A visit to her future kindergarten

Awena will turn 3 year's old soon. She is eligible to enter kindergarten during the coming fall.

The school organized an Open House to allow the potential future students to visit the school.

 Parents can ask question and pre-enroll their kids.

 La chaise pour réfléchir : The Thinking Chair. Probably use to ask a kid to calm down. I sense that Awena would be here often, she is quite a stubborn kid.

 She was very happy here. So many toys to play around.

We also visited Aelig's classroom. She was very proud to show it to us.

A new organisation awaiting us, dealing with babysitter would probably soon a history to us.

Chicken and Duck Talk

Aelig starts using sentences mixing Mandarin and French. Sometimes, after coming back from school, she would speak pure French to me. Most of the time I ask her to speak only Mandarin, but sometimes I just let it go.

One day, she was using mixed languages again. I stopped her and explained that if she would say the same thing to my mother, my mother would not have understood. "Your grandma doesn't understand French, she wouldn't have known what you are trying to say. This is just like a chicken trying to speak its chicken language to a duck who doesn't understand a word of chicken. We called it chicken and duck talk in Mandarin. " I told her.

She paused, looking at me, proudly said this with a smile:

"Oh I know, you are chicken, dad is duck, that's why I know how to speak Chicken and Duck languages. " Her response made me laugh, she was not wrong in her logic. Unfortunately, chicken and duck both have pejorative meanings in Mandarin. Chicken could refer to a prostitute and duck could mean male prostitute. I didn't correct her as I didn't know how to explain this to her. 

Anyway, during lunch time, hubby spoke in Mandarin about something. Aelig didn't get it because she didn't expect her dad to speak Mandarin. I told her that the fact she speaks Mandarin at home, it helps her father learn as well, and now he could speak simple mandarin to his mother in laws. But then she should keep doing it so that her dad would make progress. 

Her response : "Why doesn't dad speak English to grandma? 

"Because not everyone speaking English in Malaysia, including your grandma. " I promptly said. "Then dad would speak in English, and someone else would translate for him." She came out with a solution. 

"Well, it is better if we all can speak Mandarin to grandma. And you know, grandma had never had chance to go to school, do you know why?"

"Yes, you told me that, she needed to take care of her siblings."

"Yes. How about you quit going to school, and take care of your sister at home instead?"

"No! I love going to school!!!"

Wishing everyone happy and prosperous year of Rooster!

Order and Disorder

With two young kids, the house is constantly in disorder, there are always toys, books, stuffs on the floor. The eldest was not setting an example, and the toddler, she gets on my nerves. 

Her new habit : to choose a cloth, she needs to first empty her drawers. We scolded her, we sweet talked to her, she didn't care, she smiled to us. As if her mischief was nothing.

Hubby built each of us a shoe rack. Everyone was supposed to put their shoes in their own place. I collected a bunch of old shoes from Aelig, but a new pair of boots for Awena, and put them inside a shoes box and placed it in her closet. She found it, took out everything, and displayed them in order, on the floor.

She found a plastic bag filled with saline solution (in France we use these to wash baby's nose when he or she has a flu). She placed them in order.

So she does have the sense of putting things in order, she just doesn't want to put them where they should be.

The apprentices

I kind of like Trump when he was the big boss in the show "Apprentice".
"You are fired", such a powerful word.
Now he is the President of the USA, who would he fire?

This post has nothing to do with Trump.
I just want to jot down some apprenticeship of the girls, as their process growing up.

Buying bread
I started sending the eldest to the bakery for bread.
On the way home from school, I would park in front of the bakery, give her some money, and let her go inside the bakery to handle the process. She was proud to be able to do it. The more she goes, the more she gains confident. Sometimes I asked her how much the woman gave her back and why. She didn't quite get the concept, but I'm sure she will get there.
Today, she insisted to go with her young sister. And the two year old asked for a chocolate bread.
Me : "Aelig, can you please go buy a baguette as usual?
Aelig : "Can Awena come with me this time"?
Me : "No, I will have to unfasten her seat bell then fasten it again, too much work."
Aelig : "Please, please." Then she asked Awena if she wanted to come buy bread with her, and the later nodded.
Awena :"Pain au chocolat."
Me :"Ok, buy three, one for your dad".
Aelig:"Ok Awena, we will save the chocolate bread for tonight so we can eat with dad ok?"
Awena :"Why?"
Aelig:"Else dad would be sad to eat the bread alone".
Awena :"Ok".
During the 4pm snack, Aelig couldn't resist the temptation, they ate their chocolate bread.
Daddy had his dessert alone in the evening.

