So, the past week or so has been pretty good. For the first time ever last Wednesday I actually had a nice day! In the morning Lucie told the girls that they could go to the cinema in the afternoon if and only if they were well behaved going to and from Pony club. This included: no whinging, no stropping, no sulking, no hitting and no being a bitch. Normally I suspect this wouldn't work, but the week before we were going to go to a restaurant for lunch if they were well behaved, but me and Juliette had a screaming match trying to get her to put her shoes on, so I just walked off shouting 'okay well nevermind, we're not going to the restaurant then', and we didn't go, so I think they knew that if they pissed me off we wouldn't go. (Having said that, I didn't really want to go to a restaurant, but I would have put up with a lot to go to the cinema. Juliette and I did kind of argue over the outfit she wanted to wear and then again when she decided that 2 minutes before lunch was served would be the optimum time to have a nap, but like I said, I wanted to go so I kind of ignored it.) Anyway, this new found power meant that they were little delights there and back. Well, Juliette managed to fall over whilst chucking a snowball at me - karma if ever I saw it - and started crying, but I made her walk it off and she was fine within 2 minutes.
It started snowing while we were at Pony, really heavily, and settling. It was like Narnia! Only with fewer magical creatures, which was a disappointment. It was also freeeeezing - the temperature must have dropped dramatically while we were there - and Zoe came in after her lesson sobbing hysterically because her feet were so cold. Not nice! I made her put on my fluffy socks and move closer to the furnace that was burning in there, but she carried on crying for like, 20 minutes. I called her mum in a moment of desperation who told me to take off her wet socks and put them on the furnace. One of the socks then proceeded to burn to a crisp. Whoops! This did, however, cheer Zoe up sufficiently to enable me to persuade her to put her boots back on and leave to go home - luckily she had her bike, so it was pretty speedy.
The film was really good! It was the Princess and the Frog, and obviously it was in French, so I didn't understand all of it - damn musical numbers being impossible to understand - but it was funny and there were cute characters and it was a nice story line and... yeah! I recommend it to any Disney fans. I'm glad they've made a new one. It's set in the New Orleans Jazz-era, which is really cool, I love that kind of jazz, and there is a trumpet playing alligator! What more could you want? Oh wait, how about a small hillbilly fly? Check. Crazy swamp voodoo woman? Check. Evil villainous villain? Checkity check. Jealous sidekick? Check. Arrogant prince who turns nice? Checkamundo. Strong independent heroine? Check. Voila, a classic Disney film.
We skipped tennis afterwards 'cause Zoe didn't want to go and I sure couldn't be bothered to take her (it was cold!), so we went home and played Monopoly. Now, given that Juliette can neither read nor count, I was pretty impressed by how well she played! She seemed to enjoy herself a lot - largely playing with the little dog and ship and hat - and made a crap load of money through a lot of good dice rolls. You know how there's always someone every time you play who lands on everything? That was her. It's normally my cousin - we used to play with her everytime we saw her until my brother and I got fed up of always losing. Now we refuse to play - our current game of choice is Risk! Of course, there's always someone who never lands on anything - usually my mum - and in this case it was Zoe who was getting a bit stressed by the end 'cause she had barely anything. I managed to get three of the train stations! Woo!
Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful - I didn't eat with the kids either night which was lovely and relaxing. On Friday I got distracted by youtube and forgot to do any of the cleaning so, knowing that neither of the parents would be home until about 7, I stuck the kids in front of the TV when we got home and did it then. I would feel bad about this except they always want to watch TV, so I figure they were happy. I'm sure French parents are much stricter about TV than my parents ever were. I'm sure I used to get to watch TV every day when I came in before doing my homework. These guys are allowed to watch it very rarely - Tuesday is meant to be TV night because we go to the library and rent a DVD, but I'm not sure how much they're allowed to watch it apart from that. I'm pretty sure they're not meant to watch it as much as I let them, but the other day Zoe literally whinged for about 15 minutes because she 'couldn't think of anything else to do'. Despite my insisting that 'if she couldn't think of anything else to do other than watch tv, that probably means she watches too much tv' (how old do I sound?!), she continued to mope until I decided that frankly, I wanted to read my book, so I let her watch it. I pointed out that she 'hadn't won!', but she knew she had really!
