Uh Oh Spaghettios

Max : blabbermouth at 30 months

2012-01-30T10:10:00.002+01:00

Over the weekend, we were invited to an American birthday party : L turned 5 and she invited Suzanne and Max to her party. Max and the other littles ones ran crazy most of the time while the bigger kids did fun games with the animateur. At one point, I said to my friend that this was proably the first time the kids' all realized that they each spoke French. But we agreed that they would probably still continue to speak English together because they always have (we've all known each other since the kids were tiny and usually get together without our French counterparts).

As we were leaving the birthday, I told Max to wish L a happy birthday. So he said, in his big loud voice, "Happy Birthday L!". And one of the parents looked at me and said, "Max can talk? I mean, I've never heard him speak." I was agast. I mean, Max not speaking? He's a regular chatty cathy (or the boy version of that). After the party, we went to A's house to let the kids play a little. Max was playing with 6 year old M who was showing him the bongo drums (oh boy something to hit!). Max said to her, as she put them on the desk, "put it on the floor." M turned to me and her mother, "He can speak!". And I began to realize that Max is actually kind of reserved...outside of his close circle.

At 30 months, Max is a blabber mouth. As my dear husband says, "il remplit l'espace sonore" (he fills up the sonor space). And does he...Not only does he have a deep voice, but he is constantly blabbing about something or other to the great dismay of his sister who can't get a word in edgewise. There is one recurrent sentence at our house at the moment and it comes from Suzanne, "Max, I was talking! waaaaaa!" (that last bit is crying from frustration).

Max has no problem going between languages, but he favors French unlike his sister at the same age. Max is constantly singing songs from the crèche and talking to himself in french, whereas Suzanne used to play by herself in English. But, he speaks to his sister in English. Before putting Max to bed the other night, I told him to say goodnight. He said, "Bonne nuit Papa. Goodnight Suzanne."

He definitely has a slightly non-French lilt to some of his French, but he doesn't insert English words into his speech in quite the same way Suzanne did. I've heard him say things like "mon monster" instead of using the French monstre. But it's rare. As with Suzanne, he overlays his French with some English grammatical structures. For instance, he says "Abel papa" in French, using the structure of the English possessive "Abel's papa" instead of the French "le papa d'Abel". He also uses English adjective and noun order when speaking French like "bleue voiture" instead of "voiture bleue".

All in all, I am very proud of my son's progress and so is anyone who hears him speaking, in French or in English. His speech is "très bien" in French according to the director of the nursery school, especially for a bilingual boy (since those are two factors that can delay speaking). And his English is great. He knows most of his colors, can count to 11 (skipping over 5 through 7) and can express himself with or without tantrum. So to those who think my boy is quiet...tell me that at 5:19 AM when he comes into my room and says "time to get up Mommy," as he turns on the light and the radio. Or when he says, "I love you to moon and back" (quoting one of his favorite books, Guess How Much I Love You).

story time: the rebirth

2012-01-23T10:56:00.004+01:00

Story time is finally coming to life! I didn't realize the beginning would be so rough...or that the rough period would last so long. We are celebrating a whole year.

Since the new director arrived at the library, everything's been looking up! My counterpart librarian and I have a rhythm and a solid and fun repertoire now so the readings are smooth. Last Saturday, there were 2 new families; last Wednesday, there were 2 returning families (plus my friends who have been endlessly supportive of this endeavor!).

The head librarian has been answering emails that were left untouched for months, among them a request for Saturday "camp" to come to the readings (20 kids!). We also have dates booked through June, including a reading at the Gare St. Sauveur during the Braderie des Livres. The Gare St. Sauveur is an unused freight train station transformed into an amazing cultural space in Lille.

People have been coming to me saying they have seen the posters up around town, including Story time with Rebecca (et l'équipe jeunesse de la bibliothèque). It's all very exciting.

But the best part ? It's the kids...My kids really appreciate the language play, where we intermingle French and English in the same story. It reinforces their own bilingualism. As for the monolingual kids, it's showing them that language is fun and accessible. They really enjoy the stories and the new words! An, of course, discovering new books like, The Thing/ Le Machin, is always good.

I'll continue to post future dates here. Come one, come all!

The fairy-mouse : a bicultural story

2012-01-05T15:14:00.000+01:00

There is a note in the scrapbook that (I believe) is (still) in my old room at my parents' house in New Jersey. It says something like: Dear Becca, Thank you for the lovely tooth. A little baby will love it. From, the Tooth Fairy.
It's a note my Mom wrote and saved when I lost my first tooth. I found the note along with a quarter (which was a lot in 1981!) in the heart shaped tooth pillow that was attached to my bedpost.

About 6 weeks ago at the breakfast table, Suzanne told me her tooth hurt. I touched it and it moved...and so did it's neighbor! J and I were both verklempt (see Dana Carvey in SNL). We haven't talked much about it, but the little we did talk about it went something like this : tooth fairy or petite souris. We decided to mix them up. It's not completely farfetched - If Peppa Pig's tooth fairy could be a pig, then why couldn't Suzanne's souris be a fairy and vice versa?

We both hold our cultural symbols and childhood symbols close to our hearts. Losing teeth and finding a coin under your pillow is a childhood rite of passage. The tooth fairy/souris is a minor and easily resolved issue which touches us both. But there will be other issues which are harder to resolve and which don't have a happy middle, where you can't just combine the two cultural symbols and come up with a reasonably acceptable hybrid.

But for the moment, Suzanne's teeth are literally hanging by a thread. They are just hanging out in her mouth, waiting to fall off into the sink or her glass of water or the toilet...

Suzanne fiercly believes that the fairy mouse will come and give her at least two coins for her tooth (maybe not such a bad idea to give her a French and an American coin so she can start saving for this summer's trip to the US?). So, when the fairy mouse leaves a letter to a bilingual kid, what language is it in : French or English?

Story time: January 2011

2012-01-04T10:21:00.003+01:00

The next story time is Wednesday, January 11th at 3:30 pm.

I'm hoping the new year will bring new luck to my little project. I can't begin to explain how much more pleasure and satisfaction I get from reading to kids for 30 minutes than I do from a full day of work (unless that day includes a German Black Forest cake baked by my German co-worker or some hard alcohol from my Latvian co-worker).

The new director has finally arrived at the Wazemmes branch library and seems really keen on story time. The last session right before holidays was English only because the librarian was sick. But we still had a nice crew of 7 kids. SEVEN which apparently is a really good number. I would have thought a dozen but ok, seven. She said that we should send emails out to the schools to attract more kids and groups. Yay!

So please come and enjoy some stories in French and English, in a bilingual setting. It's free and it's fun!

New Year, new projects: BCE (best cookies ever)

2011-12-30T14:17:00.001+01:00

The French have a severe distaste for peanut butter, and that's putting it mildly. Peanut butter is to Americans what nutella is a to the French. Yet, I have grown to dislike nutella and peanut butter over the years, probably more to do with memories of back packing through Europe with a pb jar in my bag (the ingenious idea of my then boyfriend) than my own frenchization. This has not, however, prevented me from indoctrinating my children into loving peanut butter...

So when I saw a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies in the December issue of Real Simple, I figured I'd try the cookies since the recipe was, well, real simple. But I wasn't going to like them. But you know what? They may actually be the best cookies I've ever made. No, seriously. The best...And I've made lots of cookies, especially recently as we've been avoiding gluten in the house.

And while I'm at it, I'm currently working on a new project which has gone from an embryo but less than a baby (not pregnant, just trying to find a metaphor). Keep your eyes peeled for more on my new project in the new year.

So without further ado, here is my adaptation of the scrumptious, delicious, and highly caloric, sugar-reduced, lazy girl version of the cookie dedicated to Travelling Amber who could use a little scrumptious right now.

2 cups creamy preferably unsweetened peanut butter (can be purchased at organic stores or supermarkets next to the nutella)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix together pb, sugars, eggs, baking soda, salt and eggs until smooth. Add oatmeal and chocolate chips. Using a soup spoon, place round blobs of dough on a cookie sheet, leaving about 2 inches between cookies. Bake on 350° F (150°C) for 10 minutes. Cookies will puff up a lot, but will deflate as they cool. Let them cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before removing them or they will break and you will have to eat tons of them. Makes about 3 dozen.

Variations : you can make these cookies without the oats and chips. You can also substitute dried cranberries for the chips.

Enjoy!

Storytime December 2011 - free cookies and stories

2011-12-15T10:57:00.001+01:00

Last Saturday's storytime was awash. We knew it would be because it was the neighborhood schools Nöël celebration. So Max and I read "Green Eggs and Ham" five times and he was quite satisfied with his personalized storytime.

Looking for something to do during the vacances? Next edition is Wednesday, December 21st at 3:30pm. Fun is promised for all! We will be reading Little Red Riding Hood, Mo Willems and others.

It's FREE, it's FREE BILINGUAL and it's STORY TIME. Plus, I'll try to make cookies beforehand and give one to everyone present, adults and kids alike. Now why would anyone NOT come????

Speculoos : a Franco-American adventure

2011-12-13T15:03:00.001+01:00

Way back when, in 2000 when I was working in Paris as an advertising mogul, I discovered the most divine snack in the office vending machine : crunchy, sweet cookies called speculoos. I'd never seen them before but they reminded me of something nice and happy. The perfect cookie to be dipped in hot chocolate or coffee or just to crunch on when you're bored (which I was a lot in those days).

It wasn't until I made trips up to the Netherlands that I found it! The reason I loved these cookies so much was because they were like the "windmill" cookies my sister and I used to eat when we were little. I swear that my mom must have bought them in bulk from the local Shoprite because we always seemed to have "windmill cookies" on hand, so called because they were shaped like windmills. Duh!

The cookies I found in France (speculoos) and the Netherlands (speculaas) are in fact Spanish in origin. They go back to the Spanish occupation of Flanders through someone or other's mariage in the house of Orange (the Dutch) to the Spanish royalty.

For years, I've been using speculoos in my awesome cheesecake recipe (watch this space for the recipe in the near future). Speculoos were the best kept secret ever. really, I mean EVER! Until recently when speculoos seem to have popped up all over the place. First there was speculoos paste which is vile (IMO). You can spread it on bread, crèpes or what have you. But what's the speculoos without the crunch? I used to send them to my sister and my mother : chocoalte coated, giant, mini, whole grain...

But now, you can get them at Shoprite, the very store that used to sell us bulk amounts of windmill cookies. Somehow, the cookies have gone full circle and the windmill cookies and speculoos are sold side by side. BUT, yes there is always a but, they changed the name. If they were trying to move away from the not so nice sound of speculoos (speculum?), they didn't do a very good job when they chose the name biscoff which makes me think of something medicinal.

In the meantime, while you wait for me to publish my Lill'adelphia cheesecake recipe on my new food blog, I will share my gluten free adaptation of the speculoos recipe taken from the amazing Dille and Kamille store. Enjoy! Bon ap'! Smaklijk etten!

Ingredients

• 250 g flour (equal amount of GF flour)
• 150 g butter
• 140 g brown sugar (vergeoise not cassonade!)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon speculoos spice (like pumpkin pie spice including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves... )

4 tablespoons milk

For gluten free version, add:

1 egg

1 teaspoon of xanthan or guar gum
50 g almond powder

Instructions:Mix dry ingredents together. Add milk and butter (and egg if using). Mix well. Put in fridge for a few hours, preferably overnight. If making gf cookies, roll into balls and flatten wit the back of a fork. If making traditional cookies, roll out the dough and use cookie cutters to make nicely shaped cookies. (You can buy traditional wooden cookie moulds at Dille and Kamille)

My gf version is softer than the regular cookies because of the egge which is also what keeps them together! If you want them to be crunchy, make them thinner.

Cook for 15 minutes on 170° C (350°F)

Max's terrible twos and counting.

2011-12-01T14:35:00.001+01:00

You asked so I'll tell. Well, YOU didn't ask (since I'm not really sure anyone even reads this blog anymore!), but some people around me have been asking so I'll tell...

Max is 2 years and 3 months old and he's a firecracker, to say it nicely. Or as I often say to him, "it's lucky you're so damn cute." My son is a boy. Hard core boy. He throws, he hits, he tantrums (is that a verb) and boy does he eat! I don't think there is anything the child won't eat. Max is also a chatterbox.

This morning, one of my coworkers asked me if Max spoke English. Yes indeed I said proudly. Max's English level is actually better than his French because his English is more mature and doesn't include baby language.

When Max first began speaking, I remembering commenting on how precise he was. Unlike his sister who would try to talk even if it wasn't perfect, Max won't say anything unless it is precise. when he speaks, in both French and English, you can tell he has taken time to formulate and think about what will come out of his mouth. And then, you can actually hear it in his breathing as he pushes the words out of his mouth (when he's not yelling at his sister that is).

So Max, at almost 2 and a half years old is not far behind his sister in verbal communication in both French and English. I have my mother's visit last summer to thank for the English push.

There are a couple points in Max's speech that I should comment on like his use of "mine" all the time. He confuses "mine" for the possessive adjective "my". He also has very gutteral speech and a way of rolling his "r" which makes him sound slightly German when he says things like "no Suzanne! Mine water"! He also has a slight lisp that I hope will go away with time. But so far it hasn't impeded him from making himself understood.

I love my kids dearly and am so proud of them. But, sometimes I wish they'd shut up.

How to recrute a babysitter : la suite

2011-11-29T09:06:00.001+01:00

Over 3 years ago, I posted about harassing English speaking students in the park during my run. I was trying to recruit a babysitter for Suzanne who was nearly 1 at the time. The problem was that I wasn't quite ready for a babysitter yet.

Two years ago, when Max was one, J and I were on vacation and I was desperately craving a return to aikido at the rentrée. But...I couldn't allow myself. It took a very long discussion for me to come to a very simple conclusion : I couldn't leave my kids for an evening at aikido because every minute away from them meant that much less English. The solution was simple : hire an English speaker to take care of them once a week so I could go and know people to the ground once again (nb: aikido is a non-violent martial art that is extremely popular in France).

So, I turned to my blogging contacts and Elizabeth, a Lillloise living in the US, put me in touch with the local university. I told them I was looking for a sitter, they sent out an announcement to the exchange students and just like that we had a babysitter. This is the second year in a row we've hired an American to watch the kids once a week.

And I have to say that I wish we'd done it sooner. There are so many advantages that it makes me realize why au pairs are so popular. Obviously, I enjoy having time to myself, especially when there is minimal mommy guilt involved. But the advantage of having another native English speaker in my kids life is immeasurable. Because the babysitters don't speak French as well as someone who's been living here for a while, they don't speak French in front of my kids and so my kids don't even realize the sitter speaks any French at all. This is essential for bilingual kids, I've found.

Like many bilinguals I've read about, my kids are easily able to suss out who speaks what language. And if a person speaks the "wrong" language to them they either don't respond or respond in the "correct" language. So having another person around who speaks no French with them - since they obviously know I speak french - has been a real gift to them, especially since Max was only 1 when we hired our first babysitter.

So to any Americans in Lille, there is a huge number of American and Canadian students out there who are looking to make money. You can either get directly in touch with the university's foreign student coordination (I got in touch with the Catho). You can also go to the forum for assistants in France. Many language assistants are also looking for extra income.

The one thing you need to be careful of is to be extremely clear with the sitter that you want him/her to speak only English with your kids. We interviewed one girl who spoke French to our kids just after I explained just that; we didn't hire her.

Good luck!

Thanksgiving : a long way from home

2011-11-24T13:45:00.001+01:00

Pumpkin pie. They say you either love it or hate it. When Iwas a kid, I remember distinctly not liking it. But as I’ve gotten old, and theUS has grown further away as I implant myself more and more in France, I lookforward to my annual pumpkin pie. Weird.

