Just a normal day...

Today, middle child broke a plate just after the hoover packed it in. I shrunk eldest child's favourite dress in the tumble dryer. I emptied the fridge to clean it and smallest child freaked out, saying "We haven't got anymore food!". He was reassured when I pointed it all laid out on the counter behind him. It was 14 degrees and I went to pick up the kids without wearing a coat. I discovered that the French radio station NRJ plays the uncensored versions of songs, has practically no adverts and has substituted annoying DJs for celebrities such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga talking in bad French. The cat has decided it loves us again, purely based on the fact that we now give it Whiskas. Middle child informed me that the reason I couldn't open a vacuum sealed jar earlier was because I 'don't have enough muscles' and then suggested I move over and let her have a go. She also informed me that I brush smallest child's teeth wrong and proceeded to cover the entire bathroom with toothpaste spray whilst demonstrating how to do it properly. She had to colour a tortoise in different colours for her homework, and then later dropped all the felt tip pens on the floor. I received a bouquet of flowers picked from the garden from the two youngest kids.

Do I have to leave?

Sleep deprivation made me do it.

Have a picture of two dinosaur bracelets fighting it out on my bed. You are welcome.

So, I am still getting on well with the kids. It is kind of freaky, and I am not sure if I can deal with it for much longer. Where is all the whining and the anger and the me completely losing my shit with them? Today I read smallest child a story about dinosaurs. It was adorable. He is generally pretty freaking adorable, though he manages to avoid being too adorable for life by pooing in his pants every now and again and making me deal with the consequences. Honestly? That kind of behaviour would destroy my love for my own flesh and blood.

On Tuesday I had a fun ten hour jaunt to England for an interview at Sheffield University.

In summary: I got up at 6am, walked up a hill, took two trains and a bus to the airport, got on a plane in France, got off a plane in England, got a coach, got a tram, walked a long way in shoes that were too small, met a lot of nice girls, blustered my way through an interview, walked even further in shoes that were too small, bought some new shoes, got on a train, nearly missed my connection, got on another train, got on the Eurostar in England, got off the Eurostar in France, got four trains home, walked up a hill and collapsed into bed at 1am.

The next day I decided that, rather than staying in and having an early night to recover from aforementioned exhausting day, it would be a really good idea to go to a concert! Yeah! Woo! *twitch*

It was due to start at 7.30pm, so naturally we were a good hour and a half late and arrived a mere ten minutes before Stromae came on stage in all his nerdy cardiganed, bow tied glory. It was amazing. I obviously already liked his music, but he was also an excellent performer, and super funny. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that he'd talk in French, given that all his music is in French, but there we are. That's how deeply immersed I am in French culture: people speaking in French still come as a surprise. I understood the majority of what he said though, so I appear to have accidentally assimilated some French despite largely ignoring its existence most of the time.

Currently I am sitting at home on a Friday night, and it's 11.30pm and I am so happy I am not doing something to burn my body out any more. I ache from tired. (That being said, I finished watching a movie an hour ago but couldn't quite bring myself to go to bed at 10.30 on a Friday evening. I may be losing my mental capacities because I am so tired, but damned if I'm going to lose any of my extensive street cred by having an early night on a Friday. No sir. Not this crazy kid.)

Oh dear. Goodnight.

Breakthrough

Shortly after posting the...post below, I was called upon to bathe and pyjama the children while the dad cooked dinner. As 'cooking dinner' largely involved 'watching cauliflower boil', this was probably a slight abuse of his power but whatever, I'd do the same. Whilst I was soaking them with water, various nice things happened:

1.Smallest child gave me a voluntary hug.

2.Smallest child let me wash his hair without screaming and he actually tipped his head back and closed his eyes when I asked him to (this almost certainly contributed to the "not screaming" part).

3. He then, after putting up a small fight, ceded peacefully to my demand that he get out the bath before his sister.

4. Middle child only had to be asked once to get out the bath.

5. I didn't even have to ask her to put her pyjamas on (though admittedly that is the next logical step after 'getting out the bath'. Still, small victories).

6. Eldest child and I had a lovely conversation about hair and my childhood holidays. She didn't ask any annoying questions and I didn't have to tell her to shut up.

Then as we were sitting around eating dinner, eldest child asked if I was leaving next year and when I said only if I got into graduate school, she said "I hope you don't, so you can stay"!

What is going on? Have I finally broken them? They actually like me now?

My mind, she is blown.

Holidays

It's February half term time! Two weeks of sick, mopey children mopin' around the place being all mopey and sick. Yes, that's right. Two weeks. Sick, mopey children. You heard me correctly! Last week, due to aforementioned sick, mopey children, I didn't leave the house for five whole days. I would put lots of exclamation marks after that sentence but it goes against my moral standing. I shall, instead, repeat it for emphasis: FIVE WHOLE DAYS. That is a very, very long time. I went out Friday evening with my friends and got overly hysterical - even more so than usual, which is pretty hysterical, I'm not going to lie.

This week, their dad is off work, which has mildly improved the situation but I still haven't left the house for TWO WHOLE DAYS. Smallest child is super sick, so I had to look after him this morning while he was mopin' around watching TV. More mopin' and sickin'. Eugh.

If I don't get sick soon, I am going to be very surprised.

Positive aspects of this holiday:

1. I got to eat lunch in front of the TV last Thursday.

2. The house is nice and tidy.

3. I haven't actually murdered any of them yet. Or even wanted to! This is a long term positive.

4.Today the girls went to Musée d'Orsay with their dad and bought an awesome picture book back with them.

