuff, most days I didn't want him to see my tear stained face or my puffy red eyes. Of course he didn't care, but I did. So he respected that, and we talked when we could.

The way I saw it, I knew I was taking a risk. Jeremie never lets on that he's unsure about anything, but I was very upfront with the facts. This was a risky relationship full of room for problems with our different cultures, language barriers, and various family issues. However, I figured that I would rather spend the rest of my life getting to know him better (or how ever much time it was meant to be) and know that I gave it my best shot and took that risk, rather than wondering for the rest of my life what might have been. I can accept that every day for the rest of my life we will have different opinions and come up with things out of the blue that we don't know each other as we toe cultural barriers. And now, after having been in an international, long distance, bilingual relationship, I can't possibly imagine how easy it must be to be with somebody who understands the nuances in your speech, who gets the cultural references in your favorite TV shows, and doesn't have to ask you to "help" or "translate" or "explain". Sometimes I wish we had that ease, and then sometimes I think we'd maybe be bored or have already run out of things to talk about. This way, we'll never stop asking each other questions, challenging each other, and learning. Some days I hate it, and other days I consider myself to be truly blessed.

A few months after we secretly got married in front of some of our friends at the city hall in Caen, we were transferred to the North only to go through four months of unemployment six months later, plans derailed, re-routed, and rediscovered, only to end up where we are today -- on the brink of a huge career opportunity for Jeremie, parents to a perfect little baby, asking ourselves, "what next?"

I called this post "The 3-Year Slump" because year three has probably been one of the most trying years we've been through in our five years together. I know that sounds silly -- five years, what in the world am I an authority on? But we packed just about every marriage-tester you could into this year : buying property, having a baby, travelling non-stop for work, and mixing finances (we still aren't 100% on a joint account). It has not been easy and I can sit here and re-hash everything I hated about it this year, but on our three-year anniversary, we made a decision.

Let's put the past behind us. Let's stop bringing up old things that we regret or wish we could get a do-over on, and let's start looking at the future with our baby. Take a deep breath, and just let all the grief go.

We've talked about the message he sent me a lot over the years. Why did he send it? It was completely out of character for such a reserved guy to reach out like that to a girl he hardly knew. Why then, right when i'd decided to break up with somebody else? Why didn't he ever say anything to my face the first time around, and vice versa? Why had I been so afraid of him when I was the epitome of confidence with others?

I came to find out later that he'd actually been speaking about me with Virginie, talking about how I was "charming", when another friend interjected that I was currently living in France. Then, Virginie told him that i'd confessed to having a crush on him while he was in America, and after some urging on his friend's part, he messaged me. I took the bait, and i've been hooked ever since. He also confessed that he never had the guts to talk to me in the US because I was so "impressionnante" -- my confidence, my charm, my way of lighting up a room. To hear him tell it, I was a regular social butterfly. Funny how in my memory, I was just an awkward little girl giggling with her friends about trying to kiss a boy and feeling heartache seeing him with somebody else.

We toasted this weekend and I said, as I always do, a realistic, "to three more years!". As our eyes locked, I saw a flood of our memories of the last five years -- America, Normandy, Lille, our baby, day trips, parties, tears, fights, road trips, songs we've loved, things we've laughed about -- and he raised his glass and said, "to 30 more years".

I hope that this is something he's right about.

Outsider

2011-06-09T18:01:00.003+02:00

This won't come as a surprise to any of you, but I am a foreigner. I don't know why it was so surprising to me today to come home feeling so strange, so out of my element, and then my loving other half reminded me : Amber, you're not from here. Of course you don't have the same perspective, and of course your opinions are often a bit (read: extremely) different from those of the general public.

Alright, that may be true. But why did I really feel so out of my element today, and not every other day of the week? What's so different today?

Well, for a start, the majority of my lessons today felt politically-fueled. The DSK scandal has sparked a lot of debate and because I'm American, everybody wants to know what I think. Because he was a front-runner for the next election in France, the conversation always turns political, and that's where I derail.

In France it's not considered good social graces to talk about politics. Despite this well-known rule, I am often asked about my opinion when it comes to current events, elections, new laws, hot topics.. and it always comes as a shock when I actually reply rather than shrugging off the question in a diplomatic, politically correct fashion. I am also expected to be a cultural expert, and to have an answer for all of the questions people have about the US. "Why are they so religious?" "Why can you drive so young?" "That's stupid that you have to be 21 to buy alochol", so on and so forth. And I answer to the best of my abilities, trying to give as clear of an image as I possibly can, and often try to present things without bias, but that is hard. Down we go through the rabbit hole.

Well why, I have to ask, did you inquire, if you didn't actually care to hear my answer or if you are going to judge me socially maladroit for trying to start an actual conversation? Why is it such a shock that I don't reply with the contrived answer they are expecting based on TV and films?

So here's what I think French people want me to say:

Yes, I spent every holiday of my life in New York City, except for every third year where we vacationed in Los Angeles, and don't forget our second residence in San Francisco! Oh, my grandparents? They live in San Francisco, and my parents are currently residing in Miami. Yes, I think it's ridiculous that Americans have to pay to go to university, and I think it should be free to everybody. I think it's scandalous that we don't widely accept a universal health care plan and two weeks of paid vacation per year? Well, to that I just shrug and blow an ironic raspberry.

And here's what I actually say:

If you've seen one big American city, you've seen them all (ok, there are exceptions, but Charlotte and Cincinnati? Are either of those really worth using up your rare and precious vacation days unless there is something in either of those cities that is of particular interest to an individual? They asked me why i've never been to Detroit of all places. Um, because who spends any time off from work that they get visiting Detroit unless they have family there? Sheesh.)

Sure, there are differences from one city to the next, but I justified my lack of city knowledge on the fact that I grew up in a state that has both a gorgeous mountain range and beaches. Tell me again why i'd want to go elsewhere? Elsewhere being a concrete jungle, that is. And for the record, I have been to over 25 states and quite a few major cities (that these students hadn't even heard of) . My family never took a vacation to NYC and I never had a particular interest in NYC. A friend of mine really loves fashion and she's having the time of her life in NYC. Me? I hate crowds, I hate dirty places, and I don't like to feel rushed. It's probably somewhere "to see" for a few days, but not some place i'd especially fall in love with. I am able to take a step back and say, "hey, to each their own." I find that many of the people here that I talk to automatically write me off as an uneducated redneck. I come from South Carolina, I vote Republican, and i've never been to NYC? Yep, she sure must look like a slack-jawed yokel to her folk.

The student in question continued : What, are American people really that close-minded that they don't want to travel anywhere? Aren't they curious? (and yes, the gross generalization "travel anywhere" -- because we never leave our own country, of course.)

To which I have to ask: are French people really so close-minded that they think the only thing America has to offer is Abercrombie&Fitch and skyscrapers as far as the eye can see? What about everything, oh I don't know, say, in between New York and LA? Are they really so close-minded to think that there's nothing worth seeing outside of our cities?

I think what prompted this conversation is that I disagreed when both students declared Paris the most beautiful city in the world. I'm sorry, but it's not. It's got gypsies who will squat down and piss right in front of you, and if you don't catch on soon enough you get sprayed. The Seine is full of trash, there are piles of cigarette butts at any given red light or stop sign at a busy intersection, the metro (although efficient) has me scared about germs (i've got this thing about not being tall enough to breathe "my own air").

My first minutes in Paris did feel magical, and then I got on the RER. It stunk, it was full of graffiti, and I couldn't help but to notice all of the slums leading into the city. And when I say "slums", I mean I have never seen anything like that before in my life and contrary to what my students might believe, I have been to plenty of American cities, and in undesirable neighborhoods on mission trips, and yet I have still never seen anything so dirty and so run down as some of the sights that pass by on the RER B between the airport and the city.

But then you arrive in the city, where the lights shine bright, and Notre Dame towers over you blocking out the (perhaps smog-covered) sun and you just say "wow". I mean, wow. There are so many impressive, amazing things in that city, and yet, I can't help but to think that a city that has built such massive, historically significant monuments should be able to clean up their slummy neighborhoods. If a city like Lille can be motivated to clean up its less-desirable spots, then why can't the capital of France, the destination with the highest amount of tourism per year? (and please, if any of you mentions Martine Aubry, I will have a shitfit. Oh wait.. there I go being socially unacceptable and talking about politics again...)

Which brings me to people not having any pride in their country, which brings me back around to not having any respect for others or for other's property(another story entirely for another day but I got F--- You graffitied on my house recently...), which brings me back around to a poor education system, and that is when the conversation got political.

So sue me -- I only taught in eight classes in three primary schools in the countryside outside of Caen, and yes, I was "the teacher" -- I did not "assist" anybody. Nobody in any of my schools spoke a word of English. I only went to the fac in Nantes for a few months but just long enough to know that there was no discipline in my classes and it irritated me to no end how much the students could carry on private conversations while the professor was trying to teach. I've only taught in a private business school for 2.5 years and have only tutored numerous privileged kids from the best private middle and high schools in the Lille area -- I'm sorry to say, but I think that qualifies me as somebody who knows what they are talking about (at least enough to make comparisons) when identifying the flaws in both the public and private systems. I have seen it all(or as much as I care to see), from true, stereotypical bureaucrats (I don't dare call her a teacher) hitting a child upside the head with a book for making a genuine mistake (and no, this wasn't in any ghetto), to teachers at such a hoity-toity middle school not knowing how to correctly spell in French and making inexcusable errors in English grammar (and the mother says, "yes, but the parents can't say anything. The administration is boss." -- um, last time I checked, you pay massive amounts of money to send your kids to that school -- the administration might be "boss", but they sure as hell better be employing the best of the best if your fancy schmancy school is going to uphold any kind of a reputation for any length of time.)

So because this was a group of beginners/false beginners, I tried to be careful with my words but it was much to difficult to actually explain my position. So I just said, "I hope we won't live in France by the time Victor starts school." And I realize now that this sort of comment was a mistake, because I'd just finished identifying all of the flaws of their golden city, and now I dare comment on the state of their school systems?

"Well it's free," one lady says. "Yes, but free doesn't mean it's good," I add. "Free means there is no competition and if there is no competition, there is no motivation." (remember -- trying to get my point across as simply as possible and I also thought I might stir up some good debate (i.e. vocabulary and grammar)).

But in the end, she didn't completely grasp what I was saying. She just said, "ok, but if you want a better school, you can send him to private engineering school or business school."

Which lead me to my next point that I decided I wouldn't even begin to try and explain -- you have to choose ONE path, ONE route, and any deviation from said path is considered failure. When you start high school, you have to choose what type of diploma you'll work towards, and then once you've passed your exit exams, that's the direction you have to go. Oh, did you do a Bac Scientific? Sorry, but to go to business school you need a Bac Economic. Too bad, looks like you'll have to be a pharmacist instead of becoming an entrepreneur. It's too late for you.

And then there is no rush to get done with school and to get started working, and most post-college kids i've encountered flounder after they graduate because they've never truly worked a day in their life or had a bill to pay, so they just don't get it. "I'm going to be the CEO of a big company, like Nike," somebody once told me. "Okay," I answered neutrally. "And how many years of experience do you suppose it will take? What skills will you need? What goals will you set?"

"Oh," the student replied, "I'm pretty sure I can do it in 5 or 6 years. I'll just need to meet somebody who can introduce me to a director and then get me a job."