So as Thanksgiving approaches, and I began planning my nowannual Thanksgiving extravaganza where 30+ Franco-Americans embark on my stillunfinished house, I felt like an old pro. I knew where to get the turkeys andonce again called the Ferme Avicole Bauduin in Rosult, I was able to get freshcranberries via a German collegue, dried cranberries at Carrefour and cornmealat the organic store (thanks to all the gluten free baking I’ve been doingrecently). And, I even delegated more than usual. I am trying NOT to bake apie, but I’m not sure I can hold out…

Yesterday I baked 4 dozen mini pumpkin-cornmeal muffins (amash up of the Joy of Cooking's pumpkin bread and Brooke Dojny's Shaker Corn Pumpkin bread) to bring to school and the crècheso my kids have some sense that it’s a special day.

This morning, I accompaniedmy 5 year old to school where I explained Thanksgiving to her class in a waythat avoided religion and colonial power and God (there’s a Jehovah’s Witnessin the class who has been innocently indoctrinating the other kids about God watching themfrom his perch in the sky). I told them that a long time ago, before planes,the English came to America and met the Native Americans. The English foundnew food they didn’t know about and celebrated with the Native Americans. Sotoday in the US, it’s a holiday where people eat pumpkin, cranberries andturkey. The kids devoured the muffins and dried cranberries; and the brave few evenate some raw cranberries. There were some interesting questions like: did theEnglish sleep on the boat? Did they eat fish? Why didn’t they take a plane? Andthen, P (who happens to be very sweet but is the class menace) said “itmust take you a long time to get to school from your house since it’s so faraway.” And it made me realize that home really is where the heart is...

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

2011-11-10T13:50:00.005+01:00

My son thinks that the father in Knuffle Bunny is a mother. And it's all my fault...

The other night when Max handed me Knuffle Bunny to read before bedtime, I told him that I couldn't read it because it was in French, "papa's language". I showed Max the English copy and said "this is Mommy's". We read Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too and Knuffle Bunny Free all the while Max was pointing to the father in the story saying, "Mommy".

When Suzanne was his age, we would refer not to French and English but to Papa and Mommy's language often saying things like "how does papa say it?" when she used the other parent's langauge with the wrong parent. Suzanne seemed to take the information, file it away and be on to something new. But Max is different. Max is less analytical than his sister and more in the moment. So whatever we tell him, he puts into action immediately. So it's quite understandable that since there are two copy's of Knuffle Bunny in the room, and I told him one was Papa's language but they look exactly the same, so you could reason that the other book is Mommy's and therefore the papa in that book is also a mommy.

I often wonder how my children process their languages. It's an interesting phemonenon to see at the bilingual storytimes I do. You can see that the bilingual kids are happy to hear both languages because for them, their brains are already doing what the librarian and I are doing outloud.

And then there are the questions of why we speak English sometimes and why I don't speak French. A couple weeks ago, Suzanne asked me if we could speak English sometimes so we wouldn't go to prison. She seems convinced now taht we won't go to prison and that speaking English is pretty cool. But then yesterday, she asked me why I speak English better than I speak French. I explained to her that I didn't learn French until I was at school so I always spoke English at home with my family. I like her interest in other people's language capacities and find it rather reassuring that she is wondering about her own language skills. Because it's all so very normal for her to speak two languages so why isn't it for everyone else?

Kids are amazing...

Halloween 2012 : the secrets to success

2011-11-04T09:25:00.001+01:00

Six houses.

Halloween was built up in our house for weeks. We decorated the windows with cut out pumpkins. We talked about costumes. We even practiced dressing up in them. And then the day came.

My friend A had her traditional Halloween party. This year there were special treats brought from the US army base in Lille (yes there is one!) replete with real cupcakes with real frosting. Thekids enjoyed bobbing for apples and doing a candy hunt in the back yard - a weak replacement for trick or treating, but you do what you can.

As night began to fall (just past 4pm!), we started to get geered up for Halloween. When I took a walk down my street earlier in the day, I'd seen one of my pumpkin simples on a neighbor's house so I knew we had at least 3 houses to hit : mine, my friend's and a neighbor's. But at 6pm, when we walked down the street to meet up for trick or treating, I was filled with glee. There were 6 pumpkins ! So our gaggle of kids - there were 7 in all - went up and down the street, screaming, running and laughing.

The neighbors - even the crotchedy old man - gave out candy to our kids. I realized that they had actually done it for us. For me and my kids. Why? Because I'd asked nicely, taken the inititiative, and shown them that it was a nice and fun time for the kids. And you know what? Even the crotchedy old man smiled!

We ended at the pharmacy, where the kids ran in and all the pharmacy stff gathered around and they dipped their grubby and sticky hands into the big bowl of lollypops. At the end of the night - which lasted only 30 minutes but seemed like hours - I had all the kids saying "trick or treat". And you know what? It was just enough. And it was a huge success!

Later in the evening as Max dipped his hand into his candy bag, he said "I got a rock" (a little tribute to the Great Pumpkin himself).

It's la Grande Citrouille Charlie Brun.

2011-10-25T14:22:00.001+02:00

The Year Halloween Came to Wazemmes.

It all started with the Great Pumpkin. Last spring, while visiting the farm with my 2 year old son, I thought it would be funny to plant pumpkins in my micro-garden (my courtyard garden). So I went to the outdoor market and spent all of 3€ on 6 pumpkin plants which I promptly stuck in the ground. I figured at worst, my cats would kill the plants and at best, I’d get at least one jack-o-lantern for Halloween and that maybe the vines would keep my cats from using my micro-garden as a litter box. What can I say? All my wishes came true.

When we returned from vacation at the beginning of August, the vines had not only spread across the deck (about 10 feet) but they’d also climbed the walls. Baby pumpkins were sprouting left and right. At one point, I counted a dozen pumpkins growing, but most of them die before reaching maturity.

When I cut down the first pumpkin - a 7 kilo’er (14 pounder) which had been growing 4 feet off the ground - it got me into the Halloween spirit. That’s when I got a hold of It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and watched the trick or treating scene over and over and over, at the request of my 5 year old.

And then it came to me. I could bring real American Halloween to my neighborhood, trick-or-treat and all. All it would take is a little organization (which I have), a couple of willing participants (my daughter’s best friend down the street) and a little pride swallowing since I would have to canvas the neighborhood.

I am slightly ashamed to say that most of my Halloween flyers were placed in my neighbors’ mail boxes late at night when everyone was asleep. My flyer had a brief explanation of American style Halloween etiquette and a pumpkin clip-art to paste on their window or front doorto show they would accept trick or treaters. I did hand deliver some to the people I know. One elderly couple told me they would do Halloween if it didn’t involve kids ringing their doorbells and asking for candy. Um, yeah. I also gave the flyer to some families in the neighboring street by harassing them at school. And, to my great delight, everyone is really excited to do Halloween!

The real test will be on Halloween eve.. In past years, we‘ve gotten 3 trick -or -treaters who aren’t even in costumes. I’m even embarrassed to say that I actually forget to get candy most years and have to run up to the kitchen to grab lollypops out of the kids’ candy jar. The general request is, “vous avez des bonbons?” (do you have any candy?). No please, no thank you, no Happy Halloween! And my daughter may be the only kid in France who knows “trick or treat smell my feet” in it’s entirety all the way to the last line. My goal this year is to turn Halloween into what it’s should be : a few hours of fun for the kids when they can dress up and eat too much sugar. To be continued...

How do you celebrate Halloween and what are you doing this year to bring Halloween into your home?
And there’s always the fallback plan if the jack-o-lantern doesn’t work out : pumpkin pie.

Storytime : double whammy!

2011-10-17T09:12:00.002+02:00

This week saw the double edition of storytime. On Wednesday, the group was composed of 10 6-8 year olds and my two little monsters and my friend Anne's bilingual kids. Suzanne pulled up a chair next to me and read her own books- although she enjoys storytime, it was understandably much less fun without any of her friends. Marie and I mostly reused some of the stories we'd done previously including Le Machin which works amazingly bilingually. but we also did "Three Billy Goats Gruff" from Yummy by Lucy Cousins. Her versions of the fairy tales are straight to the point and lend themselves well to split, bilingual reading. The group was enthusiastic and able to retain a certain number of words. The already had a good base which helped. Saturday's group was completely different. There were 4 kids plus my 2. All of the kids were between 3 and 6. Marie and I did some of the younger books including What Faust Saw, I Want My Potty, I Like Books and I'm Going on a Bear Hunt, the latter is a great exercise in otomotopea (isn't that a great word?!). The parents were enthusiastic and so is Marie, despite the issues the library is currently facing.

When we finished, she told me that there was an administrative mess up so storytime in November and December wouldn't apprear in the library agenda but that there would be flyers made for the library. She also told me that she didn't mind doing one Wednesday and one Saturday a month. I'm getting the feeling that she's enjoying storytime!

I wanted to do some Halloween stories but the library didn't have any that were easy enough to read to a mixed group of kids. Tant pis.

Other notable moments of the weekend included my distribution of Halloween fliers to all my neighboors at 11pm on Friday night in an attempt to remain visibly invisible. This is my attempt to bring Halloween to my street. One neighbor has already decorated her windows. Another told me that as long as kids didn't come ringing their bell and asking for candy, they would do Halloween. Um, yeah. My kids are extremely excited for Halloween. I've got to start working on Suzanne's ghost costume!

On Sunday, as the kids and I walked through the Wazemmes market square on our way back from visiting La Ferme des Dondaines, Suzanne asked me, "can we speak French together so people won't know we're English?" I decided not to correct her on the semantics of it - English versus American and the fact that I just physically cannot speak French to my kids. But when I asked her why she didn't want people to know we spoke English, she said, "because I don't want to go to prison." I then explained to Suzanne that in France, people don't get sent to prison for speaking a different language and that we should be proud to speak English AND French. I sometimes wonder how much the bilingualism adds to the insecure musings of the common 5 year old.

But seeing the semi-popularity of storytime, I don't think we need to worry about being imprisoned for a little while at least.

Mal du pays...again!

2011-10-11T09:34:00.000+02:00

It's that time of year where the white noise becomes really loud. I feel oversensitive about anything slightly anti-American, oppressed by the French way of being, and just exhausted from all the extra efforts I make on a daily basis, no matter how small. Just like every fall, I am homesick.

It's no surprise that it happens this time of year. Not only is fall my favorite season, when I think of the colors, the smell of the leave and the sound they make under my feet. But it's a season packed with holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Halloween, Thansgiving, not to mention cross-country season (I ran in college so fall was a special season for me).
Last year, I was lucky enough to get back to NJ for Hallween which was a special treat for the kids. But this year, due to the price of tickets - with two kids paying for seats - and an especially busy October at work, it just isn't possible. Trust me, I looked. I even considered going for the 5 day weekend that I will have, but tickets were 900€! Long gone are the days when I could do a round trip for under 400€ including the train from Lille to Paris. Woe is me...

I have been especially agressive with my French half. Last week, he told me that I was rude to the salesgirl in the British store. I explained that in "my" world, I acted completely normal. I said thanks, I said bye...I just didn't sugar coat it the way the French manners dictate. And since she was speaking English to me, I didn't need to think about how I acted.

Since I am now speaking English 80% of the time, as opposed to 100% of the time like I was doing a few years ago, I've gone back to my comfort zone without realizing it. And my comfort zone is American customs and habits. Because I speak so much English, my brain has tricked me into believing that I'm not in France anymore...

No matter how long I live abroad, the feeling of being a foreigner never quite goes away. And although it takes a couple days when I get "home", a very heavy weight seems to float away... I guess, like most expats, I'm destined to live with my butt in between two chairs as the French say (les fesses entre deux chaises).

This year, I've decided to undertake a Halloween experiment. My cousin, who lived in the UK for 20 years, told me that she used to prep her neighbors so her kids could go trick-or-treating. She's go to them beforehand, give them candy and tell them to give it to her kids when they came ringing. I've decided to take it a step further and try to organize trick-or-treating in my whole street. It won't be the same as last year with my best friend and his daughter. And it definitely won't be the same as going out with my sister when we were little. But, it will fill the void. A little...

Storytime : October, November, December

2011-10-06T13:01:00.000+02:00

The fate of storytime is in your hands...
Actually, it's in the hands of the city government. The Wazemmes library has lost 3 staff members since the beginning of storytime last spring. But Marie, my storytime partner, is standing behind it. We met this morning to set dates until the end of the year. And although the library is understaffed, she is firmly standing by storytime and all of the other animations planned by the library.

Storytime is a victim of its own success in many ways. The word is out and it's a little too loud! Marie informed me this morning that a group of ten 6-8 year old will be attending next Wednesday as part of the public day camp's activity. She also handed me an email from another Saturday morning program organized by the city. The email basically says we heard the library has a bilingual program and we'd like to work that into our Saturday morning language initiation program that's part of the city's PEG (plan d'education global ie the city's education plan which includes more access to foreign language education).

So, although I'm flattered to be the library's "bilingual program", I need to think long and hard about how I can 1) accomodate the demands and 2) make this into something real, profitable and with a future. Because, who would I be kidding if I said that I'd much rather play with european money than read to little kids all day long. But I digress...

Storytime dates are as follows :
October 12th and 15th
November 12th and 23rd (in time for Thanksgiving!)
December 10th and 21st

Wednesday is at 3:30pm. Saturday is at 10:30am.

If you need more information, you can contact me through this blog or get in touch with the Mediatheque de Wazemmes at 03 20 12 84 68
From January onwards, storytime will take place Wednesday OR Saturday depending on the popularity of the test dates we've had in the fall.

Bilingual Pudding or Bilingual Max 25 months

2011-10-03T09:41:00.000+02:00

I don't think you can really fathom what bilingual actually means until you are caught in the middle of it. I began French classes at the age of 5 and then had a love-hate relationship with it (including a 3 year hiatus and a 5 year learning anti-curve due to some of the worst teaching imaginable) until I decided to study abroad in France at the age of 20.

I've stressed, I've worried, I've even complained (probably since I like to complain) but in the end, my kids are incredibly bilingual. They are more bilingual than I ever could have imagined them to be, especially since I'm not a stay at home Mom, they are not surrounded by English and they do not go to a bilingual school (the extent of it is me coming in once a year to Suzanne's school and doing an American thingy and Max hearing some English nursery rhymes at nursery school).

I always chalked Suzanne's bilingualism to a knack for language. She has a very musical ear, retains information and can identify different languages from an early age (like hearing Hebrew at a Passover seder - her ears perked up like a little puppy). But Max, given that he's a boy and a second child, well, he was a wild card.

At 5:30 every day, I ring the bell at the nursery school. And at 5:30 every day, I hear a little boy with a Bobby Brady-like voice scream, "ma maman!" (Max has a very LOUD and DEEP voice which makes it instantly recognizable and highly audible). And as the caretaker opens the door, Max always comes runny into my arms, "Mommy! Mommy!". Some days I'm greated with "Hug Mommy!"; sometimes it's "Play Abel. Play cars." And the other day it was, " Fun work today Mommy?" So on Friday, as Max was saying "put shoes on" to anyone who would listen, I asked the caretakers if Max speaks English throughout the day. And they all shook their hears no because he only speaks French. This means that his brain does the switch now without hesitation, which wasn't the case before his intensive English stage (training) with Grandma.

I've also mentioned before that Suzanne is my greatest ally and continues to be so. Proof was yesterday when we were at the beach (yes, we went swimming in the North Sea in October...). We were counting out something or other and Max began counting. "One, two, three...four, five." J and I looked at each other as Max continued all the way to 10. Jerome was bluffé meaning that his chin dropped so far he was almost eating the beach.

And so, to any parents out there reading my blog, struggly with or even considering OPOL, hang tough. I've realized that there are always moments of doubt, impatience and moments when you wonder if it's more effort than it's worth. It is. Trust Suzanne and Max. And most importantly, trust yourself!

Storytime : the cursed

2011-09-26T10:40:00.001+02:00

When I showed up for storytime a couple of weeks ago, I was mad at myself for not washing my hair or putting my "contaclenson" (as Suzanne says) because there was a journalist waiting for us. The Voix du Nord was interested in doing a little article on storytime so had contacted the library that morning. Luckily, Marie was able to get in touch with the main library to get permission.

So, we did storytime with a full house (8 kids including some I don't know!) and a journalist taking pictures. Afterwards, she interviewed me and a couple of the participants (my friends). You can find the article here. (By the way, I did not say what I am quoted as saying...). It's a good thing Suzanne was sitting on my lap in the picture.

