Wednesday, January 15, 2014

New Year, New Family

I’m back! Seriously…

Get ready for a ton of new information. Let us just canon ball into this, shall we?

I changed French families. No hard feelings of course. My old family just needed to have their time alone with all the problems the mother was having with her pregnancy and it wasn’t fair to me to be robbed of a true au pair experience. The mother did not lose the baby (major miscommunication, but that’s what you get with language barriers. C’est la vie). However, the mother did reenter the hospital 3 more times after that first hospital visit due to major contractions and the baby being way too low. Thus, she had to remain on bed rest for 3 months and counting (baby is due end of February and shouldn’t have any problems if he comes sooner now). Therefore, we mutually decided to go separate ways once I left for Christmas back home.

Just after our decision, an au pair friend of mine suggested I move in with her family after Christmas because she was finished as their au pair as of Christmas time. She just raved about them (as did another close au pair friend of ours). So I then interviewed with the family, met the kids, and now I am back in Lille, almost settled in with them: My new family!

I watch 3 kids. 2 girls, Alix (9) and Jade (11), as well as 1 boy, Hugo (12). They are all so welcoming. I already feel part of the family. I will only be speaking English with the kids and only French with the parents. The kids attend a bilingual school though and lived in Hong-Kong for 3 years, so they speak almost perfect English!

Tonight we had a traditional French dessert after dinner that is typically eaten for the new year. It’s a really flaky and sweet cake that has a hidden, ceramic, little toy somewhere in it. I swear the French have some serious fun putting small, choking hazardous objects in sweets for children (i.e. Kinder eggs). Survival of the fittest I guess…? Anyway, the one who finds the toy in their piece of cake wins and is literally CROWNED king for the day. Traditionally, the youngest member of the family sits under the table whilst everyone closes their eyes, except one person who cuts the cake. The child under the table really threw me off...

But the winner was… (drum roll)

ME!!!

America for the win! Or perhaps they all just surrendered the piece with the toy to me….

Kidding.


So far so good here. Lots of plans of traveling in the near future as well as friends visiting soon. All in all, life is good. Keep on keepin’ on.

Gros bisous à tous!

Claire