This morning was awful. Woke up around 8, got the kids breakfast, and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, I went into the kitchen to find honey and sugar partout! I didn't even know there was honey in the house! Alex was already watching TV in the other room, and Max was building lego dams in the bathroom (aka- another mess to be cleaned up by me). And that is pretty much how the morning went-- kids making one mess after another while I cleaned up the previous messes. I know I should have made them help me clean up but I really didn't feel like arguing with them on my last day. By lunch, only two of the hamburgers had defrosted, so I had to make a cordon bleu filet for myself, blech. But hopefully that was the last I'll have of those for a while, the morning and the filet. Unfortunately it wasn't over. While I was cleaning up from lunch, the boys mysteriously disappeared. Germaine was coming to get them at 1:30pm, so at 1pm, I went to find Maxime to get him ready for soccer. I walked down the hall to see the door to Max's room closed. I knocked three times and Alex came running out slamming the door behind him-- but not before a good wiff of smoke came got out. I opened the door to piles and piles of smouldering ashes covering the floor. I was speechless, but somehow gestured for Max to leave the room. Put out the ashes easily enough (thanks lifeguarding for teaching me how to stay calm in a potential emergency and no thanks France for not mandating smoke alarms and fire extinguishers), but all I wanted to do was shrivel up like the pieces of paper the kids had burned. I told Germaine about it when she arrived and she was just like, oh haha, boys were playing with fire tralala. Whatever, I'm over it (St. Francis girl style).
Thank God I am out of there now, and I will never have to deal with any of those people ever again. I can't believe how much I did for them. I did end up getting paid in the end. I wrote Jacues a letter further explaining everything I tried to say that he cut off with his snide insults and unvarying french-ness.
I even drew a picture for the kids.
But now I am here, and here I am happy. I've got a new friend already! The other au pair, Beke, who is here until the end of the month. The kids are kind of bratty but very very cute. They have these tiny little voices and they speak French but understand English. The mom, Christine, is the sweetest, and Nigel, the father, is hilarious! Until Beke leaves, I am staying in the apartment/guest house, so I've pretty much got a little place all to myself. So much for needing a holiday to St. Tropez! Beke and I are going to meet some other au pairs there tomorrow afternoon. So... quick turnaround. Tonight's a me night, I've been spending the evening chowing down on madeleines, potato chips, and coca cola. Oh, and partaking in television watching! Friends, Gossip Girl, and now Forgetting Sarah Marshall. They have British TV here, so everything is in English and it is very lovely. Here's to new beginnings!
Je ne pense pas que l'anglais pourrait exprimer ce que tu as dit dans ta lettre. C'est trop, trop vrai que tu absorbes les emotions des autres - c'est pour cela que nous tous t'aimons!
ReplyDeleteJe suis vraiment heureuse que tu te détends; tu le mérites! tu me manques, etc
Paca - goodbye. So I see you learned a little bit of Ukrainian/Russian.
ReplyDeleteterr- je suis d'accord avec toi! mon francais se degrade tres vite car je n'ai pas le parler plus :( tu me manques aussi
ReplyDeletelittle g- PACA= provence (grapes), alpes (mountains), cote-azur (palm tree and ocean). but i actually did know that paca means goodbye in russian. good for you.