Les vacances

Not just any vacances, but les grandes vacances. In France, when people refer to les vacances, it's generally the 2 month summer break during which most people take a month or so off. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of time to spend with my kids. But my husband has less time so we go away as a family for about 3 weeks.

Vacation time is one of those "quality of life" things that I would never trade in. So, I guess I can't move to the US until I can be guaranteed at least 4 weeks of vacation a year.

We are leaving on Wednesday to spend a couple days outside of Tour, then heading to the Southwest near Toulouse to spend time at my in-laws' vacation house. Then we rented a house in Auvergne for a week in August. When we get back, my parents invade/arrive. :)

Something that's always hit me during the summer months is all of the cahiers de vacances that you find in the supermarket, book stores and news stands. In the US, I remember having summer reading lists. But here, there are special vacation workbooks so your child can work during vacation. For example, the books for 5 year olds include learning to write cursive and coloring books where you need to copy the model. No free hand or free thinking allowed! I remember hours of fun with Richard Scary's rainday activity book during our summer vacations (I do have a copy of it which I am desperately looking for. I put it away last year so it wouldn't get ruined and now I can't find it! Typical). Richard Scary was all about cutting, folding and coloring. No writing allowed! (I got this Barbapapa one for Suzanne....it has stickers and a puzzle in it, on top of cursive skills).

Which reminds me of when I worked in HR at a very large French company in Paris and all of the candidates' handwritten letters were sent for handwriting analysis, called graphologie in French. I was told that handwriting analysis on non-French writers wasn't valid because it's not the same writing rules. And I can confirm that it wasn't because I "stumbled" on my own handwriting analysis while going through the HR files one day. I now understand where the formated handwriting comes from.