Over the weekend I decided it was time to rectify my trouser situation - I only have 2 pairs and over the past 2 months they have both decided that really large holes in the crotch are 'in' this season. Consequently I have been sewing them up on a regular basis, because it's a bit too cold for tights. I couldn't find anyone to go shopping with - the problems with limited friend access - so I went alone which is always fun. I am just going to say this now - shopping in Paris is not fun. I hate it. There are 2 streets which are meant to be pretty good for high street shopping - rue de rivoli and rue de rennes - and they are both MILES long. MILES!! I miss Leeds and its compact town centre. I am not a flea market/second hand shop/vintage shop kind of girl, so all those little areas are out, and I am definitely not a haute couture girl, so that rules out most of the Latin Quarter. I decided to go to the big shopping mall next to Chatelet-Les-Halles, which is underground. Not exactly what comes immediately to mind when you think of shopping in Paris, huh? Still, it was compact and there were a lot of shops close together. I managed to spend almost the entire day going exclusively into shops found almost everywhere in the world - H&M, Zara, Gap and, bizarrely, New Look. I know, who'd have thought?! Oh, and WH Smiths. I bought a Terry's Chocolate Orange bar, some Hobnobs and some Fanta fruit twist. I love that shop! Anyway, mission was completed - I bought 3 pairs of trousers, although unfortunately I couldn't be bothered to try on 2 of them in H&M because the queue was too long, and I don't really like them now I've tried them on, so I guess I'll be returning them! But, mission partially completed, at least! I managed not to get seriously depressed about my wobbly bits, so that's a bonus! I much prefer shopping in England though, it's weird. I will undoubtedly come back from Leeds next week with a better idea of why that is, but at the moment it's just like a funny feeling I get whenever I'm out shopping here, like my shopping experience isn't really optimum. I miss colourful shop windows, and familiar shops, and... I dunno. We'll see.
Anyway, I guess I'd better get on with actually doing my job. Ernest is asleep already, so I'm free until 4pm, but I should probably hoover or something.
P.S. No injuries as of yet this week, but it's early days! I have decided to start keeping a tally - some weeks it is quite astonishing how much they manage to fall down or walk into things or stab themselves with things or get punched by one of their siblings.
It started snowing while we were at Pony, really heavily, and settling. It was like Narnia! Only with fewer magical creatures, which was a disappointment. It was also freeeeezing - the temperature must have dropped dramatically while we were there - and Zoe came in after her lesson sobbing hysterically because her feet were so cold. Not nice! I made her put on my fluffy socks and move closer to the furnace that was burning in there, but she carried on crying for like, 20 minutes. I called her mum in a moment of desperation who told me to take off her wet socks and put them on the furnace. One of the socks then proceeded to burn to a crisp. Whoops! This did, however, cheer Zoe up sufficiently to enable me to persuade her to put her boots back on and leave to go home - luckily she had her bike, so it was pretty speedy.
The film was really good! It was the Princess and the Frog, and obviously it was in French, so I didn't understand all of it - damn musical numbers being impossible to understand - but it was funny and there were cute characters and it was a nice story line and... yeah! I recommend it to any Disney fans. I'm glad they've made a new one. It's set in the New Orleans Jazz-era, which is really cool, I love that kind of jazz, and there is a trumpet playing alligator! What more could you want? Oh wait, how about a small hillbilly fly? Check. Crazy swamp voodoo woman? Check. Evil villainous villain? Checkity check. Jealous sidekick? Check. Arrogant prince who turns nice? Checkamundo. Strong independent heroine? Check. Voila, a classic Disney film.
