We've definitely decided to try the local college, despite all the problems that the principal so kindly outlined in detail for us last week.
We'll send the twins there for one year and see how it goes.
My post on this subject garnered about half a dozen comments and even more emails. One of them contained this bone-chilling phrase...
"Now that there are People Who Decide Things salivating over the baccalaureate system as a potential educational system here in the US..."
This was from a blogging teacher in the USA, so she knows of what she speaks. And what she speaks of would SO never work, I can only hope the Powers That Be give up the idea, pronto.

The Bac system in France is a bit complicated and I don't want to describe it in detail here- otherwise this post will puff up to Godzilla-on-steroids-sized porportions. If you want to know more about how it works, visit our friends at Wiki and spend a moment. But in short, it's a huge test that you take at the end of lycée (high school) that qualifies you for further education. It's NOT multiple choice. It's essays and oral exams and it's very, very demanding. A score of 10 out of 20 is the minimal passing grade. Perfect scores are almost unheard of.

But here's the thing: The Bac is a French institution that works in tandem with the totality of the French educational system. They start training the kids for this from the moment they enter school at age three.
I'm not saying they "teach to the test". That's certainly not the case. I'm saying that the educational system is not warm and fuzzy. Everybody is NOT a winner. The teachers do not think it is their job to "build self-esteem" in their students merely because the latter are present in the classroom and breathing oxygen. Self-esteem is (quite properly, I think) seen as something that stems naturally from real accomplishments and mastery.
What a concept!
Sadly, this is NOT the case in the US system, where students tend to have sky-high self-esteem (from being praised constantly for even the most trivial things) and comparatively few real skills.
Maybe you think I'm being a little harsh?

Very harsh?

Just have a look at this report from the well-respected Brookings Institution.

Here are a few excerpts:
"6% of Korean 8th graders surveyed expressed confidence in their math skills, compared with 39% of US 8th graders. But Korean students far outscore American students in math tests."

(So, all this US 'confidence' does not translate into actual mastery..)

"The world’s most confident eighth graders are found in the Middle East, Africa, and the United States (ranked ninth)...... however, these countries are not particularly high scoring on the TIMSS math exam"

(Again, kids in the USA think they are math wizards, but don't actually have the achievements to justify this attitude. Isn't anyone getting cognitive dissonance overload? )

"...even the least confident student in Singapore outscores the most confident American student"

(emphasis in bold added)

"It is only natural that adults want children to be happy. Indeed, many of the most popular education reforms of today, once all of the rhetorical flourishes are stripped away, place children’s happiness on equal footing with their learning. The pursuit of knowledge
may be important, but only if it simultaneously raises student contentment and self-esteem"

So, in the US educational system, self-esteem is much more important than actually learning anything. They're admitting it! And that alone makes something like the Bac completely inappropriate. You can't coddle and cosset the kids in the shallow end for 12 years, constantly telling them "good job" for each feeble splash they make, and then suddenly throw them into deep water, expecting an Olympic-caliber butterfly stroke.

To put it bluntly: The Bac works in France because the system is harsh and merciless from day one. Nobody is particularly worried if kids are bored, unhappy or lacking in elevated self-esteem levels. They are supposed to be learning things and becoming responsible people. It is assumed that happiness and confidence will eventually come from growth, learning and achievement.

The system isn't always "nice". Ok. It's not even occasionally "nice". I have mostly found that the teachers are very harsh and critical compared with teachers in the USA. They get away with behavior and comments that would have parents in the USA yanking their kids out of school and contacting their lawyers.

Also, the schools don't really offer any 'fun' courses. It's all math, French, biology, etc... something that many Americans have a hard time imagining. But you don't have TIME for band, archery or journalism when you are trying to prepare for the Brevet and the Bac.

I just can't imagine how the US could effectively institute a reasonable equivalent to the Bac. And what would be the point, anyway? The Bac is not a test that lets you "graduate" from lycee. It's a test that qualifies you to go on in your education. If you have a menial job waiting for you after lycée, you can just skip the Bac. No problem.

In that sense the Bac is more like the ACT or SAT exams. (Only the Bac is MUCH harder. It's hours long and there's NO multiple choice, remember) As the US already has pre-university testing in place, why bother with a Bac?

Sound like a recipe for disaster to me...

I spent Tuesday evening sitting on a Smurf-sized plastic chair, listening to the principal of the public junior high (college in France) expound upon the many delights of her school, which my twin daughters will be attending in the fall.

The delights, as it turns out, are few and far between. In fact, the principal's swell version of a pep-talk actually gave me second thoughts about sending the girls.

She was a trim and efficient-looking woman of about 60, well-dressed in that very French way: very accessorized (you MUST have a scarf or ELSE), very expensive-looking and also very uncomfortable-looking. She seemed like a nice person and very smart...but her interest was definitely not in "selling" us the school. Or even making us feel vaguely reassured.
In fact, as she went on, I grew more and more convinced someone was probably paying her cash for every parent that backed out and sent their child to a private school instead.

The first thing she said was something like this: "We are a large establishment in terms of students. For next year, there are 414 children registered. But as the building was constructed to hold a maximum of 300, that means we are very, very crowded. In short, space is tight."

The other talking points were:
There aren't enough restrooms, but there's no room to add any more.
They'd like to have lockers for the children, but there's no room.
The cafeteria is nice, but only seats 150 people. And unfortunately it has to serve over 600 children every lunchtime, as it is also used by the primary school.
The new gymnasium is nice, but it is severely under-insulated. In the winter, the interior is often barely above freezing and cannot be used.
The teachers are well-meaning, but often beat the children with rake handles and lock them in the basement, which, incidentally, contains rats.

Ok. Maybe I made up that last one.
But you get the idea, right?
In short, it was all a huge contrast to the day I had two weeks ago, when I went to go visit the high school (lycée) that Eldest Daughter will be attending next year. The teacher that gave us the tour had nothing but nice things to say and lovely things to show us. No ice-box gyms or overflowing bathrooms.


As a matter of fact, they have a gorgeous gym with three rock-climbing walls, a wonderful new indoor pool and all renovated classrooms. And the study-hall is a converted chapel with lovely stained glass windows.


Of course, it's a private Catholic school and they want students. And I wouldn't mind sending the twins, but that would mean getting them on a bus at 6:45 for a long ride to school, instead of hopping on a bus at 8am and being at school five minutes later. And the same for the trip home. If they go to the village school, they'll be home at 5 pm, rather than 6.

Another plus of the village school is that the girls could start German right away. At the private school, they can't start another language for three more years.

So, it's still not at all clear what we should do....

In France, the month of May is crazy full of holidays. Real live, no school, no shops, no banks kinds of holidays.
The kids get four extra days off this month.
They are as follows:
May 1 - Labor Day. The tradition is to buy lillies of the valley that day. It supposedly has something to do with some king or another.... maybe he had ambitions to be a florist? Have to Google that one...
May 8 -VE Day (the end of WWII in Europe)
May 21/22- The 21st is Ascension Day and most people get the Friday off, as well. It's what the French call "making the bridge". I call it "four days in which to get the kids to help me finish cleaning out the garage", which is, admittedly, somewhat less catchy.

