Babyhood

It snowed this morning, what a surprise! It was very cold and raining frozen slush when I took the children to school on the bus, but by the time I got the car out to drive to a friend’s house for tea, proper white snowflakes were falling and it continued all morning. So when I picked up Pauline at lunchtime (Kevin went to the school canteen for lunch today), she was amazed to see crunchy white snow outside. She had a great time in the garden, pushing the toy lawn mower around and looking over her shoulder at the tracks she made. The temperature has risen a bit though, as most of it has melted away now. My friend Kim recently returned from England and bought me the Eddie Izzard video I had asked for, and I’ve been watching it this afternoon. He’s really very funny and totally original.

On Wednesdays there is no school, so I have to entertain the children myself. Usually I take them out, but last week I didn’t feel like dragging them outside because it is bitterly cold. I baked a lemon and poppy seed cake for afternoon tea, as a new friend Véronique (from New Caledonia, lives just down the road) was invited with her two sons, one of whom is in Kevin’s class. But she had to postpone it, which was a disappointment. To put an end to the monotony, grizzles and rising stress levels, I put the cake in the freezer for next week and said “Right! Let’s go to MacDonalds!”

For once, it was an enjoyable experience: despite the crowds our food came quickly and was hot, and the children received a marvellous Lego monster with rotating nose in their kiddy packs. After that we shopped at a big supermarket in Fonty. I didn’t really need much, but they love to push those little trolleys around themselves, and it killed another hour or so.

We watched a lot of TV! Also did some more painting, we’re decorating butcher’s paper to use for wrapping presents. However they always lose interest after about 20 minutes, just as I’m starting to enjoy myself. Pauline doesn’t actually get much paint onto the paper, however she loves making the water black, and putting her dirty brush into all the other colours, which drives me mad, needless to say. Kevin painted a very handsome railway track on his paper. His teacher told me yesterday that she can feel he is growing in confidence and can write his name in smaller, more precise letters now. That’s really good news.

I got up early and took Kevin shopping on Saturday morning (Pauline often prefers to stay at home with her Daddy). There weren’t too many customers, so it only took and hour, even going at a leisurely pace – my serenity continues! Amazing how much nicer Kevin is when I’m relaxed, well that’s a stupid thing to say, it’s not amazing at all, but perfectly logical. We did a really big shop and filled the trolley. When we got home P. said he wanted to go to Paris for the day, so I was pleased, thinking it would be a nice easy day. However, I wanted to do a special fun meal for the kids. I cooked cubes of fresh fish in beaten egg and bread crumbs and served them on a huge platter with grapes, cubes of cucumber, cheese and apples, cooked broccoli and gave them short wooden skewers so they could make their own kebabs. I did this in a big hurry under lots of pressure with hungry brats pestering me the whole time (it was only 11.30) and absolutely ran to get it all on the table, thinking they would really love it. They looked happy at first, but I shouldn’t have put everything on one platter, because Pauline took all the cheese, so Kevin screamed and took all the fish, so Pauline screamed and threw things on the floor. All hell broke loose and my serenity and new-found calm came to an abrupt and horrible end. I shouted myself hoarse, smacked them both, threw a few things and lay face down sobbing on my bed while they happily ate their cubes of food with their fingers, completely ignoring the skewers.

By the time I’d tidied up and taken them to a birthday party I had a raging headache and was depressed for the rest of the day. On Sunday morning I was tempted to leave them with P. and go into Paris myself for 12 hours to cool off! But P. was in a horrible grumpy mood too, so I gritted my teeth, pretended to be jolly and took the children to the market to buy mussels and prawns which are quite cheap at the moment. So we had a slap-up feast, which was some consolation. All afternoon I kept them upstairs, away from grumpy Daddy and we did painting, ink stamps and play-dough sculptures. Then we went into the kitchen and made a fabulous apple crumble (with rolled oats and brown sugar). I let them spoon the ingredients into the scales and stir the mixture while I stewed the apples. Their little fingers are also very adept at getting the lumps out of brown sugar! Pauline of course, didn’t want to eat any of it when it was cooked, but Kevin and P. ate a bucketful each, they loved it! So, good humour was restored to the entire household.

