Firewood

We are preparing for winter. Living in a house, we have to stock up wood for the fireplace. The boys' grandfather had a "lobang" and one day, he came along with a family friend and unloaded 2 vans of firewood.

It was so kind of the two retirees who not only delivered the wood but stacked them neatly beside the garden shed. 

Seb is really lucky to have such a helpful father. I had seen neighbours chopping, carrying and stacking wood which were delivered just at their gates.

As the nights started to get colder, we went to buy accessories for the fireplace yesterday. We thought of starting a fire yesterday. However, the night was not that cold yesterday. Today's temperature was decent too. Well, once we start our first fire in this house, I will put up a picture. For a Singaporean like me, a fireplace is a novelty. I'm already thinking of roasting chestnuts over the fire. Yummy!

A2 at the Garderie (Daycare)

A2 goes to a daycare two mornings a week. It was meant for me to have some alone time. We started in the beginning of Sept and so far, I had only left him for 2.5 hours max. We started with a 10 minutes separation and gradually extended the separation time. It was not easy as A2 cried once I was out of sight. 
After 3 weeks, he still cried a bit when I was away. Last tues and thurs, I managed to do grocery shopping and run errands during that 2 hours break.
The daycare staff was hoping that A2 could stay for lunch next week. I hope he would cooperate. Normally, he should be there from 8h30 to 12h45. If all goes well, I would bring him to the daycare after I send A1 to school at 9am.

Disneyland with A2

The last time I came to Disneyland, I was not a mother yet. With A1, we had only been to Disney Studio the past two times. Few months back, A1 and I went Disney Studio with our friends. The tickets I bought had a promotion where we could visit Disney for the second time in September.

With Lu's mom, we decided to visit Disneyland together in September. We fixed a date and I told A1 about our coming trip. He was not at all keen. He said he was afraid of the fire and he did not want to see Mickey. I guess the fire he remembered either came from the Motor Stunts show or the tram ride we took.

On the day itself, I asked A1 again and he rejected me. Well, I guess he is too young to know that most kids would love to have this chance to visit Disneyland. I decided to bring A2 along. This would be his first trip to Disney.

Lu was disappointed when his mom told him that A2 was coming instead of A1. The last time he saw A2 was in May and Lu played mostly with A1. In his mind, A2 was a baby. However, once we were in Disney, the two boys had fun togather. They hit off immediately. Lu realised that A2 had grown up alot and was fun to be with. When they were climbing up steps, A2 even shouted "Lu, wait!".

Due to an issue with Lu and his mom's annual Passes (it was a black out date for the Pass holders on that day), I offered to bring the two boys into Disneyland. A2 was under 3 so did not need the child ticket I had.   

The boys behaved themselves well when we were in the park. As we were there early, the queue for 'It's a small world' was not long. We took that boat ride and A2 was in awe of the moving dolls. He enjoyed the ride.

Once we finished that ride, the rest of the rides were having a long waiting time. It was not possible to queue 30mins with the 2 boys. I then found an attraction adapted to A2's age with the shortest queue. It was another boat ride called 'Au pays du contes' (Fairytale land).

We saw the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel; the castle in Little Mermaid; Peter and the wolf; the village in Beauty and the Beast; the castle and casts of the Wizard of Oz among other fairytales.

By the end of the two rides, it was time to leave the park. It was time for lunch and we had agreed to have lunch togather. Furthermore, I did not want to stay too long as it was A2's first visit. 2 hours had passed just like that.

It was really difficult to get Lu to reach the exit as he wanted to stay longer. For lunch, we settled at Rainforest Café. It was the first time we were there. We had a table just in front of the big elephant. A2 was pointing at all the animals; monkeys hanging from the trees, giant butterflies, snakes, elephants etc... Our elephant even moved once a while. It was a lovely place for the kids. While having lunch, a stimulated tropical storm could be heard. A2 was alarmed but we managed to calm him down easily. The boys run around the restaurant to look at the marine fishes at the entrance. Lu was taking good care of A2. 

We adults had a good catch up. We were pretty sure that A1 would have freak out with the deco in this restaurant. My two kids have such different characters. One is too prudent while the other is just the opposite.

