A Normal Little Week :)

Last week when I blogged, I didn’t add as much detail about the “little things” as I usually do. After some thought, I decided that maybe that happened because I was so intent on blogging about my trip to Bailleul that I sort of disregarded my week that led up to the trip. Well, tomorrow my French family and I will leave for Normandie, and since I will probably have tons to blog about on Sunday, I decided I should blog tonight just to show you how relevant these past four days have been! 

On Monday I remember waking up and not being able to believe it was Monday again. The housekeeper, Erselia, comes to clean on Monday mornings, and I woke up completely shocked that another week had just flown by! Time flies when you’re having fun, but it reallyyyy flies when you’re having fun in Paris with the cutest little four year old in the universe. :)  Cecile and I went for a run in the forest together (which is becoming a little Monday morning tradition of ours <3) and we took Eden with us so she could flop around in the grass and swim a little bit in the pond. It was kind of warm outside - sunny at least - so we didn’t have enough energy to do our full three laps and did two quick ones instead. After running and stretching we came back to the house where I took a quick shower before rushing off to Paris for a very important meeting. Brianna, a friend of Molly’s from Ukiah, was visiting Paris with her family and my mom had sent a little package with them so that I could meet up with them in Paris to recieve it. It took me about an hour to take the Metro and find the hotel, but I made it there on time because I have learned to give myself an extra 20 minutes of “get lost time.” Brianna’s family greeted me with warm hugs and took me to eat some soup and chat for a bit. It was their last day in Paris and their plane was to leave that evening and GUESS WHAT? I was soooo glad I didn’t have to leave with them! I remember thinking “thank goodness it’s not time for me to leave, I haven’t seen anything yet!” I think realizing this was a huge step for me because just three weeks ago I would have been begging them to take me with them. Not anymore! I have so much to discover here and I know it will go by way too fast.

The package my mom sent contained some really awesome books, letters, and tea that I was very stoked to receive (THANKS MOMMA!). I returned to Asnieres in time to take Eden for a short walk before picking up my lovely little Prune Prune. 

Now, I realize I haven’t ever gone over what I do with Prune on a normal day. We have developed a routine that we both seem to enjoy very much! 

At 4:05, I leave the house for the Metro station. I only have to be on the Metro for about three minutes and it takes me to a stop about ten minutes away from the school (walking) called Gabriel Peri. I arrive at the school at about 4:25 and stand with all the other parents until the gates open at 4:30, and then I stand in line outside Prunette’s classroom and wait for my turn to greet the teacher and take Prune to the park. Prune is alwasy looking for me from inside the classroom, and when we make eye contact, she smiles and giggles and waves and so do I! She is always happy to be picked up because she is hungry and ready to play after school. When it’s my turn, I greet the teacher and then take Prune by the hand and lead her away from the classroom. She complains about being hungry until we get to the park, but once we are inside the gate I slip out of her hand and run towards the grass as she chases me laughing. I get to the grass about 20 seconds before she does, which is enough time to take off my coat so we have something to sit on. When she reaches me, she sits on my coat and giggles as I put on a show pulling out each snack I’ve brought individually until they are all in front of her and she can pick which one she wants to eat first. Prune is very thin, but she can eat sooo much! After our little 10 minute picnic, we pack up our snacks and head over to the playground. Prune has two favorite things to do on the playground: go on the swings and go down the big slide (but only if I give her a high five on the way down). We play with all the other children and the parents all look at me like I am crazy and the children all look at me like they wish I spoke French! At 6:00, I tell Prune she can play for two more minutes, and about 30 seconds later she tells me she is read to go home. On our way out of the park, she politely asks if she can balance along the wall of the fountain and I hold her hand while she walks carefully towards the exit of the park. We then walk to the Metro (usually singing) and make it home by about 6:30. Right when we get home, we both shout “BUBBLE BATH” over and over again as we run upstairs and get her ready for her bath. In the bath, I sing while she dances and, when she has been very good, I play music from Frozen for her on my phone and sing along because according to her, I am the Queen of the Snow. After her bath (at about 7:00), I help her put on pijamas and brush her hair. We then grab a bunch of crayons and markers and set up an art station at the kitchen table so she can draw as I prepare something for her dinner. Prune constantly wants to watch TV, so it was a bit hard to get her interested in doing other things while I cook, but now she doodles happily while I make dinner and sometimes (as you saw in last weeks blog) I even let her give me tattoos! She eats about half of her dinner before getting tired of eating, and when that happens I have to make a deal with her. Usually, I divide the remains of her dinner in two and tell her that if she eats one of the halfs then she can watch TV for 10 minutes after dinner. This works every time because she loves TV so much, and while she is watching cartoons I have time to clean up the kitchen. She doesn’t protest when the alarm goes off after 10 minutes, and we head upstairs to read a book before bed. A lot of the time Cecile and Fred will arrive home while I am reading to her, so they come upstairs and read a book or two, too. After that it is lights out, and night-light and music on! And I can head downstairs to get ready for dinner with Fred and Cecile. :)

 So Prune and I have a pretty great little routine! That is how my Monday ended. 