In the school

As she goes to standard two, she has to jot down homework on an agenda. Sometimes I don't understand what was written, so we were mad at each other because I didn't know what she needed to do and she was not happy that I didn't understand what she wrote. She did ok on her tests so we didn't put too much pressure on her.

She likes to go to school but sometimes I feel that she didn't take things seriously. It happened that she forgot to bring home her agenda, so we didn't know what homework she had to do. I had to send a sms to a parent to know the homework for the next day, that was quite embarrassing. The best thing was, we got a reply from the parent so we knew what needed to be done, but she forgot her exercise book in her classroom so nothing could be done anyway.  

I noticed that she made mistake on spelling, especially the S at the end of a word (because S are normally silent in French when it is placed at the end of a word). For example, she would write gro gro bisous (big kisses) instead of gros gros bisous. She would write j'ai fai instead of j'ai fait. 

As for the little apprentice Awena, she starts counting in Mandarin and in French. She would say one two three five six seven....until 20 in Mandarin and missing the number 4. In French, she would say one two three five eight nine, skipping number 4, 6, 7 and 10. She speaks mostly French to me, unlike her sister, but she understands my reply in Mandarin. We tried to encourage her to speak Mandarin, I would pretend sometimes that I don't understand her when she speaks in French. Hubby tried to sweet talk to Aelig so that she would speak Mandarin to her sister, but she refused. She said that it's easier to speak French than Mandarin. True, she gets frustrated sometimes with me because she couldn't express herself well in Mandarin and tends to switch to French easily. We would see how it goes.

New Year Gathering 2017

Happy New Year 2017!

We hosted a New Year celebration this year in our place with friends and their kids. 8 adults and 6 kids. We had a blast. I'm so glad that we did this, after the party, I feel the house is so empty, really miss the friends' company.

We started talking about New Year celebration in October, I was not sure if we were capable to host as even though we had moved in, the house was still undergoing some home improvement projects. Like for example we still didn't have a place to hang our winter costs, our dressing was not started (still not)...The house was not perfect to host, but our guests were very understanding, they didn't mind just for one night, they came with their sleeping bags.

I worked on Thursday and Friday. Since the girls were on holidays, they stayed with me, so I had to work from home while taking care of them. As soon as hubby was home, I rushed to the supermarket to buy groceries. It closed at 8pm, but the fresh food sections (meats, vegetables, seafood) started to get things of their display at 7pm. Saturday morning (31th) was spent to clear the house whereas hubby went for the last round of grocery shopping (for fresh meats mainly). I did this as soon as I had time but with the girls, the place got untidy and dirty quickly. The girls' rooms were cleanup to receive guests. 

Some guests arrived around 3pm. They helped us prepare the food. French women I know are all very capable, they usually prepare everything before hand so when guests arrive, the kitchen is spotless and they are with you through the meals. This is so unlike the Malaysian style, where my mother and aunt are busy cooking while the guests and other family members would start eating without them. Anyway, hubby likes to gather everyone and prepare things together. 

Our friends prepared a game for the kids : fishing for gifts!

I prepared a gift bag for the kids. Inside, it has some party items like a balloon, a hat...most importantly, I wanted to include some Malaysian touches : a paper lantern and a pack of handheld firework. Malaysian kids play paper lantern with candle during Autumn festival and firework during Chinese New Year. When it got dark, we had a work outside with lantern and firework, despite the freezing weather. For some reason, the firework was difficult to light compared to those we had in Malaysia, so finally not every kid got to play with it.

Apéro : Margaritas (a Tex-Mex drink we loved from US), some light starter. I also prepared a verrine (pamelo, avocado, smoked salmon with lemon juice) and some stuffed mushrooms.

The men were preparing Caïpirinha, a type of Brazilian drink with sugarcane liquor, sugar and lime. We learnt this from a Brazilian friend during our stay in Austin.

 The main course 1 : Chinese style hotpot

The main course 2 : Plancha (griddle) with 7 types of marinated meats. We bought 1,5kg of beef, 1kg of chicken, 500g of pork.

The kids were having fried rice and chicken nuggets at far end. In general people prefer the plancha, I was into hotpot. The hotpot ingredients could be grilled as well. Overall, people got their dose of meat and seafood, they seemed to be very satisfied.

At mid-night, we had champagne and kissed and wished everyone a prosperous New Year. We continued our soirée with a game. We had light dessert : mango and lycee around 2am in the morning. The courageous men stayed up till 5am.