The firefighters

The boys had 3 plastic firemen helmets from Uncle Tim when they were in Singapore. They love the helmets so much that each evening, they play firemen with their dad.

Seb with his ridiculously small helmet was the fire captain. He would command his firefighters to various tasks. Beginning with exercises like jumping on a leg, swinging the arms; followed by missions to rescue cat on a tree (shelf), putting out fire on various furnitures, catching snakes etc.. I didn't realise that my husband had this hidden talent. He took his part seriously and was such a credible fire captain. The boys were in awe of him and followed his commands well. I often had to laugh out loud. 

A2's helmet was always falling off as he tilted his head high. He was often late for missions as he was so easily distracted by random toys along the way to the destination. Here was A1 trying to put out a virtual fire on A2's bed.

The village school

This is how A1's school looks like. There are around 95 students in total ranging from the age of 3 to 10.

At 4.30pm, A2 would be standing right in front of the school gate waiting for his brother. Sweet. I bet he could not wait to be in the same class as his brother next year.

PS: A1 is getting better. He still cries when we reach the school gate but once he is in line, he stops crying. His teacher told us that he participated in the activities and enjoyed himself each day. Phew!

Bali

We had a great time in Bali. We spent 6 nights there and stayed in a 2 bedroom appartment at Novotel Nusa Dua Hotel. The kids' grandmother used the equipped kitchen to cook lunches for us on a few occasions.

Once we arrived, we headed to the swimming pool. There were floats and balls available for kids. A1 and A2 enjoyed the pool a lot.

The next days were spent at the pool and at the beach. It was a private beach so it was really clean. The sand was white and the sea was clear. Bali beaches are mainly covered in black volcanic sand. However, Nusa Dua area which is in the south of Bali has white beaches. Thus, this area is dotted with resorts and very touristy.

The boys had fun playing in the sand; building sandcastles, digging, filling the hole with water. They also went into the sea for the first time. They never wanted to touch the water whenever we visited Brittany. Maybe the hot weather and water helped this time. One afternoon, A1 was so tired that he napped on the deck chair. We had to carry him back to the hotel. 

The hotel had trees and flowers everywhere. It was a beautiful and tranquille place. Nature was just at our doorstep. It gave such a relaxing atmosphere; exactly what we were looking for.

Throughout our stay, we only did a day tour. We just wanted to relax. For the kids, there was always something to occupy them in the hotel grounds. Apart from the pool and the beach, the boys played at the mini playground or at the kids' club.

They were too young to be left alone at the kids' club. So there was always me and my mom or Seb hanging around. A2 loved to play with the toys in the  kids' club; especially basketball.

Meal wise, on the first night, we took a taxi to Bali Collection, the nearest shopping mall. It was a cluster of souvenirs shops and boutiques and restaurants targetted at tourists. We were looking for fresh vegetables but the supermarket only had fruits. We bought food for breakfast and yoghurts for the kids. We settled down at a Balinese restaurant for dinner and had a complimentary drive back to the hotel. Almost all restaurants provided this service.

After checking with the hotel staff the next day, we took a taxi out to Hardy's Supermarket and Departmental store. It was a real supermarket and the boys' grandmother did grocery shopping. We had lunch at the staff's canteen as the fast food place at Hardy's run out of food. Thanks to my mom's broken malay, we were accepted at the staff canteen. We had to explain that the fast food had sold out its fried chicken and fries. 

The dinner the night before cost us 70€ while this lunch cost us less than 5€. Of course, beverages were not included and this lunch was really simple. Still, Bali Collection was really a tourist trap. 

One evening, we had dinner at Kendi Kuning. It had a good rating with Tripadvisor. We were not disappointed. The surrounding was nice and our table was on the beach. The food was good. The owner even came to the hotel to pick us up and drop us off after dinner. 

