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it sometimes takes a long time for a place to feel like home. in august we will have lived here in Corsica for four years. for most of that time, i would say i've been living in limbo land. neither here, nor Canada where we lived before coming here, or the United States, land of my birth, really felt like home.

there have been many impediments to not feeling truly at home in Corsica:  language/culture issues, not having much of a social life, not knowing how long we would be living here. i've discovered that even native French people (but not native Corsicans) don't really feel at home in Corsica right away. my best friend on the island said it took her ten years to feel comfortable here! when I heard that it made me feel better, oddly enough.

however, in the last couple of months, things have been changing, i've been changing. i find myself feeling more at home here. when people have asked me if i liked living here, i usually hmmed and hawed: "it's beautiful, but the language is really difficult. it's hard to make friends. i miss my friends and family, the comforts of North America. it's hard to really put down roots when we don't know how long we are going to stay." now, none of these things have really changed, but i'm finding that my overall attitude towards living here has changed. i've been in limbo for so long that's it's strange to feel myself pushed over to the other side, of wanting to stay here.

now what has pushed me? well springtime weather in Corsica always helps! this is, hands down, the best time of the year! fresh flowers, fresh scents in the air, fresh attitudes before the chaos of summer brings everyone down. i've been going out and being more socially active and this is something i REALLY need. BBQs, birthday parties, movies, ice cream - all great reasons to get out and about. i've been exercising! along with my two amigos, i've been going to aerobics classes and recently we've started doing two hour walks through the vineyards. we have such a great time laughing and getting in shape, not to mention it helps my French immensely. i've gotten a lot of great parenting advice from them too, which is a great resource. and i know that if i ever have a question about anything, they can help. lately we've been talking a lot about potty training. what fun!  i'm back working for the same company that i've worked for for the past two summers. this summer, i'm at the airport every Sunday welcoming British tourists to Corsica. i love talking with people and it for sure gets me out of the house at least once a week. Henri does so fabulous with the girls that i never have any worries about leaving them with him. i also continue to write about Bastia for easyJet's inflight magazine.

i also feel like i am finally "getting" things here. i think it helps that i am more confident in my parenting as this is my second time around so i can participate in conversations. i don't have to give blank, dumb blond looks when people ask me if Livia will be starting on soup soon. i now know that, at least here in Corsica, they give their babies soup as the first "solid". i am way more confident in my language skills, even though i have such a long ways to go. but confidence is so key in this area, plus i am finally realizing that people don't care if i make faults. i am the one that gets annoyed about not saying something perfectly, but i am trying to just let that struggle for perfection go. it's not easy.

in the future, i am looking forward to Ayva starting at the maternelle in September as this will help us integrate even more into village life. i'll be able to meet more moms which will totally help with my social needs. of course, it won't really hit me that my little girl will be going to school until August sometime. i'm sure i will shed some tears come September! Also, i finally found a place to take French classes and they even have childcare available starting at 6 months old. Livia turned 6 months today, so i will start going at least once a week. Henri's French needs a lot of help, so i am hoping to drag him along with me.

another big thing happening in the future, is that we are mostly likely buying a house! we are still waiting to hear from the mortgage broker to see if we have been approved or not, so it's not quite official yet. in our area, land is very expensive as many rich foreign people have come and scooped up all available land or people have their land for sale at high prices trying to attract these buyers. young families like us can not afford to buy. so the mayor of our village donated a piece of land that they are now going to put in what is essentially a little subdivision. these houses are not huge, and in fact, the one we are hopefully going to buy is smaller than the apartment we are living in. but it should be sufficient for us and I am looking forward to having a yard and a garage. the only problems is that they aren't scheduled to be finished until end of 2010, beginning of 2011. nonetheless, it will be exciting to live in a brand new house! there is quite a lot of new construction/building plans going on in our little village and it will be interesting to see everything develop.

so that's my life here in a nutshell. work went well yesterday. my two amigos and i went on our walk this morning. i missed a few spots with sunscreen and now have pink lines traversing my body. i am going to Calvi Wednesday night for a BBQ. Ayva continues to "fait pipi et caca dans le pot" and Livia is a happy chunky monkey who puts anything and everything into her mouth. she squealed herself to sleep tonight. it was one of those annoying/cute moments of parenting.

life is good.

