Je t'aime, moi aussi.

During the day, I sent an e-card to Seb. I sent it to an email address that he hardly consulted as I did not want him to get spam mails (advertising) in his personal email. When we spoke over the phone in the afternoon, I told him to go check out his mail box. That's how unsurprising and unromantic I am.

In the evening, once out of the office parking, I saw 2 men carrying roses. I quickly called up Seb. The conversation went like this:
"Hey, don't buy me flowers."
"Trop tard."
"Oh." I felt disappointed but rapidly, very happy.
"Why?"
"Because they are very expensive."
"Is it?"
"It's ok. I love you" and I started laughing in delight.

Girls are girls! I don't want to spend my hubby's money as price of roses are rocket high today yet I feel so good to get a dozen of roses on Valentine's day. The marketing trick is really getting into us!

8 years of marriage has made him more romantic and me more practical.

O'Kari hammam

For our wedding anniversary last year, Seb offered me a hammam treatment with a massage included. Hammam is turkish bath.

I finally found the time to go relax on Sat while Seb took care of the boys. The 4 hours treatment was great. This was the first time I tried hammam. I was expecting some privacy but it turned out to be an open space. Good thing it was small and cozy with only 4 "workstations". A friend told me that the hammam she went to in Morocco was too crowded for her. There were like 60 women at the open space all chatting away at the same time.

I enjoyed the steam bath and found it more pleasant than sauna. I had 2 exfoliations; one with black soap based on olive oil. It felt weird at first to have someone scrubbing away but I got used to it quickly. There was also a wrap with some nourishing natural herbs. Rose water was used on my hair and it smelt so good. To end it off, there was a relaxing massage. So relaxing that I fell asleep and did not want to leave.

When I finally left O'Kari, I checked my watch. 3hours and 45minutes had passed so quickly. I wished I had stayed 15mins extra. After all, it was supposed to be a 4hours hammam treatment. Personally, I never thought of trying hammam as I would prefer a good traditional massage to tense out those stiff shoulder muscles. For the price, I could go on a short weekend trip or gotten a new leather bag. Still, I enjoyed myself and I thanked my kind husband for giving me such a sweet surprise. And what did I get him for our anniversary? Gee... A jazz CD. I will try to do better for this year.

The birth rates

The latest statistics are out.

The birth rate of Singapore stands at 1.16, lowest in Singapore history.

The birth rate of France increases from the year before and stands at 2.02.


Read here
http://www.littlespeck.com/content/people/CTrendsPeople-110122.htm
and here
http://journalde.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2009/02/09/france-leads-europe-in-birth-rates.html

I contributed to France in 2009 and 2010. If we were in Singapore, would I have 2 kids by now? This is a tough question. Singapore is indeed more competitive (leading to more work stress and less family time?) but my mum who is in Singapore is so readily to help take care of the kids. For sure, we would have 1 kid.

Some reasons cited by Singaporeans for not wanting kids or just having a kid are valid reasons for us too. Seb and I work, we have no family living near us, we can't afford a live-in maid (there's min wages in France and it's about 8€ per hour; go do your maths). To give our best to our kids, it is hard but possible for us; just like many other french parents out there. We have a nanny to take care of the 2 boys at home while we are at work. We organise our outings and time mangement according to the needs of our children. We are both very tired since a few months but we are satisfied as we are involved 100% in our kids' lives. We see them everyday. We feed them and put them to sleep ourselves. Baby A2 is sleeping thru' most nights. It will only get better.

For the mentality of Singaporeans to change, they should not look at child rearing as a chore. I said that because a few of my Singaporeans friends and relatives and even my mum commented that it must be really hard for me to take care of my young children alone without help. With so much consolation from them, I started to doubt my capability and felt stress up the first 2 weeks with my children alone. But soon, I realised that it was not that difficult at all. It was a joy doing nothing and just taking care of their needs, watching them play and pass the day happily. Housework can be done later when they sleep, nap. Having a dryer (I hate to hang clothes and over here, it is not allowed), dish washer ease my task. Having a hands-on father is an extra!

I am looking forward to spring so that I can bring the kids to the park more often. Toddler A1 has unlimited energy and baby A2 is starting to be curious to his surroundings.