 On our day trip, we asked our driver to bring us to a simple local eatery. Somewhat like the hawker places in Singapore. I was sick of tourist (expensive) restuarants in our neighbourhood. He was concerned that the kids might have stomach upset from these places. In the end, he brought us to an eatery in the Kuta area. It was like the coffee shop in Singapore. We had local dishes and it was really nice. No stomach upsets and no burning a big hole in our pockets. For that complete dinner, we paid 15€. Gosh. We were really ripped off at Nusa Dua. Good thing my mom cooked half the time. The kids ate healthier food and I enjoyed my mom's cooking.

Hardy's became my mom's favourite shopping place. The taxi trip was cheap so we headed there when the kids napped on the pretext that we needed to buy vegetables. We left Seb to take care of the kids. 

It seemed that economy was bad in Bali. All taxi drivers provided day tour services and they even waited for us while we shopped at Hardy's. I had at least 5 name cards from them. Each time, I promised I would pass the name cards to friends visiting Bali.

And the poor economy could be felt in the massage salons too. My mom and I had a 30mins massage at Bali Collection on the first night. On another occasion, while the kids were sleeping, we ladies walked to a street not far from the hotel, just outside the gate checkpoint. We stopped at the first massage salon and had an hour's massage for 13€ each. It was a very special promotion said the salon's owner. Yeah, it was like 70% discount and cost 2€ more than the one we had at Bali Collection. We wished we had found this place earlier.

We really enjoyed our stay at Bali. The kids had lots of fun and Seb is now an expert on Gado Gado. He had that vegetarian dish at almost all the resturants we went to. My mom got to bond with her grandchildren and I got to relax.

This is the way I go to school

A1 started school yesterday. The village school was a stone's throw away so we could all walk to school. We left as a family to send him to school. He was on his balance bicycle and always ahead of us.

School starts at 9am and the gate is open only at 8.50am. We arrived 5 mins before the gate opened. The mayor of the village was there shaking hands with parents. I assumed he was the mayor as he was the oldest man around and everyone seemed to know him. And of course, he came shaking our hands. No stranger would do that except for politicians, right?

As we expected, A1 did not want to go into the school gate. Seb had to carry him in while he struggled and cried. A2 however had no problem of such and even went into the classroom, sat on a chair and started playing with a puzzle. We introduced ourselves to the teacher and her assistant and tried to settle A1. 

A1 is in the class of Petite Section (PS) which translates to Little Section. There are about 12 students so the class is mixed with the Moyenne Section (MS) which translates to Middle Section. Thus the teacher will be taking care of 24 kids of 3 and 4 years old. We do like this idea of having a mix class. Maybe A1 can learn more advance things when the teacher is teaching the MS students.

We brought A1 around the classroom to show him the activities, toys, games, books etc... to familiarize him with his new environment. He was playing when I said goodbye to him and quickly left him. I saw him crying and his teacher trying to calm him down. That was already 9.25am by then. There were also a few kids weeping.

At 1.20pm, I decided to go do grocery shopping. Despite Seb telling me not to, the temptation was too great and I drove by the school to check out on A1. It was lunch break time and the kids were playing in the front court. I stopped at the school carpark  and from the car, I could see my boy standing in a corner with his head down. He was about 50m away from me. He seemed so sad while all the other kids were playing. A school staff came over to him and talked to him. She left when a student came to ask her something. A1 then turned to the leaving assistant and pointing at his nose. I knew that meant that he had runny nose. Did that mean he was crying? Another school staff came over to him and then fetched a piece of tissue paper for him. I assumed they both worked in the canteen as they were wearing white overalls. After that his class assistant came over and talked to him; seemingly encouraging him to go play with the kids in the sand box. I saw A1 shaking his head. The class assistant then took him into the school and I lost sight of my boy. Wow. That scene just broke my heart. Seb was right. I should not have gone peeping on my boy. But at least, I knew he was well taken care of. I left to do grocery shopping after.

At 4.25pm, we arrived at the gate waiting for A1. School ended at 4.30pm and his teacher led the class out in a file of two. We saw A1 holding hand with his classmate and looking happy and proud. He straightened up when he saw us. At the gate, the teacher presented one student at a time and called out his/her name for the parents to come get the kid. When it was A1's time, I went over and gave him a big hug. Seb asked if he had a good day and he said yes. We bombarded him with lots of questions like 'What did you eat?', 'Did you do pipi, caca?', 'What did you do?', 'Do you have many friends?' etc.... He told us what he had for lunch and that he did 5 times pipi and one caca. He did not play with friends but play with toys.

