frenglish

theme song for the week: New Soul by Yael Naim. (somewhat overplayed, but deserving to this week, plus she is French)

Thursdays are good days for me to add excerpts. And everyweek they shall come. I will try to add pictures another day; I was unsuccessful in finding my card reader.

It has been a very tiring first week, and I am not sure if the work is going let up. I have always wrestled with the concept of babysitting because it is just babysitting; it is really not that hard and does not have a very respectful place in the working world, however needed you may be. It is no math :) On the other hand, taking care of children, aka mothers...is hard. You understand the obvious similarities as well as the differences, but because they are not my children and my job as a caretaker is to take care and impress the family of my hard work and responsibilities, babysitting is tiring. Wednesdays especially; I have the two boys all day long, pretty much 12 hours. And so far I have not had any naps. I am sure they will come, but after being a very habitual nap taker throughout college, this life is very hard. I had a Red Bull one day because I could barely hang on. Never thought I would have resort to those drinks unless they were for driving or studying.

The two boys are pretty good. I have had them one on one as well as together. They listen to me a little better when we are out with mom, but for that I am truely grateful. The oldest, Jean Baptist is the more outgoing one and is friendly with everyone. His mother was telling me that he really does not understand the concept of bad people. He believes everyone is good, but because of that, his parents believe that he is vulnerable to those bad people that Jean Baptist is nice to. He loves his scooter, tropdinette, and his tricycle. He goes very fast and its kind of scary because he wears no helmet. The youngest, Amboise, is adorable. He is very loving and loves to fling his body everywhere. Seriously, it is weird. He cries for mom a lot and it is hard to divert his attention elsewhere. He loves doing everything his big brother does. And he calls me Nani or Nini (ne-ne)

oh yah, we eat fish almost everyday! but I am sure that will lessen because of school now feeding them.

This weekend was quite a blessing; without it, I would probably be still anxious and somewhat lonely. But no, I have a friend! Katie Winter is second degree friend? She is a friend with Gillian, a wonderful friend from Westmont. She is also an au pair, but in another part of the city. We actually do not live that far, but by metro we live farther. We met right under the Eiffel Tower, which I thought was a pretty good idea considering meeting elsewhere near the Eiffel Tower could get confusing depending on my left and rights. Center of the Eiffel Tower, no good. Hundreds of people in the middle of the Eiffel Tower! We met up to say the least and we just walked and talked for a long time. We just walked with no destination, but eventually stopped for gelato at the Notre Dame. We headed to her flat and hung out until I needed to go home. The next day we went to the Petit Palais where they were showing an exhibition on Spanish tango art. Katie is fluent in Spanish already and has a heart for the Spanish, so she was excited to go. After we went to an IKEA, which is near the airport, which is pretty far away. Having no idea how to get there, we wing it on a couple of metros and buses and finally get there. Too many people! but in an odd way, it was something familiar and felt somewhat like home. I did not need anything really, but was more motivated not to buy much because I would have to carry it home. Katie has buffer arms than me and I believe they came in quite handy with her new decor for her room. In the end, I ended up with a duvet cover and a plant.

This next week will kick in with routine of me taking and picking up the kids since they just started this week with the parents taking them, and I can finally get a nap. Language school for me does not start until the end of September. Play time! And my French is still pretty bad, but I can understand a lot more than I can speak. I have to talk to the kids in French because they do not understand anything else, but I have been asked to speak in English so they can pick it up or understand it, but if I speak to them only in English, I think both the kids and I will cry for lack of understanding. Together we will be creating Frenglish. Whatever you want to call it.

If you happen to send a letter, please use my alias name: Madame Brissart c/o Jennifer Chin.


until thursday.