In September and October, we are testing the Saturday morning time slot to see if we attract a larger audience. Wednesday is always a tough time in France because it's the day that kids are off of school so they often have activities like dance or circus or music or fencing...

So last Saturday was the first test. Friday, I got an email from the librarian - not the usual one since Marie had already told me should couldn't be there- saying she couldn't read with me and could I do it alone. Once again, I swore up and down because stortytime seemed to be cursed. I was mostly worried that because of the press coverage, there would be more people. And based on the experience of the first storytime which I did alone because my partner had appruptly left the library, I was scared : most of the people who attended the first storytime which was in English only have never come back. So, I reassured the librarian, told her I'd come in early to prepare and we'd do an easy and foolproof version.

In the end, it worked out perfectly. Fatiha, who was Saturday's French reader, did a great job. We chose a simple selection which included : Brown Bear Brown Bear, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Tout le Monde Dit Hello, What Faust Saw (my favorite book of the moment which is unfortunately out of print), and Little Blue Little Yellow (which I read on my own). The crowd, which included 2 newbies and 1 second-timer along with my kids and some friends' kids, was entusiastic. Fatiha even said that it was a good turnout for a Saturday morning.

October dates are Wednesday, 12th and Saturday,15th. Come one, come all!

PS Pictures to come soon.

The red tape of food allergies in French school (or going gluten free at la cantine)

2011-09-16T10:38:00.000+02:00

There are many things I've learned about recently, that I really wish I didn't have to know. One of them is how to deal with family inheritance since my husband's grandmother died over a year ago and we inherited parts of various houses. Now that that's settled, the powers that be have thrown me another French administrative barrier to tackle : my daughter's gluten intolerance.

I haven't mentioned it on my blog, but Max is lactose intolerant which I noticed when he was weaned from breast milk at a year old. But Suzanne has complained about stomach aches since she was able to speak. After various treatments for worm infestations, inconclusive stool samples and lots of gas, the doctor said that it seemed like a gluten intolerance and the only way to check was to cut out gluten, not an easy feat in the land of the baguette. He asked if it was worth it since her discomfort didn't seem to outweigh the hassle of cutting gluten. It wasn't until just before her 5th birthday last May that we took the plunge. One day she came home from school and said to me, "My stomach used to hurt and not hurt and hurt and not hurt (ie cramps). But now it doesn't stop." The next day, I declared war on gluten.

Any vegetarian in France will know that having a "special diet" in France is nearly impossible. Unlike in the US where people are über-sensitive to people's special needs, the French treat it like they do most things : it's not worth it unless you are willing to jump through hoops, speak to endless numbers of rude people on the phone and get an official written consent.

Yes, dear blogosphere, I am currently fighting with French administration so my daughter can bring a rice cake to school for snack. Ridiculous? Yes it is...

It's called a P.A.I. - Plan d'accueil individualisé (here's the official text). In fact, we are going through the same administrative process a physically handicapped child would go through in order to attend a public school. From what I've understood, the only way we can get an ok for Suzanne to eat special food at school once in a while (since she's intolerant and not allergic) is if there is someone available at school who can prepare the food I've provided in a tupperware and make sure that she actually gets it. I guess they haven't heard of all the millions on kids in the US who go to school with their lunch boxes every day and have no problem feeding themselves.

Granted, there is something reassuring about the fact that someone will make sure my daughter will get her gluten free food on the days the school is serving pasta and not rice. But why all the red tape? Why can't a note from the doctor suffice?
Last week, I called the mairie who told me to speak to the school director who told me to call the centre medico-scolaire which is a special place with a doctor who is specificially there for the school. I tried to call yesterday ALL day long and the phone rang. and rang. and rang. and rang. I was understandably frustrated that anyone calling this place is so unimportant that there is no voice mail and no receptionist. At one point, I let the phone ring for 5 minutes until someone finally picked it up and hung up on me!

When I finally got someone on the phone, I kind of wished I hadn't because she was so damn rude. She told me to call back, but then relunctantly took my phone number. Then called me back 30 minutes later and left the following message : I can give you an appointment on the 28th at 10am. Then 3 minutes later : I need Suzanne's birthday. Rappelez moi. No hello. No name. No politesse at all. Rien. Just two rude messages. When I called back, the unnamed woman (was she the doctor? I hope not...or just the receptionist) repeated the same date. When I told her it was difficult since I worked she said, "Madame, c'est vous qui demandez un PAI." Um, yeah, I know...but how about some flexibility or even a little bit of humanity? So I asked if I needed to bring any papers. She said that I needed all of the pieces of her dossier. I said I didn't have any because there were no tests run, just the fact of taking gluten out of her diet. Her reply? "Il vous faut toutes les pieces de son dossier". Of course I repeated that she didn't have a dossier. But, in stereotypical French fashion, there was no way to cut the red tape : if you need a dossier, you need a dossier. Usually in these circumstances, I say something like, "I'm foreign. I'm having trouble understanding. Can you speak more slowly?" which usually knocks them down a notch. But I was so frustrated but this bitch-on-wheels that I just hung up on the verge of tears mumbling bitch under my breath.

When I got off the phone and recounted the story to a co-worker, she offered to call and ball out the woman. It was tempting but no. When I told my husband he said that people like that need to be denounced...which I plan to do when I see the doctor.

Next step, we are meeting the doctor in two weeks. To be continued...

Here are a couple useful links about gluten intolerance in France and PAI. For food allergies, social security actually partially reimburses part of the special food.
PAI
Getting gluten free food reimbursed
Assosciation Française des Intolerants au Gluten

Max speaks...a lot!

2011-09-15T11:08:00.001+02:00

What a difference 3 weeks makes ! At the beginning ofthe summer, I was so disheartened when I came back after a 2 day business tripand found my little boy speaking to me in French. Only French. Not even asmiggin of English. I was picking my brain, banging my head against the walltrying to figure out where OPOL had gone wrong. Was I less consistent with himthen with Suzanne? No. Was I less strict? No. So what happened? As it turnsout, nothing went wrong because Max is bilingual!

In June and July, Max was on a hitting and biting spree. Mymother was here watching the kids for the better half of August. And just likethat he stopped physically harming his entourage. It is definitely nocoincidence that his English came out and his hitting stopped. Yes, boys tendto hit more (warning : major stereotype!) but they also say that kids hit whenthey don’t have the means to express themselves otherwise. Max, although veryable to make himself understood, was having some sort of communicationbreakdown which was cleared up by solidifying his English…and thus his overalllanguage skills.

It reminded me of when Suzanne started school. I was soworried that French schooling would improve her French to the detriment of herEnglish. But, what actually happened was that as her French improved, shelooked for ways to make more complex sentences in English. This is exactly whatseems to have happened to Max, but in reverse order since Suzanne’s English wasstronger than her French before school whereas Max’s French seems to be thestronger language.

On top of that, it seems that Max, like his sister has a musical ear, which no doubts helps with the dual language acquisition. From a very young age, Suzanne has been able to sing songs completely on key after only hearing them once. The other day, Max said "music crying" when he heard a violin in re minor. We thought that was pretty cool...

Needless to say, I'm proud of both my kids. But, sometimes, I'd like to stop speaking for just a couple minutes...

Storytime September

2011-09-05T07:09:00.003+02:00

Storytime is back, although the head librarian who has been so supportive has left the local library. Hopefully the staff will continue to be so supportive of the monthly bilingual free readings!

DAtes for September are Wednesday, September 7th at 3:30 and Saturday, September 24th at 10:30. We're testing the Saturday to see if we get more people.

if you have questions, leave me a message or contact the Médiathèque de Wazemmes.

It's bilingual, it's free and it's fun!

Réalville : Tree house fun

2011-08-25T14:19:00.007+02:00

This summer will go down in history as the summer that saw no summer. We spent an incredibly rainy week in the Tarn et Garonne at my in-law's summer house. Since we couldn't really go in the pool, we were lucky there were donkeys and cows around the house and plenty of puddles to jump in. And there was a surprise for my treehouse loving husband.

J is an architect and has become increasingly interested in treehouses and cabins. He built one out of cardboard that's been in our house for almost 5 years and is the best toy any kid can have: it's cheap, easy to repair and packs flat (ok, that's for the parents). He should copyright the plans. But I degress...

So to celebrate our anniversary this summer, I booked us into a treehouse for a night. (At first, I was trying to find a family treehouse for a week or so, like Swiss Family Robinson style but everything was booked).

What I found, by going through the Bienvenue à la Ferme site - my favorite site for all things farm and fun- was an amazing treehouse in a 200 year old oak tree on a truffle far, surrounded by rolling green hills and vineyards. The farmer, George Delcasse, is warm and welcoming. The treehouse - cabane perchée - is amazing : it has a kitchen, a shower, a pull out sofa, a terrasse equipped with plancha to cook your dinner, an outhouse at the base of the tree. He lends you a tandem bike and provides tons of information about things to do. Unfortunately, it poured rained and was windy the night we stayed in the treehouse - which swayed back and forth which I guess added to the effect of sleeping in a tree - but we able to drink apero and eat our breakfast out on the deck, which makes you feel like you are on top of the world.

To get to the tree house, you have to climb up a set of stairs, duck under a large branch, climb more stores and then lift the trap door. Once you're inside, with the trap door closed, you feel like you're cut off from the world and that you're sitting on top of it.

I highly recommend it if you're ever in Réalville in the Tarn et Garonne.

Full sentence...

2011-08-22T10:50:00.003+02:00

And just like that, Max is speaking in full English sentences. Oh wait, if we go back a couple months and look at previous posts, it wasn't always so easy.

At the beginning of the summer, Max was speaking to me in French, remember? My parents arrived at the beginning on August and the kids have been living in near exclusively English since then. My mother noted that Suzanne is using contractions. This is big progress since, although Suzanne's English is as good as any native 5 year old's, it was still very formal. My daughter now says don't and won't.

When my parents arrived 2 weeks ago, they could understand him. He was beginning to put 2 words together like: big truck or cold water. But somewhere between last week and yesterday, Max began making sentences. Just this morning his said, "cup multifruit juice please mommy dear" followed up "want more sugar in it" and "gimme more cold water". So, I think I can start to relax. My son't English will be fine...

Max will be starting school next September and Suzanne will be going into First Grade where she'll learn to read and write in French. So, next summer, I'm hoping to spend a solid chunck on time in the US so we can reinforce English skills for both kids before they dive deeper into the French school system.

I've mentioned in the past my distaste for French education. A few months ago, my husband made a comment that I like to keep in the forefront of my tortured brain: we both went through seperate systems yet ended up at the same place. While I was in Paris last week, I was talking to an American married to a Frenchman who lives in DC. She is getting certified in Montessori. We were talking about our mutual aversion towards French eduction system with its public shaming and habit of breaking you down to build you back up. And we concluded that you can go to a Montessori school in the US and still feel inept. Or you can go to a French school in France and come out feeling good. Because it has a lot to do with what you have in your home life.

So, there's still hope....

The 15 year bitch

2011-08-16T15:10:00.004+02:00

A couple days ago, someone asked me how long I'd been living in France. I couldn't remember. Has it been 15 years? 16 years? 14 years? I couldn't remember at first, but I also couldn't figure out when I really started living here. Was it during my junior semester abroad or was it when I came here after graduating from college or was it when I moved to Lille? The best I could do was "most of the past 15 years".

And, those 15 years along with my dual citizenship, give me the right to criticize and make the overarching stereotypical statements about French people that are about to follow...

Maybe I'm just having an anti-French moment, but I have been seething with annoyance for the past couple weeks.

First on the list of french annoyances is "c'est pas possible". Why is it that anything outside the norm is not possible? why is it impossible to have mustard instead of mayonnaise on my sandwich? why would the idiot in Giverny not sell me just the hotdog without the bread since I was going to throw the bread out anyway even after I explained it was for my daughter who was on a gluten free diet? Part of it is annoyance at having to adapt to the customer, but some of it is thinking in the customer's place. The sausage girl told me she couldn't sell me the sausage sans bread. why why why I asked. She said, "c'est pour vous...ça fait cher pour une saucisse." Well, if I'm willing to pay for it, then it's my problem...

Second on the list is self-righteousness and lack of respect for others. Standing under a nosmoking sign smoking. Letting your dog poop right under a clean up after your dog sign. Parking in front of someone's garage. Peeing on someone's garage door. All of these examples come from the Frenchman/woman's belief that their personal rights come before the general well being of others. It pisses me off to no end. Lack of respect of rules and lack of respect of other's makes me want to punch people.

Third is snobbiness about the French language. My parents, the kids and I were staying at my favorite hotel in Paris. We decided to eat at the lovely restaurant out in the courtyard garden. We were given English menus which meant less work for me. But when the waitress came over, I ordered une carafe de minervois. she looked at me like I was speaking jibberish. Pardon? she said. So I repeated and she spoke in near perfect English. so I thought, hey, she's not French. But then I heard her speaking French to someone else. so when she came back, I ordered my meal in French figuring maybe she just didn't expect me to speak in French. Once again, she couldn't understand me and gave me a look like I was green and speaking jibberish. The fact was, she just didn't want me to speak french at all. She made it very clear. I felt like slapping her and saying listen girly, my French is damn good, better than your English so don't give me that shit. But I didn't...I just shot bullets out of my eyes.

And lastly, dog crap. What more can I say?

I hope that one day I will always have enough American in me to respect others, to clean up after myself and to clean up after myself and to always respect difference.

Max and the maximonsters

2011-08-11T09:28:00.003+02:00

In French, Where the Wildthings Are is translated as Max et les Maximonstres. It definitely loses something in the translation if you ask me. But no one asked and I'm a really bad translator anyway.

My little monster is 2 years old today. He was born at 5:52 in the morning. I felt like I was giving birth to an alien (Sigourney Weaver like), but I will spare you the gory details. But I will never forget the midwife's first words upon seeing him, "wow! la taille de ses mains...et les pieds!" (wow! The size of his hands...And his feet).

I always wanted a little boy named Max. And in fact, we almost had a Nathan or a Samuel instead of a Max. But I could imagine Max being anything except Max. And I couldn't imagine Max being anything but a curious, talktative and sometimes loud and devilish little beast of a boy.

Max is going through the terrible twos. And we get the feeling he's making up for his sister's angelic two stage so it's doubly terrible two's at the moment. He's a biter and a hitter. He's a screamer and the kind of tantrums. He's an acrobat, a bull in a china shop and as stubborn as a mule. He especially doesn't like when his food is cut (pas broken!) or change like when we try to put new shoes on him.

But he's also sweet, like to cuddle, likes to sing, like to laugh and play jokes on people and he's a smart little thing.

Max understands everything, in French and English. And he also picks up on non-verbal cues. He observes and watches people and remembers everything (just like his sister does).

So to my little man, whom I love for better and for worse, Happy 2nd Birthday!

French and moi

2011-08-08T09:49:00.006+02:00

Home again, home again. Jiggety jig.

I don't actually know the rest of the nursery rhyme but that one line is all that matters, right?

We came back to rainy Lille after a week in rainy Tarn et Garonne and a week in rainy Auvergne. I will write seperate enteries on some of the things we visited because I think it's important to get the word out on the blogosphere when you see something completely awesome and cool. So there are a couple places we visited that definitely deserve their own post.

During our almost 3 weeks away, I spoke more French than I have in months. A few months ago, when I had to give a presentation in French, I noticed that my French was slipping. Although I'm still very much fluent (I don't call myself bilingual but I guess I am), it's not as smooth as it once was. While away, we spent a week with my in-laws, a week by ourselves but chatting to the neighbors, etc and then 3 days with French friends in Paris. And although I always speak English to my family, I had to speak more French than I usually do. During our last dinner in Paris, I was completely out of it, unable to follow the conversation and detached. J kept bringing me back into the conversation, but it was hard. I found it nearly impossible to follow the conversation and even hard to hear the actual words!