At night, I asked him what he did after lunch, he said he was calling for us. He said 'Papa... many times.' and 'Mama.... many times'. 'Mais pas là'. But we were not there. I felt so sad when he said that. He was calling for us at the school court hoping that we would come bring him home. From the feedback given by the teacher (I actually waited until she was free and asked her questions about A1), he cried a little in the morning but in the afternoon, he enjoyed himself.

Today is a wednesday and there is no school. Tomorrow will be another school day for A1. He is not looking forward to it. I will be bringing A1 to school tomorrow with A2. I hope that A1 won't be too difficult tomorrow morning.

Hair cut ordeals

My 2 boys hate to have their hair cut. A2 used to be alright but as he gets older, he is like his brother. When I moved over to the new house, I did not know any hair cutter around so I called up one and made an appointment for A2. His hair was really messy. He cried very badly at the hair cutter's and the hair cutter was not able to do his job at all. A2 was moving his head around. At one point, I gave him apple sauce in order to calm him down but ended up having apple sauce all over my neck and hair as he struggled to be freed. That painful experience cost me 10€ and only a few strand of hair on the floor.
In Singapore, we really had to cut the boys hair for my brother's wedding. We brought them to the hair cutter which cost $3.80 each. However, it was a dread again for both. We managed to cut A1's hair after I threatened him that the wicked witch would come looking for boys with long hair. Yeah, we are really in the story of Hansel and Gretel so he is scared of the wicked witch. That did the trick. He cried but sat still throughout the hair cut. We bought him toys after for being a good boy. As for A2, he was too young to understand who the wicked witch was.
While visiting ViviCity shopping mall, we went into Toys 'R Us and there was a hair cutter for kids. I was determined to have his hair cut. Despite bribing him with sweets, videos and toys, A2 resisted. Ended up, he was screaming and rolling on the floor while the lady trimmed his hair. It was an expensive haircut but the job was done. Many people who shopped at Toys 'R Us stopped and looked at us. They might be thinking I was the wicked mom.
Well, at least we are now good for the next two months.

Shortest SG trip ever

The family went to Singapore in the beginning of August. We were there for my brother's wedding which was on National Day. We spent several days in Singapore and after the wedding, the family and the kids' ah ma went to Bali for a week. We stayed in Singapore for a day before heading back home to France.

This time, I did not contact many friends as the stay in Singapore was too short. The kids took 4 days to get over their jetlag so as parents, we were just as tired.

Our new house is far from the airport (80+ km) unlike our old appartment which was just 30+km from Charles de Gaulle airport. We left the house many hours in advance just in case. On the way to the airport, we dropped Bao Bei at the pet hotel. We left her there and felt bad cos she had never stayed in one. 

We arrived at the airport 3 hours in advance and went to the boarding hall once it was opened. The boys were watching aeroplanes and after a while, they started to play with the chairs. They went over and under the armrest. It was really not easy travelling with young children.   

In Singapore, for the first few days, they slept at 8pm but it was their nap time as it was 2pm french time. They woke up at 11pm and then won't go to bed until 2 or 3am. Seb stayed up most nights with the kids. In the mornings, we went to take breakfast nearby and the boys enjoyed their fishball noodle soup. Once they even tried roti prata. While ah ma was doing her marketing buying the freshest fish for the boys porridge, the boys played with some old fashioned balls machine. We had to tell them we were out of coins before they would leave the machines. 

Last year, ah ma bought the boys two fishes which lasted a day. This time, she bought 2 small turtles for the boys. She promised to look after them once the boys went home. The boys had fun playing with the animals.

 They also had lots of fun playing at the playground. They were always asking to go to the park.

On my brother's wedding day, A1 did not want to have his photos taken. So for most family photos, he was absent. He was such a shy boy. We had hoped that he could be the ring bearer for the church wedding but it was just not possible. He was too young and too timid.