On top of this, the kids will be out of school on June 1st, as well, as it's the Monday after Pentecost.

Only Labor Day is actually an official holiday. All the others are through agreements by school boards, employers, etc.


NB: I started to write out short explanations of Ascension Day and Pentecost, but thought the better of it. The people that need to know this stuff, already know it.
Those who don't would think it all sounds like an especially bizarre set of fairy tales...

When my son was an adorable, chubby-cheeked toddler his hair was thick, straight and blonde. In short, it was just perfect for an English-schoolboy bowl cut. It took him from "cute" to "ridiculously cute".

He is now 13 years old and just a tad short of six feet tall. So, maybe that would be no longer... appropriate, but something had to be done. The older boys here in France tend to wear their hair long, but Severin's was completely out of control. He 'd peer out from under the long fringe, looking like a particularly large, affable sheepdog.

JP and I had tried to convince him to go to the hairdresser, to no avail. Thinking that maybe he was afraid of our local salon making him look like a provincial loser, I even offered to take him to a hairdresser in Paris when we were there.
No deal.

But yesterday, JP came back from his week in Ouaga. At dinner he carefully studied Severin, who was concentrating on his plate of stir-fry. Unfortunately, when he's deep into his food (as teenaged boys often are) he tends to hunch over his plate, as though he's afraid it's going to be snatched away at any second. The curtain of hair hung down, obscuring the vegetables and chicken. From behind the barrier, crunching sounds were audible.
"That hair's pretty long, Severin" JP remarked mildly. "Why don't you let your mom cut it?"
"OK." he mumbled from behind the curtain, and then resumed crunching.
Ok?
OK??!!
We've been trying to take him for a haircut for six months and all of a sudden he says 'OK'?
To a haircut from his MOM?
"Are you sure you don't want me to make an appointment for you up in the village?" I asked, just to make sure I hadn't just had a massive auditory hallucination.
But no. He really trusted me to cut his hair.

After he washed the dinner dishes, he went up, wet his hair and came back to the kitchen, looking completely unconcerned.
Me? I was concerned.

Sure, I trim the girls' hair all the time. But cutting guy hair? Guy hair is hard!
How was I going to do this?
He sat down in the kitchen chair. I opened a drawer and took out my trusty secret hair-cutting weapon: scotch tape. When I trim the long hair of my daughters, it works a treat: you simply stick it on at the level you want and cut just above it. You get a straight line and all the snipped bits of hair stick to the tape.
Sheer brilliance.
The only problem was his older sister.
"Tape?!" Valentine barked. "You are so NOT using the tape on him!"
Apparently, she was there to protect her brother's interests, even if he himself had nothing to say on the subject.
"But it makes it so much easier." I whined.
"You are NOT cutting his hair straight across!" she informed me
"But..." I protested.
"You are layering and tapering and you'd better get to work," she commanded.
I sighed, put down the tape and picked up the scissors, mentally reviewing everything I knew about haircuts.
Besides "use tape" there wasn't much.
But then , what's the worst that could happen? I mean, if it looked really horrible, he'd HAVE to go get it professionally done, right?
So, I twisted up the top sections with a pink Hello Kitty clip borrowed from the twins and got to work.

I did my best, trying to seem capable and confident, even if I was neither.
And guess what?
It worked!
I actually manged to give him a completely new, shorter, layered haircut. It has shape and style and does not (Valentine assures me) announce to the world : My mom cuts my hair.

As Severin looked in the mirror, seeming pretty pleased, JP passed by and pronounced it "Much better".
"Just don't tell anyone your mom did it" advised Valentine. "They'd make fun of you at school"

"That's right" I agreed. "It's our secret. Only we'll know the truth ...and everyone who reads my blog, of course"

I just spent a long and virtuous morning cleaning out the garage.
Well, some of the garage.
But our garage is so big and so messy that cleaning even just the front half is quite an accomplishment. But I had to do it. Just yesterday, I wrote on Facebook that cleaning out the garage is my "least favorite household chore". So, to prove to myself that I'm not a shirker and all-around lazy whiner, I made myself get out there and have a go at it.

But you don't really want to hear all about my garage. Trust me. So, send your words of thanks to fellower blogger TeacherMommy, who has tagged me for a new meme.

While some may consider them a plague, I rather enjoy them. It's fun to read other people's answers and concoct my own. There seem to be three main styles of answering:
First of all, you have the bloogers from the Short and Sincere school. Their answers are succinct, factual and...maybe a teensy bit dull.
Then you have the Economically Witty people. The ones that can come up with a very funny twist in just a few well-chosen words. This is the hardest to achieve. I have occasionally aspired to it, but fallen short.

And finally, there are the Out of Control Ramblers. They's my peeps. We are the ones who tend to use each question as an excuse for a good two or three paragraphs of exposition.
Sounds good?
Great! Here we go:

1. What are your current obsessions? I just discovered Project Runway and am watching it on dvd. It's fabulously addictive, so I watch episode after episode after episode... It's out of control.
I'm also out in the yard an awful lot, doing the gardening thing. I don't know if I'm really 'obsessed' with, say, weeding the flower beds, but I seem to be doing a lot of it and no one is making me...so I must really like it.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear the most often? Our lovely old house is cold inside all year long, from the height of summer to the depths of winter, even with the heat turned all the way up. I deal with this by wearing my favoite bright green fleece jacket. It is, quite possibly, the ugliest jacket in the entire world. But at least it allows me to get on with my day and not torment others with constant cries of "It's so COLD in here!" as some people do. "Some people" would be my beloved spouse, who stalks through the house looking fetching in black track pants and a black t-shirt, as though he's sauntering through the streets of Cannes on a sunny day.

3. What's for dinner? Dumplings and potatos in sour cream sauce, a dish that I can make in my sleep and blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back. It's a dish from my childhood, learned at the side of my Grandma Lillie and my mom, who probably had to learn to make it before my dad was allowed to marry her. My paternal great-grandparents were all Volga Germans that immigrated to Nebraska. So, in my family the ethnic foods were things like glace (the aforementioned dumpling dish), grebble (doughnut-type pastries) and runzas ( meat and cabbage in a bread pocket). The latter is such an institution in my home state that there is actually a Runza fast-food chain...and it's really good! Not as good as my Grandma Lillie makes, of course...

4. Last thing you bought? That would be three huge tubs of sour cream (creme fraiche, actually)purchased up in the village mini-mart in a frantic just-before-closing-time shopping trip. At 6:48 last night, I realized that the next day would be a holiday and all shops would be closed then. And I had to have creme fraiche for the next day's dinner (see #4)

5. What are you listening to? Right this moment I am listening to the twins bicker over their elaborate Playmobil scenario. As far as I can tell, Alexa seems to be hindering the expansion of Mallory's farm with her "big butt", which is right where the new goat pen is supposed to go.

6. If you were a god / goddess what would you be? I'd be the deity of books. Yes! Beth the Book Goddess...that works. NOT the goddess of literature, mind you. Too fancy-schmancy for me. Bring me your recipe books, airport novels, French-English dictionaries...whatever, and I'll bless them with showers of sparkly fairy dust for you. But you must bring me tribute. ..Yes! Much tribute! Cash would be good, but Crispy Creme doughnuts will also be accepted in lieu.