Ok, I know this isn't everybody's way of thinking, but come on -- you have to admit that there is a lack of true value and merit in a place where people have no shame publicly announcing that their career plan involves "meeting somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody". (Should I really be so surprised? This is the age of social networking afterall). Never once did the kid mention the actual hard work that would be required to take over a large international company. That wasn't even a consideration. And he was two months away from graduating from a business school. I shudder to think about the future leaders of this country, born with silver spoons in their mouths, never having had to experience a true hardship whatsoever. A country where penmanship is valued over creativity. Miscounting the number of squares before they write their name on the paper (they have this strange type of grid paper rather than lined paper) is an offense worth losing points over. Making a mistake prompts a aggressive reaction from the teacher or in some cases, even violence. You might make a perfect score, but it's against the rules to give a perfect score so the teacher just slaps on a 14 instead.

And then you go into the professional world, where nobody thinks they make enough money or have enough benefits, and yet they also aren't interested in working any harder.

I don't think that my Americanness or insistence on doing otherwise would win out when facing such a rigid system. Gone are the days of the philosophers, the inventors, and the free thinkers that used to flood the pristine streets of Paris. Now it's about penmanship and weaseling your way into a position of power or rapping about oppression because you grew up in the ghetto, and thus need to rob a bank to get by. God I hate French rap music. Oh, and while you are feeling oppressed, please feel free to litter the streets with your chain smoking cigarette habit.

So there you have it in a nutshell : everything that is making me feel foreign today. Everything that is dividing me from being able to relate to my professional students and all of the things I would change about France if given the power.

I should add for the record that I know damn well America isn't perfect. And obviously there was something that attracted me to this foreign land so clearly it isn't all bad. But at the same time, the deeper you get into it, the less shiny it becomes. I think it's that way anywhere you go.

Call me a pessimist I guess, but hey, at least that's French, right?

Oh, and the next time somebody asks my opinion about DSK? -- "What's that? A new brand or store or something?" Problem solved.

Sollicitors

2011-06-02T19:21:00.003+02:00

One of the differences between living in tiny little Marquette where 60% of the population is retired and living in the thriving metropolis of Tourcoing is that there's a lot more people out and about and walking around the neighborhoods around the downtown area. We get lots of flyers in the mail slot every day, people ringing to conduct surveys, and a flood of others hoping to get us to sign a contract for some reason or other. We also get scheduled visits, like gas, water and electricity readings, where they tend to send a piece of paper in advance asking us to be available at a certain time or to fill the information in and leave it in a visible place if we won' be home.

Right after Victor's birth, we had a lot of people knocking on the door. There was a midwife and a nurse every day for three weeks or home health visitors coming by. I usually asked who it was and opened without much hesitation when they replied "It's so-and-so, here to see you about Victor."

One such caller was a man which took me by surprise, and because I was very tired and caught off-guard, I didn't immediately catch on that it was a salesman. He started strong. "I got word from the city hall that your little one Victor is finally here," he said with a big smile. Because he mentioned the city hall and I wasn't really paying attention, I just gathered that he was from the city hall. "I've got some questions to ask you about insurance, savings, ..." Well that's a bit strange, I thought. What does the city care about my insurance and savings plan? "We need to schedule a time so that I can sit down with you and Jeremie," again using names, "to discuss your options." As Jeremie had just left, I told him to come back in the afternoon but wanted to be sure who he was so I asked for his card. Then I saw the company "Generali" and it hit me : he's not trying to "check up" on our insurance and savings, he's trying to sell us something that we probably don't need because we have everything we need through our jobs.

I felt stupid for letting a salesman take up that much of my time so after realizing what was going on, I sent him on his way. But I was shocked -- the city hall shared our personal information with their company (I suppose it is public info but it felt wrong just the same) and he took advantage of that to try and catch us off guard to sell us something! I've never really felt like business in France is all that despicable, but in that moment, I was quite disgusted. It was obvious that I was tired and overwhelmed, and he fed on that to try and trick me into making an appointment where he'd waste even more of my time attempting to sell me something that I don't need.

So yesterday I was making lunch after my morning lessons and before an afternoon meeting. My doorbell rang and before opening it I called out, as I always do, "Oui?"

The reply was, "I'm here to check your gas and electricity, ma'am." Something pretty routine but unexpected. Where was the handy little piece of paper telling me to expect a visitor?

Just last month, I sent my electricity reading to the company when I paid the bill. In addition, my gas and my electricity are two completely different companies. So of course, a bit confused, I replied, "what?"

and she continued, explaining that she was there to check up on our gas and electricity usage. I replied "check what, specifically?" and her answer was "if you're eligible to save 10% on your bills".

I was still confused. You see, there was a law that passed a few months ago giving low-income families the right to a reduced rate for gas, so I just assumed she was talking about this and all the while I talked through the door because I didn't feel like opening it for just anybody. "We don't qualify for any deductions," I said point-blank. "But how do you know?" she answered. It was at this point that my food in the kitchen was starting to burn and I was running out of precious time, so I opened the door to give it to her straight -- look woman, i'm cooking. I'm busy. Talk a little faster and quit wasting my time.

No sooner had I opened the door that I saw her badge : Direct Energie. It's a competitor of our current gas company but more importantly, it's the company that tried to rip us off three years ago while we were living in Normandy. They charged us over 100€ a month for electricity for a 500 square foot apartment. During this time there was a lot of news about scandal and Jeremie's mom urged us not to pay any of the bills. We didn't, we moved, we changed address, and they went away. If it had been a legitimate bill, they would have sent us to collections via "la Banque de France" and we would have been forced to pay. Because that never happened, we concurred that it was bullshit, that they were ripping us off, and that we'd be smarter the next go around.

So you can imagine the look on my face when I read "Direct Energie". I laughed in the woman's face, told her I wasn't interested in what she was selling, and sent her packing.

But yet again, somebody used a guise to try and get in my door to sell me something. Yet again, the company's name went without mention. I just think it's wrong. If you want to legitimately sell me something, tell me who you are and why you are at my door. Talk fast, give it to me straight. If the product is worth buying, it'll sell itself. If you have to lie and try to make it sound like you are with the city hall or my gas or electric company in order to find some ground to make your pitch, then i'm not going to trust you and i'm certainly not going to want to buy any of your products. Isn't that common sense?

So there you have it. My new-found loathing for door-to-door sales people. Anybody else get a lot of these types coming around? Reminds me of getting calls from telemarketers and makes me want to think up some clever ways to tell them to bugger off.

Where I lived, and What I lived for

2011-05-25T20:34:00.002+02:00

It's been almost a month since my last post. That's a far cry from some of the twice-a-day's I was managing during maternity leave and shortly thereafter. I had so much to say about my new life, about being a mom, about the changes in our family. I still have a lot to say, but every time I type something out, I end up saving it for myself and not publishing it for all the world to see.

Why? I don't know.. I guess because there hasn't been a whole lot of positive stuff lately, and so everything feels really heavy and dark. Since neither of those words describe me accurately (have you seen my blog? It's orange with pink and yellow swirls.. that's me in a nutshell) I don't like browsing back over everything i've read and only seeing doom and gloom. But as a blogger about my private life, I write what I know, and what i've known over the last few months has been a lot of hard stuff.

Victor is now six months old and with that has come a number of hurdles that are trying my sanity. The doctor has finally put me on anti-anxiety/relaxation meds so that I can unwind and turn my brain off when appropriate. One hit after another has lead me to a state where i'm constantly on edge, waiting for the next big hit.

Last week I got lulled into a false sense of security after Little V seemed to be doing better. The cuts in his intestines were healing up nicely (yeah. That's done. Thanks, gastro.) and he was enjoying eating. So much so, that i'd even give him the spoon and let him play with the food himself. I like to encourage his curiosity and while it might be messy, it is so much fun to watch him do it on his own. I've also got some bottles with handles and he enjoys feeding himself both water and milk. I'm raising a great, independent little guy. I don't know why that scares me, since that is more or less what I am and i'm okay, but I digress.

We had three or four days of bliss. He slept through the night. He behaved himself for the babysitter. He charmed my friends (more on that later!). He cooed and started making some new sounds, and he even crawled about two feet after rolling over onto his Very Hungry Caterpillar. He rescued himself, and realizing what he'd done, he just kept going. I just stand back and watch him figure it out on his own, and when he does, I feel so proud.

But ultimately, as it goes with parenting I guess, there's a crash. We get ourselves onto a comfortable high note, and then we plunge down into a murky abyss.

Jeremie went out of the country for a week. That should usually be my first sign that things aren't going well. I wanted to beg him to stay with me, knowing that something wouldn't be right, but he couldn't. It's work, and it's a free mediterranean cruise. Not gonna lie, if my boss called me tonight and told me I needed to be on a ship tomorrow for my job, I would not say no.

Then a bunch of my friends came (a future post) and on the very last day after being such a well-behaved and happy little guy, something went wrong.

He got a fever for the first time. And then the fever didn't go down. It went up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the hospital, it was 104°f and climbing. The tylenol knocked it back down to about 102°f, but not for long. It just kept going up.

We ended up spending the night and by the next morning it was steady between 99°f and 100°f. I patiently waited while they ran tests trying to diagnose him. Maybe it's an ear infection, they said. We can't see his ear drum because it's so covered with wax. Oh, but he's a baby so nobody can clean it. Well, we're not going to give him antibiotics (good -- that would have opened a door to a whole other world of allergies i'm not yet ready to explore!!) so you just have to wait and see what happens. Oh, it might be a stomach flu. Who's got a stomach flu in your entourage? Nobody? Hm. Well that seems strange, too. So on we went, asking more and more questions and getting fewer and fewer answers until finally a man walked in the door of the hospital room.

"You rang?" he asked. He was a grumpy middle aged man. Not exactly my first thought when considering who a pediatric nurse should be. "Yeah, i'm ready to go home," I said. I'd just learned about a tornado that had destroyed Joplin Missouri, and my parents are originally from that area. I wanted to be home to see the pictures and read the news and not feel so disconnected from my family back home. Victor's temperature was stable and he'd managed to drink two bottles of the pedialite-type stuff.

"You'll be doing so against my wishes," he stated, handing me the discharge papers. "Oh?" I asked. "And what does the doctor say?" ... "I am the doctor," he answered.

Maybe i'm a little too demanding, but I think it's a common courtesy to introduce yourself to somebody when you walk into the room. I don't just waltz into my student's office and sit down and start speaking english. There's a formal exchange. "Hi, I'm Amber, I work for..." and then you sit down. Maybe that's just me, though.

So after i'd offended the doctor, I went on my way.

A lot of phone calls to friends and an eventual trip on the metro when I couldn't reach anybody who wasn't at work and numerous hip bruises from the car seat later, I was home and we were ready to get over it. I hadn't eaten anything in over 24 hours and Victor was tired of being given his nasty milk heated up (which makes it smell even nastier -- he wanted nothing to do with that and the nurses wouldn't listen to me, yet again..). We ate, we went to sleep, life went on. It left some psychological bruising too, but nothing I can't get over in time.

Anyway, we came home in the evening. Jeremie got home later that night. Upon his return, I cracked. I can't do this on my own, i'm tired because when he leaves and it rains, it pours. I'm alone. I have nobody I can depend on or call for help. I think that's what's been the hardest about realizing all of this. A few months ago when I was still pregnant and needing a ride home and not finding one, it wasn't a big deal to walk the (unknowing) 4 or 5 km to the metro and then the kilometer back to my house. That was just me dealing with it. Might not have been the smartest thing to do at 8 months pregnant, but I figured V was cooking nicely and if he was meant to be born, that's how it would happen. But now, it's not just me facing the loneliness. I'm raising a child in an empty community where the majority of people I know are all keen on having a party or an apero or going out for an evening together, but hardly anybody wants to hear about the shit i've been facing in my private life. And you know which type of people I currently prefer to have around me? The ones who want to be there through the thick and the thin. But i'm seeing with every passing day that I have fewer and fewer of them, because I can hardly get my act together with V in tow, and I just don't have the time to do friendship maintenance.

