Hit me

At the bottom of the blog, there are a couple links. One of them is my site meter which I put there for the hell of it, but rarely look at. It can tell me lots of stuff about the people who visit my lowly blog including where they're from, what they look at and how they get here.

Last night, I had a look at the last 100 people. Of course I recognized my parents coming to visit from NJ and referrals from some other blogs I read. But the interesting bit is the people who get here through google searches.

The hot topic at the moment is urination. I got a dozen hits with various combinations of the words French, pee, problem, discrete, outside. My favorite one is "what is French pee" from someone in North Carolina. Maybe Southern pee is different from French pee? Or maybe it's something sick I don't know about and would rather ignore. And someone in Australia found me by wondering " why do the French pee outside"? I'll get back to you when I find the answer to that one....

Another one that gets lots of hits is the name of the blog. A dozen people have looked for Spaghettios t-shirts, which makes me think I should be marketing my blog.

Yet another interesting topic on my blog is caca boudin. Of course we all know that this is a highly interesting topic for the 3-5 year old market, but I don't think any of them know how to do a google search yet.

And my personal favorite is the person in Sacremento, California who searched for the answer to this doozy : are spaghettios bad for pregnant women?

Thanks for visiting and keep it coming.

the never ending chantier

I have a real front hall. Finally, after living in this house for a year and a half, I have coat hooks that don't block the door from closing and a place to put the shoes that doesn't involve walking over 10 pairs to get into the house.

Don't get me wrong. The house is far from finished. And the front hall - which is part of the ground floor ie last priority - is no where near finished. That explains why there is plaster dust on all my coats. But who cares? Now I can live with it.

We also have turned the no man's land room (our future master bedroom) into a gameroom, equiped with our newly inherited pool table. It's also the perfect place to set up the exercise machine that I will probably never have time to use.

And remember the garden that we were working so hard to finish this summer? Well, it's not finished. But thanks to our wonderful cats, we will never need to fertilize to make things grow. They took it upon themselves to use their shit in a sustainable way and have litterally turned our tiny peice of earth into an enormous litter box. I'm hoping the winter rain will take care of it because I gag at the thought of having to clean the dirt in the spring.

As if there was time to do anything around the house between the kids and the leaky shower...maybe instead of writing this entry I should actually be taking the 2 year old masking tape off the windows that were painted last summer (ok, only 1 coat but who's counting?).

Proof is in the bilingual pudding

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am intrigued (obsessed?) and proud of my bilingual 3 year old. Up until now, I've written down examples of what she says but here for the first time, drum roll please, is Suzanne showing her stuff in a short video in French where she serenades her baby brother and a longer video (3 minutes - you've been warned!) in English in which she tells a story to my mother. Both of these videos were taken back in August after 3 weeks of intense English with my mother.

A little background for anyone who might be reading this for the first time, we're raising our children in an OPOL home. Suzanne has been in a French environment 80% of the time (since I work full time). At home, she hears me speaking English; we have some English speaking friends who we see about once a week; we watch TV and read books in English.

Since she's started school, her French is taking over certain parts of her speech, but I am still so really very proud of my little girl.

'appy alowine 2009

Once again, it's Halloween in France; and once again this year, I'm a little confused by the Hallowee, roller coaster. Is it here or not? My local supermarket is selling pumpkins for jack o'lanterns (advertised as such) right next to a display of Haribo candy specially packaged for Halloween. the beauty supply store down the street has a window display with pumpkins, spiders and cans of hair paint. Yet. Yet...where is Halloween?

This year, I will not be caught off guard as I have been in the past. I bought candy for the eventual, straggling trick or treater, no matter how rude or not (see previous Halloween experiences). And we are going to my friend's almost annual Halloween party with repleat with apple bobbing, pumpkin carving and loads of candy.

I even sewed a costume for Suzanne.

I just wish I could go trick or treating....

Peter Mayle has provided some 'alowine food for thought in his recent op ed in the New York Times. A good and accurate account of Halloween in France

école or not école

école=school. Right? Apparently not.

I mean I still haven't gotten all the French educational jargon down. From petite section to CM2 to CP to sixième or terminal, who could understand it without actually having lived it?

So the other day as we were driving past a école in the neighborhood, I asked Jerome in French (something that is rare these days), "so is that suzanne's next école?" (since it's not the one she's in now). He said, no that it was an école like hers now. And I said but it's not a college (middle school); He said no, it's a groupe scolaire (which apparently is a école maternelle et école primaire under the same roof ie elementary school). So I asked where her next école was to which he replied that after her école it's not école anymore. Confused? Me too...

Apparently what they teach you in French class is wrong. école is only the beginning after which point it's not longer école which I thought was the general term for, um, school...

So how do you say school? Or is that just too American of me to try to simplify or even understand? After 12 years of living here, when you think you finally got it, you just don't.

(And have you ever noticed that many of the French words beginning with é have an s at the beginning in English? éponge (sponge), épargner (spare), éparpiller (scatter), école (school)....)

caca boudin prout

As suspected, school has given Suzanne a much wider vocabulary and stronger grammar in french.

Over the past couple weeks, we've noticed that she is beginning to make more complicated sentences using prepositions and even using some past participles, correctly some of the time; I'm still trying to take a back seat in regards to her French but it's hard not to notice when your child is speaking to you in a foreign lanuage and she's speaking better than you ever will even after living here for a dozen years.

But her English seems to be following the French increase which is both interesting and a relief. A couple days ago, she said to me, "where's the toy I was playing with this morning?" That makes mama proud ;)

But more than grammar, there is an increase in vocabulary. Particular vocabulary that usually has to do with body functions. A couple days ago, her "amoureuse" (he's actually a boy but she can't get around to using the masculin form) and she were having a conversation that went something like this, "Je peux faire un petit pipi sur toi? et un petit caca? Je peux faire un petit caca sur Max?" and then it continued along the lines of "caca boudin" (kiddy language which literally means poopy sausage but is a kid swear word). By the end of the evening, I caught them on the couch saying, "oh putain" (oh, fuck). Um, yeah. It had to start somewhere.

Although I love discussing excrement and all, my favorite part of her language skills right now are the made up things. Since her French is becoming so good, and her English exposure is limited, she is making up lots of words and trying to find ways around what she wants to say but can't. So she often says at the moment, "I can't remember" or "I don't know what it's called" or she just makes something up when she forgets a word. This morning on the way to school, she told me her "tummybelton" was cold. And the other day coming back from school when she couldn't figure out how to say that she's tired from thinking or learning at school, she said "school makes my head tired".

It makes my head tired too.

Food for thought

A long long while ago, I wrote about the French babyfood exception. Obviously French babies do not eat like their culinary inferiors in the rest of the world. Yes, they eat mush. Yes, it is often unidentifiable. Yes, it is made by huge multinationals. But, apparently, the unidentifiable mush is actually much more sophisticated than simple carrots and peas (although what I tasted was vile).

And don't think that it stops when the kids leave the nest! Every afternoon since Suzanne started school, I've asked her what she ate for lunch. She usually chooses not to remember so I have to guess by spots on her clothes or clumps in her hair. Or, once in a while, she'll tell me it was purét (her englishization of purée which is mashed taters) or just meat or fish.

So today I finally decided to look at the menu. Earlier in the week, my child ate pasta with brocoli. Today she will be lunching on veal marengo, fresh fruit and cheese soufflé. And tomorrow she will be having seafood paella. This is a long way from the soggy pizza and chocolate milk you see at American school cafeterias (although Monday was steack haché aka hamburger without the bun).

Food for thought... literally.