7. Favourite holiday spots? Paris, where else? I'd never want to live there (unless I suddenly became very, very wealthy and could afford a house there), but I love getting off the train, dropping off my bags at a friends' house in a lovely guest room and going off to enjoy the museums, monuments, movies and other things, some of which don't even start with the letter 'm'.

8. Reading right now? The Terror by Dan Simmons. It's a 936 page novel based on the real-life, doomed Franklin Expedition that set out to find the Northwest Passage. I am a fan (is it weird to say that?) of early polar exploration expeditions, so this caught my eye. It's long, but I'm finding it riveting...

9. Four words to describe you? blondish, bookish, brainy-ish and bloggish

10. Guilty pleasure? NA. If it makes me feel guilty, I don't get any pleasure out of it. On the other hand, there are some things that I like that I'm a bit ashamed of. But I don't feel guilty about them. Take LOL Cats. I love them. Srsly. I check the site nearly every day and always have a good laugh. But it's awfully embarrassing to admit that I'm crazy about pictures of spelling-impaired kitties. So, I mostly don't talk about it. Shhhhh....


11. Who or what makes you laugh? See #10. But mainly my family. Special faves are: Sev singing me Wierd Al Yankovic songs, Alexa doing her crazy African dances, Mallory talking in her Stitch voice, and Valentine snarking on whatever target comes within range . Good fun.


12. Favourite spring thing to do? This is my first real spring after nine years in Africa and I am finding it very beguiling. I tend to go out and wander in the yard, sniffing the hyacinths, admiring the bright, fluffy grass, inspecting the apple blossoms.... it's so beautiful and clean and amazing. Go spring!

13. Planning to travel next? No definite plans. But we do have an the use of a friend's house up in Brittany for the first two weeks in July. I'm thinking about it....And in the second half of July, our friend's Paris house is empty and available to us. Then in August, I can go to Germany and visit my cousin Mike....
No. No definite plans, but lots of possibilities.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately? Lotus Speculoos spread!! It's Heaven in a Freaking Jar, people! Think spreadable cookie dough.

15. Last time you were tipsy? It's been so long that I can't even remember. Or does that mean that I'm drinking so much that my memory is going? I just don't KNOW!

16. Favourite ever film? Just one? Pretty tough. Today, I'll say Meet Me in St Louis, but The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz are equally adored.

17. Biggest life lesson you've learned from your kids? In Disney films, there is often a heartwarming lesson along the cloying lines of "Home is where the heart is" . It's unoriginal and trite because it's true, but I didn't know that until I had children and moved from Switzerland to France to Africa and then back to France. My kids like people outside their family, but don't need them. No matter where they are, they tend to stick together, circle the wagons and get with the cocooning. If they are with each other, they have everything they need (even the occasional stress-relieving bicker-fest).
I only had one brother, so I never knew the power of the pack. It's amazing.

18. Song you can't get out of your head? "Elle a des yeux revolver" Ignore the cheesy video (It's from 1985. What can you say?) Just close your eyes and listen.

19. Book that you absolutely love and want to encourage everyone else to read, too? Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.

Now to pass it on: first off, I'll tag Tya, who REALLY needs to write in her blog. (Do you hear me young lady?)? I'll also tag Reb , Joy and Pardon My French , as well.
I'll leave it at that. Some of my blog pals hate these things, some don't have the time and some have private blogs, so I can't tag them.

(Rules of the meme: Respond and rework. Answer questions on your own blog. Replace one question. Add one question. Tag 8 people. )

I settled down in front of my computer, all ready to check my emails and my favorite blogs. Then the plan was to write a light-hearted post about the giant spiders in our cellar and/or the tv show Britain's Got Talent.
But mutant spiders and tap dancing ferrets are definitely on the back burner now.

The insightful blogger Framericain has been posting over the last two days about a tragic tour bus accident in California that occurred Tuesday. Her posts about it are far better and more relevant than anything I could write. So, I'm urging you to click on the link and go read her thoughts on this.

(PS. Although Britain's Got Talent is great, they have no tap dancing ferrets. But wouldn't that be cool?)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about some of the keywords that have led people to my blog.

Some folks type something like "how to wrap a pagne" into their search engine and end up, probably reasonably satisfied, on a page showing how to wear a West African style skirt. There's pictures, even!

And I'm pretty sure that whoever typed in "stripping wallpaper fragile plaster" also found plenty of relevant reading on my blog.

However, some of the keywords, are more than a little puzzling. I check them at least once a week, just to marvel and muse.

Here are a few of the more unusual entries on last week's list:
bureaucracy gone mad -I wonder what kind of hell this person was going through that led them to seek fellow sufferers on the web? Maybe he tried to apply for a Famillie Nombreuse card and is now looking for a support group?

i hate working in France - Again, I'm guessing this is someone whose misery would love some company. I wonder where he/she works? Liddl?

jp sunbonnet- Once I got over the mental image of my dignified spouse wearing a sunbonnet, I tried my own search using these keywords. All I got was lots of mentions of a quaint, really annoying quilt block design. The original searcher must have gone through pages and pages to finally stumble upon a link leading him to a post in my blog that mentions both protective headgear and my husband.

Here's my favorite of the week: hotsexgoddess- Not a shoe that fits, but I'll put it in my closet. Thanks!

And my least favorite: LARGEBLONDE. I have to own it, but ouch, dude!

How about more spring flowers?
Everybody loves them some spring flowers, and last time I forgot to post the nice view off our balcony these days. It's always lovely, but it's even better with a few geraniums.
Isn't everything?

Around here, you HAVE to have window boxes of geraniums on your house. I think it's required by law. If you don't have at least a few planted by May, they send burly agents in black suits to take you away to a gardening-oriented "reeducation" center.
True story.

Now, on to another important matter: Severin's LOTR bedroom. It's not quite done, but all the big stuff is finished. JP and CtRH worked the whole time I was gone to Paris. As I swanned around the Louvre and pranced about on top of the Eiffel Tower, they slaved away tearing down the strange wood panel covering the ceiling, insulating the two outer walls and then wallpapering everything, even the ceiling. I do NOT feel guilty, only wickedly gleeful. I usually NEVER get out of work and here I finally managed to weasel out of something. Sweet!

Here's how the mural of the Forest of Mirkwood turned out:


The mural wasn't quite tall enough to cover the wall all the way up. So they painted the empty area white and figured that Severin (with my help) could probably paint on a band of Elven runes to fill in the area.

As you can see, the poor child has no real furniture yet- just a futon on the floor. But we're hoping to get him an actual bed really soon. And JP is re-finishing a great antique desk for him.

The other three walls were done with a metallic silver paper that we hoped would look a bit like granite in a mystical cave...






The guys even took down the radiator and painted it completely silver! Nice detail.





Severin is quite happy with it all, as far as I can tell. 13 year old males often aren't all that demonstrative, you know?
When we finished the twins' room, they were squealing with excitement. Sev, on the other hand, just kind of grunted. But it was a pleased kind of grunt. I think...

I woke up this morning and learned that there's a holiday to celebrate: International Book Day. (Thanks, Oreneta!) It seems like it's a bigger deal in Latin American countries than elsewhere (as far as my quick internet search shows, anyway) but I hope that it will catch on all over.