As a consequence, i'm lonely. I miss get-togethers because my baby is sick. I miss work, where I have a very social job that feeds that part of me, because my baby is sick. And furthermore, I get sick. All of this stress has taken its toll on me and i'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I think every mom probably has one of these make you or break you moments and i'm trying to let it make me a stronger, better person rather than letting it consume me, but Jeremie, Victor and I are an island. There's only so much I can handle before I start to feel myself drifting further and further away.

All of these trips to the doctor have also re-emphasized time and time again that despite how well I speak French and how close I come to fooling people (who are probably half-deaf or inebriated) , I will never be at ease when explaining medical issues. The words, coupled with the stress, just can't seem to find their way out of my mouth. I'm like, "the ... the... um, this", pointing, "it um, uh.. it hurts. Like, ouchies." And what doctor do you think actually wants to answer my questions and listen to me after I show up mumbling like that? "He has a fever," I said. "i'm scared." If there's one thing French people don't do, it's show emotion in the form of fear or nerves. I say "i'm scared" because that means, "please reassure me that nothing is wrong." A French person would have the words to explain exactly what they are nervous about and therefore would avoid having to put themselves on an emotional platter in front of the doctor. I just don't have that luxury so I go through my day-to-day with the baby constantly repeating, "I'm alone, i'm scared, I don't know what to do," and having them either a) criticize me (for stupid shit like not having a bottle or four changes of clothes in his diaper bag) or b) not bother to listen, or c) not bother to explain what's happening because, "eh, she won't understand it anyway" (but I would, because while I might not be eloquent when my child is sick, that doesn't make me an idiot.).

So i've reached a new all-time expatriot low. As I said months ago, becoming a mom feels a lot like it felt when I moved to a new country. Exploring this new territory, picking up the lingo, .. it's the same damn thing, only the more complex he gets, the faster I have to learn and it's not easy stuff to pick up on. Sure i'm feeling depressed. Sure i'm not far from a nervous break down. I guess anybody who was in my position probably would be, and that's what I tell myself every day to motivate myself to get out of bed. I do a pretty damn good job considering that half of the week (and sometimes more) i'm a single mom that speaks the language the best she can, works, manages her household, and fixes the bumps and bruises to my best ability along the way.

But I need to recharge my batteries so i've taken a week off from work to get V feeling better, and to get some sleep. Oh, and to get my house in order, because it's been neglected for weeks. But that's the least of my worries in all honesty.

I've decided I need to focus a lot more on positive things and let those feed me, so today when Victor came home from the nanny smiling and grinning, and when he actually drank the dose of milk that he should be drinking four to five times a day, I was happy and as he laughed at me, I laughed at him too. I kissed his little cheeks and then he slobbered all over my chin. I guess that's kind of all a six month old can do since he can't really give me kisses yet. He babbles and I take that to mean that he's happy, so he must love me, and that's a good feeling. He's currently covered in a rash from head to toe that's most likely hand, foot and mouth disease, but he's not in pain anymore as he's rolling over, pulling himself along (we are on the cusp of crawling -- for the moment it's still something that usually happens by mistake but he'll figure out sooner or later that he can do it whenever he wants) and not only sitting unsupported (ok.. until he falls over) but also learning how to sit up from a relaxed or completely flat position. He likes leaning forward in chairs and he seems to follow the conversation. I don't think he knows his name, but he knows me and he knows his daddy and all of the other people he sees around him and his little eyes light up. He's not afraid of anything so that must mean i'm doing a good job. I don't know, i'm doing my best.

We had a lot of trouble gaining weight but everybody assures me that he doesn't look like he's hungry or starving at all, so that is reassuring. He can't sleep more than six or seven hours at a time, but we're working on that -- it's directly linked to the fact that his diet is so jacked up and that his intestines are a mess, so if we can get that settled once and for all, we'll get him sleeping better.

If I had a best friend to cry to, I would tell her that i'm tired and that I never realized how hard it would be to be a mom, and that after all i've been through, I really deserve a break. i'd tell her how some days, I just want to stay in bed and let him cry, and other days, I jump right out of bed in the middle of the night and I hold him a few extra minutes because I know this won't last forever.

So what else? It's in his interest to have an easy 7 to 12 months, otherwise i'm sure there will be no brothers or sisters for him, natural or adopted. Plus, if Jeremie might be moving away for his job, i'm going to need a happy baby to keep my spirits up and not be running myself ragged yet again (more on that later, too).

In the mean time, i'm maintaining my island. I'm providing what I can, doing my best, but needing to learn how to depend on others and reach out. It just seems like every time I do, I get disappointed when i'm let down. But I can't keep functioning like this, writing posts that time after time I decide to keep to myself.

so here it goes. Putting my woes of the last six months out there to the internet to let them fade into the background and disappear.

Maybe then I can put on a happy face and get on with living, cause that's gotta be better than feeling like I do right now.

ER (and a mom with no filter so don't read it if you don't want to hear mom stuff)

2011-05-09T21:53:00.004+02:00

I think I must have my subconscious heart set on winning the "blogging from a cell at the gendarmerie" award (side note: does anybody remember when back in the day, Keith gave us weekly awards for writing about crazy stuff?) because not only did I end up in the ER twice this week, but tonight I nearly got in a fist fight as well. Okay okay, maybe i'm exaggerating a little, but there was definitely a scuffle (it remained non-violent) and I was involved. I didn't start it.

The thing is, I don't think you know rage (and trust me, I know rage) until your kid is sick, and somebody steps in your way. I became a total mama hen (like, the crazy kind with rabies that'll peck your eyes out) in a matter of seconds, seeing my sick child's short life flash before my eyes, and I lost it. This ghetto city is starting to get to me.

So Wednesday we ended up in the ER because V started swelling up right after I fed him a few bites of oatmeal. Luckily the swelling had gone down completely by the time we got there (and his fingers were no longer blue-ish-purple) but he'd broken out in the hives. The intern who saw us said, "please don't hesitate to come in or call if you need anything". Well. Don't mind if I do.

This week, Voyaging Victor's insides have been ripping him apart. The kid has pooped blood since the day he was born (yeah yeah, TMI, blah blah blah..) and we thought we had it settled with his nearly 180€ worth of prescription formula. When, a week ago, he started up again, I decided to keep my eye on it. You probably can't imagine sifting through diapers full of crap on a hunt for blood until you've brought a life into the world. There just aren't words enough for all of the disgusting things i'd do to take care of my son, and luckily i've got a nanny who'll do the same thing to be able to reassure me that there was nothing. But this week, there was a lot more than nothing.

So tonight, I went to change his diaper and as I was passing it off to Jeremie for a second opinion ("don't you think this is a lot bloodier than normal?" (there was no poo - it was all blood)) the little guy, with his cheeks out in the open, decided he wasn't finished yet. So we sat there and watched as blood poured out of his little body, sopping it up on paper towels and sticking it all in ziplocks for an eventual visit to the doctor.

Jeremie bid us farewell and off we went. I got to the hospital, waited in line patiently (everybody and their mom comes to the ER in France so it's always a long wait) and low and behold, somebody cut in front of me.

This somebody happened to be a man. Until moments before he cut in front of me and started screaming in French at the nurse behind the desk, I was unaware of the fact that he even spoke French. I looked at the lady who was waiting patiently beside me who just shook her head saying, "the nerve of some people", while I shrugged my shoulders and passively said, "that's Tourcoing for you."

So the man continued screaming. "Give me your manager!" he hollered, banging on the table, ironically, right in front of a "zero tolerance for violence" sign. The security guard stood up and walked around the table, asking him to calm down and have a seat, and the nurse calmly explained that there were a lot of people waiting who also had sick family members or who were sick, who did as we were supposed to, being patient, and could he please just have a seat and wait his turn? Then he gestured to me. "Her?" he said. "That's just a baby, and look at him, he's not even crying. All of these people look perfectly fine to me." He continued insisting on seeing the man's boss, yelling all the while about his 96 year old grandmother who was apparently being treated and he wanted to see her.

"Wait your turn," the man said, and by now all of the male nurses that were in the ER had come around front to try and head off the confrontation. "You need to take care of me," he hollered. "That woman has a sick baby," the man said. And again, he pushed. "Her baby looks fine to me. I think they don't mind waiting." And I scoffed. "Whatever!" I shouted. "He looks fine because you can't see his bleeding ass!"

While about ten nurses held him back, another came over and started talking me down. By now, I was so worked up and angry that had he come any closer, I don't know what I would have done. Somebody in his family walked over and put their arm on my shoulder trying to calm me down and his mother (?) looked at me and said, "oh just calm down already, will you?" which pushed me even further over the edge -- look at how her son was behaving, talking to all the other people and the employees, and she had the nerve to tell me to tone it down? So when his sister or cousin or whatever touched me, I instantly moved away from her touch and put my hands up defensively, saying clearly, "don't touch me." She then reached for the baby and I almost cut a bitch -- "don't you dare touch my baby," I snapped, stepping between them.

All of the other people in line behind me and the people waiting in line at the office door looked at me sympathetically, and before I knew it, I was at the front of the line and Victor was being seen by the doctor. The man was sent outside to cool off (or told not to step foot back inside the hospital?) and we went on our merry way. I profusely thanked the people who let us pass and sure enough, "there's no doctor on call so we can't possibly do anything tonight." Back home we came, poop bag and all, but reassured that i'm not crazy and not inventing things, and that I must be full of tiger blood like Charlie Sheen.

Pity Party

2011-05-04T08:53:00.003+02:00

You know that old song "it's my party and i'll cry if I want to"? What about all the poor people who didn't get parties in the first place? So this is a blog about how sorry i'm feeling for myself this week, and how disappointed I am about turning 25.

When you're little, it's like you get an entire week to celebrate birthdays. I remember getting cards in the mail, seeing the UPS truck drive down the street and wondering if he was delivering presents to me, and getting to take treats in to school for my class. Everybody sang to you, everybody smiled and wished you happy birthday. It was really your day.

The older you get, the less interesting it becomes. If it's a week day, you get to celebrate on the weekend which is fine. If it's a weekend, maybe you take a trip or have a party. Rather than presents, it's about getting your friends together for a party and having a good time.

The weekend before my birthday, we launched one of the big projects in the house and I was assured multiple times that it was a "one day deal" and any time I tried to complain I was informed that it wasn't my birthday yet, and that we'd have time to celebrate it. Saturday came and went. Sunday came and went. And then it was Monday. I got home late from dance class but that didn't matter -- it meant that Jeremie had two extra hours to get things ready to surprise me. Maybe he made dinner. Maybe he ordered take out.

So I walked in the door and he was sitting in front of his computer, looking tired.

"So, what's for dinner?" I asked. His reply? "I'm not really hungry."

Oh.

So I got out my computer, checked my email, and then I went to bed. All I got on my birthday was a measly post-it note with "Happy Birthday" written on it. Maybe a post-it is good enough for Meredith Grey, but it's certainly not enough for me.

So call me demanding. Call me crazy. Call me what you will.. but here's the long and short of it. I've spent the last five months living every single day for two other people in my house (and two furry little ones) and doing absolutely nothing for myself except for a two-hour dance class once a week. I've concentrated all of my energy on keeping the house running, keeping people healthy and fed. If there's no time for me, I deal with it.