I never imagined that I'd live in a foreign country and not speak the language, but that's just what's happening. I could very easily go through an entire day without speaking French (with the exception of a couple senteces here and there). It's a fact that makes me a bit sad because I worked so hard to reach a high level of French (I started French when I was 5 years old). But in the same way that I no longer understand my senior thesis from college on whether a woman can become a Buddha*, today I would also be incapable of writing a thesis in French (which I once did). Language is like any other skill - if you don't use it, you lose it. So, my post vacation resolution is to read more in French. I haven't read a book in French in years, no really it's been a number of years!

With my family visiting for the next couple weeks, there will be an increase of English in the house which is great! But being with my family makes me realize how many Frenchisms I've adopted into my every day language, which is normal since I live in France. But, I trust my mother will be able to work out my English as well as the kids'.

The American in me is so strong these days, that I was picked up by M6 for a report on PAris Plage. Actually, the reporter asked me to speak in English so she could have her report on foreigners at Paris Plage. I just thought it would be cool to get my kids on TV (aka Max tv if you are a self-obsessed almost two year old).

* for the curious, a woman can become a Buddha but first she needs to transform into a man.

see you in a couple weeks

2011-07-12T16:59:00.002+02:00

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Les vacances

2011-07-11T13:54:00.003+02:00

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.

Max: Leaps and bounds (leaping and bounding)

2011-07-05T12:45:00.003+02:00

If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have told you to talk to the hand. I was feeling rather down about Max and his speaking skills. In the past month, I've been away for work for 2 days at 2 different times. When I got back from the my first trip, it was like Max had forgotten how to speak English. So I told myself to chill, relax and all the other things I don't know how to do.

But then, over the past two weeks, Max has made a huge jump, both figuratively and literally since he now realy knows how to jump. Suddenly, there was a click in both physical and verbal skills.

So when I got back from my second business trip, I was pleased to see that he remembered how to speak English. When I picked him up from the crèche last Friday, the director said ,"Max commence à très bien parler. On comprend tous ce qu'il dit." (Max is starting to speak well. We understand everything he says). She asked if it was the same in English to which I replied no, but it's coming a long. Some examples of Max's progress are:

he said "P come" when I picked him and the neighbor's kids up the other day
he says to us "come see" when he wants us
he is beginning to use verbs in the present progressive form like reading, crying, eating, sleeping, etc. He especially likes to tell me when someone is crying espeically, "Suzanne crying".
he is stringing nouns and verbs together, often in franglais but who cares
he has begin some real code switching like saying "de l'eau" to his father and "water" to me.
He has begun creating words like waleau, dada (to sit on a lap), shoeshoe (which is a mix of shoe and chaussure).
he self corrects when he speaks to me in French, upon being prompted.
he repeats instructions such as "careful of the pit" when eating a cherries
he is beginning to recognize colors, which the crèche tells me is usually not until about 3 years old. We started on colors early because of the high risk of Max being colorblind.

Much of this is thanks to Suzanne. When it's the three of us, I hear her speaking to him in English. I can also hear Max mimicking his big sister when he says things like "puhleeeezeeee" when he really wants something.

And since Max is finally, albeit obsessively, into books, they are my second best English ally at the moment (the first being Suzanne). He is obsessively reading Baby Bear, Baby Bear What do you See by Eric Carle. And although it is quite redundant after you've read it a dozen times in a single day, it is helping Max pick out words and colors. Luckily he is also willing to allow Polar Bear Polar Bear and Brown Bear Brown Bear into the rotation. It's interesting how obsessive he is about his things and how decided he is about what he wants. He is obsessed with the "Happy" episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, which to our dismay, is his favorite show (for anyone who doesn't know Yo Gabba Gabba, it's kind of like Sesame Street on LSD).

Max is also an extremely decisive little person. He never flipflops or takes time to make up his mind. If you ask what he wants to drink, he answers instantly and then repeats it until he has it in his hand. This leads to a lot of tantrums since you can't always get what you want, in the immortal words of the YoGabblerz and the Rolling Stones before them.

But, I stick by my theory whole heartedly that OPOL is the way to go.

Here is a video of Max reading Baby bear to himself. You can hear him saying, "Mommy bear Mommy bear what do you see?", "Mountain goat what do you see?" and "digging" when he looks at the praire dog. At the very end, when he hears the sound of skype, he says "Melie" my sister in California:

Storytime June : Woohoo!

2011-06-24T16:38:00.004+02:00

In a single word: AWESOME.

June's storytime was great. There was an enthusiatic crowd, including lots of new faces (all of whom I knew at least indirectly). But still, the room at the back of the library was packed.
Marie and I had prepared ahead but we were out of synch for a couple of books because the translations aren't always exact or because we tried to vary our style too much, sometime reading every other page, sometimes reading every other line. But, everyone seemed to love it. The energy in the room was great!

We read We're Going on a Bear Hunt which was, surprisingly, a huge hit. The kids (and adults) liked hearing the difference between the French and English onomatopoeia. We read Little Blue, Little Yellow which I did for the first storytime in English only; it works extremely well in bilingual format. Polar Bear, Polar Bear didn't work as well as we'd expected because the translation takes artistic liberty on the last page and even adds in a line! I guess it's all in the name of rythm, but still...We also read a bilingual book that I can't remember. And then I finished with Every Peach, Pear, Plum which the kids loved. They all gathered around me and pointed to things, completely random and unrelated thing for the French kids, as I read.

When we finished, Marie said to me "il va falloir trouver un nouveau lieu pour storytime." Not yet a victim of its own success, but it's coming.

After we left the library, we invaded the local park. It was like an anglo invasion of Wazemmes with all that English chatter going on.

Stay tuned for September dates. We'll be testing Saturday too!

Here's a picture of part of the group post-storytime but pre-park (mine are the girl in grey showing her claws and covering her face with her hair and the little one in the turquoise stroller). For anyone who remembers the boy, he's the blondie in front. His sister is teh blondie girl next to Max and she's my God-daughter.

Max 22 months and hitting

2011-06-20T10:40:00.010+02:00

I realize I'm not staying on top of the Max bilingual updates like I did with Suzanne. This is a really important part of the blog for me because I know that it helps inspire and reassure other parents raising their children bilingually.

I've said a lot recently that Max isn't speaking as much in english as Suzanne did at the same age. But it occurred to me over the weekend that Max isn't speaking as much PERIOD. Max hits and bites which are both signs of his frustration at not being able to express himself. Suzanne never did either of those because she was able to communicate in both languages at 22 months (and because she's not a boy).

At 22 months, Max understands everything in French and English. Words flow more naturally out of his cute little in French. I've mentioned before that he's in a nursery school where he hears 5 adults speaking all day long whereas Suzanne was at a nanny's with only 2 other kids and the nanny so most of her conversation came from me and our Wednesday anglo-escapades.

Max uses English freely when it concerns food. He also says thinks like reading and lie down, good night and I love you which are all me things since I am around more often than my husband in the night time rituals.

That said, Max has put together a couple of words. This morning I got very excited when he said "can't see" as he hid one book under another. I then realized he was saying "cacher" (to hide).

I was away for two days last week and when I got back on Friday, Max was 100% French. But I let it wash over me and by Sunday afternoon, he was back to speaking English : a 70/30 split which is better than nothing.

Here is a video of the kids over the weekend. It's a good example of how we function and I hope that other parents out there will find some sort of solace in the frustration/resiliance of raising bilingual kids in my home :

Storytime: June edition

2011-06-13T17:17:00.003+02:00

Thanks to clairmaria for reminding me to remind you...

The June edition of stoytime will take place on June 22nd at 3:30 pm at the Wazemmes library. Marie (the librarian) and I have already prepared our set list which includes colors, animal sounds and songs!

And moegood news! Storytime already has dates in September and October. We'll be testing Wednesday and a new Saturday session to see what works best.

Be there or be square!

My bilingual kids: doting mother.

2011-06-09T10:34:00.005+02:00

Sarah at Bringing Up Baby Bilingual has just posted an profile of my bilingual kids. If you don't know her wonderful blog, you definitely need to spend some time there. She has a wealth of resources for bilingual families, links and experiences, as well as profiles of bilinguals all over the world. And she was the inspiration for my bilingual storytime! She did a profile on Suzanne about 4 years ago. Here is the link to the updated profile of Max and Suzanne.

Many thanks to Sarah! This really helped me put my kids' bilingualism in perspective. And I'm feeling much more secure about Max's bilingual development (even though he said "au revoir Mommy" this morning as I left the house).

Happy reading!

the birds and the abeilles

2011-06-07T13:35:00.007+02:00

I've let it go by for a couple weeks because I didn't really have much to say. And I probably still don't have much to say. But being a Franco-American, caught between two worlds, I feel it's my duty to say something about sex maniacs, the American judicial system and life in general.

There was an interesting article in the NYT a week or so ago about French people in NY who were forced to take a good look at their identity because of the DSK sex scandal thingy. And to me, it's all kind of funny (not funny haha but interesting) because I was in France during Monicagate when the entire French population was questioning American moral values which were judged to be too high, too puritan and too harsh on a man...who had needs! And now, the shoe is on the other foot.

Granted, if DSK really did do what he is accused of doing and if it really was not part of some big conspiracy started by Sarko's gang, then it's serious. But what's also very serious is that DSK's animal needs were a well known secret. But, in France, what goes on in the bedroom goes on in the bedroom.

During Monicagate, people would engage me in conversation about Clinton, American morals, etc. And the conclusion was always, "but is he doing a bad job? did he break any rules? is this going to affect his job?" The answers were all "no". Until now, whatever French politicians have done whether they have second families (see Mitterand) or are just sex-crazed (see DSK), it hasn't been a problem because it's their private life (note that when Mitterand's second family was revealed, people were pretty peeved not about his betrayal or illegitimate daughter but about the money they were receiving).

But there is a big difference between how women are treated in France and the US. In the US, everyone is equal. In France, women and men are different. There is both a positive and negative side to this. In France, women can be women without having to hide their feminity (I'm not exactly the archetype of feminitity myself). In the US, women have to be as strong as men. And, to be honest, it can be exhausting. Sometimes, not always, I find it refreshing to just let the differences between the two sexes be just that. And sometimes, like when I get whistled or honked at (usually when I'm running), I just flip people the bird.

Many French people I've spoken to recently were shocked about how DSK was being "treated". the one exception was Doctor R, the kissy doctor, who was really open minded about it all and we had a really interesting conversation about it all during my last visit. Unlike what would have happened in France, DSK is not getting preferential treatment; he's being treated like any other person who may have committed a sex crime. But in France, everything is done in secret. There are generally no juries and judges are civil servants and not elected officials. And there are definitely no photos of such a high profile person in handcuffs! But as my wise husband said, this is happening in the most democratic country in the world so if he is proven guilty, then he gets what he deserves.

So back to question of who cares where DSK or Clinton or Congressman Weiner dips his wick? In France, people care but don't talk about it. In the US, people talk about it but don't care.

The Max project

2011-05-30T09:21:00.003+02:00

Since my last post about Max's progress, I did some thinking. And thinking brought me to acting. I realize that I am hard on myself and I try not to be so hard on my kids...But I also realize that I have been a bit lacks with Max, especially in comparison to Suzanne at the same age.

So, over the past two weeks I've been testing Max : when he speaks to me in French, I tell him that that's what Papa says and what does Mommy say. He continues to say please or more or thank you, which are all very nice of him. But, I continue to insist. And he doesn't get what he wants until he speaks English. And you know what, it's working! After two weeks, he is now saying more instead of encore and more instead of un autre (we're still working on another). I have also been reading him more picture books, something I haven't done much up to now because of his short attention span. We've been reading about half of Maisy's Amazing Book of Words every night.

The first night, I couldn't believe how many words he knew in French: escargot, parapluie and serpent. But I'm equally impressed that he knows the words in English, upon prodding.

Suzanne turned 5 last Friday and I found this video of her at Max's age. I have put it in perspective and now realize that Suzanne has a very musical ear which I think has strenghtened her language skills. So happy 5th birthday to my little girl!

French participation theory (or lack there of)

2011-05-24T12:04:00.004+02:00

The past week has been a difficult one for this Franco-American expat mommy. And I've been asking myself : is lack of participation cultural?

Storytime last week was truly awesome. Really. The format worked perfectly, the books were well chosen, and we had a good audience. Although I was happy that my American friend J brought some of her friends, and I was equally happy to have my almost cousins there with their 3 bilingual kids for the first time in addition to my faithful English speaking friends, I have to admit that I was really disappointed....why so disappointed when everything went so well? Because there was no one from outside my entourage. "Storytime" was published in the Lille library agenda for the entire city; I sent an email to Suzanne's entire school; the local library has an entire storytime corner packed with English and bilingual books; I talked to people in the park. So where's the audience? I just don't understand how no one from my diverse, multi-cultural, gentrified, bobo* neighborhood wouldn't want to come to a FREE english activity! It just escapes me...My almost cousin told me that it probably just needs time to pick up. In the meantime, I plan on continuing and am already planning next month's reading.

This got me thinking about the school system here and how there is no interaction with the teachers. At university here, the classes are called cours magistral (you see the word magi ie king in there?). And that's exactly what they are. The teacher comes to class, talks, and leaves. There are no questions from students; there are no questions from the teacher; There is no interaction. (PERIOD).

This type of behavior carries into the professional sphere. Yesterday, I was part of a team of people who gave a presentation (admittedly extremely boring) to a French audience. In my profession, it is rare to have a mono-lingual audience; I am used to not only giving presentations in English, but also giving them to a multi-lingual audience. Yesterday, despite saying before, after and during, that they could stop us to ask questions, no one did. Compared to the 2 day marathon seminar I led 2 months ago, this was a shock. Two months ago, there were questions for me, for other participants, interaction...but yesterday, you wondered if the people's brains were even functioning.

To me, all three situations - storytime, the university and presentations - go back to the same thing. And I know this is going to be a huge steroetype, but from what I've seen, many French people are so held back by norms and strict lines of hierarchy, that they don't dare speak up for fear of being different.

So is lack of participation cultural?

* bobo = bohemian bourgeous = kind of like a grungy, crunchy person with money.

Open letter to the wine salesman.

2011-05-17T10:12:00.003+02:00

"C'est marrant. Vous lui parlez en américain et il vous réponde en français. C'est comme moi avec mes clients anglais". This was at the wine store...

Yes, I'm glad my bilingual charades are amusing to you Mr. Nicolas*, but I find it really frustrating. I know I should not be angry at you, it's not your fault! You are not grappling with two cultures, two languages and a very stubborn 21 month old.

It may seem like I take this all too seriously, and I probably do because that's how I am, but I can't fathom the idea of either of my children speaking to me in French. It's fine if they speak franglais (or frenglish) but the mere thought of them speaking a full sentence to me in French makes my heart sink. Language is more than just words; it's intrinsically connected to your heart and anchored at the center of who you are.

Words can't describe how happy I am when Max says 'Isee" or "Iwant" or "Idon'tknow" or how my heart sinks when I ask him what this or that is and he replies "poisson" or "escargot" or "qu'est-cequec'est". I feel mixed emotions everytime I'm with Max. I'm proud of all the progress he's made and all the things he can say in both languages, but sad that he's not preferring English like his sister did.

I am constantly reminding myself that Max and Suzanne are different kids. They have different benchmarks which are keys to their language development. Suzanne spent 3 years surrounded by a single adult and 2 children all day long; Max spends all day surrounded by 2 dozen kids and 5 adults. It's logical that he's speaking more French because he hears more conversation at any given time. Whereas Suzanne, heard only a single adult voice during the day and spent the rest of her waking hours hearing English (since I am more verbal than her father) so of course her first language was English.

And then I wonder what I could be doing differently or what I did differently with Suzanne to reinforce her English. And it brings me back to one of the hardest things I've done so far as a parent: ignoring my toddler as she tried to speak to me. She insisted on speaking French, so I ignored her until she spoke the word in English. I've tried the technique with Max from time to time - but not consistently - and it's hit or miss. And I wonder if I should be stronger about it and pretend not to understand French the way I did with Suzanne. When I say to Max, "what does Mommy say?" when he speaks to me in French, he raises his hand to his chest and rubs it in a circle to do the sign and says "please". I can't help but melt...