So, everybody everywhere remember to hug a book today. And also go have a look on my right sidebar and click to take a peek at my very own new Amazon bookstore. I'm still choosing books and having lots of fun with it.

What else can we celebrate today? How about spring? I am loving it this year- it's my first in nine long years.

April back in Burkina means super-hot temperatures and frequent power cuts. It means dry dust and dripping sweat. It means just hanging in there until the rainy season finally begins in June.

I was talking on Skype yesterday with a friend in Ouaga and she handed her toddler son an M&M candy to distract him while we chatted.

"Don't squish it!" I heard her say. And then, "Oh no! He just squashed it in his hand and there's melted chocolate all over him now!!"

In our house in France, even a determined toddler could not squish a candy coated chocolate. they stay hard. No melty M&Ms- just one of the many things to enjoy about being back in the Alps.

Another thing is the fabulous spring flowers. I am loving going outside to admire all the wonderful flowers that we planted back in the fall: hyacinth, daffodils, jonquils, crocus, etc..

I have been gardening like crazy the last few days. On Wednesday, I was out for nearly five hours, mowing the lawn, whacking the weeds, planting flowers and shubberies (one that looks nice. And not too expensive.) and weeding the beds of spring flowers that are already blooming nicely.
As you can see, the lawn is no small affair:

There were also the planter boxes to fill. I have three like the the one below. They weren't weren't much trouble because the pansies were planted in the fall and they suvived all winter long! All I had to do was throw a few marigolds in the middle.

I also planted a couple of lilac bushes and some lavender- two of my absolute most favorite ever flowers.

Yesterday I was out in the yard with the twins. I was fussing over the flowers and the girls were hunting around the yard for small dandelions for a salad that night.

Alexa said "You like lavender, lilacs and lilies. You, know, you should have named us after them! Valentine could be Lily, I could be Lilac and Mallory could be Lavender." She thought it sounded like a great idea and that I had really let the side down by not giving my girls a set of matching flower names...

Well, there's an idea.

And I guess I could have called Sev Larkspur? Or if were's going with flowers I love, rather than by matching the first letter, maybe Hyacinth?

While the old saying claims that a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m not sure that mine are quite so verbose. As you can see from yesterday’s slide show, I come from the « I Put My Kids in Front of Every Major World Monument » school of photography. While it is an old and respected one, it has not created a lot of great art.
On the other hand, JP and I will have lots of photos of the four of them to enjoy eventually when we are empty-nesters, pathetically asking each other every fifteen minutes « Why don’t the kids ever call? »

At any rate, you’ve seen all the photographic evidence, so now I can get on with recounting the details.

On Day Two of our adventure, we woke up early. Our first morning in Paris! Our goal was the Louvre and with the daughter of our hosts added to our little tour group, we ventured out. This time we did NOT take the Metro. I figured I’d try to keep Mallory aboveground for the day. So, we headed over to the bus stop.

Walking down the street, we passed a public pool (very nice and indoors), a little bakery, a news stand…all the great stuff that is so NOT within walking distance of our own little house in the French countryside.
On the other hand, when we take a walk back home, it smells like pine-trees and fresh mountain air. This little street, on the other hand, smelled like vomit. And urine.
But mostly vomit.
I love Paris. I adore Paris. But what’s up with all the vomit?
I imagine it’s either due to : a. a huge number of restaurants serving bad seafood or b. lots of people binge drinking. Sadly, I suppose the latter is more likely.

We navigated around the scary puddles and got on the bus. We were at the Louvre in about 45 minutes. The Louvre, I am happy to report, does NOT smell like vomit. Or urine.

One goes to the Louvre, of course, to see the major art treasures of the Western world. But unless you are a bit tall, what you mostly see is …tourists. The Japanese, in particular are mad for the Louvre and the place overflows with groups of Japanese art-lovers being led through the corridors by diminutive Japanese guides. The guides always carry a thin stick with a silk flower, a big feather or a sparkly pompom attached to the top.
The twins thought this was great, but strange.
« Is that…some kind of Louvre souvenir? » Alexa asked me, looking enviously at a tour guide waving around a particularly large and lovely purple marabou feather on a stick.
The answer is, of course, no. The sticks are devices that allow the short tourists and short guides to keep track of each other in the huge crowds. To gather up her group in a big gallery, the guide waves her blue rose (or whatever) on a stick and all the followers of the blue rose on a stick come running, ready to move on to the next area.

I kind of wanted a fancy « stick of summoning » myself, but figured it would be overkill. I only had five people to keep track of and two of them were much taller than the average tourist.

And being tall was a huge advantage (pun intended, in case you’re wondering). The two older kids and I had no trouble looking right over the heads of most people to have a good look at the paintings. This was especially important while trying to see Da Vinci’s most famous work. There is ALWAYS an enormous crowd around the Mona Lisa. As far as I can tell, anyway. This was my sixth visit to the Louvre and every time I go, it’s always the same: an ocean of tourists surrounding a smallish, shadowy portrait.
The twins and their friend were small and thin enough to easily slip between all the adults, find places at the front of the crowd and have a good look at the thing.

Everyone’s general reaction? « Meh. » sums it up, I think.

I did my best to explain that, while it’s a very fine portrait, it’s mainly famous for…being so famous. And it’s fame is a pretty late phenomenon. It was people in the Symbolist movement of the mid 19th century that sort of "reinvented" the painting as some kind of symbol of « eternal femininity » (See ? I did pay attention to that Art History course back in University). And then, adding to the glamour and mystique of the painting , it was stolen in 1911 and not found for two years. In 1956, the poor thing was doused with acid and then at the end of that same year it was gouged by a rock-tossing Bolivian.

Now it hangs behind a glass barrier and « Madonna Lisa » smiles at about 6 million people a year.

Just across from her is a huge painting by Veronese that the kids enjoyed much more and we spent quite along time looking at it:
This was another one where my scraps of art history training came in handy. For example, I asked the children to figure out what was unusual about all the people in The Wedding at Cana. (Nobody is talking! It was painted for a monastery that had a rule of silence during meals.)
Then I asked why meat was being cut up right over the head of Jesus. (It’s a sacrificial lamb. A bit of a tough question for kids, I‘ll admit. )
Then we checked out at all the different animals in the painting (dogs, a parrot and a monkey). Mallory thought is was a great idea to have animals at a wedding and regretted the complete absence of goats.

We saw many, many more paintings that day. The huge amount of naked flesh featured in many of them did not even phase us. It seemed all quite tame and innocent, compared to yesterday’s x-rated experience in the Buttes Chaumont Park.

What didn’t impress the kids: The Winged Victory of Samothrace. I guess I could see their point. Not head. No arms. She’s even worse off than the Venus de Milo.



What Valentine loved: Botticelli’s Venus and the Three Graces » fresco. All color, line and sheer prettiness:

What Mallory loved: Delacroix’s wild-eyed horses. That man could paint a horse, I’m telling you.
What Alexa loved: Being able to show the other kids around. This was her third visit!

What Severin loved: I think Severin loved LEAVING the Louvre and going home to FINALLY get something to eat. He’s a good sport, but not very sensitive to Art.