Time flies as usual and now we are back to our normal routine. We picked up Bao Bei once we landed and she was well though she had lost weight. As for the boys, they took only 2 days to get pass their jetlag.

The weather in France is almost or even hotter than in Singapore. There are patches of dry grass in the garden and lots of weeds. We will do gardening this weekend. With this good weather, it still feels like holiday. The boys played with their slide and pool in the garden for two hours yesterday.

Random activites and joy

The weather was not good for the last 2 weeks and finally it is warm and sunny. In the first 3 photos, the boys were in long sleeves. While I cooked lunch, the boys would play by themselves either in the living room or out in the garden. Sometimes they had fights and to calm them down and have a piece of mind, I actually made them watch cartoons on the laptop.
One day while I was cooking, I checked on them and saw A1 reading a book while A2 was just resting on the floor. A2 was tired as he woke up each morning at 6.30am.

Another time, I caught the boys playing with sticks in the garden.

As for the photo below, this is the forest that is 100m from our house. The trail brings us to the next village 3km away. The village is bigger and has shops. We took the trail on a cloudy sunday and stopped at the village bar for juice and coffee. We bought bread for the kids at the bakery. It was a lovely walk though A1 was tired on the return trip and did not want to continue on his balance bike while A2 wanted to be carried all the time. On top of that, a storm was brewing and we hurried back home barely missing it. What a close shave. 

As summer temperature returns, the boys are in t-shirts and happily playing outdoors. I pumped up a small plastic pool for the kids with the basic balloon air pump. My brother and mum were watching me working slowly via Skype and teasing me. They had better air pumps in Singapore. Well, it did not take me that long after all but my fingers were aching at the end.

The boys enjoyed themselves in the pool. In the end, it seemed like we were running a nudist camp as the 2 boys were in their birthday suits splashing water around and riding their bicycles. No explicit photo here. :)

Start/Stop button with the comfort access key incident

This is an incident that happened on the day we moved. I wanted to write it down to remind myself and maybe others never to let it happen again.
Seb has a company car and has been driving it for a few months. On the day we moved to this new house, I took A2 with me in our family car to the new house first while Seb supervised the movers in our appartment. In the afternoon, he took A1 with him.

Seb has a BMW 118. Instead of a conventional key, he has a so call comfort access key. When the comfort access key comes into range of the vehicle, a touch on the Start/Stop button will electronically trigger the ignition process. When we use the car, this car key can be in my handbag and just pressing the Start/Stop button will start the car. How convenient. Another 'good' feature is that the car auto locks itself.

On this fateful day, Seb arrived with A1 sleeping in the car. He came out of the car and by reflex, closed the car door. Since there was no car key to remove from the ignition, he did not take out his car key which was sitting in the cupholder. The car was locked with the key in it. The spare key was packed away in a box. It was a hot day and we panicked. We shouted at A1 and banged on the window. A1 woke up with a start. We shouted at him to remove his car seat belt. I knew that it would be impossible as he did not have the strength to press the button. He looked frightened with us shouting at him behind the car window. He then pressed the window switch to lower down the window. Thank God it was not locked! We encouraged him to keep pressing it down. I helped him to release his seat beat and we asked him to go to the front to get his dad's set of keys. He did as we said and with that we managed to unlock the car doors. He was wondering why we hugged him so tightly once he was out of the car and all the praises we gave 'bravo', 'smart boy', 'good job'......

It was long 10mins ordeal. When Seb received the car from the car dealer, we knew we should always have the car key with us when we leave the car as this stupid Start/Stop button system can make us conveniently forget about the car key.

We are extra careful now. We always check that we have the car key with us before banging the car doors.

The trees in the garden

I live in a village where there is no shops. When choosing a house, this was not an important criteria. I wanted to live in a place where there is at least a school. So here we are, in this village, there is a school for young children. In order to keep the school functioning, the village population must have enough school-going children. Depending on the policy of the village mayor, he may decide to close the school when there are too few students or attract young families to settle down. 