The nice thing about today was how well the children played together, with almost no fights and tantrums. Even both mealtimes went smoothly. In fact I often give them an early dinner at 6.30 and leave them to it with almost no supervision. That way they eat what they want, without the accompaniment of paternal scoldings of the “sit up properly” and “not with your fingers!” kind. I have lately been trying to cut down my stress levels by doing things a bit more slowly, rushing less, and am making a huge effort not to lose my temper every time something or someone annoys me. I was so successful yesterday and today that I feel positively serene. Long may it continue.

Kevin’s been talking about babies again, and asked if I’m going to have a new baby. When I said no, he wanted to know why not, so I told him that babies are hard work and I already had a Kevin baby and a Pauline baby. Then he said now that Mallorie has one baby, perhaps she’ll have another new one. And finally we came to the question “How does she get a baby?”!! I was thrilled! So I said she had a little egg inside her that grows into a baby. He laughed and said “An egg? That’s for chickens!” but seemed satisfied. I’ll keep you posted…

Kevin and I had a short trip away to Brittany (Pauline went to her grandparents’). The Breton countryside is really beautiful and green and it was so good to be by the sea again, even if wasn’t swimming season. Even on the Wednesday morning when we left Moret the weather was fantastic and sunny. We caught a bus from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare de Montparnasse and we had a lovely view from the big picture windows the new Paris buses have. The TGV ride to St Brieuc lasted just over three hours and Kevin was quite fidgety but our “wagon” (how DO we say that in English?) was more than half empty, so he was able to walk up and down, climb on seats and wriggle about without disturbing the other passengers. I had put books, toys and crayons in his little Buzzy Bee back pack, but he just wasn’t in the mood for any of that stuff! Eating lunch kept him occupied for a while though. Pat, Rom and Mélissa met us at the station and showed us around St Brieuc first. It’s a fairly boring, functional town but with a pretty medieval market place where we had afternoon tea. The children were really happy to see each other again, but they were cross that I hadn’t brought Pauline. Throughout our stay the two boys always ended up playing together, so Mélissa sulked and threw a few tantrums, feeling left out of course.

Their new house at Trégueux is an intriguing mixture of small old house with a large, modern extension and as a result, there are odd angles and funny little staircases in unexpected places. It’s a bit of a mish-mash of styles, and rather cluttered with all their furniture. However, it was comfortable and warm at night, that’s the main thing! They are only three kilometres from the beach, so it was lovely to stroll along the sand and breathe in the iodine air. The children collected bucketfuls of scallop shells (all empty, sadly!) in an astonishing variety of colours. Their garden is vast and full of fruit trees. They have so many apples Pat has to give them away, she just can’t spend all her days making compote and jelly (I would!). We had a quick and easy raclette dinner (melted cheese poured onto boiled potatoes, selection of ham and cold meats and green salad), but she promised us a full-on Breton menu for the next day. She had also made îles flottantes for dessert, which is an blob of poached meringue floating in a sea of very runny custard. Kevin and Rom had a bath together and begged to be allowed to sleep in Rom’s room. I said they could for the first night, but if there was too much monkey business Kevin would have to sleep in my room. Well they laughed and giggled and made farting noises until very late and were then up at six the next morning watching cartoons on TV. By 10 am when we were ready to go to St Malo for the day, Kevin was pale and yawning. He was so tired that when I sent him to the toilet just before we left, he didn’t see that the lid was down, sat down and peed all over his clothes and the floor!