We’re back from Paris!
Luckily, I didn’t end up needing a waffle iron or scuba gear. In fact, I barely had enough clothes. As I packed for the nine day trip, I took the advice everyone gave me very seriously. I mercilessly threw out items until I had only about half of what I thought I needed. Under strict orders, the four kids all did the same. In fact, our hostess in Paris was completely astounded when we showed up at her door with only one tiny backpack each.
« That’s what my kids would pack for a weekend! » she exclaimed.

And it’s a good thing we traveled light. Not that the train trip was an issue. That was easy. In 15 minutes by car we were at the Annemasse train station. There we hopped on to the TGV (‘Really Fast Train‘) and had a soothing five hour ride to the Gare de Lyon.
But once we got to the train station in Paris, we had to get on the Metro. If you’ve ever been on it, you know that there’s often a maze of underground passages and stairways that connect the train lines. And we had to change lines a couple of times. So, it was good not to be too laden-down.

I led the way down into the Metro, briskly trudging along up and down the endless stairs, forgetting that three of the kids had never been on a subway before, ever. Alexa (a metro habituée from her stay there when she was six)) cruised along like a real Parisienne. The older two gawked a bit, but came along gamely.
But Mallory? She stared about with wide eyes at the dingy tunnels, wrinkled her nose at the stale (and sometimes worse) air and startled at the thunderous roar of the trains. The farther we walked, the farther she lagged behind, dragging her feet miserably and generally looking like a dryad torn from her native forest glade and consigned to an eternity in Hades.
I tried to encourage her to keep up, but didn’t have time to coddle.
« Come on! Only one more train to go! Keep up!» I called back to her as I paused to struggle with my map of the Metro and figure out our next move.
She looked at me mutely and sat down right in the middle of the corridor. The Parisian commuters, having seen it all, I suppose, stepped agilely around her.
I rushed back.
« What ARE you doing?! You can’t just SIT there! » I shrieked, my cool long gone. « That floor is filthy!! » And it was. It looked like you could get cholera from just thinking about sitting down on it.
« I can’t go any more » she announced.
« OK! We won’t go on. We’ll LIVE in the Metro tunnels. But we will not SIT in them. PLEASE get UP! »
Good grief. The child survived nine years in one of the poorest countries in all of Africa and in the end she would be done in by typhoid contracted from the floor of the Nation Metro station…

She reluctantly got up and shuffled on to the next and final train.

Sad Mallory on the Metro:

Luckily, our destination was only about a block from our final stop.

We ended up here:

The house on the left is the home of our good and kind friends who graciously hosted the five of us for nine days. They are a couple that have three children, so when we were all home, we were a crowd of 10. He’s a doctor and works all the time and she’s an anthropologist who’s always behind on her writing deadlines, so it was particularly nice of them to invite us for such a long stay.
When we arrived, the children of our hosts were still all at school, P (the father) was at work and V (the mom) had to get on with her writing. So, I decided to take the kids for a walk in a nearby, very famous park called the Buttes Chaumont. I thought it might cheer up Mallory, who was still looking morose. Even getting out of the Metro hadn’t visibly cheered her. And I guess I could see why- the sidewalks above ground so far had featured a lot of dog crap and a distinct smell of vomit.

But a park would be nice, right? Spring flowers and all that.

So, we walked down to the park. And it kind of worked.

Buttes Chaumont is a huge and lovely park created by Napoleon III in 1862. It is not on the usual tourist route at all, though. It’s really just a place where Parisians go to relax on some green grass and enjoy nature. Some ‘enjoy’ it more than others, of course. In my efforts to entertain and distract Mallory, I noticed a wide clearing where a lot of pigeons were gathered. I thought she'd be revived a bit by seeing some animals, even if they were just "rats with wings".

Mallory's days back in Africa started every morning at six am with her rushing out the back door to feed the goats and check if her chicken had laid an egg for her. Then she'd spend most of the rest of the day outside, all year long. And even in France now we have our cats, a degu and a whole forest full of deer, wild boars, hawks and whatnot right outside our back door.

So, I directed us along a path to the left that would take us right past the chubby birds intent on their meal. Just beyond the them, I noticed a couple sitting near the trees, having a picnic. I thought. (In my defense, let me state here that I was wearing my old glasses- my new ones having gotten broken just before we left home) As we got closer, it became apparent that their movements, which I had thought indicated that they were unpacking a picnic in a particularly energetic way, were completely non-picnic related. In fact, the couple, though mostly clothed, had opened certain key bits and were having sex, right in the middle of this very busy park.

Mallory said « What are they….? »

Tya said "Aren't they...?"

Alexa's jaw dropped.
Severin, getting right to the point, announced « Laundry alert! », which is the family code for sexy scenes in movies. When the kids were younger, actors removing their garments for romantic fun purposes would prompt me to say brightly « Guess they’re getting ready to wash their clothes! » and then hit the remote.)

We all laughed (what else can you do?) and positively ran back up the path, right past a man who’d been peacefully taking in the sun just down the hill from the couple, with his back to them. When we'd started giggling, he’d turned around and noticed the free show going on behind him . He sat there staring and the happy couple carried on, completely oblivious to all.

Welcome to Paris.

Somewhat traumatized by our first afternoon in the big city, we headed back to our friends' house.

And that was day one of our Paris adventure… much more adventurous than a person wanted, really.

We leave for Paris tomorrow on the 7:30 train. I'm talking AM here, people. So EVERYTHING has to get done today.


The packing? Don't get me started on the packing. It's a nightmare. I am the world's worst packer, which is astonishing considering how darn much of it I've had to do in my life. But the problem is that I just HATE needing something and knowing that the thing I so desperately want is just sitting back at home. So, even though it's sunny, I pack rain gear. And what if there's a freak snowstorm? Better pack coats and boots. What if we get hungry for waffles? Better pack the waffle iron. And syrup! Musn't forget syrup...plus scuba gear and and a snakebite kit.
I just want to be prepared, you know?


But, as my kids would say: "That way lies madness, dude." I just have to calm down and take it easy...


But it's so hard to do that, as I'm trying not only to sort and pack, but also get Severin's room ready for the redecorating/renovation about to happen in there. We spent this morning clearing everything out and now we're trying to get all the old wallpaper down!! The twins are helping and Severin is in charge. He's working hard and is very motivated. He has asked for a Lord of the Rings-themed room. (Yes, I will do anything for my kids. Thank you for asking) By some miracle, I found a wallpaper mural of a forest in New Zealand. (Where LOTR was filmed, for those of you who have just arrived here from a distant planet) The other three walls will be done with a wallpaper that looks like metallic silver granite. The effect will be like looking out of a silver cave and out into the mysterious forest of Mirkwood. That's the idea, anyway.


This amazing transformation will be done by Cristian the Romanian Handyman, without my help or even my (rather nice) homecooked meals. JP will have the care and feeding of CtRH, and I feel rather sorry for both of them. When I told Cristian that I wouldn't be around during his stay, he wrote back. "It will be fine. There's still that pizza place in front of your house, right?", which shows that he understands that JP is not the kind of French guy that cooks. Some do, of course. He doesn't. On the other hand, he never watches soccer matches either , so I consider it to be a fair trade.