5. On Friday, Dani and I made tuna pasta bake which was excellent even though I do say so myself.

That's all I've got. Happy holidays!

Hypochondria

I appear to have convinced myself that I have developed a wheat intolerance. Is that even possible? All I know is, I ate two biscuits for breakfast this morning (not unusual, chocolate digestives since you're asking) and I have had a stomach ache ever since. It's not a really bad stomach ache, like what I get when I'm on my period, it's like I kinda need to go to the toilet. Except, I just went to the toilet, and sat on it for ten minutes before getting bored and I still have a stomach ache. So I don't think it's that.

The bonus to my hypochondria, which has never been as full blown as this apart from one time when I was really ill and delirious and hadn't slept properly in three days and became convinced that part of my trachea had dislodged due to all my coughing and I was going to die (I spent the best part of the night trying to shove it back into place which only reinforced my convictions that my throat was going to collapse), is that I have been avoiding the biscuit cupboard like the plague today. I want a biscuit so badly because I have a biscuit addiction, particularly a chocolate digestive addiction, but I have managed to resist. So I'm thinking that maybe I should just pretend to myself that I have a wheat intolerance so I can finally stop eating all the biscuits and all the bread and all the carbohydrate based crap that I basically spend the best part of my day hoovering up via my mouth. This stomach ache is slightly annoying though, so I hope it isn't actually a wheat intolerance because that would suck so much. What would I even eat?

I don't want to google it because I have thus far avoided becoming one of those people who google all their symptoms and ends up being convinced they have at least one of four terminal diseases, but I feel it is only a matter of time before I start down that slippery slope. I am just determined to delay it as long as possible. Also, my only symptom is 'stomach ache after eating biscuits for breakfast' which I don't really feel merits a trip to NHS Direct. I would also probably get a lecture from a virtual nurse about how eating biscuits for breakfast is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to develop something, be it a wheat intolerance or obesity. My mum keeps telling me off for eating stuff like biscuits and coco pops for breakfast when I live in France and I could have baguette or pain au chocolat or croissants for breakfast every day. Frankly, I think that would be as bad for me as Coco Pops every day, and also I think the novelty of sweet, sweet chocolatey bread would wear off over time and I never want there to be a point in my life where I get bored of pain au chocolat. Also, I can't be bothered to walk to the bakery every day - it's at least ten minutes away - just for breaded products, when there are chocolate digestives in the cupboard. You see my dilemma, I'm sure.

Living it up in the Louvre

So, I did go to the Louvre again, fully intending to appreciate the works of art there and become more cultured and understand more things about art. However, guidebooks are crazy expensive and not really worth it because the Louvre is so big and I have lived here for sixteen months and only been twice and not even seen most of it. So, I didn't get a guidebook and most of the information by the paintings/statues/whatever is useless, so I am no more educated than I used to be.

It was, however, extremely amusing. I discovered that deciding what the people were thinking while their portrait was being painted was far more entertaining than actually learning facts. I mean, come on! I took far too few photos, but this one blew my mind so much I nearly dropped my camera in my haste to digitally commemorate it.

Amazing. I just want to kiss whoever painted that. It was meant to be of a monarch (a Henri of France, I think) dressed up as Hercules. Can you imagine Hercules striking a pose like this? Hercules was way to hardcore to prance around posing with hydras all day long. Seriously. Also, how many English Henrys would have let a portrait..er get away with painting this hilariously flattering image? I don't think so. Still, that's the French for you.

I went to the museum with my friend Martha who managed to intimidate me by saying things like "Oh yes, I recognise that, it's so obviously Gobi's style" and "Oh, you can just tell by glancing that that's a Turner". How do people know these things? It's like my brother who can listen to a piece of classic music and come out with "Oh, this is Beethoven's ninth symphony, I recognise the clarinets". I don't even know if there are clarinets in Beethoven's ninth symphony, which I feel only strengthens my point. Clearly I missed a crucial part of my education somewhere. It must have been that one day I was ill in six years of schooling. If only I wasn't such a hypochondriac, think how cultured I would be now!

Much more pleasingly, I managed to find the tacky gift shop where you can buy all manner of Mona Lisa themed items. I didn't find it last time and ended up in the classy gift shop where you can largely just buy expensive porcelain and jewellery and books. Psh! This time was much better, though I did have to persuade myself I didn't need a matching Mona Lisa notebook-pen set or a whole lot of stone scarabs, purely for the sake of my bank balance. I was sorely tempted by an Asterix themed triva card set, attractively priced at only 10€, but as I spent 35€ on a skirt two days ago, I dragged my eyes away and went to look at stuff that was far too expensive and which made me want to run out of the shop crying with hate.

So there we go. That was my attempt at culture for the weekend. The rest of the time was spent in bars/restaurants/bookshops/myhouse. We did go and look at the Sacre Coeur... at least, sort of. And we stood outside the Notre Dame and took pictures to prove we'd been there. Oh yes. Maybe I will make more of an effort for the next person who comes and visits. Maybe.

La Haine

Just bought the film La Haine (after seeing a tattoo of a quote from it). I am excited to watch it, because the last time I watched it, I was 18 and my French wasn't all that great. I guess I understood maybe...45% then, and I want to know how much I'm going to understand this time. Given that it's about three guys from the banlieues who speak crazy slang French, I'm not overly hopeful that I'll understand it all, but it'll be good to see how much I actually do.

The tattoo, incidentally, was of the quote 'jusqu'ici, tout va bien' which is something that Vince quotes the whole way through the film. I like the quote, even though it means nothing to me (it means 'so far, so good'), just because of the way he says it.