Now you'll say something like, "well that's just what it means to be a mom". And that's where i'll disagree. Sure, you take care of everybody else, but that doesn't automatically mean that you don't need anybody to take care of you from time to time. It doesn't mean that you no longer have an identity and that people should only know you as "Victor's mom" rather than "Amber". Sure, "Victor's mom" is a big part of who I am, but i'm a lot more than just that. I'm everything I was before I had a baby, and now i'm even more since i've got one. I don't want to be limited to just that.

So sue me, if I thought that on my birthday, somebody ought to pay attention to me. Even just a little bit. And that didn't happen.

To add insult to injury, the next day everybody asked me how we celebrated "the big 25" and what presents I got. It just made me feel all the worse to look at them and say, "oh, it was nothing much.." and the presents? "oh, nothing much.."I know presents aren't important, but it's the thought that counts. And I hardly even got a thought.

Anyway, coupled with everything else that's been going wrong, I really could have used a day to feel special, and I didn't get one.

Maybe in 18 years when V goes off to college and other people start to see me for who I am rather than seeing me through him. Maybe someday.

More construction

2011-05-01T21:39:00.004+02:00

I am so hot and cold. One day i'm talking about how crappy our neighborhood is and how we need to get out of here, and the next day i'm talking about how much I love our house. This is a a cruel rock and a wicked hard place i'm stuck between. If only our house weren't rooted in a neighborhood that, some days, is perfectly fine (last night I was walking around the block at 1am with no problem, didn't see or hear a soul) and other days, is ridiculous (see previous post).

In three short weeks, six (or seven?) friends of mine will be arriving chez moi here in France. A carload of them are trucking down from Copenhagen (three are flying in from the states and one lives there) and two others will land in Brussels. They'll spend only two nights here, but it's something i've been looking forward to for a year, since we found this house and chose it and I suddenly realized we'd have the capacity to host that many people after spending the last four years in apartments that we outgrew seemingly overnight. Anyway, i'm excited about seeing my friends and excited to show them what my life in France is like, and having plenty of space to keep them all here under my roof therefore cutting the costs for my friends.

We've been sitting on a lot of different projects. Room by room, our garden is half finished (bought the wood for the deck but haven't built it yet), our kitchen is stripped of wall paper but in need of paint and wall tiles, our bathroom will be moved upstairs but we'll repaint it as a laundry room anyway, our living room/dining room combo needs more paint, as does our potty closet and entryway -- both have wall panelling that I wouldn't dare remove for fear of what I might find behind (we learned that lesson) but I would like to repaint. The dining room and the potty both need light fixtures as well, and the entry has one fixture that needs replaced.

First floor, hallway needs painting, floors need repainting or stripping, the staircase itself needs stripping or repainting, the office will become a bathroom, and that's it. All the rooms need molding, but it'll come later and that's a quick project.

Putting it all out in writing like that really helps me to put it in perspective, as it seems overwhelming but most projects are already in motion, and the majority of it is paint.

Our second floor is our current target. This weekend Jeremie built the structure for the partition walls and got a lot of the drywall up. Our new office and second guest room is actually much bigger than we thought it would be, and it's a nice shape so we'll both be able to set up our offices and also fit a bed and maybe even a wardrobe.

Originally we were thinking of getting a futon or a small sofa sleeper for two, but with the shape and the space in the room, we've got a lot to work with. Imagine that -- a year and a half ago, Jeremie and I were sleeping on the cheapest mattress Ikea sells and it was on the floor of our old apartment. Now we've got enough sleeping space for six not including ourselves.

It might seem a little ridiculous to try and set ourselves up to be able to host so many people, but we often find ourselves in a position where we don't have enough space to sleep everybody that's here, and it's been stressful in the past. Last summer for example, we had four (and a half!) house guests overlapping which was incredible, but it felt so uncomfortable to me that my guests were sleeping on air mattresses with patched holes, the couch, and that they didn't have space to really "spread out". When we chose this place, a lot of the motivation for buying it came from the fact that we'd have four bedrooms (a point I refused to budge on) so that not only could Jeremie continue to work from home, but also so that any time people come to visit us, they are comfortable, and they have their "own" space to relax and spread out.

I also love the idea of one day having an au pair. If we had a second bathroom and an extra guest room, it might be possible.

Anyway, the program for the next two weeks/weekends is to finish the plasterboard, finish the plaster and the electricity. Both the doors and the paint can wait until June, and from there on I think we're going to take it room by room until it's all finished. Then we can sit back, relax, and enjoy.

I have to admit i'm really excited about getting a walk-in closet and finally having a place to organize all of our clothes. It's also exciting that the new bed will probably become Victor's bed someday, and the new room his room, if we're still living here.

So for the moment i'm trying to keep my OCD under control and not freak out about the dust and the mess knowing that when it's gone, that means the work is done.

Off to bed for me now.. this week i'm starting back at my 2nd job in addition to working on a large translation project on the side, my normal job, my pedagogy project, my own books, and oh yeah, my birthday tomorrow. 25 years old...

Car fires and fights

2011-04-27T09:25:00.004+02:00

I've got the Tourcoing police on speed dial. We're good friends, what with me living beside the best neighbors a gal could ever ask for. Oh yeah, and the douchebags that we share a wall with. 17 is the only emergency number that I actually know, and that's because I can't call the folks down at the station after about 10pm.. they prefer we go straight to the emergency people. I feel completely comfortable calling the cops here and I usually appreciate their quick response and resolution of whatever the problem might be.

The last few times we've called the cops on our neighbors though, we've been disappointed to see that nobody has come. I know it's "minor" -- no abuse, no true domestic dispute, nobody is going to cut a bitch. But seriously though -- what if it did become a heated argument in need of police intervention, and we're expecting them to come, and they never do? They've also changed the way they answer us. "We might send a car," they said this morning (unrelated to my neighbors).

I have to ask myself what that even means. "Maybe we'll do our job"? Or "I might not feel like giving a damn about your problems"? or "Let me finish my episode of Judge Judy first"? I'm not trying to rag on the police because obviously I appreciate them when they do come to help us, but I am starting to feel like Tourcoing is dropping the ball, and either they are understaffed or they really just can't be bothered to care. This is just a commentary on what i've observed in my town, and not at all meant to be a crack on the hard working people who keep us safe, or the boyfriends/husbands/fiancés of friends of mine in "real life" and here in the blogging community.

So here's what happened, and then you tell me.

At 4am, I was awoken by the sounds of my loving little baby sweetly asking me for a bottle. I headed downstairs and started feeding him. Then I heard voices outside. Obviously I figured it was the damn neighbor kids, still on school vacation, but even they don't stay out till 4am and their mom would have to be an idiot to let them after we'd already politely gone over there three times in the evening to ask them to keep it down just a little bit.

I heard Jeremie's footsteps above us as he crossed our bedroom to the front window. He said something about a fight, and after I finished feeding the baby I also sprang to the window, thinking it was the neighbors and intending to lay the smack down. What I saw though was a true fight and not just some kids goofing off -- a group of arabs (we live about a block from a huge maghreb community) were in the parking lot across the street beating the crap out of each other. I didn't recognize any of them as our neighbors and asked Jeremie to phone the police.

In my mind, I was thinking -- you never know who has a knife or a gun. I don't really want any drunken idiots accidentally murdering somebody who is otherwise their friend in front of my house. So we called the cops around 4:30. We called them at the emergency number "17" (there's a different number for every service) and we were told, yet again, that they "might" send out a car. J hung up, and we laid in bed listening to their fight, running to the window when it seemed to be getting a little out of hand, and eventually the voices faded as they left our little street and headed back to their part of town. The voices carried, but since they weren't in our lot anymore, I didn't really think about it. I did make the comment to Jeremie though that I was worried about a knife fight or something equally horrendous happening just in front of our house, and that we should never hesitate to call the cops and insist on having a car sent.

This was all said the morning before Jeremie was to leave to go on a trip, leaving me alone with Victor for the night (tonight) and no longer feeling safe at all after dark on my own damn street.

Half an hour later, a shot rang out loud and clear. "I think that was a gun," I said to Jeremie. He agreed, and picked up the phone as he walked to the window. "No," he said, starting to dial 17 yet again, "It's a car on fire in the parking lot." (exploding tires sound a lot like gunshots) and it was right where the fight had happened just an hour earlier. Coincidence? Riight.

So we called 17. "Sorry," they said. "That's not our problem. Call the fire fighters." The only number i've got memorized is 17 so we had to try all of them (ranging from 15 to 18) until we got the right one. Why doesn't a 911-type system exist where you reach everybody in one go? Why couldn't they just transfer our call instead? I find this to be confusing and inefficient, as by the time you find the right number, your friend could be bleeding out or your house could be burned to the ground.

After, we started calling our neighbors who had cars on that end of the lot. The nanny's family came out to move their son's car, other neighbors moved their cars, and we all stood around in our pajamas, talking about how down hill the neighborhood has gone and how for the first time in 25 years they don't feel safe at night on the street. Then, a woman ran frantically into the parking lot towards the car, screaming. She burst into tears and just kept shouting in a panic to nobody and everybody.

The neighbors just stood there and watched her.

French people are such sheep when it comes to taking action. I get worked up, heated up even when I see things that just don't seem right (a woman in a burka (a REAL burka, screen blocking the eyes and everything) at a supermarket. Our neighbors children who look neglected and dirty all the time. etc etc) and I start ranting about what we can do, what's right and what's not right. Jeremie always interrupts me -- "not your problem," he says. "Get over it," he says. Somebody once told me that this is a post-WWII mentality -- that without knowing it back in the day, people were turning in their friends and neighbors for being Jewish. Years of guilt later, French people will hardly budge for anything.

So the neighbors stood around watching her like some kind of side show, and I, being the activist American that I am, felt the need to run up to her and ask her if she knew about the fight. I started trying to calm her down and ask her some questions, and come to find out that she'd been calling the cops for two hours because the men had been threatening her and her husband (I think her husband was one of the men in the scuffle). They have five children and they live around the corner from me. As we spoke and I explained that we saw the fight and the men involved (in case I could help her out in any way) a cop car drove up and an officer jumped out and approached us. She immediately started screaming about how worthless they were, how they didn't come when she needed them, and I was standing right there feeling the exact same way she did about a situation that could have been avoided, but trying to calm her down because I got the feeling he wouldn't hesitate to arrest an arab woman for disorderly conduct. So I grabbed her arm and insisted she calm down, and the officer stood on and didn't say anything until she'd relaxed a little. Then we explained what happened and they went off to take care of the rest.

The rest of the neighbors just stared on, perplexed. What do we do now? Where do we park our cars? Twice in the last six months cars have burned. Once it was obviously for insurance, but this time it was malicious and hurtful and somebody could have been killed.

A half hour later, everything was cleaned up and people went back home.

Tonight i'm at home alone with Victor and I have to ask myself -- if something happens to me, will they deem it worthy of their time to come and help? Or would I end up a victim like my neighbor?

Easter in Paris

2011-04-25T15:56:00.003+02:00

We spent the last three days visiting Victor's godmother and her boyfriend, who live in the 14th not too far from Montparnasse. We had a good walk around the Cité Universitaire checking out the "dorms" (looked more like rich sorority houses to me!) that countries have built for their citizens studying abroad, and had a stroll through a very crowded Parc Montsouris. We ate waffles and ice cream, and listened to musicians. We peeked in strollers (because there are strollers-a-plenty in Paris -- who knew Parisiens had kids?) and chose from the 20-something sushi joints in their part of town that would deliver to their apartment. 20! Can you believe it? We've got one sushi place, 15km from here. I can hardly imagine! Flowers were in bloom, trees were green, and a tiny voice in the back of my head actually thought that they (the natives) might actually be living better than us, what with all these gorgeous parks around. Then I remembered that they pay dearly and while we don't have a gorgeous park immediately at our disposition (it's a 5 minute drive or a 15 minute walk) we do have a big house and an exterior that will be lovely once our renovations are complete. No, upon our return to the Nord, I maintained my position that I have no regrets about living in "Province". But it was nice to enjoy the perks of a big city for a couple of days.