Pat's hubby had taken two days off work in honour of our visit, and drove us to St Malo. It was over an hour’s drive, passing the Cap Fréhel and its lighthouse on the way. The countryside is very green and lots of rolling hills and dairy farms to look at, and the houses are very pretty, all built in the local grey and pink granite or dark grey slate. The coast is wild and rugged and reminded me very much of home. It was another beautifully sunny day and we saw St Malo at its best. Pat had warned me that it can look very grim on a grey day, as all the town buildings are high and very close together, casting a perpetual shadow over most streets. It looks like a gorgeous, perfectly preserved medieval town, but I learned that it was completely destroyed during W.W. II, and then faithfully rebuilt in 1949. So all the architecture, including the ramparts and old city wall are perfectly solid and stable. We walked from the beach across the wet sand to a tiny islet, or big rock, which can only be reached at low tide, to visit the (unmarked) tomb of the writer Beaumarchais. It was a steep and invigorating climb to the top of the rock. Apparently he wished to be buried where he would only hear the sound of the wind and the sea. By then we were all hungry, so we walked into town to the best crêperie for some lunch. When Romuald ordered an andouillette and cheese galette, Kevin immediately said he wanted the same. I tried to persuade him to have a cheese and ham one, knowing that andouillette tastes like urine!, but he would not be dissuaded. Amazingly, he ate it all, much to my relief. I had the Bretonne: spinach, egg, bacon and onions, it was fabulous. The children ordered the crêpe surprise for dessert, it was just a sweet crêpe with a face made of sweeties! After all that we needed another walk, so we did the tour of the old city wall which took just under an hour and gave us splendid views. We also popped into a casino, where I watched people playing the fruit machines, but was too intimidated to have a go myself! It was the first time I’ve ever been in one. The noise, smoke and flashing lights were all a bit overwhelming.

On Friday morning Pat and I left the children raking leaves in the garden with her hubby, while we went to the fish markets at St Brieuc. I was amazed at how much cheaper the seafood was there. We bought mussels for lunch, and for dinner an extravaganza of oysters, crab, bigorneaux (cockles?) and clams. Kevin sampled every single thing, I’m happy to report, even the raw oysters with lemon juice! I was in shellfish heaven, as you can imagine. We ate the mussels with hot chips, like they do in Belgium (and London), the crab with home-made mayonnaise, the cockles dipped in vinaigrette and stuffed the clams with garlic and parsley butter and warmed them under the grill. Surprisingly, after all that, we all slept very well! The long runaround on the beach probably helped our digestion somewhat! We went home the next day.

Sunday evening: I've just watched the All Blacks’ defeat at Twickenham. Like everyone else, I was sure New Zealand would win and I felt really disappointed by the outcome, especially as they played so well in the first half. But the emotions of the French players and commentators are quite infectious and I’m reminded of the euphoria of the world cup soccer final. I’m all on my own because P. took the children out this afternoon, so I appreciated being able to watch the match in peace. However it’s now past dinnertime and they are still not home, so I guess P. took them out for dinner and hope they got some nice Hallowe’en treats. It’s become incredibly commercial here. I carved a fantastic jack o’lantern from a huge pumpkin, not a scary face, but a smiley one with one tooth, like a baby. I prepared lots of little packets of home-baked cookies and truffles for the trick or treaters.

Tuesday: In fact P. kept the children out very late, he wanted to tire them out because Kevin has been waking up too damned early every day for the last week or so. It didn’t work, they woke up at 6 am again! So yesterday afternoon he took Pauline to his parents’ place a day earlier than planned, he felt he wouldn’t have the energy to do the long drive this evening after a day at work. Kevin, although excited about going to St Brieuc tomorrow was jealous of Pauline going to Mémée and Pépé, so we had quite a grumpy day. What’s more, I had strict instructions to keep him up very late last night and I read him stories for an hour at 9 pm even though his eyes were glazed and half closed! It worked though, he slept till seven this morning, which is much more reasonable.

So today we’ve had a busy day packing our bags and cleaning out the fridge so P. can stock up on ready-cooked meals. I’m cross with him because Kevin and I went to the market in the rain especially to buy a rosbif for lunch. Then he rang to say he wasn’t coming home! I cooked it anyway, but normally I just do sandwiches when the man of the house isn’t home.