Bon anniversaire Max

Two years ago today a little firework exploded into our lives.

Since then he has grown into a chatterbox, a charmer, an adventurer, a goon, a negotiator, and a bit of a softy. He's cheeky, curious, strong-willed, sharing, caring, cautious, frustratingly contrary, angel-haired, monster obsessed, shark loving, unexpectedly empathic, energetic and mischevious with a crazy imagination.

A typical little brother who loves to terrorise his big sister. In training to be a responsible big brother, even if he is still far too rough.

He can always be found singing happily to himself, same tune (wheels on the bus), different words (absolutely anything that comes in his head). And his remix of the Postman Pat tune never fails to bring a smile to my face.

He's a handful and a half but we wouldn't have him any other way.

Happy birthday Max!

La souffrance

I've been a right misery since the guests left.  I'm finding it so difficult to get back into the swing of every day life and have hardly left the house.  It's like that week after Christmas when all the excitement abruptly stops and you end up just dossing around, the days all blurring into one.  I'm just sooooo bored! At least back at home I could always find something to do or someone to see right on my doorstep.

I'm also finding French impossible again after a week of hardly speaking it. We had pizzas with the neighbours on Monday and I felt physically exhausted from trying to hold a conversation. Max had a great time though, playing with one of their friend's grandaughters, Lucille:

He asked her to 'viens jouer' (come play)! It made me realise that he needs company of his own age, so I'm going to try and get a creche sorted soon.

Sigggghhhhhh.


Anyway, I need to shake this misery off asap! Maybe it will help when Lil goes back to school tomorrow and I'm forced back into some sort of routine again. 

Also it's Max's second birthday this weekend so hopefully that will bring a bit of excitement to the household. Although I already found him opening his pressie so that won't be much of a surprise for him! We're going to try and find some fireworks for him today as obviously Guy Fawkes isn't celebrated in France. 

I'm starting to feel better already after getting that whinge off my chest!

Edited to add: One bit of news that brought a smile to my face this week was the safe delivery of baby Alexander Dixon, born in record time on Hallowe'en! Congratulations to Susie, Digga and Niamh! xxx

Joyeux Hallowe'en!

It's fabulously sunny and warm here today, but we've still managed to get into the spirit of things with some pumpkin carving:

and dressing up the kids in silly outfits:

Hallowe'en isn't so much of a big deal in France, with only one small supermarket shelf dedicated to spooky stuff.  I thought we could buck the trend a bit and it's now the third day in a row the boys have worn their costumes, getting us lots of strange looks from the locals.

They do however have a national holiday for All Saints day tomorrow, meaning a day off work for Stu. Happy Hallowe'en!

Au revoir la belle-famille

This morning we had to wave goodbye to Sandra and Alan after a lovely week which went far too fast!

Max was thrilled to have his grandparents for another week, and Luke enjoyed having lots of extra attention. 

Max and his new wellies (which haven't left his feet all week)

We had some sunny days out to le Bourget du Lac, Aix les Bains, Annecy and Chambéry. And having two extra pairs of hands to help with the little monkeys meant that I could finally have a proper French lunch at a restaurant. Or two.

Lac du Bourget

Lac d'Annecy

Moules frites nom

Unfortunately Stu had to spend the first half of the week in Limerick with work, so wasn't around for a lot of the time (possibly a good thing the way him and Alan wind each other up).  He was due back on Wednesday evening and I knew there was trouble when I returned to my phone after bathing Luke to two missed calls and a message to "answer your phone".

The car battery had died in the airport carpark, and it was going to cost 130Euros to have it started again.  Fortunately for him he was able to eventually flag a passer by down who had jumpleads at their house nearby, and who went to fetch them to help him out.  If it had happened to me, I would have been totally screwed due to my rubbishy French.  He doesn't seem to have much luck in airport carparks does our Stu... 

On Thursday Catherine and Eric came over for a Sunday dinner that Sandra and Alan kindly cooked for everyone.  They seemed to enjoy the Yorkshire pudding which I guess is just an alternative way of cooking crêpes. Dinner conversation was an interesting mix of English and French, but everyone seemed to get along just fine. Except Max and Luke who both decided to play up.

We also had a nice leisurely lunch yesterday with Stu's brother's wife's dad! Or Aunty Jen's dad as Max likes to call him. He has a holiday home about an hour from here, so Sandra and Alan arranged for him to come over to catch up.

So all in all it's been a busy, but enjoyable week. Good company, good food, good wine and a bit of a break for me. Poor Max is going to be bored next week without his grandad here to "pay cars". Please come again soon!