Much to my disappointment, Chipotle wasn't open yet. The guys went out in search of burritos to make my day, and none were to be had. The resto should have opened back in February but work was still happening inside the dark, locked up doors and windows. I could have cried, but I know there's always next time.

On Saturday afternoon a sneaky storm took us by surprise as we sat at a café drinking cocktails. We ordered another round and waited for the rain to stop as we watched people on bicycles and motorcycles cruise onwards in the rain, and unlucky pedestrians run for cover. It was a summer rain storm -- came out of nowhere, wasn't planning on sticking -- so before too long as steam rose off of the hot city streets, we trekked back to our friend's apartment. I actually did a great job of driving the waiter crazy. You know, Parisian waiters don't have to be assholes, and we could have done without the grunts and groans that he gave every time we asked for something. So rather than getting worked up (we were on vacation, after all) I decided to kill him with sweet, persistent requests. More napkins, please. A place to change a diaper, please. Can you do away with said dirty diaper, please? This isn't the cocktail we ordered. There's a different between the "Long Aloe" and the "Long Island". Every time he grunted and groaned I just smiled a little bigger and batted my eye lashes a little bit more, and as we left we wished him a good evening and a nice Easter weekend. "Au revoir," he echoed, "et adieu madame!" he said with an exasperated laugh. I walked away, silently giving myself a pat on the back for an obnoxious job well done. You know, nobody should take life so seriously, and I think from time to time people (myself included) need a reminder of that.

Easter Sunday we drove to the Marais and took a stroll. We stopped for lunch in the afternoon and then drove out to Vincennes where we joined the masses at the Foire du Trone, a fair that reminded me very much of any given state fair in the US -- rides, junk food, and rednecks. I don't know what it is about contraptions that make you feel like you're taking your life into your own hands and people who don't know how to properly cover their back or frontsides, but I think that a fair, across the board in any given country, brings out the European cousins of the Americans featured on "People of Walmart". I didn't feel like going on any rides as i'd had too much junk food and was feeling kind of queasy, so Elodie and I left the boys to do as they pleased and we stayed with the tater tot. It was unbearably hot -- in all my Aprils spent in France, I have never known it to be so warm or sunny this time of year. I'm not complaining, but it does make me a little worried as to what our real summer is going to be like.. meaning, if it's this nice now, how awful is it going to be in August? We'll see.

Every day I feel luckier and luckier to have such an easy going baby. He spent all day Saturday and Sunday happy as a little clam in his stroller looking out at the world around him. He smiled and giggled for perfect strangers and showed off his new-found rolling over abilities. In the evenings he fell asleep right away without a fuss, and woke up in the mornings bright and happy and ready to play. I don't know how Jeremie and I managed to get such an even-tempered baby (with me being so "agressive" as Jeremie puts it, and he being so PAINFULLY "passive" as I describe it) so maybe our personality flaws cancelled each other out to give us a nice, reasonable child.

Something I thought was lovely about Paris this time around was that there was nobody in town. We were able to drive and park everywhere we went without a problem. It was just so easy that it didn't even feel like Paris, and I felt myself not hating it quite as much. I think hate is a strong word, because sometimes I do still feel enchantment while in the city, but normally not enough to cancel out the frustration that I feel when being squished like a sardine on the subway, or hassled on the street by knick-knack vendors. This trip didn't have any of that at all.. just a lot of relaxation with some good friends, and a sweet little baby who smiled and coo'ed a lot.

Little Gardens

2011-04-20T11:38:00.004+02:00

Renovating our house is a huge part of our life. We're constantly talking about it, drawing up plans, buying supplies, and eventually getting around to actually doing the work. I mentioned a few posts ago that the weather has been incredible this April (i'm worried about the May flowers though!) full of sun and warm weather, so warm that I fina

lly slept with the windows open last night.so last weekend we made the decision to separate our bedroom into two smaller rooms. Our bedroom is 46m2. I always get confused because there's a law that says you either can or can't include the floor space under a slanted wall/roof, and the 46m2 is including this space. So we've decided to divide it in half and create a bedroom for us with a large walk-in closet, and an office/second guest room on the other half. We had all the plans, calculated out the budget, and watched videos on how to create a partition wall on Castorama's YouTube channel. We were all ready to go, and then.. nobody was around to help that weekend. We didn't have the friend with a trailer to help us pick up the supplies, or the friend who would lend a hand. Rather than wasting a gorgeous sunny weekend, we decided to attack the garden.

Our garden is between 16m2 and 20m2. We decided to put down fake grass and then build a slightly raised wood patio/deck. Phase one, which included leveling the ground with sand and installing the fake grass, is done.

We're still working on repairing the walls and then we'll paint them all white. We'll also extend the back wall by about a half a meter, and then i'd like to put some climbing plants on it similar to the ones on the back of our house.

Here's Jeremie working on installing the fake grass.

And here is a big baby lending a hand. How can this possibly be Victor? It is, though. I can't wrap my mind around it. He's really enjoying spending time on the grass and laying in the sun.

My reoccurring nightmare.

2011-04-14T19:25:00.002+02:00

Now that i've confirmed that I have a right to be angry and am not just overly sensitive, i'm trying to pen a letter (in French, *insert vomit here*) to Numericable. Why? Well, they used to make me very happy. They provided good service to our apartment and decent service in our new house. In fact, I never had a single problem with them until I decided to ring them up and ask for a sales person to inform me about their new offers, because we hardly ever watch our cable TV anymore and I wanted to get some info about possibly cancelling our cable OR getting more channels to make it worth our time to plug it in.

Before I launch right into the story, as i've mentioned time and time again here at Travelling Amber, the French have a LONG way to go with their customer service.

So here was the situation that had me steaming just yesterday.

My long to-do list included a quest for information from Numericable, our current telecom services provider. Our current bundle includes something like 60 channels (that we never watch -- we prefer the TNT basic cable networks because they weren't all included in our 60 digital cable package!) a telephone that gives us free calls to landlines in France and 20-something other countries, the DOM TOM's (overseas departments of France) and cell phones and landlines in the US which is a huge advantage. We've also got ADSL, and I have to admit that our signal throughout our house while weak at first has improved, and I don't know if that's just a coincidence or what, but I no longer have any issues using the internet from the 2nd floor.

Last month, we paid nearly 50€ for all of the above. 39€ for the bundle, nearly 4€ in calls to cell phones in France, and maybe 5€ in pay-per-view movies. I keep hearing about offers that are considerably cheaper, and wondered what it would cost us to remove the digital cable from the bundle, if there would be any additional charges added for changing our bundle before the end of our contract, and if there were any other interesting services that I ought to know about.

So, Wednesday rolled around and I had already knocked out my primary to-do list, so it was on to my secondary to-do list which includes things that aren't urgent and aren't necessities to life.. like dealing with our TV. I phoned up and started speaking to a lady. All was going well.

I learned in a few short minutes that it wouldn't cost us anything to modify our bundle, and it would cost 5€ to add unlimited calls to French cell phones to our plan.

See, in my mind, the logical way to decide if you need something is to see how much you currently spend on the service, and then how much you'd potentially save by switching. So I asked myself out loud if we spent 5€ or more on cell phone calls the month prior. If so, I would have considered switching. But I didn't have the bill in front of me so I couldn't check, and I figured it was the kind of information she'd be able to see right in front of her face.

Rather than being helpful, the woman interrupted me and informed me that I didn't have this service connected. I replied that yes, I know, I was just trying to see if it would be worth it for us to switch or not. She tells me yet again that I haven't spent the 5€ because I don't have the service yet, to which I went totally French on her ass and said, "Oh la la madame, pouvez-vous m'ecouter?" (for the love of God woman, will you please just listen to me?) then I repeated, slowly, enunciating every word for her. Finally, she replies, "you had 3.80€ in cell phone charges last month." Was that really so hard?

So then I decide it's not worth it, and I tell her that, but that I still need to do something about our cable. She goes into a speel about how the minimum bundle you can get is 120 channels, ADSL and the phone package that we currently have. So I say hold on a minute, 120 channels? For what price? 32€/month, her reply. Huh. So i'm currently paying more than that, and I have less? How does that make sense? She went on to inform me that my package no longer exists and that this is the new offer.

So I did something stupid -- I dared to ask her why nobody bothered to call us and ask us if we were interested in switching months ago. And you won't be surprised to know that her response was -- I kid you not -- "why didn't you just go to our website and read about it yourself?" -- and i'm thinking, why didn't you just have a sales person call me, since i'm already your customer, and try to do something that would make me want to remain your customer, rather than considering switching to Free?

We went on like this for a few minutes until I finally said, "ok, just sign me up for the new package," knowing it would prolong our contract another year, but it would also save us money compared to what we are spending right now. In the middle of my saying that, she cut me off and transferred me to another woman.

Obviously when the other woman answered the phone, I was mad. I called to ask about continuing to be their customer. She interrupted me multiple times, she got aggressive with me, and then she transferred me right as we were starting to get somewhere. So yeah, I was mad.

And then the new lady answered the phone. "Oui?" she said. Um, last time I checked, that is not an acceptable way to answer the phone in any country. Say who you are, who you work for, and why the hell i've been transferred to you.. is that really so hard?

So I ask her where I need to start. At the beginning? Right where I left off?"

"Tu peux me dire ce que tu veux?" (start where you want) she says. Take note of the subject pronoun -- Tu. I fumbled to start speaking (I was really shocked) and managed to find some reply along the lines of, "I'm sorry, do we know each other?" She used the informal, casual form of "you" that is reserved for people younger than you and people that you know very well (I don't even use it with my in-laws to give you an example of how rude it is to use it with somebody that you don't know) and she continued to use this with me until I finally cut her off and said "look woman, you don't know me, we aren't friends. I'm a customer calling to get some information about a product. It's in your interest to be a little bit more polite with me." What I was really looking for but couldn't find in my mind at the moment was "on n'a pas elevé des vaches ensemble" (we didn't raise cows together -- it's a kind of sarcastic reply you can give somebody who uses the wrong subject pronoun with you to put them back in their place) alas, I wasn't as quick on my toes as I thought having been caught completely off guard.

So she sarcastically apologized and started putting all of the emphasis in her speech on "Madame" and "vous". She finally asks for my client number and I give it to her. "Did you understand?" I asked her when I heard complete silence on the other end. "Hello? Do you need me to repeat?" Then, without another word, she hung up on me. Just like that.

I was absolutely livid.

I couldn't even make this stuff up. I swear I have the worst luck with customer service, and I should have known better than to go poking the hornet's nest, looking for trouble and thinking I was finally going to get a better deal. I'm so disappointed having been a faithful Numericable client for three years now, and recommending them to everybody as a company that was efficient and reliable. Looks like not so much after all.

So the whole point of writing this all out in English is that I'm going to pen a letter to their "i'm not happy" mailing address and it's going to need to be in French. I want to get my facts straight and do it right, because i'm going to be really pissed off if we have to change yet again.

We've been with Neuf, Orange, Numericable, and are now considering Free. I'm wondering how much further we'll have to go before I just realize that this country will never give me efficient service, will always frustrate me to no end, and I might as well just accept it and continue paying higher prices than I ought to just because "that's the way it is".