In this village's case, the village mayor among other reasons than the one cited above, sold land for housing development. Our previous owner bought a plot of land and had the house built 5 years ago. Our neighbour opposite us actually built his own house. I find that amazing. In this housing development, there were about 15 houses built. This ensures a growth of population and having younger villagers.

The village mayor imposed certain rules for the houses. Since our house was already built, I did not know about the house details (design, style, material, colour). But I was told that there must be at least 3 trees in each garden.    

I mentioned long ago to a friend that my future house should have a cherry tree. When I told her I bought a house, she actually asked if there was a cherry tree. And yes, we do have a young cherry tree though that was not a decisive factor. In addition, we have an apple tree and a prune tree. The trees are not much taller than me. In April, there were cherries. The apples on the apple tree are small and I shall see if they are edible come Oct. As for the prune tree, I have no idea when is its fruit season.

So there we have, the 3 trees in my garden.

Gardening and parasol

The first weekend at the new house, we set to work on the garden. Though we had limited tools, we tried to tidy up. A1 helped by staying beside his dad and giving him moral support. There were many rubbish (bricks, wooden planks, heaps of dead leaves) behind the garden shed and Seb was cleaning up that area. I was pulling out weeds and A1 came and helped too. He insisted in wearing his rain boots though the ground was hard and dry. But well, he did had that gardener look with that attire. 

When we visited the hardware shop, we bought a big parasol. It was too hot to dine in the garden without any shade. We are all spotting a tan just after a few days in the garden. This parasol is huge and covers almost the whole table. Next in our list is a BBQ. Let's hope the weather stays sunny so that we can eat outdoors and do BBQ often.

Moved

We moved from our appartment to the house a week ago. These were the boxes in the living room and there were more in A1's room. We had a total of around 60 boxes and I had emptied almost all of them. The last 10 were really headache as we did not have space for the contents in them. Yeah, it sounded weird that I mentioned a lack of space since I moved from 80m² to 140m². In the old appartment, there was more storage space since there were built in cupboard in all the rooms. Now, I need new furnitures to contain these stuff. New cupboards and drawers for A1's room, new wardrobe for our room, a cabinet in the dining area for our glasswares and plates.

Before we got these furnitures, we bought a basketball stand instead for the kids. They had so much fun running in and out of the house to play in the garden. The weather was nice and warm so far. 

 This is the backview of the house. The kids adapted really well and slept soundly from the first night. Each morning, the kids woke us up early at 6.30am and each night, Seb and I slept past midnight trying our best to put things in order. We visited the hardware store ever so often to get things for the house and the garden. We were exhausted.

With the good sunny weather and a few showers once in the night and twice in the morning, the grass were growing at lightning speed. Seb ordered a trimmer and a lawn mower and it was delivered this afternoon. He had left for a work trip and would only be back on Sat evening. Living in this small village, I can't help feeling that our neighbours are checking out on us. Prior to moving in, on 2 occasions, 2 neighbours came and informed us that the outdoor lights were left on for 2 days. Until Seb mows the lawn this weekend, this would be the only house with an unsightly garden in this neighbourhood. For the moment, I can live with that.  

Improvised hockey

Whenever I cook in the kitchen, the boys would explore the kitchen drawers. Last week, A1 found a spatula and A2 found a kitchen soup ladle. With a ball, they played hockey in the small kitchen. They passed ball to each other and made lots of noise.

The two boys were laughing away as they had so much fun. They play togather more and more often and day like this made me so happy.

Jardin d'Acclimatation

This was our third visit to Jardin d'Acclimatation and as usual, the park was crowded and we enjoyed ourselves. This time round, we took time to visit the whole park.

There was a Korean style park.

There were a few playgrounds planted all over the park. The boys had fun in this well designed playground. The setup was a maze and the kids could go under or climb over to get around.

Beside the playground was a water park. It was a hot day and there were many kids but I did not bring extra clothes for the boys. So they just wet their hands and legs at the bank of the water park.

 We then walked around to visit the animals in the park.

There were donkeys, the one above was huge; sheeps, cows, goats and lots of different kind of hens.

A2 had taken over his brother's tricycle while A1 was on his balance bicycle.

