I have been an au pair for three months. It honestly doesn’t seem like it’s been three months, but at the same time, I can’t believe it’s already been three months. How could it possibly have been three months already?
A lot of the time, I talk about how great things are with the girls or how much I am loving France. Only one of those is sugarcoated, and it’s not the “in love with France” part. I just finished putting the girls to bed. And by putting them to bed, I mean I just spent an hour breaking up fights and singing lots of Primary songs in French to get them to calm down. But I’m glad to know that “Once There was a Snowman” is as much as a hit with them as it was with me. This wasn’t even a rough night, if you can believe it. Normally, a rough night ends with me lying in bed with the girls until they fall asleep, then creeping out while Big M says goodnight because she never goes to sleep. EVER. I mean, I love these girls, I do, but good heavens are they a tough crowd.
Also, I have had a ton of difficult days here with the girls. There’s times when they don’t listen to me, there’s times when I have to physically drag them away from each other, and there’s times when I have to carry two of them at once while walking home from the park. I love them, but they drive me up the wall a lot of the time. I especially have a hard time with their cleaning habits. Every time I ask them to clear the table and set it, they always just set the table on top of whatever art supplies are sitting there. Like, I get it. It’s a lot easier to just set the table on top of markers. I’ve done it plenty of times in my life. But now that I’m older and I’m the one who’s doing the cleanup, it is beyond frustrating. I just want them to put the markers in the bucket before they put the silverware on the table. Is that too much to ask? But I do it anyway, because it is my job and because they’ve done what I’ve asked, even on the days when I explicitly ask them to clean up their dessines. But it’s something that I will have to get used to.
I also tend to really stress myself out on Thursday afternoons. Couldn’t tell you why, but I really stress and freak out. I don’t know if it’s because I’m left at home with two of the girls and expected to get a giant list of things done or if it’s because I just stress myself out on Thursdays even though the amount of stuff I’m doing is the same as a Monday or a Tuesday afternoon. It’s kinda frustrating because all I want is to just have fun with the girls, but I’m always like “ah wait we have to be here at exactly this time and we made it by the skin of our teeth last week so this week we need to go NOW” but then we always end up making it by the skin of our teeth. Maybe it’s a kid thing. I don’t know. Any moms out there want to confirm my suspicions?
I’m here until July! I’m so relieved to know how long I’m staying now, instead of playing a very terrifying guessing game. I’ll probably leave mid-july and then take my sister on a mini vacation to ALL THE CHATEAUX IN FRANCE! Not all of them, of course, but the ones with the most historical significance (I hope you like ruins tessah because you have to see chateau gaillard). But also I might end up skipping out on a lot of beauty if I just go for historical significance (*coughs* CHAMBORD).
This Wednesday was Armistice Day, so I had the day off and I went to Eu and Le Treport avec my au pair friends. It was not as fun as Trouville or Honfleur would have been, but we still got to see the sea. I just really wanted to go to Honfleur. It’s my favorite place in the whole wide world. But now I have 9 months to see it, so I can go whenever. But I still want to go because it is literally the best place on earth. I mean, I feel about Honfleur the way most Americans feel about Paris. It’s the best place ever. But anyway, when we were in Eu, we had lunch at a little restaurant. I had a really good omelette with fries and we just sat and talked and ate forever. It was so much fun to hang out with some friends. Especially English-speaking friends. Even though I love speaking French, it’s so nice to slip into my native language and have a reset. Sometimes, if I’ve been speaking que French, I feel like my brain stops completely, so now that I’m able to reset about once a week, I feel like my French is progressing a lot faster than when I was speaking French all the time and having a conversation with someone in my family late at night sometimes.
But overall, at this weird three-month pause/reflection, I’m happy. I’m so happy to be here following my dreams. I’m right where I need to be and that’s the best thing ever right now.
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