In the morning, we gradually woke up around 11am, had breakfast, went for a walk, and continued the plancha for lunch. Some friends left before lunch, some after lunch, some helped us clean up (we don't have a dish washer). After they left, we took a nap. It was tiresome but we got a great time.

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year!

Baby Gym Christmas Party 2016

The baby gym was having a Christmas party for the kids.

When we arrived, the trainers had set up a Christmas tree, and different kind of gym equipment for kids to jump, crawl, climb, run, and have fun.

The party has gathered three group of kids. After an hour of the usual gym classes, the main trainer gathered everyone together and yelling for "Santa". They screamed 4 times before he finally arrived.

 Kids surrounded him. He asked if everyone was well behaved, and all of them said yes.

Santa called out name and handed each a gift. They girls waited patiently for their turn. Parents prepared the gift at the beginning of the party and gave them discretely to the trainer. I asked the trainer to include a gift for Aelig who was not in the baby gym program.

Soon Santa called out their names. This time, Awena was not afraid at all. She happily kissed Santa as requested.

 Awena got a pair of pajamas, as for Aelig, it was a gift I had long in mind.

This toy was more for Awena's age than for Aelig. But she showed her interested each time she saw it :  in someone's house, when we were in the doctor / dentist waiting room... I know this would please her.

As expected that, she claimed that this was her favorite gift so far. Awena was disappointed though. She was happy to have the pajamas, but when she saw this toy, she checked again, and said "there was no toy for me". She sneaked into her sister room when she was not around so that she could play with it. As a parent, I was sad to see one happy and the other one disappointed. Hopefully I could catch up on the real Christmas gathering.

Company Christmas Event Dec 2016

This year my company year-end Christmas party was held in the Cité de Nantes. 

First we were invited to watch a show: three people playing music instruments while doing some acrobat, quite well done. The big daughter was glued to it the whole 1 hour, while the little one was following for 15 minutes then started climbing up and down from her seat.

After the show, we were handed two bags of snack for the kids, and the adults had to go through a long queue just to get a pastry and a hot drink. Food wise we can sense a huge budget cut compared to years before.

 We were told that some games areas were set up. The little one was intrigued by this book area, but since she didn't take a nap before coming, she became fussy quickly.

 The kids got their snack, while I was queuing for ours, managed to chit-chat with some coworkers. Later we played a game, quite easy, depending on the dice color we needed to blow down some fake colorful candles.

We were told then that there were more games upstairs. The kids were totally glued to as soon as they set foot in this area. The little one played with enthusiasm some cars and some trains that she had to put on those racks.

 What I loved the most was the Lego area. Tons of pieces of Lego for anyone to play with.

 Kids teamed up with their parents, constructed some crafts using Lego pieces, wrote down their team name, and I believed the organizers would choose a winner later.

 So many kids happy to find Lego pieces at their services.

 The big daughter was hooked to the train set for a while before joining her little sister.

When we left, the Christmas lighting was on, the girls was disappointed as they couldn't enter the area to get closed to Santa. By the way, due to budget cut, my company didn't invite Santa this year. I didn't know about this (I didn't go ask either), so I told my kids what we were going to see Santa. The big daughter accused of lying when we were about to go. Oh well, she will see Santa soon.

Some French last name

After so many years living in France, I'm still amazed and shocked at some of their last name. For those Mr Small, Ms Carpenter, Mr Goodman, Mr Bigkind, it was kind of funny but still ok. However for those with pejorative last name, like the headmaster Mr Bastard, Mr Big boots, how do they survive all these years? French people do not react to these names anymore but I do. Each time I see the headmaster, I don't know how to address him, I won't want to call him Mr Bastard.

One day while I was working, I saw a mail coming in, I had a glimpse and saw something about croissant. I told myself that someone was bringing croissant to work to celebrate about something, but when I opened the mail, it was from Ms Croissant. If Ms Croissant were to bring croissants to share with us, I don't know how I would react.

December is approaching so I'm scratching my head about gifts. At my work I have to deal with a bunch of names so one day I thought I must be dreaming but I saw a guy with last name "Cadeau" = gift in French. I was like, no way someone is named Mr Gift, but it was real. Now I don't know how to react with Mr Gift. Maybe one day I will know someone who is Mr Right?