But it doesnt work. Because unlike with Suzanne, Max hears me speaking French fairly often. When I pick her up at the neighbor's after school, I stay for tea and chatter in French to my friend and speak English to Max. That's the one constant - I still refuse to speak directly to my children in anything other than English.

Kids aren't stupid. And I'm too hard on myself. And I don't want language to be an issue with them. But it's an issue with me....

So, sorry Mr. Nicolas. Sorry for not smiling because you think my bilingual children are cute. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of frustration. And I hope, one day, it will pay off.

* Nicolas is the name of the chain of wine stores in France.

Storytime : May edition

2011-05-16T09:11:00.002+02:00

Storytime will take place this Wednesdayn May 18th at 3:30 PM at the Bibliothèque de Wazemmes. We even made it into the Lille library brochure so hopefully there will be a nice crowd.

I met with my new French counterpart on Saturday and she's really motivated. We chose our books and went over our approach. We'll be reading The Thing by Stéphane Servant (a very clever French book translated into English), A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carl and The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog by Mo Willems. All books will be read bilingually (we testing formats).

Hope to see you there!

CAF or another positive French administrative experience

2011-05-11T14:37:00.002+02:00

Yes, it is possible.

After fussing and worrying about finances over the past couple months (long story), I was talking to some friends who told me that the CAF owed me money since I work part time. Did you fill in the paperwork they asked. Do you get your allocation they asked. I thought I had, but after some very thorough research done by a good german friend who lives in Paris, I realized that indeed I was missing out...and the CAF owed me back pay for benefits I should have been getting since February 2010 when I returned to work after Max was born.

So manned with my best French , copies of all the documents I'd sent, dates, amounts, and my personal access code (since it's all automated by phone) and a hell of a lot of patience, I called the CAF. After going through the spiral of their phone system, I finally got a real person.

Four minutes. That's all it took. I told the CAF lady that I haven't been getting my allocation. I told her I submitted everything by hand and they owed me money (the only way to get things done in Frence administration is to assume you are right, even if you know you're not). She didn't even have time to put me on hold. she pulled up my file, said she had scans of the documents I'd submitted and yes they owed me 16 months worth of back pay. The reason, "le technicien a du zapper" (it must have slipped the clerk's mind). Oops.

That makes three positive French administrative experiences in only 3 months. The winds of change are in the air....

For other working moms, if you want to know your rights, have a look at this link: complément de libre choix d'activité. It gives you information on what types of allocation you will get

Noise level: nature or nurture?

2011-05-04T14:11:00.000+02:00

I like my doctor, despite the fact that he gives me bises when I arrive for an appointment. He's non-alarmist, he listens to me, trusts my maternal gut when something's not right with my kids, tries to understand where I'm coming from and is great with the kids. He's also really supportive of the way we raise our kids and their bilingualism.

That's why when he made his comment, I didn't think much of it. It was a normal check up with both kids present and they were both chattering away, back in forth between French (with him) and English (with me). I said to the doctor that I was both surprised and relieved that Max was so chatty because I'd read, heard and seen that boys speak later and not as much as girls. Not to mention the whole bilingual thing.

So Dr. R - who has a certain amount of experience in psychology - told me about the elevator theory. That if you ride an elevator up 20 floors with a French person, you won't know anything about them. But if you ride an elevator up 20 floors with an American, you'll know what they do, what their name is, where their from...I corrected him of course because you probably wouldn't know the American's name. Dr. R said that maybe the kids speak more because they are more American than French.

When we left, I thought, "hm interesting." Jerome has already brought up a similar point ie I speak more than him so the kids are loud and talkative like me and not soft spoken and taciturn like their Papa.

But that doesn't explain the quiet American kids or the loud and annoying French kids.

Yes, I am loud. Yes, my kids are loud. Yes, we are very loud together...much louder than the French part of the family. But I wonder if my doctor's comment was offensive or insightful. Because Dr. R is not like THAT.

So is it nature or is it nurture?

April Storytime: a blessing

2011-04-28T13:20:00.005+02:00

I was wondering if my storytime was maudit (or cursed) because 2 days before storytime, the head librarian called me to tell me that Emilie - the librarian who I was supposed to do storytime with - had changed services and she wasn't sure who would be my french speaking counterpart. Since I couldn't come meet with the librarians beforehand, I gave her the idiot's guide to storytime.

When my brood and I arrived for storytime, there were already some familiar faces waiting for us. In fact, all of the faces were familiar since they were all part of my following ie people who I know or who I've personally invited. I was really glad to see Rachael and her two boys (she's a faithful reader). Just as we were about to begin storytime, a woman and her young son walked in. I didn't know them. Yay! I'll take that as a sign of success. In fact, storytime was published in the official Lille library agenda which means that anyone who cared to pick it up at any one of the branch libraries in Lille would have seen storytime on the dochet. Once again, there was a librarian from another branch present as an observer.

Marie - my new counterpart - and I took about 45 seconds to go through the plan and then started. We begin with the welcome song, followed by two bilingual books where she read the FRench and I read the English : Ma Cousine Dit Hello and a bilingual tale from a kid's magazine called Tralalire. We then read Bark George (Aboies George) by Jules Feiffer and I Like Books (J'aime les Livres) by Anthony Brown. A round of Head and Shoulders was thrown in there as well.

The kids seemed happy! The bilingual format worked well. I read a page in English followed by Marie who read the same page in French. It worked well because the books were short. But if we'd chosen longer books, I would have opted for an alternating style where I read one page and then she read the next page in French.

Even Suzanne best friend (the one who wanted me to read in French last time) was interested. I realized that the reason the library hasn't been pushy about it is because they are very excited about storytime but don't want to ask too much of me. Au contraire, ask ask! So, instead of storytime being cursed, I think it's blessed.

The next storytime is scheduled for May 18th at 3:30 PM. There is also a date in June. More dates to come...

And we have code switching!

2011-04-19T18:37:00.002+02:00

When I got home this evening, I found my family in the kitchen. Everyone had a glass (or cup) in their hand. Suz informed me that they'd started aperitif without me, since I was late getting home and we go on vacation tomorrow. So I poured myself a glass of ginger ale (known to French people as Cah-nah-da Dr-eye). As I filled my glass, Max said "sparkly". So I turned to my husband and asked if he'd had some. He said yes, "et il a dit que ça pique". Is it so surprising that Max should speak English to his mother and French to his father? No. Is it exciting? Extremely!

Go Max!

Bilingual Max at 20 months

2011-04-12T09:29:00.005+02:00

Once again, I have They Might be Giants to thank for my child's introduction to numbers and letters. Max, an avid fan of the very appropriately chosen song "E Eats Everything", has been pointing to letters and numbers saying "E" in his little man voice which sounds very much like Bobby Brady in the episode where his voice changes.

Max still hasn't made a complete English sentence yet so I can let my guard down just yet. But, he is making a lot of progress speaking in both English...and French. It's all normal, I keep reminding myself.

Just yesterday, he pointed to the sky and said blue (more like bleu), said "airplane sky" and then pointed to the beater I'd used to make whip cream and said , "Mommy whisk!" He is also able to name more animals and vehicules. He is favoring French for many things but for others, he seems to have understood that there are 2 words.

Last week as I was getting him ready for bed, I turned on the tub and he said "hot....chaud...hot...chaud". Unlike Suzanne, he's not making franglais words but seems to choose one language or the other. He says "milk" but prefers "eau" (Suzanne made up waleau). He says "pain" but prefers "apple" (where Suzanne said bapomme). He will only say "oui" and "pas" but will also only say "read", "car" and "truck" so I think it's a good sign that his English is strong. My theory is that Suzanne was less socialized than Max, being at the nanny's with limited contact to other adults and children and therefore chose English because she heard it more at home. Max, on the other hand, is extremely socialized at the crèche with 20 kids and 5 care givers at any given time. That aside, his English is still progressing well because at home he hears a lot of English because Suzanne and I have constant chatter going on.

There is a lot of mimicking going on which is great. Just this morning, I caught him counting to three just like his sister. His comprehension is great in both languages, which is to be expected. And, besides being incredibly loud and extremely bullheaded, I think I like him...Everything my dear friend E told me about boys is true: they grunt, they climb on everything and they are very very loud. The loud part is a discussion for another post ie loud American genes...

For an idea of what Suzanne was saying at the same age, there is this post from Jan 2008 and this one from Feb 2008.

I'm not really sure how we've done it, but it seems we have made 2 loquacious, language sensitive, intelligent Franco-American beings. Actually, I do know how we did it and I can't attribute it all to good gene pool. I have to pat myself - and my husband - on the back for sticking with it. I honestly think that being rigid and strict with the language system (OPOL) has been the key...Go us!

Storytime : April edition

2011-04-07T11:40:00.002+02:00

The April edition of the bilingual storytime is next week, Wednesday April 13th at 3:30PM. It's at the Médiathèque de Wazemmes, next to the Mairie du Quartier. I think the library is actually asking people to sign up, but you can also just let me know if you plan on coming.

See you there!

Mean people are international.

2011-04-05T15:32:00.004+02:00

I'd like to thanks you for the comments you mad eon my last post. Although I am not feeling much better, it did help to have both professional and parental (which are also professional, right?) opinions. I dug out an article from Multilingual living which I've been storing in the back of my brain for a while. It put me back on track a little. Multilingual Living: Don't Take Your Childrens Mulitlingualism so Personally.

The bottom line is that kids are kids, whether they are bilingual or monolingual. There are mean kids, oversensitive kids, intelligent kids and dumb kids. And kids can be mean in any language. I think that Suzanne may be getting the brunt of one of the class queen's storm (reminds me of me!). A couple weeks ago, the little girl said to Suz as we arrived in school,; "oh, c'est la vilaine Suzanne". I called Jerome up after to ask if it was mean or not since to me, it was really hurtful and since the parent didn't say anything I wasn't sure. Of course, I am American and all about my kid's self esteem, yadda yadda. He said it could be hurtful depending on how it was said, but he thought it was probably ok?

But today, when we got to school and Suzanne had finally finished a tantrum the same girl said "oh, c'est Susu" and then giggled. Suzanne looked at me sheepishly and said "I don't want people to laugh at me".so I asked who and she pointed to the class queen. I told Suzanne that she should ignore her. And if she laughed, then Suzanne could laugh back. What else can a parent do?

Read the article from Mulitlingual Living and then take a step back...you may not feel better emotionally, but you will intellectually.

Warding off the crazy.

2011-04-02T09:41:00.003+02:00

I don't know where to begin...

For the record, the reason I'm writing this and reaching out to cyberspace is because it's too early on a Saturday morning to call my bilingual guru, my other friends didn't answer their phones, it's too late in LA, too early in NJ...so it's just me and the sticky computer keys.

As a parent, you try to do what's best for your kids. You want them to be themselves. you want them to learn the best of you while trying to shelter the worst of you from them. But, I think most intelligent parents know that there's no way to keep all the crazy from them. There's no way your kids will not inherit some of your own crazy, no matter how hard you work at it, no matter how many years of therapy you do, no matter how much interspection you do...

Before the kids were born, I had a long talk with myself (and my therapist) and decided on a couple basic tenets : 1) I will always tell my kids I love them no matter what 2) I will not yell at them for breaking things unless it was an act of stupid kidness and 3) I will not hide when I am upset or crying.

The thought behind all this was that my kids not only know unconditional love but that they also know that I'm a person too and have feelings and cry, without getting mad for nothing. You can of course read into this and think what you may about my upbringing. And I'd just like to say that, yes, my parents made mistakes like all parents. But I know they didn't do it on purpose. And a lot of my "crazy" is just how I am.

The first time I saw Suzanne, she was anxious and wired. From the start, she was more like me : a little high strung, a little too easily overwhelmed...Max, on the other hand, has been all or nothing since birth. His first morning, I woke up in the hospital with him in his bassinet next to me, my finger in his mouth. This calmed him instantly in the middle of the night; the same treatment only made Suzanne scream more. MAx has two states: on and off. Suzanne seems to being buzzing all the time - you can never turn her completely off, but you can turn her down.

Over the past couple weeks, something's been amiss with Suzanne. She was uncontrollably a few weeks ago. I finally think I figured out it has to do with young love (the boy she likes kissed her but now says he didn't - I learned the story by listening to her tell her best friend). She's also had a couple of serious tantrum, what I can only describe as 5 year old panic attacks: she clenches up her fists, squeezes her eyes tight and starts to shake. It's happened two times and I can tell you that Jeorme and I are more than worried. I think we both understand her feeling of being overwhelmed and neither of us want her to have that kind of crazy....

And so, of course, I begin wondering if the OPOL system in our family, the fact that she's bilingual and therefore different, is not only putting too much pressure on her but also stigmatizing her at school. Yesterday she told us at dinner that sometimes her friends ask her how to say something in English but she can't find the words. We both told her it was normal and we acknowledged that being bilingual isn't easy but she'll be so happy later. And I know she will.

But right now, all I want to do is cry because I feel like I'm doing something completely wrong. I'm damaging my daughter before my very eyes and I can't stop it because I am who I am. I can see her absorbing my crazy. I wonder if I can do it another way to ward off future panic attacks. And I wonder if bilingualism is contributing to her state of panic....

Storytime part 1

2011-03-22T13:11:00.003+01:00

The day before the first ever bilingual storytime at the Wazemmes library, I walked in and was warmly greeted by one of the head librarians. "You're the woman who's doing the lecture tomorrow, right? We've been trying to get in touch with you..." *roll forboding music*

Emilie, the children's librarian who was supposed to be my French counterpart at storytime, was out with her sick daughter and they weren't sure if she'd be back for storytime. Elise, the head librarian, asked if I still wanted to do it. I instantly answered of course! without really testing the waters. She seemed pleased that I didn't back out because she said she was scared that if we cancelled the first one, then it would jeopardize the next one. The reason they asked if they should cancel is because they didn't have anyone signed up. I told them that, oops, it was my fault because I had at least 5 kids coming and I'd sent an email out to Suzanne's entire school through the PTA.

Admittedly, I started to get a little nervous because of so many unknowns...but hey, little kids aren't scary, right? Haha...

So just before storytime, my friend M and I brought the kids to the park and let them burn off energy (ie I was scared Max would be a terror and needed him to get the crazy out before being confined for 30 minutes).

At 3:20, I showed up to the library with my brood of 4 bilingual kids and my English Mum friend and was pleased to see some other anglo friends waiting for us. Elise introduced me to a man who is the librarian in charge of going into schools in Lille. They asked if it was ok to sit and watch. They also informed me that I was on my own. The storytime room was packed with about a dozen kids, pretty much equally split between bilinguals and Frenchies (and their parents of course).

We began with a welcome song my mother had taught both me and Suzanne. Then I took out my personal English language copies of the books we had planned on reading. I started with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I read slowly but not too slowly including many pregnant pauses and hand gestures hoping the kids would fill in the blanks. Two and a half year old Albert chimed in which was great.

When I finished, Max began screaming "encore encore" (and trust me, Max screams) as he handed me Brown Bear, Brown Bear, which I told him to read by himself. I moved onto Little Blue and Little Yellow, followed by Brown Bear upon Max's requested, was briefly interupted by Suzanne who came to tell me her friends asked if I could read in French because they didn't understand English, and then a little boy from Suzanne's class who called out that English was nul and finished with Where the Wildthings Are before wrapping it all up with a round of "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes". All the kids got a coloring page of Eric Carle's caterpillar (which probably ended up in the garbage since I'm not sure what my conscientious, art loving daughter did with hers!).

The reading was animated by Max pushing his copy of Brown Bear upon anyone who seemed remotely interested and finishing off each story with a hearty round of "Mommy, encore".

I THINK it went well. I got positive feedback from my friends as well as from the non-English speakers there. When I asked one friend how it compared to the british cultural center, his reply was that it was more or less the same but they were "professional" which I'm not sure how to take. Elise seemed pleased and said she thought the bilingual format would work really well, since the kids hung on in English for the first couple books. With some French mixed in, it would keep them hanging on.

The next storytime is on Wednesday, April 13th at 3:30 PM. Be there or be square.