I plan to blog at least a couple of times from Paris...it sort of depends on how crazy things get. I will definitely take pictures and have lots to share: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Orsay Museum and even Disneyland. I am SO excited! I've already seen all this stuff, but it will be so great to share it all with my children.


I just hope it doesn't rain and that we don't get hungry for waffles, because I'm NOT bringing rainboots or waffle irons. Really.

It's a story of long-lost cousins. Sort of. We're kind of arguing over who was the 'lost' one. He says it's me, but I swear that I knew where I was the whole time and was never lost.


But him? HE was living in Germany, in a place that I can't even pronounce without sounding like I'm trying out for a part in a bad stage production of The Sound of Music.
So, who was lost?
Wasn't me, anyway.

So, the story: There's this guy, living in a town we'll call....Somewhereachtungbaby, Germany. S-town, for short. He's a US citizen, a military officer and a nice guy, from a nice family. His dad back in Idaho calls him up and tells him he ought to get in contact with some woman living in France.
Uh huh.
His dad says "No. Really! Listen! This is a REAL relative. Her father is my first cousin."


Then he reassured his son that he'd actually met the woman, as well as her husband and her numerous offspring and they all seemed like normal, people. Nice, maybe even.


So the nice and dutiful son sent an email to the "real" French relative (that would be me).


What happened next?


Well, the nice guy drove all the way over from S-town with his youngest child and came to spend a couple of days in the Haute Savoie with us. It was a short visit, but a good one. His precocious blonde daughter fit right in with our twins and they created a powerful, triplet-like mass. The weekend was theirs, really.



And Mike, the cousin from Germany? He thought my huge stash of New Scientist was cool (rather than sad and boring) and he started reading them asap. In other words: smart and kind of geeky . And I mean that as the highest praise.



It was interesting talking over "old times" with him. We are about the same age and knew many of the same places and people in our childhood, but seldom met. He was raised elsewhere, but like me, spent long summers out in central Nebraska with the family. He'd stay out on The Farm with his grandparents.
Here's his grandfather, who I knew as my "Uncle Bill". He was my paternal grandfather's only sibling:

Here's my grandmother and my grandfather. I don't have a picture of the two brothers together...
Mike said he liked being around my grandpa and loved the endless stories he would tell if you asked him (and even if you didn't.)

And I certainly loved going over to his grandparent's farm for the day. My grandmother and I would work in the garden, then I'd wander off to chase the cats around in the barn. I'd even occasionally get to ride a horse. "My" horse was Sugarfoot.

Mike would drive the tractor, ride Tinkerbell, drink icy water out of the irrigation hoses... all stuff I never did.

Aunt Marie and Uncle Bill would talk about him whenever I visited, but for some reason, he was never there...

All these years later we finally really connected. Same place at the same time. It's pretty funny that we had to go halfway around the world to do it...

Participating in the "What I love about being a mom" meme threw lots of extra traffic my way. My nifty counter over at Blog Patrol showed I've had twice as many readers as usual over the last two days. Things are back to normal today, but it got me thinking about how people end up reading this blog.

First of all, there's family and RL friends. Not all my family and friends, mind you. I've discussed this with other bloggers, so I know I'm not the only one to be surprised that not everyone who knows me cares about my blog. (I am restraining myself from inserting a frowny face made from a colon, dash and parenthesis here) I am myself SO interested in reading the blogs people I know IRL. I'd attribute the problem to my blog maybe being...not very good. But lots of smart people (Hi, Mom! Barb! Ruth!) like it just fine. So there you go.

The second group is the faithful blogger pals. We don't know each other IRL, but it doesn't matter. We read each other's posts and generally leave comments. Bloggers know the awesome motivating power of comments. Just knowing someone is out there liking what you are doing counts for much in this world.

The next group is the google pilgrims- people that stumble onto the blog through search engines. About half of them mean to end up here, or at least somewhere very much like this blog. They employ search terms like Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, moving, expatriation, mask dances, etc.

One word that brings a huge amount of visitors year after year is pagne. There's not a lot of info on the internet about this cloth so typical of West Africa, so many people end up reading this post. Also, I get hits at least a few times a week from the phrase Burkina Faso passport photo, which takes them to this post, which is a mildly amusing anecdote, but probably not very helpful, unless the person is already in Ouaga and wants to know which photo studio to avoid like poison .

Other search terms that bring people here on a regular basis are: Francis Cabrel lyrics, wall waxing and mask festival, which makes sense.

But what's more interesting is some of the really odd keyword combinations that lead people here. The absolutely strangest ones that I can recall are: 'I am shrinking', 'my used fork' (!?) and 'Japanese mom was surprised cleaning bathroom'. The last one was so weird that I did a quick google search using it. I ended up with results linking to lots of kinky porn sites. I really don't know how it brought someone to my tame, 100% porn-free blog. I guess that's one reader that went away very disappointed.

But some people seem happy to end up here. I recently noticed one reader who found my blog for the first time and then stuck around reading it for over three hours , apparently not bothered by the lack of startled, hygiene-oriented Japanese mothers.

Some people write because they are artists and they have to express themselves. They don't care whether there's an audience out there for them or not. Me? Not the expressive artist type (as you've probably noticed). This blog started out for as a way for me to keep in contact with friends and family while I was living in Africa and it still serves a very important social function in my life. I feel connected, somehow, to everyone that reads this blog. My world feels very big.

It matters to me that you are reading this. I'm not sure why, but it does, very much.

So, thank you.

By the way, want to buy a used fork?

« A few months ago, my friend David asked me if I thought that it would be possible to travel around the world via blog. "Like Around The World In 80 Days," he said, "but on the Internet. Around the world in 80 clicks. 80 mom-blogger clicks!" "I don't know," I said. "But it sure sounds like a cool thing to try." "Cool. And if you could visit, virtually, moms around the world, what would you want to talk to them about?"

So begins a post over at the blog called « Her Bad Mother ». It is a very good blog, probably a great one, featuring some masterful writing. It’s funny, honest and powerful. So, it is with amazement that I find myself participating in the « 80 clicks project » as a sort of featured co-blogger.

Here’s a bit more from the original post:
« Here's how it's going to work: this post that you're reading? Is the departure lounge. I'm going to link to a couple of other mom bloggers here in Canada, and to a couple of mom bloggers from other countries around the world, and they'll write their posts, sharing 5 things that they love (or maybe what they don't so much love - this playground doesn't force conformity) about being a mom, and then they'll tag a few more bloggers from their own country and from other countries, and so on. And you're more than welcome to join: just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don't know any; google any country name and 'mom' in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you've tagged them!) - and link back here and leave a comment and we'll add you to the 'itinerary,' which David will compile and post and update as the tour proceeds. »

So, here I am, one of the lucky « couple of mom bloggers from other countries».

What do I love about being a mom? If someone would have given me this writing assignment 11 years ago, when I had a four year old, a two year old , newborn twins and a husband constantly far from home, working in Africa, I would have had a very different list. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived and mostly isolated from adult company. But I still, somehow, adored being a mom. I thought breastfeeding was fun. I loved bathing the babies and dressing them up in tiny clothes. I loved singing to them, talking to them, playing with them and just sitting around watching them sleep.
I really did love everything about it. I was tired, but euphoric.