One of the big attractions of the park was the village of fun rides. There were many choices for young kids like merry-go-rounds, mini roller-coaster, bumper cars etc... A1 is not a fan of such rides so we could easily walk past this area.

SAHM

I'm a stay at home mom since 6 days. Things are looking bright.
I vacummed the floor everyday after the boys had their breakfast with biscuits or bread crumbs all around. Now, I made them sit at the dining table for breakfast so that I could just cleaned up that area after.

I cooked lunch and dinner and most of the time, A1 finished his meals while A2 took only a few spoons. A2 was more interested to play with his food. He tried to drink everything including thick yoghurt, porridge etc.. He loved to hold the bowl and put it to his mouth. He loved soup. I remembered A1 had this phase too when he was A2's age. I did not force A2 to eat nor did I feed him extra food(biscuits, cheese) which he liked. He will eat when he is hungry just like what A1 did before.

This evening, I made a quiche and A2 finished his food while A1 preferred to eat the left over from lunch; rice and salmon fish minus the stirred fried spinach. He did eat lots of spinach for lunch. My boys; one prefers ang moh food while the other prefers chinese. Good thing, both love soup.
I can understand my mum's headache when her kids were young. It must not be easy to cook for a family with different taste buds.

On most days, after lunch, the boys napped and it allowed me to clean up the kitchen, do some chores and even napped for an hour. Still, I hardly had time to surf. On two occasions, I went to the shops and it was just impossible with the 2 boys.  Once to the electronics shop to check out on a fridge and dish washer and the other time to the DIY shop to get a toilet brush and check out paint colors. The boys were distracting, playing.... A2 crying to get out of his stroller so that he could run around with his brother.

Other than that, it is great to be at home with the kids. They make me laugh. A2 can repeat after us and can say many words and be understood. He picked up from A1 saying 'Pas this' instead of 'Not this ' or 'Pas ça'. Well, we do need to work on their mixed french-english.

Yesterday, we played our usual hide and seek. And for the first time, A2 counted from 1 to 10 in english while A1 and I went to hide. Usually A2 either counts with one of us or hides with the other.

During bathtime, the boys played with each other. A1 liked to wash his brother's hair. They teased each other by splashing water and throwing bath toys at each other.

A1 is good at negotiating. Each time I want him to do something he would say "Wait, maman. Encore une fois. D'accord?" and empathise ONE by showing me his index finger. Meaning "Wait, mom, one more time ok?" It could be while he was reading a book, watching sesame street, playing etc... while I asked him to eat, bath, dress up. If I said no, it would be a disaster; him showing me a black face, or running to his bed and me being upset. Now, I always say ok because he would come to me after he had finished his task. Furthermore, it never took him long to finish what he was doing. It seems to be that he did not like to take orders like this but wanted to have a say. So by asking me for a prolong time and me approving it, he feels that he is in control of what he wants to do instead of us "forcing" him. Well, that's my analysis. I could never know if this is true.

I guess my post will see more of my days with the boys. I do keep a journal for each of the boys but had not updated them since a long time. It would be nice to record things somewhere and this is the place for the moment.

Scooter and motos

These are the scooter and motos we have at home. One too many for 2 boys. When A1 was little and starting to walk, we bought him the scooter which could be converted into a walker. When A2 started to walk, we bought A1 a red moto so that he could give the scooter to his brother. Then A2 started to fight with his brother over the red moto, we bought an even bigger moto for A1. What a mistake. This new addition is too big for our appartment. A1 cannot turn smoothly in his big motobike along the coridor.

I wanted to get rid of the scooter but the 2 boys still use it now and then. At least, there is no fight over the motobikes and scooter now.

Dilated fundus examination

In France, we had to consult an ophthalmologist to have our eyes check before going to a optical shop to have the glasses made. The last time I consulted one, she recommended me to do a dilated fundus examination once every two years because I wore glasses. Recently, I did it. Half an hour before the examination, I had to drip eye drops to dilate the pupils. It made my vision blur for 3 hours. I was not able to read anything. The result was good. There was no tear found on the inner surface of the eyes. The best thing was everything as usual was paid by social security and my mutuelle. Vive la France.