I know the letter will probably go un-read, with no reply that'll make me feel less rage-y, and that in the end three years from now we'll probably be leaving Free and going to whoever the lesser of all the evils will be at that point in time. Whatever. Time to go write my letter and hope that I can find the words to make these women sound like the douchebags that they truly are.

Sunny Days

2011-04-08T20:53:00.003+02:00

Sometime recently I posted my 300th blog post and it went completely unnoticed. Oh well. Instead, i'll celebrate my 303rd blog post here at Travelling Amber. It's been a pretty good experience keeping this blog. It's introduced me to lots of new friends, given me an outlet for my stress and frustration, a platform for sharing my joy, getting advice, receiving awards for my various shenanigans (i'm something like a 5x "Rant of the Week" award winner, among other things)... I think that being a part of the Bloggers in France community is good stuff, and I'm impatiently awaiting the day that somebody decides to organize a convention where all of the bloggers will get together and attend seminars like "how to improve your rants", "mushroom hunting" and "2CV Spotting". In the evening we'll all celebrate Wine O'clock and let the people who are always posting pictures of delicious food make a nice dinner. Sounds like a good idea, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, today I don't have very much to say at all (what a surprise!) except that this week has been exceptionally good, for a number of reasons, and I feel like sharing the positivity.

I'll start with the most obvious.

One morning I woke up and looked out the window. I was blinded by this big ball of yellow fire burning in the sky. "Could it be?" I asked myself, shading my eyes. Indeed, it was -- the fabled "sun", showing her capricious face in the Nord Pas de Calais.

Here's proof -- the picture below is my Tourquennois baby and I, enjoying the heat. He's such a cool little guy and seems to really like the nice weather. He was so alert, looking around and giggling and smiling at everybody. I feel so proud when we walk out onto the street and everybody at the bus stop turns to look and comment. One girl was sucking her boyfriend's face off right in the middle of the sidewalk and she literally stopped to look at V as he walked by. Another girl hit her boyfriend on the shoulder and said, "Look at that baby!" he looked up from his phone, and while I was expecting a dramatic eye-roll in the direction of her aching womb, his face lit up in a huge smile.

Needless to say, i'm very proud of my cute little guy and his ability to light up a room. I suspect he'll be painfully charismatic. I don't know where he'd get that from, though..

And speaking of our little friend Voyaging Victor, I am pleased to report that yesterday we received the final word : he's got a milk protein allergy.

What that means is that his body doesn't digest milk proteins. Rather, it attacks them. He's been showing symptoms for months (bad weight gain, bloody diapers (there I go talking about poop again -- what has my life become?!)) and two different doctors wrote me off as a psycho new mom, overly obsessed with her child, and paranoid. Now i'd very much like to go back and rub said diapers in the first doctor's face (the second wasn't a pediatrician and he was mostly concentrated on the respiratory/congestion issues so I don't hold it against him) and give here a big, smug grin and an "I told you so". It's taken every ounce of my self restraint to not do just that. Anyway, a year from now we'll re-evaluate the situation and then we'll see if my little French baby will be able to experience the love that is cheese. For the time being, i'm going to learn how to make yogurt with his new formula and that'll have to suffice.

Speaking of new formula, that's also a highlight of my week. Because he's on prescription formula now, guess who doesn't have to pay for it anymore? If you guessed me, you're right! I think that the French social security system is absolutely amazing for children, and I have zero complaints and only one minor criticism that it took so long to get him attached to J's social security number so we could be paid back for all his medical bills. Now that he's attached though, we simply have to submit the papers to the seçu, then to our private insurance, and watch the money come rolling back in. Amazing. I may have beef when it comes to my care (i.e. having to fight to get paid for my last two weeks of maternity leave) but Victor is definitely well taken care of. All in all, this little allergy is going to save us something like 60-80€/month for the next 8 months, if not more.

And here's the best news about this week : tomorrow, i'm taking off for a night at the beach with my co-workers. See previous rave about the sun and warm temps. I absolutely can't wait to experience some of that on the coast. What's more, i'm leaving baby and baby daddy behind. It'll be my first night away from Victor and the first night that J has ever spent in the house alone (except for when I was in the hospital). I'm very much looking forward to introducing him to what it feels like to be me, even if it's just one night. i'm sure everything is going to go great, but I also get the feeling that afterwards, he'll have a little bit more appreciation due to a better understanding of what my day-to-day is like when he's not around. Luckily V is better, so he'll get to spend the sunny weekend with a happy, funny little baby and not the grumpy, upset-tummy monsterous screamer that i've had the misfortune of getting stuck with for 3-4 days on my own. It still gets my goat that his colic was probably due to the milk allergy, but I can't change that now. At least we get to move forward, and i'll get to spend a weekend with adults.

So I guess that's all.. sun, baby, beach.. three great things in my life at the moment.

Shopping

2011-04-02T18:18:00.002+02:00

I have a hate-hate relationship with clothes shopping. Ever since I moved to France and started indulging in the art of eating, it's been an uphill battle to find clothes that fit. I can't say that having a baby has really helped it in any way, not to mention that I'm American, and therefore i've got a backside, unlike the jeans that are designed for French women and thus look distorted once my big ol' rear gets its cheeks in them.

Jeremie insisted that I buy some nice jeans for myself now that i'm no longer pregnant. I've been wearing a couple pairs from before my pregnancy, but they don't fit quite right because my shape has changed. I'm not really all that heavier (i've lost a lot of, if not all of, my baby weight) but i'm rounder in some areas now than I was before, so some of my old jeans just seem vulgar. I'm always wearing long shirts so the loaves that i'm carrying around don't burst out at the seams if, heaven forbid, I drop a pencil on the floor or something and need to retrieve it.

The first store we went to was full of "brands". I've never been attracted to "brands" because they are expensive, they never fit me right, and styles change -- why spend tons of money on something that's going to be "out" six months from now? But J insisted that I have a look, a real look, as my first "look" was just a stroll through the shop and a declaration that "I don't like anything". That wasn't acceptable for him so he started pulling things off the shelves saying, "what about this?" and "Do you like this?"

A couple of items caught my eye and made me laugh a little. One of the pairs of jeans he held out to me had a very familiar name on it : Lee. It immediately brought back images of my colored pink and purple jeans that my mom bought me at K-mart or Sears that were the same brand. I literally laughed in Jeremie's face. "J, I wore those when I was 5," I told him. "I'm a little over that now." He looked at the price tag and then back at me, saying, "good, because they are too expensive."

Just how expensive were these Lee jeans that could be had at any department store in the states for $20? Between 60 and 80€!

The other options were Levis, which can also be had for a quarter of the price in the states.

It was at this point that one sales lady approached me and asked me if I was finding what I was looking for. "Nope," I told her, point blank. "Oh?" she asked, and suggested a pair of the lovely Lee jeans. Jeremie shook his head and the lady looked confused. "These are a best seller," she bragged, "What's wrong with them?"

Besides the fact that they are ridiculously over-priced? I mean seriously, would you pay that much money for a pair of jeans at Auchan or Carrefour? I don't think so! She looked at me with surprise and I thanked her anyway and J and I were off to H&M, where i'd eventually find about seven pairs of jeans that fit me fine, and i'd by three for the price of 1 pair of Levis.

But as we were leaving the store, J started talking about this fat red-headed sales lady that had been folding clothes just behind my line of vision. Apparently she'd been staring at my ass and making sarcastic/rude faces to her colleague while i'd been speaking. J said it pissed him off that she was looking at me like that.

Part of me wanted to say something to her, to do the obvious and point to my stroller, where my tiny baby was sleeping and say, "how do you think he got here?" but then I remembered that French pregnant women are tiny and although I wasn't huge, they still put me to shame. J went on about how he didn't appreciate her judgmental eye. I'm not sure if she was judging the size of my rump or if she was just offended that I was wearing a dress that's above my knees with no stockings in April (on a day that it was an unseasonally hot 24°.. it rarely even gets this warm in July!). For being such a "free" and often naked-on-the-beach country, they are awfully prude when it comes to streetwear. I guess i'll never know, but I gladly left and spent my money elsewhere.

Poisson d'Avril

2011-04-01T15:38:00.002+02:00

I don't have any April Fool's Day jokes to play today. I think there's a few jokes being made out here in Frog-Blog Land, but unfortunately i'm not one of them. I'd thought about tricking Jeremie into thinking I was pregnant again, but I decided that would just be cruel. We've both decided to be undecided about the future of a second baby, and I wouldn't want to send him to a premature grave due to a heart attack.

Instead, I want to remember what this day means to me now, and what it'll mean to me for the rest of my life. It's the day that I found out I was pregnant with Little V. I was at the work doctor for my annual check up to make sure i'm fit to do my job, and I asked them if they could tell me if I was pregnant or not. Because i'd known about this visit a few weeks in advance, I figured that rather than taking an afternoon off to see my regular doc, i'd just see if she could prescribe me the test. As all things administrative, the secretary was a huge bitch and told me that a pregnancy had nothing to do with my ability to do my job (um...) and that they couldn't tell me. I was nearly in tears, having waited something like three weeks. When the work doctor finally saw me, she agreed to send me for a blood test even though they don't usually deal with those sorts of things. I went for the blood test, and then I had to wait till 5 for the results so I walked over to the V2 shopping center and bought some snacks for mine and Jeremie's road trip to the South that we'd be taking the next day. I sat in my little Smart car with the windows rolled down listening to Michael Bublé's song "I just haven't met you yet". Jeremie called me to tell me that he was at the old grandpa bar in our tiny former town, which was probably strategic so that everybody would buy him beers in congratulations.

So at 5 I went back to the lab to pick up the results, and before i'd even crossed the threshold the nurse was congratulating me. That was that. I called Jeremie back and let him know the results, and then I drove home in some kind of daze.

Little did I know that I was probably already something like 6 weeks pregnant. All of my at-home tests were negative except for one, and it had a mysterious sort of second line that appeared something like 12 hours after the fact. Jeremie and I decided to wait until my doctor's appointment and not think about it rather than getting stressed and worked up, and sure enough, we did the right thing.

Then, a few days later, I posted this. To date, it is one of my favorite posts. I saw the video and I loved it. I knew it was what I wanted to share to tell people I was pregnant. Thanks, Google, for making a great commercial.

Today i'm sitting with Victor, watching him try and sit up, listening to him grunt and sucking snot out of his nose. A year ago I had no idea what I was in for. He was just an idea, and nine months felt so long. During my pregnancy, V and I visited Copenhagen, Amsterdam, the south of France twice and made a lot of trips to Belgium as usual. He was already Voyaging Victor and he didn't even know it.

Let's hope that Adventurous Adélaîde will be the same as her big brother...

Poisson d'Avril!!! She's still a drunken mistake waiting to happen to a couple of unfortunate Russian (Ukranian? Estonian?) teenagers.

The Poop Cup

2011-03-30T19:30:00.006+02:00

(Rated PG for "Pretty Gross")

I thought i'd spare my dear readers the trauma of hearing about the contents of Voyaging Victor's diapers, but alas, I can't help myself. Why, you may ask? Because this: once again, France has done something gross and disgusting (and inhumane?) and it involves poop. You can't avoid poop in France. You step in it and ruin your favorite shoes. You track it in on your white tile floors and have to mop it up. It gets in your car. You dodge it on the sidewalk. If you're a good dog owner, you pick it up. If I had a dime for every time I saw a turd on the ground, i'd be one rich woman. Long and short, you can't avoid the poop in this country.