The iPad

Came across this article and it was really true in our case.
Children learning computer skills before life skills
Toddler A1 knows how to use his dad's iPad better than me. He could go to YouTube and select "Sesame Street" videos to watch. Or he could go to iTunes and select the Barbapapa videos to watch. He could adjust the volume, pause the video, and when I told him we had to switch it off, he knew which button to press. Gosh. I did not even know where was the "On/Off" button. I thought it was that round button at the bottom of the screen.
And when Toddler A1 watched videos on my laptop, he would touch the screen hoping to pause or change video. I had to tell him that my laptop was not a touch screen.
An iPad is really a child's play compared to computers. However, great supervision is necessary when kids are online. I feel that computers are more dangerous than television. Harmful materials are just a click away.
Seb and I do hope that we would be mindful and not take it for granted that toddler A1 could learn life skills by himself.

The horror of French public services

I had been restraining myself from writing the horror stories of the French public services regarding the foreigners department. Whenever I need to get my papers updated, I would normally spent a whole day(or sometimes more) at the office and I would have to take days off as the public services are not open on saturdays.

For my mom's stay, Seb had to queue up as early as 5am in the cold just to get an appointment, sumbit papers and documents, resumbit some documents (note: they always asked for more papers than what was written on the internet or communicated over the phone), collect my mom's 'long-stay' card etc. We would join Seb when the office opened at 9am. It could take hours before one reached the reception desk since each person had to provide the motive and necessary documents before given a ticket. There was only a staff. Each interview could take 5 mins. There would be around 50 people before us. Yeah, there were people who camped overnight. They took the last Metro as they had no cars. Remember, this was the foreign department we were talking about and usually, the foreigners were low-skill workers. Low-skill = low pay = no car. Low-skill work also meant that if they did not work, they were not paid.

Once, we arrived at the reception desk and it was already noon. As we had an appointment, we were given a ticket. The people behind us were told to come back the next day as all tickets were given out. They could only process a certain number of requests a day. The lady behind us told me that it was the second day she was there and this time, she queued since 6am. She already had a loss of income of 2 days and a whole day of queueing wasted. Poor lady. There were many other people like her.

As mentioned earlier, I preferred not to write about such things as I had become a fatalist. In the beginning, I compared the public services here with that of Singapore which is easy and fast. Now, I decided to accept things as they are in France. France has its positive points and overall, I am contented with this country.

So, what makes me begin this post. I rattle on more than I like to. It's because of the French passports. Seb and baby A2 made their passports 3 weeks ago. We went on a weekday morning and waited for like 2 hours before everything was done. As we waited, we heard people being told to come back the next day as there was insufficient staff to process the passport applications. It was only noon then. Seb went to collect the passports last week and there were mistakes in both passports! Seb's family name was spelt wrongly. The address in both passports had mistakes and they were not even identical. They had to be redo and the system was down that day. So Seb had to go back another day to resumbit the applications. Another few hours to be wasted. Worse of all, this is costing the government money and these are the tax payers' money. Gosh. This is what got me started with this post. I better stop here now. Nothing, nothing goes well with the public service here. If we managed to get something done fast and correct with the public services, it was really a miracle.

No period.

Toddler A1 is at his "no" period(phase). Everything he says is "No" period(fullstop)!
This is somewhat getting me on my nerves.

Example: He was on the high chair.
Are you hungry? No.
Do you want to eat? No.
So, you are not hungry? No.
You want to come down? No.
You want to stay in your chair? No.

Then the dad asked in French: 'You want to be an astronaut?' He paused and stared at us.
I added 'You want chocolate?' 'Yes', came the reply. So he did process our questions in his mind.

There were days he refused to eat and sometimes, he said no during mealtime and yet put the food in his mouth. Even at nights, we heard him crying 'No' in his sleep. Poor boy.

We read that this is a common behavior for toddlers and it usually ends by the age of 3 years. Gosh. We will have to endure this on/off periods of "No"s for another year. Or maybe more as some friends told us.

Oyster knife

Happy new year everyone. 2011 is here. How fast.

Over the Christmas lunch, I had 6 yummy oysters. I only had oysters during Christmas as I only trust the oysters bought by my in-laws. I had once been very sick after eating fresh(?) oysters in Singapore.

Yesterday, while shopping for our new year eve's dinner at the supermarket, I decided to get half a dozen of fresh oysters. I had this oyster knife since many years but never used it yet.

So, for the first time, I had to open the oysters by myself since only I eat them in this home. Seb won't help cos' he did not know how. But me too! It was not as difficult as I thought. It was pretty easy once you find the opening. I am proud of myself. Something to add to my list of skills before the year ends. (LOL. As if this skill is important. )

Au revoir, big comfy sofa bed.