Spring stuff

2011-03-16T09:07:00.005+01:00

It's been a week since the first storytime...I know, I know. I haven't reported on it! I just haven't had the time to sit down and think about how to really convey how it went. I promise I will in the next couple days.

In the meantime, I'll just say that post-Grandma's visit, my kids are speaking so much better! Suzanne sounds a bit more fluid (my mother said her speech is so formal and she's right) and Max's English vocabulary has doubled in the past week. This weekend alone, he added more and again (both in English finally!), slide, truck, outside...and has strung 2 words together. He pointed to papa's dog poop encrusted shoes outside on the deck and said "shoe outside".

Spring has sprung, finally! And life is good...if only I had a little less work. But there's something about crocuses and daffodils that makes the sun feel sunnier.

Two thumbs up for handicap services in French train station

2011-03-11T16:34:00.005+01:00

Now that my mother's an experienced traveller, we don't pick her up at the airport anymore. She gets off the plane at CDG, gets her bags and gets the train to Lille where we pick her up. It's the in between part that always worries me. Since my mother has back problems and the train only makes a 3 minute stop at the airport train station, we always worry how she'll get her bags (full of American food items, cute clothes from Carter's and tons of books!) down to the train station and onto the train. But my ever ressourceful mother made a discovery in her most recent trip : service pour voyageurs handicapés.

There is a seperate office at most major train stations where a handicapped or older person can go and get a free porter to/from the train on both ends. The service is free if you have a handicap card or if you are over 80 years old. Not convinced?

It gets better! The people are nice, won't accept tips, and speak English! That's two very positive French administrative-ish experiences in just over a week. Is that worrisome?

Selective hearing 2

2011-03-08T09:00:00.000+01:00

Imagine my surprise when Max began screaming "crane, crane" as we walked past the building site on the way home from the creche. I called Jerome to tell him. And he said, I know, he did that this morning. He said "grue".

Now I obviously think my son is brilliant but I am realistic about what an almost 18 month old is capable of. So there are 3 options to this condundrum:
1) our son is amazingly bilingual and can already code switch
2) he has combined the french and english words to create a new one.
3) we both have selective hearing.

But what I find most fascinating about Max at the moment is how much he can say. It all came suddenly and has been reinforced with Grandma's visit . The problem is us trying to figure out what it actually is he's saying at times. But everything has meaning.

For instance, when I get him at the creche, he repeats "mion" over and over. I thought perhaps he was refering to his friend named Primo. But it wasn't til this weekend when he was trying to play with the toy house repeating "key, key" that we realized : maison. There are certain words that he has begun using in both French or English, depending on the prompting such as water. And there are other words, such as encore, that he refuses to say in the other language.

And since he's obviously capable of saying anything in French or English, we did a little test a few days ago. I said a few words and he repeated after me : diaper, bath, poopy, morning, Maisy. For all but the last one, he spoke English without hesitation. He just looked at me and said said Mimi (Maisy mouse's French alterego). I love these little games because it's like getting a glimpse of how his bilingual brain works.

And in the past couple weeks, Max's vocabulary has increased enormously. But to my dismay, Max is speaking mostly French (it's like déjà-vu because this is the same debate we had for Suzanne. But most of the feedback I've had from people outside our household says he speaks mostly French). The up side is that Max is a good communicator and, even if we don't understand the word, he uses a lot of gests and contact to explain what he wants. He now says go, water, shoe, stop, read (although my mother thinks he said lire), book, cow, cereal and apple. But helas, he insists on calling Maisy mouse Mimi!

Through Suzanne's speech, I picked up one of my language ticks : I used to say "huh" at the end of most sentences. Now it's Jerome's turn to have his language ticks thrown back at him. Every other word (that isn't Mommy?) out of Max's mouth is "beh alors".

One of Suzanne's fossilized mistakes in English was not using the relfexive. She would say "She hurt sheself" or "I hurt me". Somewhere over the last couple months - and completely without my noticing - she auto-corrected. This weekend, I realized she now uses the reflexive correctly.

And since my mother's been here, Suzanne has conquered other language fossils. Sometime over the fast 2 weeks, Suzanne began saying "I saw it" instead of using seed as the past participle. Go Suzanne!

Hope reborn

2011-03-02T10:14:00.005+01:00

Just when youre about to slag off all of French anti-customer service, you talk to someone nice...

On my way back from getting Max yesterday, I saw some broken glass on the street next to some parked cars. Somehow I knew it was "Marcel" (my car)...

After a brief moment of panic, I called my insurance company's hotline. Here is the response I got, "Sorry, Madame, this isn't an emergency." The positive side is that I realized I didn't have the French vocabulary to describe what had happened. It wasn't cambriolage because nothing was stolen, it wasn't bracage because the car wasn't hijacked, it was just busted...so I reverted to indirect speech: on est entré dans ma voiture et cassé un vitre (someone went into my car and broke the window).

Shaking from frustration and the fear of knowing some unkown person was touching my stuff, I called the regular number for the insurance company. Please press star, please press 1 for auto, please press 3 for a sinistre, which I guess this was. I finally got to the service where the recording said, there is a long wait, please call back which I did 10 mnutes later. And they were closed. Grrrr!

So I checked on line since they said I could declare my sinistre on line. I signed up and waited for my email confirmation with my password allowing me to make my declaration. (I am still waiting over 36 hours later.) I then called the number that said they were avaiable until 8pm which brought me to the same message that I needed to call back tomorrow or declare on line. I was about to star ranting about the French and throwing things at my French other half.

Meanwhile, I realized I'd have to go to the police station. Again! Three times a charm. Once for credit card fraud, a second time for credit card fraud which turned out to be a legit debit that I just didn't recognize and now a third time for the car. I was getting to know my local commisariat too well!

I decided to call the open til 8PM number again and go through the wrong service. I explained my situation to the nice lady in the non-sinistre service who told me that I could deal with it in the morning. Ah....

So in the morning, I called the sinistre service who told me the good news : it's fully covered and since nothing's stolen (except a pack of trident cinnamon gum!) I don't have to go to the police. GMF lady, I *heart* you.

Storytime: the beginning

2011-02-22T09:39:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday, I spent 2 hours with the children's librarian going over our set list (book selection) for the March 9th bilingual storytime. I was pleased that she and I agreed on the set up and the books! And I was extastic that she was so enthousiastic too! In fact, the whole library seemed to be buzzing with excitement. I walked out of the Wazemmes library with a feeling of excitement, accomplishment and purpose. A feeling I haven't felt professionally in a while. We agreed on a couple of classics to read together, some fun bilingual books, and a couple of english only books. We had about 2 dozen books in all which we of course limited to about 6.

The head of the library was quite excited to tell me that they were able to slip the April reading into the official library schedule. Thanks to long administrative processes (for once in my favor and not at all annoying), she was able to tell the powers that be about storytime before they printed up the schedule. Yay!

So I won't ruin the surprise, but I will tell you that there will be classics, non-classics and maybe even a song.

Since I am allowed to advertize now, I can officially say that the American-English storytime will take place at 3:30 PM on March 9th at the Bibliothèque de Wazemmes (Wazemmes library). It is at metro station Wazemmes or Gambetta. If you need information, just leave me a message here or send me an email at rraagg33 at hotmail dot com.

Oh fine, you twisted my arm. We'll be reading The Pigeon Wants a Hotdog by Mo Willems, A color of His Own by Leo Lionni, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Where the Wildthings Are by Maurice Sendak, The Thing (a french book translated into English) and some others that I can't remember right now...

boring blogging

2011-02-15T09:36:00.001+01:00

So much to say and so little inspiration...

I don't want to give up this blog, but I am starting to wonder what the point is. I'm not funny anymore. I'm not witty. I'm not inspired. Hell, I don't even bitch and moan about the French anymore. What I do do is keep track of my kids' English progress. Is that enough to keep this blog going? I'm wondering...or maybe I should go private since it's basically turning into a journal anyway.

But no, having this blog has allowed me to connect with other Americans in France, other parents raising bilingual kids, it's given me access to some amazing resources and introduced me to other blogs which are both amusing and enriching!

So I guess that's the answer. Spaghetti-os is here to stay. For now.

Grève season is open!

2011-02-10T12:31:00.004+01:00

I'm not actually sure grève season ever ended this year. It would be an understatement to say that much of French society is unhappy with the recent changes in France - both proposed and accepted.

My college French professor told us that striking was France's favorite passtime. The first time I came to France, I was told that the French only strike when the weather is nice. It seems true enough, but there's a reason for that. When the weather's nicest, you can affect the most people.

It's true that the winter's been particularly bad so is it a coincidence that the striking has picked up again now that it's no longer uncomfortable to be outside? Or maybe it's that there are local elections coming up in a couple months...

I still have trouble with the strikes at times, they get on my nerves, I have to use vacation time to watch my school-age daughter. But, the longer I stay here, the more I appreciate the freedom to strike. Striking in the US just isn't the same. Changing the current system - retirement, social security, the centralized education system, job security - touches the heart of most French people. All of these points are so engrained in French society (for most people I'll hasten to say) that any change becomes very personal.

Sometimes I laugh to myself (or outloud) like when they changed full retirement to 62. HAHAHAHA! But, as a full-fledged member of French society, I also appreciate the current social advantages which give my kids free education from the age of 3, subsidized housing, subsidized child-care for children under 3, full maternity leave for a couple months (better than the US for sure!), parental leave, low cost healthcare, 5 weeks plus of leave per year...The bottom line is, all of these things contribute to a happier and healthier society as a whole. And believe it or not, France is a very productive country . Personally, it doesn't feel like a bastion of productivity, but I guess they manage to get things done. Somehow.

Galette des rois à l'américaine

2011-02-04T10:06:00.004+01:00

In 1996, fresh off the plane, I was bombarded with galette des rois. Everywhere we went, there were there slightly sickly, very cloying frangipan filled flaking round cakes. Since my French was practically nil back then, I didn't quite get the significance of it all.

It wasn't until I met Jérôme whose birthday happens to be around the same time as epiphany that I understood what the galette institution was all about. The king's cake has a fève in it. The etymology alone of that word is enough for a linguiphile to go into spasms of delight. Fève in French is a fava bean in English and is similar to the English word favor (like a party favor!). I may have just actually made that up, but let's pretend it's true.

With my adopted French family, I learned that the youngest person had to go under the table and call out who each piece was for. Whoever got the fève (usually a tacky ceramic figurine) got the crown. I also learned that galettes des rois exist in apple flavor.

Now that Suzanne is in school, the galettes des rois is an essential part of her life. Last year, she got the fève in her class (which she lost the same day during nap time and then found it again the next day in her school bed).

We had our share of galettes des rois this year (3 total at our house which is a lownumber compared to some) but for my husband's birthday, I decided to add a Franco-american twist to the tradition. So I went to my southern roots (actually, no I'm not southern at all) and found a recipe for a Louisiana King Cake. It is basically a brioche rolled jelly-roll style, filled with a cinnamon and nut paste and topped with lemon glaze. And it was damn good.

It was different and got away from the cloying, flakey traditional galette. This is a link to the recipe I used. Enjoy!

The Grandma conundrum

2011-02-01T13:23:00.004+01:00

I am a worrier. It's part of who I am and what makes me both lovable and annoying as hell.

And although I come off as being pretty low-key, calm and collected, I'm not. I spend most days with the feeling that all of my organs have low-frequency waves going through them making me constantly tremble.

The point is, that at this stage, I shouldn't be so worried about Max's language progression. But I am. Suzanne is bilingual. Max is saying more and more every day, much of it in English, and he clearly understands everything. But, I do worry which is why it's so important for Max to get the most out of my mother's annual February visit.

When Suzanne was Max's age, she spent 2 weeks with my mother every February. Max can't do that because my mother can't really handle both kids for 2 weeks during vacation. So as February vacation approaches (my mom arrives in 17 days!), I'm trying to come up with creative and realistic solutions for Max to get the most out of my Mom without 1)totally draining my Mom and 2)without putting anyone at risk. My mother had back surgery a couple years ago and isn't completely stable on her feet which makes carrying an energetic 18 month old boy up and down the stairs a little complicated. I may be able to take a couple days off work to help out, but it isn't the same as 2 weeks with Grandma!

I want them to bond the way Suzanne and Grandma have in the past. And I want Max to drown in an American bath (so to speak). I was thinking that maybe Max could go to nursery school in the mornings - since he sleeps anyway - and my mom could get him after lunch a couple times. That way they get to spend a few half days together which is better than no days at all.

And let's face it. Grandmas are just awesome. They spoil us, make good food and when Grandma's visiting, the kitchen sink is always empty of dirty dishes.

So if anyone out there has some ideas (on how to relax or how to maximize Grandma's stay), please share.

Le King et Suzanne

2011-01-28T13:40:00.006+01:00

It seems like I'm already expecting so much out of my kids. But what is the good of being bilingual if you don't know where you come from?

So how silly (not stupid because I am not allowed to say that anymore since I caught Suzanne hitting her babydoll on the head while saying stupid) did I feel when my sister asked me in jest what the kids and I did for MLK day. I am completely and utterly ashamed to say that I completely forgot about this most important American day.

After reading Suzanne her normal 3 books at night, I began a discussion about MLK. I told her that a long time ago (even though it wasn't so long and indeed is still the case in some places), only white people could go to school, go to restaurants, etc. I told her that black children couldn't go to school and couldn't use the same toilets as white kids. She pointed to her face proudly and said she was white. I asked her if she knew any black children (which of course she does at school) and then told her that thanks to Martin Luther King and lots of other people, black kids could go to school. I figured that by focusing on school, which is something she loves, she'd get the idea better than if I talked about, say, the voting rights movement or Rosa Parks riding the bus.

I asked her if she wanted to see Martin Luther King speak. So of course she said yes and then told me to type his name into the computer (yes, she understands how youtube works) and we began watching Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. After a couple of minutes of watching the grainy black and white video, she said, "Mommy, I can't see that he's black". So we put on a color video of MLK which she thought was ok until she saw the Obama girl/Obama duet image appear in the youtube sidebar.

By that point, I think I'd made my point. Or at least I hope so. And I've sworn to myself that we will be reading about Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad, Rosa Parks, MLK, and other very important dead Americans more frequently.

I do wonder though if she said anything in school. I can only imagine what could have come out of her mouth like, "avant le King, les blacks n'avaient pas de school. Et après, beaucoup d'hommes sont allés à Washington devant le giant Lincoln."

Lille English storytime

2011-01-20T16:15:00.004+01:00

Yay! I met with the youth librarians of my local bibliothèque to organize the first ever free Lille English storytime.

The library is not allowed to advertize. And since I wouldn't want to get the librarians at my branch in trouble, you'll have to read the fine print to actually find out where it is.

When I first discussed the idea of English storytime with the head librarian in the Wazemmes branch, she told me she was hesitant about actually doing a seperate storytime to their regular once monthly storytime. She told me that they have a hard enough time getting people to their normal storytime so didn't want to take up my busy time if no one actually came.

When I met with them today, I explained my raison d'être : a free, English language storytime to initiate children, reinforce those who know some English and generally expose kids to English in a fun way. It is open to children of all ages, but the main target audience is 4-8 year olds. Some names we tossed around were Maurice Sendak, Mo Willems, Eric Carl and Lucy Cousins.

After discussing different angles, we decided the best way to get an audiance was to do a bilingual format. The librarians and I will find both the French and English versions of fun known books which we will read in both English and French: one page French, one page English, etc. This will 1) allow kids to understand part of the book with them getting bored from hearing the same book twice and 2) get their ears accustomed to the musique of English.

The first date we set is March 9th at 3:30 PM (that's 9 mars à 15h30 for the frenchies). There is a second storytime scheduled for April 13th at the same time. If we get a big enough audience, it will become more frequent. And if all goes well, there is the possibility of doing an English only spin-off! This also means that the library will be ordering some more children's books in English.