The only time I ever came close to an "I can‘t do this" moment was when my husband announced we would all be moving to Burkina Faso. Could I be a mom in one of the poorest countries in the world? Could I keep my children healthy and safe? Was this the right thing to do? These were terrible worries and they made my sense of responsibility four these four small lives seem like a huge burden, possibly beyond my capacity to competently manage.
But, of course, it wasn’t.
We all lived and thrived in Ouagadougou. My little ones grew from babies into children. And I learned that there’s more to love about being a mom than I ever imagined.

I’ve mixed the slightly serious in with the very silly, but there you go. Just because it’s silly doesn’t mean it’s not true…

What I love about being a mom:

5. I love that it comes with a title. Some people get called « Mr. President », some go by « Your Majesty ». Good for them.
But me? I’m « Mom ».
When my four tumble through the door after a long day at school, all yelling for Mom to come down out of her « writing garret » and hear about their adventures, my heart leaps. Really.
It’s a title I wear with pride. And yes, it’s one I share with many, many women all over the globe, but that only makes me love it all the more.

4. It’s the best way to meet people. When I first moved to France, friends warned me that the people in remote French mountain villages were invariably suspicious and unfriendly. Slow to warm up, to put it kindly. But all it took was a couple of walks up and down the lane, pushing my baby daughter in her stroller. Fellow moms came pouring out to arrange play dates. Elderly couples came out to coo, admire and invite us in for tea.
The same thing happened when we moved to Burkina Faso. I had just arrived and wanted to find friends, so I herded my four little ones outside and went for a walk. That was all it took. Within minutes, we had new pals galore.
Being a mom means that I have instant icebreakers at my fingertips.
Yes, children are the key to international friendship and understanding.
But we all knew that already, right?

3. There’s always someone to clean out the litter box. Someone who is not me.

2. I love that I can share everything that I love with my kids. Reading "The Hobbit" and "The BFG" to them, watching all the Star Trek movies with them, camping with them, teaching them to crochet, playing "Risk" with them, singing with them, travelling all over the world with them, cooking with them...the list is nearly endless, but it brings me great joy to say to my children: "Hey! I love this. I bet you will, too!" and then embark on another adventure of learning with them.

1. I love that I get to know and be around the four most amazing people I have ever met. I got to hold them as babies, chase them around as toddlers, and shepherd them through the crazy elementary school years. And now I get to listen to their assorted ideas, problems and clever (mostly) jokes, help them with mind-bending home work and watch them all turn into delightful teenagers. Eventually, with any luck, I’ll see them turn into caring and capable adults. This is, without a doubt, absolutely the best thing I could possibly be doing with my life.

How could I not love that?

Now I get to tag a couple of other moms around the world to participate. First of all, we'll go off to sunny Spain to hear what Oreneta has to say on the subject. Then I'll ask Reb to chime in.

Yesterday after my morning Wii session, I wrote a long-ish blog post, cleaned the house , did several loads of laundry, made lunch, taught English down at the school, and went to the post office. By the time I got home at about 3pm, I was ready for a little break...maybe, say, sitting down with a novel and a cup of coffee? Just for half and hour or so?

It was not, of course, to be.

JP was in full project mode. He'd been writing all morning and wanted to "do" something. He decided that he would start painting the ceiling over the central staircase of our house. I got out the huge can of white paint I'd bought, but refused to participate any further. I merely suggested that he remove the spiderwebs before he started painting (which he did) and that he cover every surface below with tarps (which he did not).

Leaving him to his fate, I went down to the kitchen and heated up some coffee in my special "Mom" mug and made my way up to the attic, where JP and I have our bedroom and office. I sat down at the computer to have a quick look at my emails before settling down with my book.

I saw that a good pal in the USA was online and decided to try to "chat" with her. First time ever! What fun! Even better than reading my book!

We started typing inane, funny comments, as is the way of chat. But after only a few minutes, I heard a crash and a thump and a heart-wrenching cry of surprise, pain, misery and disbelief. I ran over and leaned over the railing. There was JP down on the second floor landing, clutching the ladder and looking down at the huge can of paint laying, dented and empty on the stairs below. A torrent of white paint poured down the stairs onto the landing below and on into the bathroom.

It was a Niagara Falls of paint right in our own home.

My first thought, to my credit, was intense relief that JP himself was not laying there on the stairs.

My next and less laudible thought was : I'm so glad that it wasn't me that made that god-awful mess!

I abandoned my chat and my coffee and went to help. I brought up a bucket of water and some rags. JP prompted dumped the water onto the huge lake of paint on the lower landing, sending a cascade down the NEXT flight of stairs, which until then had been clean.

Woe was us.


But at least it was water-based paint, right?


"If this was oil-based paint, we'd have had to move." I informed JP as we scrubbed at the mess. "You realize that don't you?"

He started at the top and I worked up from the bottom. The rags weren't getting the paint out of the cracks in the cement, so we started using scrub brushes. As it dried and sunk in further, we had to switch to steel wool.

We scrubbed for two solid hours.

The stairs ended up reasonably clean. They were originally covered in repulsive brown vinyl. JP just recently ripped it all off and exposed a layer of ancient, thick, hard yellow glue. He spent several afternoons stripping all that off and then scrubbing the cement with a special cleaning solvent. The idea was to get the stairs perfectly clean so that we could cover them with special paint for cement floors. We needed an impeccable base, as the stairs are a high-traffic area right in the center of our home. So, we're really hoping that the traces of white ceiling paint won't affect the layer of brick red floor paint we want to apply.

If I was I quick thinker, I SO would have taken a photo of the mess to post with this!

Exercise. How I hate it.
And I think people that love it are very, very odd and probably need pychological help.

On the other hand, I do try to do it regularly. If I don't, I feel all kind of stiff and elderly. But it's not something I've ever done because I think it's fun. Fun is reading a book, writing in my blog, visiting a friend, playing a board game with the kids, planting a garden, making bread, etc. Frankly, I even like cleaning house better than exercising. Sadly, housecleaning, as strenuous as it may be , deosn't seem to count as "exercise". But at least you have a clean, nice-smelling house to show for it afterwards. For most people, the hour or so of moderate exercise they do each day to keep their heart healthy doesn't result an amazing physique (or a great smell, for that matter).
It boils down to this: exercise sucks, but you have to do it.

Back when we first arrived in Ouaga, I mainly did step aerobics at home. Then I eventually switched to the Rec Center gym, with it's treadmills, weight machines and television showing US TV programs. I also usually walked once a week for an hour with a group of friends over on the ISO school grounds.
Then we moved to France. For the first few months, I had no time to work out. I was too busy fixing up the house and getting everything set up in our new life here. We'd go on occasional walks, and when it began snowing, we did some cross-country skiing, but I wasn't working out regularly. And I felt it.

Then my parents sent us a Wii for Christmas.
I cannot convey the coolness of Wii. The kids love the games, of course, but I love Wii Fit. It's certainly not the most intense workout ever, but at least it's varied and gets you to try new things. (Boxing, for example- Boxing is great! Who would have thought that I'd ever say that?) I'd say that Wii Fit is certainly a great form of exercise for beginners and/or people who don't like to exercise or are easily bored.