People poop though is a different beast. My lovely neighbors, for example, let their youngest daughter run around naked and I had the horror of discovering a steaming pile of her stuff on the sidewalk one day. She looked at me triumphantly saying, "j'ai fait caca sur le trottoir" (I took a shit on the street). I threw up in my mouth and hurried inside, slamming the door behind me.

So like any sensible person, I think the stuff should stay in the bathroom and not be talked about. If it's your dog's, pick it up. If it's your daughter's, potty train her.

Pregnancy and motherhood have taught me a lot about bodily functions. I've been on the receiving end of anything that can be projected from a body. Why, just tonight, I had vomit and spit up on my shoulder, and pee all down my front from where the little guy sneak attacked me just before his bath. I used to get really worked up and insist on changing immediately, and now I just let it go until i'm sure there's nothing else that's going to come my way and dirty my clothes.

During my pregnancy, I learned a "funny" little thing about France and "number 1". While pregnant, you often need to have urinalysis done as well as blood tests. Because it requires a nurse to draw my blood, I just assume that my other fluids can be deposited at the same time. The first time I went in, the lady asked me for my pee cup. "You didn't give me one," I replied. "No," she answered, looking at me funny. "You needed to bring one from home." Ah, yes .. of course. Because I have vials for toting around my pee with me that I regularly just carry in my handbag. But this day I must have been running short. I guess I could have done my business in a lovely little tupperware or perhaps last weekend's wine bottle, but that thought didn't cross my mind. When I told her quite plainly that I was unaware of this rule, she just shrugged, handed me a cup, and pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I swear though, as long as I live in this country, I will never prepare my pee samples in advance. That's just too weird. Most recently, I was asked if I cared to give a pee sample. "No," I replied, thinking that it was a very stupid question to ask. The receptionist just shrugged before explaining that some people like having it done. Those aren't the sort of people I am friends with.

So as I mentioned yesterday, Little V is sick. He's got bloody diapers. The most likely cause for this is an inability to digest milk proteins. After doing all the blood tests, the doctors handed me a prescription for a laboratory analysis of his poop. Because I am not in the medical field, I couldn't possibly imagine how this test would be done and what would be required of me, so off we went to the lab with the prescription in hand to find out.

As I was called to the desk, the woman read over the piece of paper, nodding, and then looked up at me. Her eyes darted from side to side. They looked back to me. She set the paper down and put a hand on top of it. Under her breath, she whispered, "do you have the stuff?"

I raised an eyebrow, wondering to myself if I did, indeed, have "the stuff".

She sensed my confusion. "You know, the cup."

Again, I just stared at her. "What cup?"

"The poop cup," she whispered with a sense of urgency. You'd think we were making some kind of drug deal.

I just stared at her. This woman seriously expected me to magically produce a cup full of my son's poop right then and there? Again, I have to ask myself, where do you get these things? Or do people really show up with their excrement hanging out in a tupperware that just last week was holding your left over mac n cheese? I shudder just to think of mixing the two!

"No, I don't have the poop cup," I say loud and clear, a declaration that I would never be so savage as to carry around bodily fluids.

She brushes it off. "No worries," she said. And then, before my eyes appears a small white jar with a white lid (thank god it's not clear like the pee cups) and a small plastic spoon. I take the objects in my hand, look at my son, and look at her. "You want me to do what?" I ask, in total disbelief.

"Scoop up his poop into the jar. Fill it. Then bring it back." Fill it. Do you have any idea how many diapers it's going to take to be able to fill the dang jar? We'll be at this for three months!

I laughed. I looked around for the candid camera. But no. She seriously wanted me to scrape his diapers clean and wipe the contents into the jar. I about puked.

"So that's what it means to be a mom," I said. She smiled widely. "There's lots of things they don't tell you," she replied, a note of encouragement.

With my poop cup in one hand and the little pooper in the other, I thanked her and headed for the door.

So tonight, I saved his dirty diaper for Jeremie. And luckily (for lack of a better word) this was another bloody one. I insisted that Jeremie make sure he scrape all of the bloody bits into the jar especially, if not just to prove my sanity. Like any good dad that feels guilty for not being around more often, he does the dirty task as I asked. He screws the lid on and holds it in his hands for a minute.

"Should we put it in the fridge?"

Oh lord. No. I can just see us now. "That's not chocolate pudding..."

Rather, it's on the bathroom counter. "That's not my favorite night cream..."

Are we having fun yet?

(Keith -- please tell me there's an award for this somewhere??)

Little V Update

2011-03-30T09:55:00.003+02:00

I'm learning what it's like to really have no extra time to spare during the day. It's funny when I think about my old life and I try to remember why I was feeling so stressed and rushed all the time, when in reality, that was a total cake walk.

I told one of my students this week that I felt like a chicken running around with its head cut off. He enjoyed the expression. I do feel like that though. I am pulled in so many directions. When I can finally put Victor down to sleep and then crawl into bed myself (hopefully before 10) i'm happy. I immediately pass out nowadays whereas before I was the lightest sleeper and in need of something like 12 hrs at a time. Now I have to get by on whatever I can get. Some days it's too much to deal with and I have a meltdown, and some days I wonder how i'm able to pull myself together and get my work done.

Today is Victor's four month-birthday! I finally feel like i've got a baby and not a newborn. Every day he does something new and interesting and the more he grows and changes, the more attached I get. I had a hard time getting used to being a mom, and truth be told (as always with Travelling Amber) it wasn't all sunshine and daisy chains when he was born. Of course I loved him, but I can't say that I enjoyed very much during the first six to ten weeks of his life. Now I am enjoying every second that we can spend together playing, learning and growing. This is much more my "thing". Write me up as "Worst Mom Ever" but somebody else can raise my next newborn for me and pass him back once he's about 3.5 months old (and this is a hypothetical newborn because this is NOT in the plans, whatsoever.)

So what can Victor do now, you ask? Well, he's finally started laughing. I've heard it twice. He'll just break out into a fit of giggles for no apparent reason. Whenever I try to make him laugh though, he just looks at me like, "you're not funny." Little does he know!

He can hold his toys, and more often than not, they end up in his mouth. He can also hold his feet.

He can't roll yet, but he was pretty damn close before this virus knocked him on his ass. Tangent :

over the last three weeks we've been taking him to doctors because he didn't have a fever, was eating perfectly fine, but was having awful diaper issues, coughing, breathing problems, and not sleeping. The first pediatrician (remember, the awful bitch who told me my milk wasn't good enough? Surely I blogged about that...) and our GP both said the blood in his diapers was nothing to be concerned about. We finally took him to the hospital after about a week of sleeplessness and they ordered bloodwork to make sure it was a normal, run-of-the-mill virus. Then, once we knew it was nothing to be alarmed about, we took him back to the hospital for hemoglobin tests which apparently show what you are allergic to. i've been saying all along that I think he has trouble digesting cow's milk but nobody bothered to listen to me until he was obviously in very bad shape. Finally today, we'll go and get diaper-related things tested, and then we'll know for sure what's causing the blood.

During these tests, another doctor detected what she thinks is a heart murmur, so next month we'll go back to the hospital for EKG's and whatnot.

So back to the story. Before all of that happened, Victor was very close to rolling over. He'd get half way there, and then abandon ship. In the last few weeks, he hasn't wanted to play at all and he lost a lot of his strength. Before, he could push himself up on his hands and propel himself forward with his feet. Now, he's getting back to where he was, but this virus really wiped him out.

Today I had him leaning back against my knees while I sat on the bed, and before my own eyes he sat up. He then proceeded to fall right over (or pull himself forward so that rather than sitting on his butt he was then laying on his belly, which was actually kind of cool to watch), and Jeremie and I were both impressed. We're taking this as a sign that he's recovering, and I reckon once we start beefing him up with carrots and cereal within the next 3-5 days, he'll have his energy and his strength back, and he'll be back on track with his mobility. I'm not concerned.

So what else can he do? He can sleep for ten hours at a time. Unfortunately it's not a consistent thing yet, but when it does happen you don't hear me complaining! I was reading on some websites that said 4-6 month old American babies eat 8-10 times a day. Here in France, at this age he eats 4 times a day.

Speaking of schedules, I thought i'd talk about what it's like to be a working mom, even if i'm only working part time. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday i'm up at 5 or 6 -- 5 if Victor wants to eat and wakes up, 6 if he's still sleeping to get myself ready, and if he hasn't already eaten by 7, I wake him up to feed him for 7. At 8, I drop him off at the nanny. I always get to work about half an hour to an hour early to plan the day's lessons, and my lessons start between 9 and 10 most days. I have a break for lunch, I teach some more, and between 4 and 5 depending on the day, I go home. I pick up Victor between 5 and 6, feed him between 6:30 and 7:30, and then try to get him to go to sleep until 8ish. If he needs a bath he gets it before he eats. Sometimes we read books, and sometimes he's too tired or upset to read so we just cuddle. Then I eat, maybe I watch TV and make fun of the contest shows where one of the judges is always from Quebec ( and that is by far and large my favorite accent to mimick) and then I crawl into bed. I typically fall asleep in front of a show on my computer, and then I wake up whenever the monitor goes off and the baby is crying.

Wednesdays, I'm with Victor all day and we spend time getting things done that we otherwise didn't have the time for, and Friday afternoons for the moment i'm also at home with him. In there somewhere, I try to exercise, I try to see my friends, and of course spend time with Jeremie.

So today, we're off for tests, hopefully some grocery shopping at a discounter for diapers and paper products, then lunch and visiting friends, then food shopping at a big box, and then getting my house in order/paperwork and finally preparation for tomorrow and work.

Hopefully things will fall back into a pleasant rhythm now that he's recovering from his illness and then i'll have time to sit down and hash out some beef i've got with things like crappy French radio stations who don't know how to speak English (come on, it's the LEAST you can do to learn how to say the band's name or the name of their song!) and I might even have something about the CPAM (taking 4 months to process Victor) and the CAF (behind two months so we're paying 100% of our nanny costs until they decide to process our paperwork...)

Until then.

Renovation

2011-03-21T20:14:00.000+01:00

When I started blogging, I talked a lot about renovating in France. I posted some before/after pictures of our old apartment, but very few things dealing with our new house.

As is my theme this week, I uncovered a few pics that I took while our house was undergoing some work.

Before:

This is our living room, full of all the insulation and ceiling that we gutted out of the 1st floor. The workers dumped all the trash here in our living room. When I saw it, I about had a heart attack.

and here's an after pic:

We've actually added a lot of nice stuff since this pic was taken back in October, but I think it shows good contrast.

Before I know it, i'll be sharing pics of our new bathroom and our freshly divided bedrooms, plus our renovated courtyard! ... who knows when that'll be though... these things obviously take time!

My cats

2011-03-20T19:50:00.002+01:00

As I just said, it's been a long time since I featured these little beauties on my blog. I don't take enough pictures of my pets, but that's because I maxed out my phone camera photo space weeks ago and again, I was just too lazy to give myself more space.

So here ya go:

Cila, looking very alert. I love this picture of her because she's staring straight at the camera, saying in cat language, "i'm ready for my close up".

I came home to this just a few days ago. Can you spot Cila under the covers? Lately her new thing is snuggling in under the blankets. We have to be careful when we come to bed because she might be camoflaged, much like she was this afternoon.

"I'm all snuggly warm, mommy!" Good girl, Cila. Good girl.

This was when we were still living in our old apartment, and i'd recently learned how to knit. Nacho got a little bit too curious about yarn and ended up unwinding a couple balls of it.

And yet again, in our old apartment (as evidence by the psychadelic bathroom.) This was Nacho getting cozy on nice, clean comforters. He can't do that anymore, now that we've got a dryer.