OK. The photo did not do justice to this sofa bed. The cover was all winkled as it had been folded and left under the bed for a long time. 10 months to be exact. But the mattress itself was thick and it made a really comfortable bed.

Now that mum had left, we would like to get rid of this sofa bed for good to make space. The space would provide the kids a corner of their own. Yeah, we were tired of having to pick up toddler A1's toys in the living room each evening after putting him to bed. We needed our own living (room) space.

This sofa bed had come a long way. It was Seb's bed during his balchelor's days. As I said, the mattress was still in top condition so throwing it away felt like such a waste. I decided to put up a notice at http://www.recupe.net/. I mentioned before that we could donate anything at this site.

Once the notice was up, I received more than 10 demands right away. It was amazing. Some wrote short while others shared their personal situations. There were single mum, student, man quitting his parents' place for a new job etc. I did not give it to the first demand I received but instead replied positively to the third demand who said that she had no luck in getting anything since 6 months. Well, she would come tomorrow to pick up the sofa.

So a good deed done and Seb did not even have to carry the sofa out to the streets to dump it. Now, I wonder how we would decorate the kids' space. Seb would like to turn it into a cosy reading corner with cushions while I opted for a carpet with roads printed for the boys to play cars. Something like this from Ikea. Maybe I will post a photo of the end result.

X'mas time soon

Galleries Lafayette. I think the Christmas magic is really strong here. I just love the decorations of Galleries Lafayette. And each year, the window displays attracted many kids.

This sunday morning, Seb will bring toddler A1 to view the famous window displays of animated toys. I hope it won't be too crowded as it could be dangerous for kids.

Christmas will be here soon and the weather is really cold this year. We may even experience a white christmas in Paris itself. That's so rare. As usual, we shall spend Christmas in Chartres. Stay tune to see what the babies get for Christmas.

A saturday evening

I stop by here to write a post before shopping online for an iron.

Saturday evening. . . . Seb brought toddler A1 to the circus. Tickets were offered by his company as X'mas gift to the employees' children. Toddler A1 might be too young for the 2 hours show but the lions performance would only be out after the pause. I do hope toddler A1 gets to enjoy it cos he loves lions. When we show him the lion in his books, he would go 'Grrrr...' with his head tilted backwards and mouth opened wide.

Me, I stayed at home with baby A2. I pushed the coffee table towards the TV furniture and placed the ironing board before the sofa. Baby A2 was in his bouncer and I multitasked; watching TV (the Simpsons in French :( ), talking to baby A2, leg shaking the bouncer, hands ironing Seb's shirts. I was going into my 4th shirt when the iron died. Hm.....

So here I am. Taking a break. Sitting on the sofa with laptop on my lap, watching TV (variety show 'Les annees bonheur' by Patrick Sebastien), leg still on the bouncer, drinking a cup of tea. Once I leave the room, baby A2 would cry. Once he sees me, he smiles. Finally, he is getting responsive.

OK. Back to serious business now. Mission: buy new iron. I would need it by wed as I had only ironed 3 shirts. Nowadays, I buy almost everything online. Even the washing machine. How convienent. I have 30 minutes to find a new iron before the next feed of baby A2.

Big revamps in our lives

Over the weekend, it snowed in Paris. This is not very usual for beginning of Dec. The snow did not stay as it rained after. However, it did snow heavily and my balcony had a layer of snow. It was a beautiful sight from the living room but I think my flowers had froze to death.

Baby A2 is getting better. Despite the cold, we had to bring him for theraphy sessions to clear his lungs. I'm glad that after 2 sessions, we were told that he was in the pink of health. For the next months, we would keep ourselves warm at home and avoid outdoors unless necessary.

With baby A1 at the childcare, there are some organisations to be done. Seb brings him to childcare and in the evening, my neighbour, whose son is also at the child care would help me to bring back baby A1. I won't have to take baby A2 with me to pick up his brother. This arrangement would last for these 2 weeks. After which, Seb would be on his 11 days of father's leave. Yeah, another work benefit in France.

Then comes the new year. Major changes would occur come 2011. We were disappointed that baby A2 did not have a place at the childcare. So the best decision for us was to pull baby A1 out of childcare and enaged a nanny. We found a chinese nanny who would come to take care of the 2 boys at home. She would speak chinese to them. She would work every weekday except wed and alternate friday.