So if you are intersted in coming, and want more information, please leave a comment on this blog or email me at rraagg33 at hotmail dot com

Be there or be square.

toddler translation

2011-01-17T09:29:00.001+01:00

Max understands everything in both French and English. Unlike Suzanne who was all talk and no walk, Max seems to be a good balance of both. He does a lot of observing and then goes full on once he's understood the rules like climbing on tables, climbing out of the bathtub. You know, things his sister would never have even imagined at his age.

I remember Suzanne creating franglais words (my favorite Suzanne-ism was waleau=water) which Max has begun doing with words like bapom (apple). He has also taken to calling me Mommyca which comes from the creche calling me "Mommy Rebecca" since he wanders around all day saying "Mommy, Mommy".

Like his sister, Max picks up new words quickly. He spontaneously says "thank you" when someone gives him something in either French or English. And he also says "please" with the sign.

What amazes me most at this point is that Max is already showing signs of simultaneous translation. As a parent of a bilingual child, you never know how their brain is functioning. Are the languages seperate? Do they meet somewhere in the middle? With Suzanne, we would ask her to show body parts in French and then English to demonstrate she understood. But Max won't do that. But he is translating in other ways. For example, if I ask him if he wants to read a Maisy mouse book, he givesit to me and says "Mimi" which is the French name for Maisy.

Until last week, when asked a question, Max would answer "oui" (unless of course he was screaming "no!"). But over the weekend, he starting saying "uh huh" when I ask him something. I even heard him say "yeah" like a good American. I'm just waiting for both my kids to begin saying "yup" like real Americans.

Suzanne also continues to improve her English despite the overwhelming amount of French she has on a daily basis. At the movies a couple weeks ago, Suzanne turned to me and said, "I will not have scared". Realizing it was wrong, she repeated, "I will not be scared". A while ago, I commented on the fact that Suzanne doesn't use contractions in her speech. Somewhere along the way though, she began saying "gonna" without my even noticing.

I continue to grapple with mommy guilt. I am glad to have part of my life back but miss my me time. And when I do take me time, like going out one evening for example which is a rare occurence, I feel bad that my children aren't getting very much English. When Suzanne was Max's age, we had more TV on in the house (we don't let the kids watch TV during the week anymore because it gets Suzanne too worked up and then she's too tired for school), or some other background noise in English. Also, since Suzanne went to sleep later and woke up earlier, we had at least an hour more together per day than I do with Max. Although I try to put on American or English music when we get home, I get home so much later now after dropping my bike at home, getting the stroller, picking up Max at the creche, going the opposite direction to get Suzanne. By the time we get home, it's 6 PM and I need to get dinner going. So playtime is really limited. On the weekends, we are all so tired that we don't do much of anything interesting most weekends. But, I shouldn't feel guilty for that because the kids just have fun playing together, dressing up and making a mess all around.

Max's other recent vocabulary acquistitions include :

da which indicates he wants to get on your lap. This comes from ah da da get on your lap

down

keys

eye

PS I just read through some old posts and found that Suzanne, who I was convinced was speaking full sentences by 17 months, was about the same level as Max.

how's my English

2011-01-13T15:58:00.003+01:00

I thought it was funny during my meeting in Nottingham (UK) the other day when a man finished our discussion by thanking me and then saying, "It doesn't even feel like I'm speaking to someone bilingual. Your English is so good." I told him I was American and laughed inside as he walked away.

Yesterday when I spoke to my Mom she told me that she's noticed my English changing in my blog posts. At first I thought she was referring to my poor spelling (I am lazy and don't always check what I post...), which she was. But she was also talking about how I write and the words I choose. She said my English is becoming europeanized with words like whilst and pyjama (instead of pajama).

So now I'm wondering about my conversation in Nottingham. Is my English becoming so unnatural that even a native English speaker can't identify me as a native American speaker? I'd assumed he'd said that since, come on, who would expect to encounter an American working with European money? Or maybe he's just a dope....

Either way, it makes me wonder if one day I'll be one of those expats who has to search long and hard for words, whose accent is "mid-Atlantic" and whose spelling is atrowshiss.

Riverbanks

2011-01-11T09:41:00.000+01:00

Suzanne was sitting on the toilet reading a magazine when her father walked by the bathroom. She was reading the section of her National Geographic Little Kids (an awesome magazine by the way) when you have to match the ryhming words together and try to find other words that ryhm that aren't pictures in the magazine.

Since it was Jerome, she began speaking to him in French. She began translating the words for him. And then she got to a picture of a large body of water surrounded by rolling hills. She stopped and looked at Jerome, who was expecting her say lac or even rivière or mer. But no, my daughter said, "a riverbank?".

When Jerome told me the story, I immediately recognized the literary reference. The brown nobbly log sleeping on the riverbank in the Big Wide Mouthed Frog.

Mommy: the car slapper

2011-01-06T15:02:00.008+01:00

"Mommy, remember when you said you were going to throw the man's voiture in the poubelle?"

To my credit, my exact words were, "si je vous revois je casse votre voiture." (If I see you again, I will break your car). Isn't it nice that even when you're angry, you can still remain polite in French by using the vous form?

I don't loose my temper often. I usually just let anger fester because I'm a big baby. I hate confrontation. In personal relationships. In professional relationships. I'd rather find excuses for why a sales person is rude (because they had a bad day) or why a coworker is angry (because they didn't have sex last night) than actually tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine.

But, the other day as I was walking with my kids, my animal side came out (this is the side that's reared it head in the past when I flipped people off and almost got beat up for it. I learned my lesson). We were walking home from the supermarket, on the sidewalk, Max in the stroller and Suzanne holding onto the side, when I see an older man begin to pull up onto the sidewalk. To his credit, the sidewalk is just next to a parking lot.

I gave him my "what the F are you doing with your car on the sidewalk" look and he stopped to let us by. Just as we were passing by, he pulled up slightly and his sideview mirror grazed Suzanne's head (she didn't even feel it). My eyes turned red, my fangs came out, and out of nowhere, a monster voice came out of my mouth. I openhanded his card window multiple times and began yelling at him. "C'est un trotoir Monsieur. Vous avez fait mal à ma fille". Nothing terrible, I didn't use the f word or any other bad word. But I slapped his car over and over again to the point where I think he genuinely thought I was crazy. He, of course didn't even get out of his car. I walked a little further and stopped a few yards away. Note: had it been a young guy, I probably would have thought twice before lashing out.

When he got out of his car, I screamed at him again. That's when I realized that not only was the entire neighborhood staring at me, but my daughter was in shock.

When we got home, I got down on my knees and explained to her that I wouldn't really hurt the man or break his car. I was just so angry because I love her and Max more than anything. And if anyone ever hurt them, I'd be really sad. I think she understood. And I hope this little incident won't lead her to a life of serial car destruction.

The difference between this kind of incident in the US and France is that :1) in the US, a car wouldn't be on the sidewalk in the first place and 2) in the US, the guy would have had a gun.

French drivers. Pffff.

Vacation recap

2011-01-03T10:44:00.004+01:00

Been there, done that. It wasn't quite the vacation I had planned, but at least we managed to get the chicken pox over with.

Suzanne came home from day camp the first day of vacation saying, "Mommy, I have a bouton". Actaully she had hundreds of them, at least twice as many as Max had 2 weeks earlier. Dispite the scratching and the fever, we managed to have some fun. Suzanne and I went to see Tangled in French while Max was at the creche. What amazes me most is Suzanne is watching this movie in French, completely engrossed in the story, and then she turns to me and says things in English like, "why is the princess locked in a tower?"

We had Christmas at my in-law's. As is the tradition, my husband's grandfather dressed up as Santa to distribute the gifts to the kids. Suzanne was thrilled but had a knowing look in her eye. She turned to her grandmother and said, "where's Papou?" When Papou returned (and Santa left) she said to Papou, "where were you?" to which Papou explained he was opening oysters in the kitchen with tonton Pierre. Suzanne later said to her grandmother that it was Papou and not Santa.

Although the snow was gone in the center of Lille, the bois de boulogne (the park at the North of the city) was covered. During my Christmas day run, I saw all the snow and came home to tell J we absolutely had to bring the kids to play (Suzanne missed out during the actual storm because of the chicken pox)! We dressed the kids in their snow gear, rode our bikes to the park and let them loose. Max was most interested in touching the ice and Suzanne was dissappointed she couldn't make snow angels since the snow was so hard. But, to the delight of my New Jersey/New England heart, the kids got some actual time in the snow. Yay! Because what's winter if you can't play in the snow. Hell, what's a childhood without snow!

The second week of vacation, since the creche was closed, I tried to do as much English stuff as possible with both kids. At Max's age, Suzanne would play with English speaking friends on a regular basis; but it's so much harder to organize now that there are more kids. So luckily, Suzanne continues to speak to Max in English which is kind of like a playdate. We went to my friend A's house twice last week and Suzanne's played with her girls, while Max just followed me around, opened drawers and hopefully absorbed some adult English conversation.

I also took the kids to see the Degas exhibit at the Musée de l'art et l'industrie in Roubaix aka La Piscine. I'm fairly certain I've mentioned it before, but La Piscine is an amazing museum, kid friendly, nice although completely overpriced café. Because the museums opens at 11, I only managed to get the kids to look at the exhibit for 40 minutes before hunger took over. Max especially liked the huge lion statues that he tried to climb on and Suzanne liked La Danseuse, but was particularly taken by the various statues of half-naked people which line the old pool.

We were in Brussels for New Year's. Suzanne went on the huge ferris wheel at Place Sainte Catherine with her papa (better him than me!). The kids both enjoyed a ride on the Tim Burton-Jules Vernes-esque carrousel. They rode a slightly psychadelic fish.

And of course, they spoke English. Max has now mastered the word "Mommy?" which I'm beginning to wish he'd stop saying with such hutzpah! We've been reading Are Lemon's Blue and you can hear the interrogative in his babble. He also begun saying "thank you" spontaneously. And "me" as in "who wants some milk?" "Me!" which is accompanied by raising his hand.

And Suzanne's just amazing. Her brother wondered off in the middle of being changed. And Suzanne brought him back to me and said, "Mommy, look at your son. He's half naked".

Here's to a happy, healthy and bilingual 2011 to all!

heartbreaker

2010-12-17T09:33:00.006+01:00

It broke my heart when Suzanne started crying. she was crying because I didn't understand what she said. When I picked her up from school early yesterday, I had a special moment in mind: get a gift for papa and then go get some hot chocolate together at the café (just the big girls since she's been feeling a little jealous lately with her brother's chicken pox and various other winter viruses).

So I asked her how school was and she said, "Lor(garbled named) has already cinq ans". I asked her to repeat. So she said it again. This time I understand that someone turned 5 in her class. so I asked who. She repeated the name and I still didn't understand so I said it's someone I don't know. She then broke down in tears and said, "LORETTE!" After I managed to calm her down, I got down on my knees to look her in the eye and explained something that I think she doesn't quite realize nor understand: I don't speak French like her. I explained to my 4 and a half year old that when I was growing up in NJ, we didn't speak French. I learned some French at school but that's all. I told her that I usually understand when she speaks French but sometimes I don't so she needs to be patient with me. That's why we speak English together.

I had a brief moment of panic when I realized that this could be the first step towards the moment I dread: Suzanne's rejection of speaking English to me. If it frustrates her so much, is it worth it? Will it be more of a negative than a positive experience for her? I know that she will not necessarily reject English, and if she does, she does. But it's heartbreaking to any parent to see their kid crying...for any reason.

Do as she does

2010-12-14T16:12:00.003+01:00

A while ago, I mentioned how essential Suzanne would be to Max's acquisition of English. What I didn't realize at the time (or think about actually because I kind of have a one track mind when it comes to this blog) is how essential she would be to everything he does. Max is just a little monkey who copies everything his big sister does. I don't remember Suzanne picking up a toothbrush to brush her teeth or tearing toilet paper squares to throw in the toilet (along with a book or two) or standing on chairs trying to reach things.

It makes me realize how an older sibling is the best (and arguably the worst) teacher a kid can have. And, I know there are many reasons for parents to only have one child, but I think it must be a little lonely and boring. But I digress...

Max has entered the period of language acquisition where you can physically see him acquiring new words and comprehension. The past week, I have tested him and he has passed with flying colors. We missed nap time on Sunday. When we came in and had snack, it was already past 4pm so I put the kids together to play in the "cage" which I've filled with balloons. After a couple minutes, Max starts saying bye-bye and waving. So I take him out of the play yard and ask him if he wants to go nap. He nods his head in a yes-like way and says "dah" which I think is yeah. Then he walks over the staircase and stood in front of teh gate saying bye-bye. Then the next morning, I was having trouble getting Suzanne out of bed so, without making any hand motions, I told Max to wake her up. He walked right into her room, to her bed and cuddled with her. He did the same thing last night when I told him to tell her it was time for a bath. He went to her and said, "ba".

He has done similar things in response to his father speaking in French (but we all know that the French thing is less intersting to me so I won't talk about it). He has now learned to successfully use the sign for please and uses it at the appropriate time (except when he's screaming for more food). And he has begun associating gestures that I use when I read books with everyday conversation. For instance, yesterday when I said something was big, he raised his hand over his head. He does the same for push, pull, loud (of coourse he loves banging things).

And Suzanne continues to amaze me, even when she transposes her French onto her English. She recently said, "I won't have scared." When I asked her what she said, she corrected herself without me saying anything. As my professor in french once told me, when you begin auto-correcting yourself, you know you've got a hold on the language. We even have discussions about why certain forms - sleeped or eated - are incorrect. And to my surprise, Suzanne actually took it to heart and corrected herself. Yay Suzanne!

As I wrote in a post a while back, I suspected Suzanne would be pivotal in Max's English learning and she has been. She is my best ally in the daily English battle since she is the only one who Max hears a full conversation with. When Suzanne was Max's age, I got together almost every Wednesday with anglophone friends; but I am finding it much harder to do now because of logistic, work and also having a social child who has opinions on who she wants to see.

But now that we're all settled in with life as a family of 4, I think we can return to a semi-regular English language Wednesday activity.

Mommy guilt

2010-12-09T11:37:00.002+01:00

I was away for work for less than 2 days. And in those 2 days, Max got chicken pox (and hopefully passed it on to his sister), he learned to say "Suzanne" (Suza which is so cute) and Suzanne learned how to copy whole sentences from brochures.

I guess I should go away more often...but then I'd have all this mommy guilt to deal with.

Just an observation

2010-12-02T15:43:00.004+01:00

Last night, my husband asked me why we were speaking more English than usual. I hadn't even noticed. But it's true that since my return from the US at the beginning of November, J and I have been speaking a lot of English together. I hadn't noticed because, I suppose my brain is so much in English mode at the moment after 2 weeks in the US, working in English and having American guests at the house for 3 weeks. And since Suzanne and I tend to be less taciturn than J, there is more English chatter going on.

J is not against speaking English to the kids, but he just doesn't feel he could do it all the time. It's just not the language in his heart.

And then with Max trying to get his head around our OPOL set up, I tend to be a bit more boisterous (to be nice to myself) than my husband because somewhere, not so deep down, I feel like the mother tongue is in peril. Until that little boys makes a full sentence in English, I will be in survival mode, constantly questioning and not letting down my linguistic guard.

This morning, as Max clomped around our bedroom at 6.15 (we took him into our room so he wouldn't wake up his sister who he is now sharing a room with), J asked me what resilient meant. He said that he thinks we are fairly resilient the moment since we are managing to carry on with our normal activities despite the lack of sleep, the work travel, the obligations and (oh yeah in case I haven't mentioned it for a while) all the unfinished work in the house.

Resilient. Or something.

thanksgiving is for....

2010-11-29T09:58:00.004+01:00

eating, drinking and, oh yeah, giving thanks (at least that's what Suzanne's book says).

This year's Thanksgiving was a success. Yes, I think I can say that in all fairness and give myself a pat on the back.

This was a very special Thanksgiving because my sister and her boyfriend were visiting. On Friday, we all piled into the car (me squeezed between the 2 kids in the backseat) and drove to the farm to get our Thanksgiving turkeys which are actually Christmas turkeys with a shorter lifespan. Unfortunately, we could not see any live turkeys but we did see fat geese, ducks and some ostriches. Max loved the ostriches. But I always find them kind of distrurbing because when I look at them, I see a person inside holding up an arm as a neck and the hand as the mouth. Max said "tookee" and I said, nope just an ostrich. Suzanne wasn't impressed with the smell.