We skipped tennis afterwards 'cause Zoe didn't want to go and I sure couldn't be bothered to take her (it was cold!), so we went home and played Monopoly. Now, given that Juliette can neither read nor count, I was pretty impressed by how well she played! She seemed to enjoy herself a lot - largely playing with the little dog and ship and hat - and made a crap load of money through a lot of good dice rolls. You know how there's always someone every time you play who lands on everything? That was her. It's normally my cousin - we used to play with her everytime we saw her until my brother and I got fed up of always losing. Now we refuse to play - our current game of choice is Risk! Of course, there's always someone who never lands on anything - usually my mum - and in this case it was Zoe who was getting a bit stressed by the end 'cause she had barely anything. I managed to get three of the train stations! Woo!
Thursday and Friday were pretty uneventful - I didn't eat with the kids either night which was lovely and relaxing. On Friday I got distracted by youtube and forgot to do any of the cleaning so, knowing that neither of the parents would be home until about 7, I stuck the kids in front of the TV when we got home and did it then. I would feel bad about this except they always want to watch TV, so I figure they were happy. I'm sure French parents are much stricter about TV than my parents ever were. I'm sure I used to get to watch TV every day when I came in before doing my homework. These guys are allowed to watch it very rarely - Tuesday is meant to be TV night because we go to the library and rent a DVD, but I'm not sure how much they're allowed to watch it apart from that. I'm pretty sure they're not meant to watch it as much as I let them, but the other day Zoe literally whinged for about 15 minutes because she 'couldn't think of anything else to do'. Despite my insisting that 'if she couldn't think of anything else to do other than watch tv, that probably means she watches too much tv' (how old do I sound?!), she continued to mope until I decided that frankly, I wanted to read my book, so I let her watch it. I pointed out that she 'hadn't won!', but she knew she had really!
Over the weekend I decided it was time to rectify my trouser situation - I only have 2 pairs and over the past 2 months they have both decided that really large holes in the crotch are 'in' this season. Consequently I have been sewing them up on a regular basis, because it's a bit too cold for tights. I couldn't find anyone to go shopping with - the problems with limited friend access - so I went alone which is always fun. I am just going to say this now - shopping in Paris is not fun. I hate it. There are 2 streets which are meant to be pretty good for high street shopping - rue de rivoli and rue de rennes - and they are both MILES long. MILES!! I miss Leeds and its compact town centre. I am not a flea market/second hand shop/vintage shop kind of girl, so all those little areas are out, and I am definitely not a haute couture girl, so that rules out most of the Latin Quarter. I decided to go to the big shopping mall next to Chatelet-Les-Halles, which is underground. Not exactly what comes immediately to mind when you think of shopping in Paris, huh? Still, it was compact and there were a lot of shops close together. I managed to spend almost the entire day going exclusively into shops found almost everywhere in the world - H&M, Zara, Gap and, bizarrely, New Look. I know, who'd have thought?! Oh, and WH Smiths. I bought a Terry's Chocolate Orange bar, some Hobnobs and some Fanta fruit twist. I love that shop! Anyway, mission was completed - I bought 3 pairs of trousers, although unfortunately I couldn't be bothered to try on 2 of them in H&M because the queue was too long, and I don't really like them now I've tried them on, so I guess I'll be returning them! But, mission partially completed, at least! I managed not to get seriously depressed about my wobbly bits, so that's a bonus! I much prefer shopping in England though, it's weird. I will undoubtedly come back from Leeds next week with a better idea of why that is, but at the moment it's just like a funny feeling I get whenever I'm out shopping here, like my shopping experience isn't really optimum. I miss colourful shop windows, and familiar shops, and... I dunno. We'll see.
Anyway, I guess I'd better get on with actually doing my job. Ernest is asleep already, so I'm free until 4pm, but I should probably hoover or something.
P.S. No injuries as of yet this week, but it's early days! I have decided to start keeping a tally - some weeks it is quite astonishing how much they manage to fall down or walk into things or stab themselves with things or get punched by one of their siblings.
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