For me, I will stop working full time. By law, yeah, another work benefit in France, I can reduce my work hours to 80% and get some financial help from the governement. This means I get to spend every wed and alternate fridays at home with my boys. The loss of income is about 10% after aids from govt which ends on the third birthday of the last child.

France is really a social country. I just realised that with 2 kids,I get about 120€ from the govt each month. I did not realise this until I checked my bank account a few days ago. The amount increased with the number of kids. No wonder some people just keep having babies to get this aid.

At the moment, I'm on maternity leave until 20 Dec but I decided to start work on 2011. After all, I still have 5 weeks of leave. I hope to be fresh for year 2011. I'm just exhausted now and nursing a cold. Hopefully, I won't pass it to the babies.

He is back in hospital

Baby A2 got bronchiolitis and was hospitalised since monday. His condition is not serious. As he is so young, he is kept in the hospital for observation. Still, it is tedious for us. Seb's mom is helping to take care of baby A1 while I spend the day by baby A2's side. As the hospital is nearby Seb's workplace, he would come to visit during lunch time. For the night, we take turns to sleep over. Seb would shower at the hospital before going to work the next day. Today is my turn to sleep at home.

We are keeping our cool. We got to know the doctors and nurses there and know that baby A2 is in good hands. Still, with the extreme cold weather, I would prefer the whole family to be cozy at home. I wonder when the little guy will be back home. The prediction was a week to 10 days.

We are not alone. We see so many other babies just as young who were admitted for the same problem. Gosh, babies are so fragile during winter.

Mom's the best

Though I'm a mother now, the title of this post is not about me. I'm referring to my mother. She is really the best. We always have a good relationship togather and for the past 10 months, I appreciated her much more than before.

She readily dropped her social life and family and business to come to take care of her grandchildren. She did not speak any french; knew no one else here than us; yet, she was brave enough at this age to take this big step. She always put her family before all else.

10 months passed so fast and now she is back in Singapore. I want to thank her for all the things she had done for us; especially her love for babies A1 and A2. She had more engergy than me. It is amazing what she had accomplished and even her friends were telling her that they would not have done what she had done. I love my mum.

He is back with us

Thank you my friends for your kind concern. Baby A2 is back home since yesterday evening. His fever was down and doctor confirmed it was a virus but could not identify what virus. We are so happy to be togather as a family again.
Got to go catch some sleep now.

I hate Nov

At this time, I should be resting and sleeping but somehow I just could not. Instead of choosing to watch TV, I decided to take 5 mins to write this down. Maybe that will help me to go to bed easier.

I had spent the last 2 nights at the hospital staying by baby A2's side. He had fever and it was worrying since he was less than 2 months old. It started on tuesday when he had fever of 38.2°C. At the hospital, he had his blood drawn thrice. His urine and stools were examined. He had a lumbar puncture done. But all test results did not show up any virus or bacteria.

Poor boy was in great discomfort and Seb and I took turns to be by his side. His tempertaure had not stablised and this morning even shot up to 38.9°C.

Last year this time, baby A1 spent 5 nights at the hospital. This time round, it's his little brother. I hate Nov. I pray that baby A2 will recover soon.

5 mins up. It's time I go to bed and try to get to sleep. Let's hope that we can have our baby home with us tomorrow.

Charms

When I was pregnant the first time, I requested from Seb to offer me a token of appreciation based on the birth weight of baby A1. Baby A1 was 3kg340g and I had 334€ as the gift. With this, I bought a ring with a quartz gemstone and a few charms from Agatha. The theme was based on baby and I got a milkbottle, a boy and a rocking horse charms. These gifts should last forever and are of great sentimental values to me.

When baby A2 was borned, we continued with tradition. He weighed 3kg100g at birth. With my new gift amount, I added 2 more charms; a diamond ring and a letter A to complete my bracelet. I will most probably shop for a pair of pearl earrings to use up what's left of the cash.

If you are interested in Agatha's charms, you can create your own at its website.

Sleeping arrangement

A few months before the arrival of little brother, we bought a junior bed from Ikea for the big brother. Though he was only 16months old, we decided to make him sleep in the junior bed instead of buying another baby bed for the little brother. The little brother would instead be sleeping in the existing baby bed.

We installed the junior bed but big brother did not want to sleep in it. It took him a month before he slowly accepted sleeping in it. Now, he had no problem sleeping in it. I think he knew the advantage of sleeping in the big bed. He could get out of the bed early in the morning and came looking for us in our room. In the baby bed, he would have to wait for us to come get him. We no longer needed to set the alarm clock as we could hear big brother getting off his bed and walking along the corridor at 6.30am or sometimes earlier.