La tranquillité

Things I have managed to do this week whilst Max has been away:

Lots of long walks
Pedicure
Pluck eyebrows
Manicure
Clean the whole house
Spend an afternoon in town
Read a chapter of a book (in French)
Watch a movie all the way through (Anchorman)
Clean oven
Catch up with TOWIE online (shamefully obsessed)
Have an afternoon nap
Spend lots of uninterrupted time playing with Lukey

Which is all well and good, but I have really started to miss him now (and Stu of course) and I am counting down the hours (three) until he returns.

And what's even more exciting is that they're travelling back with Sandra and Alan who are staying for the week.

The champers is chilling, lasagne is prepped, tarte au citron is made*,  'bienvenue' sign is hanging from the balcony, I'm now going to savour the last few moments of relative peace before the whirlwind returns.

*not really, I bought it from the boulangerie this morning...

La grande aventure

So as adventures go it wasn't that grande. But we managed it. A full night in the tent at the bottom of the garden!  Stu and Lily put the tent up on Saturday afternoon, whilst I sat watching and laughing at my own jokes about erections.  They did a sterling job considering Max kept trying to sabotage the effort by rolling around on top of the tent.

Before

After

Me, Lily and Luke had absolutely no intention of actually sleeping in the tent, but Stu managed to sweet talk us (literally) with half a bottle of rosé wine and a pack of Carambars.

Lily's idea of camping

And the verdict? Well it wasn't actually that bad. Max and Luke behaved (except for Lukey having one of his usual impeccably timed poop incidents), we drank beer, ate sweeties and played a poor man's version of Pictionary. It was bloody freezing though, so we've agreed to pack the tent away now until spring time.

Yeah, right

Stu and Max arrived safely back in the UK last night so I've spent the day in relative peace. I had a bit of a drama trying to locate the PMI centre for Luke's first jabs which resulted in me driving down a cycle path and upsetting a few locals.  I always seem to make these terrible driving mistakes when I'm in the UK car too. I bet I've been called a stoopid English pig more than a few times so far!

After driving for half an hour to locate the centre two miles away, I drove back home and asked for Catherine's help.  She extremely kindly came in the car with me and stayed throughout my appointment.  I really need to learn more ways of expressing my gratitude in French. Merci beaucoup just doesn't go far enough, considering how they've helped me!

Luke hated his jabs, but weighed in at an impressive 14lb13 and 63.5cm tall.  The health visitor wasn't impressed by his lack of socks however. I couldn't help but laugh - it was 21degrees outside, practically tropical compared to what we get back home.

I've definitely noticed that these French folk are a bit soft when it comes to the cold.  The kids are always wrapped up in their winter woollies at the park when me and Max are out in our shorts and t-shirts. 

Off to the shops tomorrow as it's Lil's half day.  I'm dreading driving into Chambéry centre, something is bound to go wrong...

La vie continue...

I've been spending quite a bit of time lurking in parks with the boys over the last few week in a bid to have a conversation with someone who can string more than six words together (six being Max's current record - "Mammy sit down on the road").  It appears that the trend in France is for new mams to go back to work fairly soon after having their baby, so I only seem to encounter grandparents and childminders who look after about three or four kids each and don't really have much time for chat.  Although I don't know why I'm complaining as my French conversation doesn't usually span more than six words either.  Today I somehow led one granddad to believe I was an English au pair and couldn't find the words to explain that the boys in fact belonged to me, but managed to agree that yes it was great that Max was being given the opportunity to be bilingual. 

Speaking of which, he is actually showing a bit of a talent for French. He can count to three ("undertwaaaa"), speak a handful of words and seems to understand a lot of what is said to him. Tres cute! 

Capitaine Tete de Champignon

Stu's colleague Patrick has been over from Ireland for work this week which has been nice as I think we're getting a bit sick of only having each others' company in the house.  They went out for drinks in Aix les Bains, and whilst Stu had good intentions of returning at a reasonable hour it appears to be impossible to get a taxi in these parts so he ended up getting a lift home from his new friend Antoine who works in the hotel where Patrick was staying.  At 3:45am. And quite merry. 

We're going to be getting one step closer to camping tomorrow and pitching the tent in the garden.  We have sensibly agreed that it would be a better idea to give it a go somewhere that it's easy to get home from in case it is a complete disaster.

Stu and Max are heading back to England on Monday for a few days, and I feel terrible saying it but I can't wait!  I have literally spent every waking hour with Max for seven weeks now and need a break!  I'll be using the time wisely though, trying to get Luke into some kind of daytime routine as he's been a bit upset the past few days and I'm sure it's mainly due to his big brother prodding him every time he falls asleep.

Not a happy boy

I'll also be using the opportunity of being toddler-free to spend Wednesday afternoon with Lily in Chambéry. She's been getting shopping withdrawal symptoms and deserves a treat for doing so well during her first term at school.

Hopefully something exciting will also happen in the next week as I fear this blog has become quite boring already!