On Tuesday morning I got up with Cecile to take Eden to the vet for a check up. In the car on the way there, we were talking about the vacations that are coming up in late October and Cecile informed me that I am invited to spend a week in Brittany with Cecile and Prune followed by a week in the South of France with Fred’s mom, Mari, and Prune! I am sooo lucky and excited to get to see different parts of this wonderful country!! After the appointment with the vet, Cecile and I crossed the street to have a coffee at a cute little cafe. She told me that Prune hadn’t been feeling well that morning, and that she thought it might be a good idea to pick her up on the way home so she could rest. Cecile had to work, so she asked me if I would be okay taking care of Prune at home a little earlier than usual and of course I had no problem! I watched a movie with Prune as she cuddled her doo-doo (her favorite white bunny stuffed animal) and then put her down for a three hour nap! When she woke up, she seemed to be feeling much better, so I decided to take her to the library to choose some books. It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the library, and when we got there she was in a good mood and listened when I told her to pick out some books from the English section. I let her check out two books in French also, because I’m soo niiiiice hahah. When we went to check out the books, the librarian didn’t speak English, so I had to use the few things I know how to say in French to communicate with her, and it went very well! She was very sweet, and whenever I didn’t understand her Prune would help me out a little by answering questions to the best of her knowledge hahah. When we got home, I read all the books to Prune, and Cecile came home while we were finishing up the last book and was very pleased to see all the English being practiced hahah. As for the books in French, well, I let Prunette “read” them to me. By “read” I mean she looked at the pictures and said stuff in French in a teacher voice. So cute! 

On Wednesday morning, Cecile dropped Prune and I off at Prune’s first “sport” lesson. I am not completely sure what Prune did during that class (parents and au pairs are not allowed to watch because we are distracting), but afterwards Prune seemed to be very happy about the lesson and she was exhausted and ready for a nap. Wednesdays, as I believe I have explained before, Prunette doesn’t have school so she spends the morning with me and the afternoon with Cecile and me. When we got home (Cecile picked us up from the lesson because it was raining and she didn’t have to work at that moment), we all ate lunch together and then Prune went to sleep because she needed to rest up before her horseback riding lesson later that day. While Prune slept, Cecile worked on the book she has been writing (ISN’T SHE SO COOL?!) and I went for a run in the pouring rain. It might have been the greatest run of my life, because I remember feeling so completely alive and thinking about how running in the rain is much more fun that simply swimming in water hahah. When I came back, I took a quick shower and then went with Cecile to take Prune to the horses. I didn’t need to go with them, but I wanted to, and I think that was my inner- exchange student that still wants to see as much as possible, even if its just a bunch of little French girls in a stinky horse arena thing hahah. While Prunette was riding, Cecile and I took a walk in a nearby park and talked for awhile until it was time to return for Prune. We are pretty sure Prune liked the lesson a lot, but she was too tired to really say a lot about it! That night after Prune had gone to bed, Fred and Cecile made me a special French dinner that involved using a strange machine to melt cheese and then put it on top of potatoes and meat! It was delicious but honestly a little bit stressful because the cheese just kept coming and coming and I wasn’t ready for that much cheese. 

This morning I woke up on the right side of the bed and I am not quite sure why. I had a long to-do list on my mind, and I was ready to get it done and maybe that, for some reason, made me very happy. I got up and went down to the basement to start my laundry before heading off to the grocery store for a long long shopping trip. Cecile had a gigantic list of things to buy for the trip to Normandie, and I had my own list of chocolate chip cookie and pancake ingredients for the treats I promised to prepare for Cecile and her friends in Normandie! We spent about two hours at the grocery store, and since we knew we were going to take so long, we went ahead and got the car cleaned while we were shopping. After unloading all the food at the house, I changed into my workout clothes and cleaned the heckkkk out of my room. It wasn’t really dirty - maybe a tad less organized than usual - but cleaning made me feel very good because I felt like I was doing something very right hahah. I made my room sparkle and then extra-organized all my things. Then, since I was all ready in my running clothes, I went on a run to a nearby workout park. The entire time I wished it was raining; I think running in the rain might be one of my favorite things to do at this point in my life! When I got back from my run, I took a quick shower and finished my laundry before making a simple little lunch of rice and a tomato. Cecile came back while I was eating and told me that she would take me in the car to pick up Prune today because she had an hour off of work. When Prune saw that we were both there to pick her up, she was very happy! We ran to the park (as usual) and she ate her snacks and began to play. Cecile left to work again, and shortly after, Prune and I ran into a bit of a problem. Public restrooms in the US are pretty gross, but public restrooms in France are just a stall with a hole in the ground and should be avoided at all costs. Today, Prune came up to me and whispered that she had to poop, but made it very clear that the park restroom was not an option. She demanded to be taken home. It usually takes us a half hour to get home together, but I sprinted with Prune on my back and we made it home in under 20 minutes and everything was okay! I was so stressed out during those 20 minutes though… I was pretty sure she was going to have an accident. But she didn’t! So yay! We were home an hour earlier than usual, and we filled that hour dancing to random music on my phone and reading lots and lots of books. Prune was such a great listener today, so after dinner I let her watch TV for 20 minutes AND give me a tattoo! Cecile came home in time to read Prune a story before bed, which gave me a couple minutes to pack for Normandie before helping out with dinner. Fred and Cecile said they didn’t need help tonight, so I got my computer and started blogging. Fred began to tease me for blogging before Sunday and brought me some peanuts as a snack while I was “working” hahah. They are so nice! For dinner we ate home made pizza and some salad and now it is 10:27pm and I am in bed blogging for you! 

I am really looking forward to making some chocolate chip cookies to take to Normandie tomorrow night and whatever tomorrow throws my way. Thank you for reading! I will blog again about Normandie on Sunday! :)