But she was impressed with the turkey army featured above. They were a huge hit, frosting and all which goes to show that the American spirit runs deep since French kids find frosting to be pretty offensive and flat out dégoûtant. Obviously the trick is to make the cupcakes as disgustingly sweet as possible so that the kids don't even see the frosting.

We had 24 people in our humble home. Since I am currently training to not be a control freak, I delegated all activities except turkey. My sister and I spent some time making rodanchos (Greek Jewish pumpkin strudel), one of our family favorites. We had food from all corners of the US : green bean casserole and corn casserole from Ohio, stuffing and veggie platter from Michigan, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows from South Carolina , Pumpkin Pie and Mashed potatoes from Pennsylvania, Cornbread and kickass chocolate cupcakes from Missouri via NY.

As with many expats, Thanksgiving is still the one time of year when I get homesick. So being able to come together to ex-pats and other franco-Americans helps bridge the distance. And the kids had fun too. They performed a hari krishna type concert for us complete with tambourine, recorder and shofar. There was no American football game on TV (hell, we don't even have a TV), but it was an awesome day.

Next year though, I'm thinking of renting a place to hold the bash. Cause at the rate we're reproducing, there won't be enough space in my house!

Max: 15 months and counting

2010-11-23T09:25:00.006+01:00

One of the main reasons I started this blog - besides to complain about the French - was to keep tabs on my children's bilingual progression. Up to now, I haven't had much to report on Max because he wasn't very verbal. Like Suzanne, he was a late walker and took his first steps about 2 weeks ago. This morning, he walked into the creche by himeself for the first time.

Since birth, Max has been very tactile and observant. He has always shown interest in figuring out how things work, he loves peekaboo because it allows him to manipulate things, he likes building and stacking, but his patience for sitting still is limited.

One of the staples of my bilingual theory is reading. Each kid gets 3 books a night - Suzanne a fewer now since we read chapters in a single book. But the problem with Max is that he has never been able to sit still long enough for me to SHOW him pictures and EXPLAIN words to him. After a page of Imagier Français-Anglais, which was one of Suzanne's favorites at 11 months, he's already thrown it on the floor.

Over the past month or so, he has shown increased signs of interest in books, although his interest is borderline obsessive. For a month, I had to read Maisy Big, Maisy Small at least twice before he'd go to sleep; then it was Pat the Bunny, Charlie and Lola's Opposites and now we've moved on to Chicky chicky Chook Chook. But it is progress. He even brough me the bilingual picture book a couple days ago, but we didn't read it....he couldn't sit still after the animal page!

And somehow, even though Max's vocabulary isn't extensive, we all understand him. Max uses some sign language (he can't sit still long enough to watch the videos Suzanne watched so we use essentials) : milk, bread, more, banana, play and cheese.

Here is a list of Max's English vocabular. I can't really comment on the French vocabulary since I don't speak to him in French and often, don't recognize a word if it is in French because my ears are atuned to English :

Papa
Mom
lala = an adaptation of our cat Lola's name which is his word for all cats and dogs
pain=he uses the French word for bread to indicate any food, espeically bread
ba=this is the word he uses for bottle and pacifier. He also uses it when he wants water.
ba+sign for milk=milk
poopy
cheese
baby
cow=his doudou is a cow
keys
car
bee=play which he does with the sign
bah=bye while waving hishand like the Queen of England
bike
ball= he says ball for anything circular or round including oranges, sausage rounds and pumpkins
pa=used for apple and pears
up
cookie
encore+sign for more=he uses the french word to say more
on = he pronounces it more like "aw"
bah=bath
beu=book
baaaa=he says this to say bang which he also uses for drums or music
bow=bounce which he uses to do trot trot to Boston or to bounce on a ball or on a blow up toy
dah, duh, duz=these are all variations of "Suzanne"

Animal sounds : monkey, fish, lion, bear, dog, gorilla

He understands most body parts like hair, foot, ear, nose, leg, chest, hand

Max also clearly understands simple and complex commands in both French and English, which is reassuring.

They say you shouldn't and CAN'T compare your kids. But since I have no other reference for Max's bilingual progression than to take a look back at his sister's, let's say I'm NOT comparing, I'm just being intellectually curious: Suzanne's word list at 15 months.

Defensive driving à la française

2010-11-22T09:14:00.003+01:00

When my high school driver's ed teacher told us about "defensive driving", I thought the worst I would ever face was the typical Jersey driver or maybe a Masshole here or there. But Mr. Whateverhisnamewas could never have prepared even the most defensive Jersey driver - which I'm not - for driving in France.

First, there was the priority to the right. Imagine your typical American T-stop. Now replace that with a interesection with no signs. In France, the person on the right has the priority. So you have to do a quick check of the hands and if you happen to be on the left, you have to let the person on your right go. The reasoning for this - or so I've heard - is twofold: to slow down people on the main road and to allow the cars from the smaller road to actually be able to pull out.

Then there are the round abouts, traffic circles, rotaries. Before coming to France, the only rotary I ever knew was the one outside the prison in Concord, Massachusetts. And that was scary enough. Priority to the right doesn't apply here...Traffic circles are common in France in places where you would find a traffic light in the US. The most famous one is around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; but here in Lille we have what my driving instructor called le rond point de la mort. Yes, my driving instructor actually called it "the traffic circle of death". Nice. They exist to slow down traffic, or so I've been told, because the French cannot control themselves from breaking rules, speeding, and not respecting other drivers.

Last week, the code de la route changed again. Although I'm happy that bikes may now turn right on red (at certain mayor-approved intersections where signs have been put up), I really wonder about the new pedestrian law. As of last Thursday, pedestrians may now cross the street anywhere if there is no crosswalk within 50m. And if they show signs of wanting to cross anywhere, the drivers have to stop! It was bad enough when no such law existed, but now people can do whatever they want. (And yes, I do see the upside to this which is cars must actually stop for you when you cross a street.)

See this article in French to recap the new law.

It would be really nice if the powers that be could spend their time, I don't know, fighting dog poop or public urination or parking on sidewalks...but if you read into the text, you see that there are actually rules that allow people to park on the sidewalk in certain cases.

I'll never understand this country.

Franglais filters

2010-11-16T13:38:00.004+01:00

"I want a t-shirt with bras", said Suzanne as we were getting into our pyjamas last night.
I looked at her dressed in her long sleeve pyjamas and looked at myself in my cotton camisole and automatically switched into franglais mode. Assuming she meant bras (as in the French for arms), I quickly turned the sentence around. "You mean, you want a t-shirt without arms like me?" Of course she wanted the undershirt with the cherries on it, the one that is packed away with the summer clothes. I finally managed to get her dressed and to bed.

It wasn't until a little later that I realized the only franglais part in the discussion was my brain. Because what Suzanne really meant was she wanted a t-shirt that looked like a bra ie a strappy t-shirt like me. Duh!

Sometimes you just need to take off the franglais ear filters and accept the words in the language in which they are spoken.

Understanding

2010-11-15T10:26:00.000+01:00

I’ve been living in France for 14 years. I’ve been learning French since I was 5. I am a naturalized French citizen. And I consider myself bilingual. Although I’m not bilingual like my daughter is bilingual. As my Australian friend N explained the other day to his son, “you speak French like someone who has always lived in France; I speak French like someone who learned it and has been speaking it for a long time.”

There are so many daily activities – paying bills, rent, dealing with administration, having children! – that I would not even know where to begin with any of this in the US because I’ve only ever experienced them in France.

And in my daily French interactions, I do not need a dictionary. I no longer keep a running list of words to check when I get home. And I definitely don’t stop someone mid-sentence to ask them what such and such means because I usually do understand. Or I think I understand.

This last point in a common point on contention with my husband because, sometimes (often) after a long explanation of something or other, I’ll realize I don’t fully understand everything. He says I should stop him when I don’t understand. But the problem is that I don’t realize I don’t understand until I really don’t understand at which point I’m totally lost.

So when he left a message for the plumber yesterday because our heat and hot water weren’t working, I said to him, “isn’t that really informal?” He said, “is what informal?” So I said, “des enfants en basage?” (which is an expression I’d always heard, especially recently with all the friends having babies and lots of kids to lug around hence des enfants en basage). So he said slowly without liaison between the sounds, “des enfants en bas age…des jeunes enfants”. The light bulb went off. (And I was actually too embarrassed to tell my dear husband what I thought I’d understood it actually meant!) It just proves that there are things you think you understand but don’t and things you understand without ever really understanding no matter how bilingual you are.

trains, avions and cars

2010-11-12T11:35:00.007+01:00

Not even the French strikes could keep us away from our American vacation!

The kids and I had a more or less uneventful trip to the US, except that Suzanne fell asleep at the very end of the flight, had to be carried off by the burliest flight attendant I've ever seen (note that the Air France staff were really great and so very helfpul to me!). Once they got her in the wheel chair at Newark, she woke up slowly and by the time we reached customs, she was ready to walk. For once, the Newark customs agent was friendly. (And they didn't take my maroilles cheese...shhhh!)

In the 2 weeks we were in the US, I managed to see everyone I'd planned on seeing. Needless to say, it was exhausting. I decided not to bog the kids down with too many planned activities.

I brought Suzanne into Manhattan for the morning and lunch three days after our arrival. She was most impressed with the new playground in Union Square. As we walked from 14th Street towards 34th Street, I told her to look up at the buildings and I pointed out The Empire State, that we could up it next time whe she's a litle bigger. She said, 'Mommy, I know when I'm bigger, we can go up. But I'd like to try now." On the list for next time: Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the Highline (oh and that really cool ferris wheel at the Toys R Us in Times Square).

On Halloween day, we went to the Turtle Back Zoo (which has changed a lot since I had my 6th birthday party there!). It is a great little zoo, the carousel is beautiful, the train is still nice and the animals were awesome. We particualrly liked the bears and the wolves. And then we went trick or treating with my friend's little girl. Once Suzanne got the hang of it, she and H were off and running. But I was surprised about what Suzanne was intersted in. And it wasn't the candy, most of which is still sitting in a bag at home. She wanted to eat pretzels. And the next day, it was as if the candy had never happened! I was wondering if maybe she's so French that she doesn't understand the importance of Halloween loot or if watching Yo Gabba Gabba's song about not eating too much candy.

The kids had 2 weeks of total immersion in English which seemed to do them both good. I noticed after a couple days that even Suzanne's accent seemed to be changing as I know mine does. But what surprised me was that even after 2 weeks of not hearing a word of French, she still used some French words. Towards the end of the trip she had both an emotional and a linguistic meltdown when her father was on the phone. She just wouldn't speak to him, she said because "I don't know what to say." When we tried again the next day, she completely broke down because she missed him so much.

But as soon as we were back on the plane surrounded by a French speaking crew, she jumped right back into français with both pieds.

Max on the other hand, showed us that he was so unfazed by the American immersion that he decided to walk. Like for Suzanne who walked at 19 months, we are more concerned with the language development since we figure he'll walk one day anyway. But the fact that he hit this milestone during our time in the US shows that he's comfortable in an all English environment and reassures me that he will be bilingual like his sister. He came up with quite a few new words every day.

An intersting aspect when coming back after two weeks is seeing how Suzanne (and Max too probably although he can't express it the same way) can switch between languages and cultures. Although she is using a lot more English with her father, she jumped right back into French. On Tuesday at school, she and I proudly presented Halloween to her class. We taught her classmates to say "trick or treat" and scare them with a jack-o-lantern. Boo!

As for me, there are a number of reasons I know my kids are American which is reassuring:

Suzanne only wanted to eat hamburgers; Max ate anything in sight.
Both kids love swings which are just non-existent in Lille (and most of France as far as I can tell)
We all loved the all-access playground at Edgemont Park.
Suzanne made friends in the park, played with my friends' kids just like any other American kid (although I did hear her taunting in French).

but there are also many reasons I know my kids are French:

When faced with a choice of 30 flavors of ice cream, Suzanne chose mint chocolate chip just like she would in France (I got cookies and cream at Applegate Farms where I worked as a teenager)
At the zoo, Suzanne asked if she could walk on the grass.
Both kids make funny noises with their mouths that just don't exist in English.

We also discovered some new TV shows. And although I don't love the idea of my kids watching TV, I have to say that Yo Gabba Gabba, while at first seems a little (lot) strange, is actually a good show that teaches kids lessons through simple, catchy songs.

Re-entry

2010-11-08T16:00:00.002+01:00

The first thing I did when I got home last night after 2 weeks in the US - after vaccuming in a moment of manic sleep deprived jetlag - was check the phone messages to see if the turkey farm had called back about my Thanksgiving turkey. They hadn't...

When I called them earlier today, they knew me by name and said, "no we haven't forgotten you. In fact we have other people who have asked for Thanksgiving turkeys. You told people about us?" I wasn't sure if they were annoyed or please so I politely said, "yes, I did some publicity for you. I hope you don't mind." They don't...

So to all you going to get your Thanksgiving turkey at La Ferme Avicole Bauduin in Rosult, I send you a hearty gobble gobble. And don't forget to get some of their delicious duck rillette!

black out

2010-10-27T16:25:00.002+02:00

My parents still have dial up! No really they do. Did you even know it still existed?

Highlights of the trip so far:
the flight was ok. I only hope that the gay couple who sat next to us on the way here aren't next to us on the way. They kept looking at my kids like they were going to make them ill

Max has added the words clock, cat and bus to his vocab. Go Max!

Suzanne is pumped up for trick or treating. We went to get a pumpkin in South Jersey, a combined trip with some outlet shopping. We all went away happy.

So bye bye internet connection. SEe you again soon

Mother tongue

2010-10-18T13:12:00.006+02:00

"Moi, je parle anglais et français. Je parle anglais parce que ma maman est anglaise". This is how Suzanne, my 4 and a half year old, explained our communication to a friend of my husband's.

Suzanne knows that I'm American. She knows I'm from New Jersey. She even knows the name of my town. But since so much of her (and our relationship) is defined by "English" , I understand that she has come to the simple conclusion that Mommy speaks English therefore is English.

It doesn't bother me. But it got me thinking about what is most important to a bilingual 4 year old. I think that my husband and I have created a balanced bilingual and bicultural home. I think we are able to provide a more or less balanced view of her dual world. And I think that Suzanne understands that our home is not "typical". Suzanne seems to have accepted that everyone is different in some way.

When I first started visiting the library with Suzanne, I remember one book in particular called What Faust Saw by Matt Ottley. In the front flap it said traduit de l'australien which made me laugh. I soon found books translated from américain which just plain annoyed me. The ex-English teacher in me always resisted the idea that American and English were different languages.

But now that my children are becoming more aware of the multilingual world around them, I see that maybe the difference between American, English, Australian... is kind of important. I see it when Suzanne speaks to me. Sometimes a perfect American sentence will come out of her mouth like, "I'm gonna eat some zucchini." And then she'll turn around and speak Charlie and Lola to me (between the ages of 2 and 3, the wonderful Lauren Child characters were kind of a fetish to her).

For the past couple of months, I've become hyper-aware of how Suzanne speaks English (or American as it were). I've realized that her English is very American which is normal since I am her main source of English. Having a little brother has given Suzanne more impetous for speaking English because she is aware of her essential role in Max's language development.

Max has a huge advantage that Suzanne did not have : conversation. Suzanne grew up hearing disjointed and disconnected conversations since I always speak English and my husband always speaks French (and we do not stray from that). Max has the two-way conversation on both sides. I have to admit that it makes me happy to hear Suzanne speaking to her little brother in English when no one's around. As with Suzanne, Max is speaking more English than French despite markedly less exposure to English than French. I guess there is a reason it's called a mother tongue. I just never realized that my children would rely so much on my own tongue.

No comment

2010-10-18T09:15:00.000+02:00

How much more Flemish could Max be? My blondie loves making beer bottle music. He throws himself on the ground in protest when we take the bottles away from him. The future is promising...