For little brother, I decided not to put him in the baby bed yet. The 2 boys would be sharing a room and since little brother cried so often as all new borns do, I did not want him to disturb his older brother’s sleep. I rented a maternity baby bed for a month. We could easily move the baby anywhere we want. Furthermore, we could see the baby through the transparent cot.

Another week and little brother would be a month old. I'm hoping that the 2 boys would sleep well when they are both in the same bedroom.

The birth story

The day before he arrived, we were at Jardin de Plantes in Paris. On the way home, the usual 30mins drive became 2hours due to massive traffic. Saturday evening traffic in Paris was horrible. That was when the contractions started. On Sunday early morning, the contractions continued and became regular at 5 minutes interval at around 3.30am. I called my mid-wife, Adela and she said to go to the clinic and she would join us there. We arrived at 4.30am and Adela examined me. She prepared the labour room and at 5am, my obstetrician arrived. By 5.10am, the baby was out. Adela knew that I would like to have a natural birth and we worked towards it throughout my pregnancy. I was really pleased that the birth turned out as I wanted. No epidural or complications. So it was really true what people said about first delivery being long and subsequent ones would be faster. But neither Seb nor I expected it to be that fast.

I thank God for answering my prayers. Adela, my mid-wife was great. She knew that my first delivery was long and difficult. She did her best to ensure that I would get what I wrote in my first birth plan. I did not even bother to do a birth plan for this second one.

If you are looking for a mid-wife in the Parisian area, let me know. You won't be disappointed with Adela.

The wait is over

My second boy had arrived on sunday. He weighed 3kg100g and was 48cm. He arrived at the same term as his older brother; 39 weeks + 2 days.

Baby boy's name starts with an A, like his older brother. So I guess I have to call my Baby A, Baby 1 and this new born, Baby 2.

As usual, we engaged the services of Adela, my mid-wife and Dr Sabban, my obstetrician. I stayed at Sainte Isabelle Clinique as I enjoyed the service there for Baby 1. This time round, I took the suite since the room was entirely paid by my mutuelle. The rate was like that of a superior room in a 5 star hotel in Paris. Very expensive. The suite was spacious. I should have done that for my first stay instead of opting for the single room.

I stayed 3 nights there and though the food was alright, I longed for kebah and sushi. Seb delighted me with the best sushi he knew in Paris. (That was when he was still eating fish.) The fish were really fresh. I guess I had more craving for food than when I was pregnant.

We are all home now and as usual, mum is doing confinement for me. I can hardly wait for the confinement period to be over so that I can be FREE. Mum is not that strict but still, confinement is confinement!

Baby 1 takes well to Baby 2 and even kissed him. Baby 2 is adorable so far. Not a fussy baby. Or maybe because this baby business is not new to us, we are less stress up.

Oh yeah, when I was at the clinic, I met a nurse who did an internship at KK Hospital in Singapore. She knew about the confinement practise and we discussed a little. She was surprised to have a patient from Singapore and asked if my mum was going to sleep with me at night. I told her that my french husband would never allow that.

Waiting game updates

It has been almost 5 weeks since I am on maternity leave and I am still waiting patiently for baby number 2. In the first 3 weeks, I was told to rest tranquille and not move too much. Since 2 weeks, I had the go ahead to move as much as possible as we would like the baby to arrive way before term. In the hope for a short labour unlike for baby A's, the medical team (my obstetrician and mid-wife) would like me to give birth earlier. This was to avoid having a big baby. Baby A was 3.340kg and considered big for my petite frame.

So since 2 weeks, I had been active. When Baby A was at the child care, mum and I went to market, supermarket just to jalan jalan. During the weekend, we took walks in Paris. And with baby A around, we brought him to parks. He could have so much fun even in a small area of greenery. He is going to be 17 months soon and weighs about 10.7kg. Most of the time, he is happy. It is always a joy to watch him discovering new things.

Here, we were at a park nearby Anca's place. He had fun at the small playground and played for a long, long time.

Baby number 2 is very active in me. Whenever we asked baby A "Where's Didi (younger brother)?", he would sayang my tummy. Very sweet. Now, I'm just waiting for contractions. The whole family is so eager to see him and each day, we receive enquires asking if he has arrived. :) Soon, I hope.