I think if I could be reincarnated in a second life, this looks like a pretty good one.

One of these things just doesn't belong (photo post)

2011-03-20T18:22:00.006+01:00

I have a habit. I like taking pictures with my phone of stupid or interesting stuff that I see around town, but then it usually takes me ages to actually upload the pictures to my computer and do something with them. In this case, some of these pictures have been waiting since Christmas of 2009.

I never thought i'd appreciate having a camera on my phone. That's a feature that I felt was really unnecessary. And then I'd catch myself in one of the following moments and be silently saying to myself, "good choice!". So there ya go.

Without further ado, here's the first anomaly:

Chef Pierre Pumpkin Pie.

Why is this strange? I took this picture in Cinncinati in a grocery store because I remembered back in the day, when I was teaching primary school, and a few of my students threw up after eating pumpkin pie. This is the epitome of all that is not French. But apparently slapping a very French-sounding name on it and setting the pie on a reversed French flag, that makes it more authentically American. Huh. And yes, the pie directly underneath is also another Chef Pierre original, Pecan.

In the same store, I came across this little gem. It's a SaraLee French Cream Cheesecake. Firstly, I don't know what "French Cream" is, so I have to assume that you take in the whole title in one go : French Cream Cheesecake. While cheesecake is quickly gaining speed over here in Frogland, it's not hastily enough that they'd stick their name on it and call it original. No, this is a 100% American product that I had to force feed into my French other half, who now really loves it. The idea of "cheese" and "cake" together in a dessert was a pretty hefty hurdle for him, and I was glad when he deemed it "good".

Here was something random on my morning commute. I took this picture here in France on my way from Marquette to Templemars. That's an American "Support our Troops" ribbon. At the time, my brother was in Iraq and he hadn't been there very long, so I felt like it was a little wink in my direction from some higher power. These things are a dime a dozen in the US so as I drove at a snails pace behind this guy, it took me a few minutes for it to register with me that we were actually in France, and that it was certainly a bizarre thing to find on a car here.

Yet another bizarre thing to find on a car: the South Carolina state flag! This made my day.

Once again, I was just parked there, about to drive off, and thinking to myself, "hey, cool, another South Carolinian. Hey... wait a minute..." I like to think of myself as being very well connected, but I don't know any expats in Lille from my state. If you are out there, please holler!

This is another splendid gem that I stumbled upon in Lille. "Style and fashion garments based on youth tastes since 1978" indeed. I had to snap a picture cause my folks now live in Cinci, and this company of "style and fashion garments" couldn't even spell the name of the dang city right. Well, it's fashion star forever, so what do they care if they spell it right?

Coming next: Gratuitious pictures of my pets in strange places around the house and/or doing cute stuff. They've been feeling very neglected since the baby took over the show. Poor cats.

So what strange out-of-place stuff have you found in France or in the States that made you say "d'oh!"?

Styyyyle.. (said in Sponge Bob's voice).

2011-03-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

Well, well. The Stylish Blogger Award has been bestowed upon me. I think that's cool, cause it means that ranting and raving like a sleep-deprived lunatic all while covered in baby is "in". Sweet. Oh but hey, it's probably not very stylish that it's taken me nearly a month to get around to fulfilling the requirements.. whoops. Let's just say i'm being "Stylishly Late"?

So the rules are to link back to the person who gave it to me. It was Laura, my fellow Lille blogger that I had the pleasure of getting in touch with thanks to our mutual blog friend,Keith! Since then, we've had an old-fashioned slumber party complete with two empty bottles of wine, been a dynamic-duo kicking hiney at Cranium, and basically just making anybody and everybody jealous that they aren't us. It's like finding my missing puzzle piece.. which we are, since she's also got an industrial, in the opposite ear as me. If that's not a sign for a friendship written in the stars, then I don't know what is! Oh, and we're both vegetarians.. that was like the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake.

So with the first rule of the game out of the way..

Rule 2 is to divulge 7 factoids about myself, and then pass it on.

Hmm. See, thing is, I put it all out there on the table, so there's very few things about me that are left secret.. going to have to dig for something original. I think this is more like "7 mini blog posts about me".

1) Alright, I like random facts and trivia. Sometimes I surprise myself when I know the answer to something (in a board game, or on Jeopardy, for example) but more often than not it's just to annoy my entourage. "Hey guys, did you know that....?" *le groan* "Yes, Amber, we knew." "No way you knew that! How could you possibly know that?" "... because you already told us..." Ah. I'm just a sponge for knowledge. I listen, I store it, and I drive others crazy with it.

Once, Jeremie's brother was reading us some trivial pursuit cards and he said, "Okay here's one that nobody will know. Where is Chateaubriand buried?" and I had only been listening in passing because I didn't know 99% of the answers, but something in the back of my mind just shouted out "St. Malo" without thinking twice about it. Everybody just kind of stared at me like, "how the hell?" and I just shrugged.

2) That lead me to thinking about games I play in the car. I don't know why, maybe because my random facts enjoy being shared when my audience is forcefully captive? Anyway, Jeremie and I take a lot of road trips because we've got the pleasure of having one of our cars 100% paid for and my gas is more or less covered by my job as well, so we prefer to drive. On said drives, I love to play a game called, "There's your future house." The rule is that you find the crappiest looking shack/hole in the ground/trash can/run down apartment building, and you're the first person to shout, "There's your future house!" and you earn the right to laugh at the other person as you imagine them holed up in said trash can/shack/slum. It used to get really competitive really quick when we lived in Normandy as there are an abundance of cow sheds in various states of disrepair. The game can go too far though when we get to the part about "there's your future husband/wife/mistress" or "there's your future pet".. i'm sure you can imagine what both of those look like on the side of the road.

We've also invented a Twingo punching game that got put on hiatus during my pregnancy because it can get really out of hand. The goal is to be the first person to shout the color of the Twingo, whether it's parked or in motion, and then you get to punch somebody else in the car. There's a lot of rules though : no new Twingos allowed, you can get punched 5 times if you accidentally say a Clio is a Twingo (this is called a "Twingo Foul") and if there's a lot of people in the car, you have to have a Twingo Spotter who can vouch that you've actually spotted one. Old VW Bugs earn you 5 punches. Extra points for inventing a creative color name off the top of your head à la "baby puke green Twingo" or "mustard yellow". I'm sure you can imagine that this game gets competitive pretty quickly too, and it evolves fast. We often drive to Belgium where there are notably fewer Twingos on the road, so everybody gets geared up for crossing the border back into France where it's a veritable Twingo free-for-all. You may or may not have a lot of fun taking a road trip with us. You'll definitely be taking your life into your own hands. When in Paris, Smart Cars are also in play.

3) Jeremie owns more pairs of shoes than I do. It's probably because if given the choice, i'd rather shop for him and Victor than for myself. I feel very indifferent about the current trends (seriously, pleated pants? tapered legs? those didn't look good the first time around...) and i'd rather just avoid them and dress boring-ly until something more desirable comes back in.

4) I have a wedding dress that I bought back in 2006 a month after Jeremie and I got engaged. It's never been worn (apart from the gazillion times I used to put it on just to make sure it still fit) and we're eventually going to have a white wedding.. but whether or not I make it into that dress remains to be seen. Five years later, i'm not a zero anymore. Whoops. Luckily it was always too big on me before I got pregnant, so i'm hoping that by the time (whenever that may be) that we can actually have a real wedding, i'll be able to fit into my pretty dress. I bought the dress that I wore to the city hall at a small shop in Deauville during my lunch break one day. I saw it in the window and just had to have it.

5) My Smart car, my beloved Marshmallow, is living in our garage down the street. I haven't driven her since November but I don't have the heart to sell her yet. In my mind, she represents the last link to my previous life.. my newlywed/baby-free/twentysomething life. I am still most of the above, but I just don't have the heart to part with her. She was so much for me. I remember saving up for months before I felt like I had enough to buy her and then she gave me the freedom to discover this country on my own. I learned the roads, I got to know the town. I made my own meaning out of life here. She freed me. She's so much more than just a car.

6) I've mostly written about stuff to be able to avoid talking about myself. Okay okay, i'll talk about me.. twist my arm a little.

My favorite movies are kids movies. Pixar rocks my world. Finding Nemo is the most profound film i've ever seen. I used to be able to quote very large parts of it. The week it came out on DVD I watched it every day, just like a little kid. I think it's so beautiful. In the movie theater the first time I saw it, I laughed until I cried. I cried until I started laughing. The second time I saw it in the theater, I remember wishing that I could go back to having never seen it before so that I could re-live those emotions all over again. It's like hearing an amazing song for the first time -- you're like, "wow, awesome song!" and then you learn the words and then you can sing along.. and it loses some of its "awesome". Nemo is still amazing and is still my all-time favorite movie, but I will never get to experience seeing it for the first time again. I hope that sharing my favorite movies with Victor will bring back some of those good feelings. I can't wait till he's old enough to appreciate the finer things in life like a good cartoon movie.

Oh, and Victor is going to love Sponge Bob too. I have three seasons of it on DVD. If he doesn't love it, i'm going to be seriously disappointed.

7) and a little bit on the same subject, I get depressed when I finish a great series of books. Okay, the books don't even have to be "good", but I get so wrapped up in things that when they are over, I just don't know what to do with myself.
Harry Potter was the first. I was 11 when I started reading them (as were the main characters) and you can see that at 24, I actually CRIED when I didn't get to see the most recent movie in theaters. The day that Jeremie and I were going to go was the day my water broke and even though we didn't know my water was going to break, we did know that I was very uncomfortable and couldn't sit in a theater for three hours or however long it was. Then while in the hospital waiting for news, I looked at Jeremie and said, "now i'll never get to see HP in the movie theater." He promised he'd buy it for me on DVD, but I know it won't be the same. Oh well.

Nothing will ever take HP's place in my memory as being such an amazing ride and so sad that it's over, but I did feel similar after I read Twilight and The Host (The Host is much better than Twilight in my opinion) and not that it's an amazing story or extremely well written or anything, but it captivated me and gave me something to do while I was on the bus (these were my pre-Smart days) and it gave me something to look forward to. Once it was finished I remember feeling disappointed that I didn't have anything else to read.

Most recently, The Hunger Games had the same effect. Again with the "nothing incredibly challenging" but I just got so sucked into the story. I remember it was January when I read them on my new E-Reader, and reading was the only thing I could do besides watching TV while I was breastfeeding Victor plus the E-Reader made it so I didn't even have to turn the page. I immediately downloaded one book after the other until i'd read the whole Trilogy. I regret that it only took me three days, because I would have liked to spread it out some more and feel that anticipation of wanting to find time to read to know what's going to happen next. I had to put my E-Reader away for a few days (weeks even?) after that. Nothing peaked my interest and I didn't feel like reading. I guess I keep thinking that no other series will ever drag me in like _____. Then when I find one that does, i'm really happy about it and get through it really quickly, only to be disappointed that once again, there's nothing waiting for me on the other end.

Okay, so there's seven completely random things about me.

Final requirement of being an award winner is to pass it on.

Here's a few stylish people:

Keith is stylishly giving us awards every Tuesday.

Piglet is pregnant stylish.

Crystal has the most stylish dog on the block.

Kim is a stylish momma.

Ksam is ooey gooey love stories galore stylish

There's a few other people i'd tag, but they haven't blogged in months (might I be looking at you, Emma?) or they might be busy on research missions in America (like Andromeda) so anybody who's fancy might be tickled by sharing some fun stuff about yourself, please feel free to jump in.