Rice porridge à trois

On Wednesday, we usually have rice porridge for lunch. Hubby doesn't like it so I take the opportunity to introduce some Malaysian food to the girls, when their father is at work. I always opt for simple dishes, so porridge with some fish, sweet potato porridge, and the mandatory fried eggs (荷包蛋).

Use the chance to steam whole fishes instead of fish fillet. The man at home like less when fishes come with bones, and eyes.

For some reason, the eldest accepts better Malaysian dishes in general. She likes porridge and red bean soup. She asked me porridge for lunch sometimes. She loves fried eggs too.

The little one won't finish on bowl of porridge if I don't ask her to finish. When she was one year old she ate in big quantity, but when I presented her porridge, she would eat two spoons then completely refused it.

As a lazy mother, rice porridge with sweet potato and fried eggs are the easiest food to prepare. I love it myself. But the little one would finish the egg and refused all the sweet potatoes.

I used to cook rice noodle too, but I'm not keen to clean up the mess after.

My mother must shake her head seeing this. Porridge with dishes are quite common for descendant from Fujian region, so we got to eat plenty when we were young. However, she always completed it with two three dishes, unlike me only fried eggs. Anyway, it seems that when we grow old, we would appreciate some comfort food from childhood, I hope the girls will think about this "rice porridge à trois" moment. 

PS : Just realized, I have never eaten fried eggs when I'm invited to someone's house here. It must not be a common dish in France.

Lawn : one month after

One month after planting the lawn, here's how much they have grown.

The seeds turned into grass two weeks after, we were so excited!

The man has been working on all sort of tasks, rain or shine. He was working on installing some protections on the borders between the soil and the wood deck to prevent the soil from going under the deck and to reduce the humility from the soil destroying the wood. 

One month after:

He removed the soils while installing the protection and put them back after, that's why the areas around the deck have not yet growing.

The South side : lawn growing except the part which was served as a passage to walk to his vegetable garden.

The North side.

The East side.

In between, they cleared the weeds along the border with our neighbor, and put a plastic protection to prevent weeds from growing again.

And, we are far from finishing. They are going to build a small wall between our garden and the neighbor's. The materials have arrived : sand, cement, bricks, woods, strings...Another weekends of work are waiting....Hopefully the weather won't be too harsh for them...

Planting the lawn

When we bought this land, I would have never thought that we would have a hilly garden.

 It looked flat to me, so I was foreseeing an expanded straight forward lawn.

March 2015: The day the foundation was carried out, they dug out hills of soil. We posted on several sites to ask if someone needed our soil, but nobody was interested. 

July 2015: After spending 5000 euros damping the soil, we yielded. The remaining soil was spread out to form three levels. Gone was my imagination of a straight and even garden.

Aug 2015: I was given the task to loosen the soil and started planting some mustard. Frankly I was not motivated, I only did a very small part.

Mustard planted to fertilize the soil. Aelig spread all the seeds that were meant for 400m². It grew rampantly after.

For around one year, the garden was abandoned as we were overwhelmed with other tasks. Excepted a small area for our kitchen garden where hubby grew tomatoes, chilies, pumpkins, French beans, green beans, and raspberries. We started removing specific weeds that would be hard to unroot after, and most of the grass and weeds were finally cut off at the beginning of Oct 2016. We chose to not use pesticides to kill the weeds as we want the garden to remain chemical free.

The garden shape still didn't please us. Hubby decided to call back the builders to remove the extra soil that we didn't damp.

Three loads of truck, sent to a specific dumpster that we had to pay for.

The earthmover also helped loosen the soil, and scraped the weeds from the surface.

Hubby and my FIL started to prepare the soil. They sorted out the stones, the debris, roots with garden and landscape rakes.

 It involves a lot of work. Hubby had to use a wheelbarrow to transport stone, roots, debris, construction damps...

Since the soil was already broken down by the earthmover, we didn't rent a motorized cultivator to do the job. Instead, I used the garden folk to dig out stone and weeds buried under. It was so much easier to do after the earthmover did the preliminary job.

Roots, stone to filter and remove

It was a team work for the whole family

                                       The whole land has to look like this before seeding

                                                                            Seeding

                        Using a roller to compact the soil and to let the seeds remain in the soil

After 5 days of team work, the garden was finally looking good. It will look geogeous when the lawn growths, I hope!

PS : Some people used landscaping contractor to prepare their lawn, but it was very expensive. Our neighbore did it in one day, he invited a friend who was a landscape contractor, plus 3 other friends. 5 of them started at 8am, and they finished around 6pm. They had less tasks though as their land was flat whereas ours have a lot of slops to take care of.