In case you have no clue what Wii is, here's a short description: A wireless gaming system that uses handheld remotes that are keyed to a sensor bar that you put on top of your tv screen. Then when you play, for example, a tennis game on the Wii, you actually swing your arm (while holding the remote) just like you would if you were really playing tennis. The game evaluates your move and makes you "hit" the ball. It's all very realistic and quite impressive.

The Wii Fit game also includes a "balance board"- a very low step with pressure sensors. It keeps track of your center of balance and evaluates your performance in activities like skiing, snowboarding or step aerobics. There's also hula hoops (a surprisingly good workout) , yoga and even running. There's also an assortment of fun balance games.

But what am I best at?

It will probably not come as a surprise to learn that I excel at sitting absolutely rock-steady still, not burning a single calorie.

Be jealous. Be very jealous.
How did I discover my amazing gift? Well, I've never been a "yoga person, but Wii Fit inspired me to give it a try. I slowly worked my way through most of the basic poses over the period of a few weeks. As I progressed, I "unlocked" new poses. One of them was called "Lotus Focus". There was a little picture of someone sitting cross-legged on the balance board, looking at a candle. I was at the end of my workout and thought it looked relaxing, so I thought I'd give it a try. I got into position on the board and pressed "A". The screen showed a wooden floor in a dim room. The only light came from an animated candle in the center. I watched a moth flutter around the flame. About 30 seconds passed. Then there was an echoing sound of footsteps approaching. Guess the session is over I thought, and let myself shift a tiny bit. That's when a cross-sounding male voice shouted really loudly and surprised me so much I fell right off the board backwards.
What had the guy said? Sounded like he insulted me in Japanese... At any rate, it was pretty disconcerting.
Then the Wii told me I had done 28 seconds and that my performance was very unsatisfactory.
What? I'm not good at sitting?
That just didn't seem right. I must have missed something. .. I gave it another try. I sat down again, watched the moths. One of them caught on fire. Sick! But I didn't flinch. Then I again heard the footsteps. I figured the crabby Japanese guy was coming back to yell at me again, but I just sat there. Then the footsteps... faded away!
Finally, I realised that the candle was burning down. I may be a bit slow, but the truth was finally dawning: if you don't move a muscle, the yelling guy leaves you alone!
And you are just supposed to sit there until the candle burns down.

So , the pretend candle burned and burned and burned. I breathed slowly and steadily in what I hoped was a zen-ny, yoga-ish kind of way.

I began to wonder what kind of time frame was involved here. Seconds? Minutes? I needed to get finished and go write in my blog!
Three minutes passed... then the game ended and told me I had done a brilliant job. I had "beaten" the game by staying completely still for 180 seconds.

Later on, a quick search on the internet reassured me that I'm certainly not the only person that didn't quite "get" this game at first. And even more amazingly, I found out that that some people actually CHEAT at this game by putting a heavy box on the balance board! It's such a shame that some people must resort to pathetic strategems because they do not have my amazing talent for sitting completely still for very long periods of time. Sad, really.

Seldom does anyone have a good thing to say about war. But get this: thanks to WWI , I’m going to Paris next month.

It’s a bit complicated, but stay with me here: The First World War pretty much decimated the population of France. Before the war, there were over 39 million people living here. Afterwards, there were 1,700, 000 fewer.
In response, the government instituted many pro-natalist policies. One of these was the « Carte Famille Nombreuse » . (The Big Family Card. Very descriptive, if not creative. ). It was a card issued by the national rail service giving families with three or more children a discount on train fares.
This was a huge deal back in 1921. It allowed working class families in an increasingly urbanized and industrial environment to get out of the cities and enjoy fresh country air.

And here’s the thing: the card is still a pretty big deal, over eighty years later. When our cher President Sarkozy started scheming recently to do away with this beloved institution, he was quickly confronted with so much opposition that he was forced to back down. While it’s true that fewer and fewer people are having big families, the French are nothing if not « solidaire » . They know that once the government gets started eliminating public benefits, it won’t stop…and meantime the bigwigs keep their huge salaries and benefits such as beautiful government-owned apartments in the heart of Paris.
So, the government was forced to keep the card, but that’s not to say they made it easy to get one…

When we arrived back in France this summer, one of the first things I did was try to apply for our cards. On the official website, I learned that you could get application forms at your village mayor’s office. So, I went down to see the secretary there. R. is a nice lady and I know her pretty well. She’s very kind and always willing to help if she can. But she had NO clue what I was talking about. Nobody in the village had ever applied for a CFN and she had no idea how to get the forms. I didn’t want to pester her, so I decided to go to Plan B: The website had also said that you could get applications at any railway station.
So, the next day I drove to one and asked for a CFN application The woman at the ticket counter looked at me like I was mad. « We don’t deal with that kind of thing » she said disdainfully, as though I’d asked her to participate in some unspeakable rite. « Check the website. You can order them online. I think. »
That wasn’t very reassuring, but I figured I’d give it a go.

You may not believe this, but I swear it is the truth: I tried many, many times over a period of several days to order the applications online. It NEVER worked. The site somehow always managed to NOT function.
Is it a government plot? I wondered.
Or maybe I’m an idiot and just doing it wrong? That's always a possibility.

So, I eventually went back to the kindly secretary at the village town hall and told her my sad story. She shook her head sympathetically and turned towards her computer. She called up the railway service website and tried to get the applications.
It didn’t work. Of course.

« Maybe you should write them a letter. » she suggested.
« I ‘m afraid they’d just throw it in the trash and claim they never got it. » I said sadly.
« I suppose you‘re right » she agreed.
« But maybe if you were to write them a request …» I said, an idea slowly taking form « and we sent it registered mail, I bet they’d HAVE to send me the applications. Wouldn’t they? »
She agreed to help me out and sent the letter the next day.

The forms came four weeks later. We quickly filled them in, gathered all the documents and photos needed and sent it all off.
Then we waited. And we waited.
Then we waited some more.
Finally, about five weeks later, our cards arrived.
Much rejoicing ensued.

Three children is considered a « large family » and each member is entitled to 30% off train fares. Any more children than that is considered a « very large family » and gets more off. With our four children, for example, we get 40% reduction. And it’s this discount that makes it realistic for me to take our four kids on the train next month and go visit Paris.

Once there, expenses will still be reasonable. Our CFN cards also get a special rate on Metro and bus fares. Even museum entrance fees are reduced for CFN holders. And as for lodging, which can be so costly, we’ll stay at the house of friends and do most of our own cooking. Most meals while we’re out and about will be picnics packed at home.

A week in Paris for five can be done on a low budget…as long as the government lets us keep our nifty cards.
So, don’t be mean, Sarko. I want my kids (and other not incredibly wealthy kids) to wander around the Louvre and go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Is that too much to ask?

Yesterday I woke up to a blizzard.
It snowed all morning, quit for a bit and then snowed again all night. It was nasty, windy and snowy.
I thought it was supposed to be spring now! I'm SO ready for daffodils and green grass.

I was pretty cross and confused until I remembered this little saying that they have here in the Haute Savoie about the month of March:
"In like a lion, out like an enraged polar bear."

Ok, I just made that up.
But they NEED a saying like that so that people don't get crazy, unrealistic ideas about lambs...