Summer planning

It's barely spring, but I'm already looking ahead. That's just how I am. It's very difficult for me to live "in the moment" as they say. I need to have things to look forward to. And this summer I have a couple of doozies.

• U2 concert, July 15th, in Nice!!!!!! Henri said that it's wasted on him and that he doesn't want to go. I know, the horror! I asked people I knew here if anyone wanted to go with me, but the problem is that it is right in the middle of the busy summer season. So I asked Erica if she and her husband wanted to go and she said, "Yes!" So Henri and the girls will stay at the hotel while I rock out. Ha ha.
• The next day we are flying from Nice to Dublin, Ireland! I have wanted to go to Ireland for a long time, but time-wise or logistically it never seemed to work out. Some of our tail-end summer plans got canceled (hopefully we can reschedule for another time) and so we had some time to play with and I suggested that we finally do Ireland and Henri agreed. So we are renting a minivan-type car and will tootle around the Emerald Isle for about 6 days before heading to:
• Canada/US. We'll be doing the usual split time between the two families. It will be nice to be there for a bit longer of a time in the summer. I had enough snow last trip to last me for a long time.

If anyone has been to Ireland and has any must see/don't see words of wisdom, please send me an email or leave a comment. At the moment, I am trying to decide if we should stay in Belfast, or just do a few hours there.

All about Ayva

Ayva will be 2.5 at the end of this month. I haven't written much about her lately and so I thought I would jot some things down for posterity and so she knows that even though much of my time is consumed by Livia right now, she is not forgotten.

• Ayva loves clothes, especially dresses. Pink was the only color she wanted to wear for a long time, but thankfully now she has added purple to her repertoire. She loves to wear them with leggings or tights.  I prefer the tights because at least she doesn't take them off. If she wears socks, they are off in minutes. Shoes and slippers are also a favorite, whether they are hers or mine. Perhaps once a week she will consent to wearing jeans.  She has several pairs of pants that she has never worn because she refuses to even try them on. In short, she is just very girly.
• Peanut butter is one of her favorite "foods". She also likes to eat pasta, mashed potatoes, grapes, and cheese (I guess she is a little French girl after all).
• Lee-va is what Ayva calls her little sister. She really likes to lay down by her, if it's on the floor or in the crib or on her bed. For the most part she is really gentle with Livia. It's so cute to hear her mimic what I say to the baby. "It's ok, Livia".  "Hello coo coo bird".    
• "We a family" and "I yuv yoo" are things Ayva says often. She likes to cuddle and be "cozy" which, of course, we love. She loves to have both her Mama and Papa playing her. I truly see in her face how much she loves that. We have group hugs often. In the moments when it's just her and I or just her and her Papa, that's when she says, "Just yoo and me" and I think she likes those times too because then we aren't distracted by the baby and can just concentrate on her needs.
• She has a sense of humor already and likes to tease her Mom. I am often surprised by this as I tend to think of humor as something that develops later. A few times I have gotten irritated with her until I realize that she is teasing me! She loves to be tickled and listening to her giggle and laugh is about the best thing in the world.
• Likes to sing, but doesn't want anyone else to sing with her. "Stop, please" is what she says if you deign to join in. Being a first born she can be a bit bossy. I'm sure this will be something we will be working on in the future, especially as Livia gets older. As the oldest in my family, I can relate! 
• Loves the creche. She knows all of the kids'names. The taties told me on Wednesday that she is teaching them English as they teach her French.
• Ayva enjoys playing with playdoh and bubbles as well as building houses/beds out of her big Lego blocks for her dolls. She gets lots of hand me down toys from a neighbor lady, including her first Barbie. I am not a fan of Barbies but I let her keep it. She's not very interested in it for the moment.  She loves all the Dora stuff she's been given.
• She loves Sleeping Beauty (really all princesses), Dora (in French or English), and Tigger and Pooh.
• Likes to play in her room with the door shut like she's 15 years old already. I wasn't too sure what to think of this at first, but I know that there is nothing dangerous in there and of course I check on her periodically. She's usually just playing with clothes or "reading" books. If I ask her what she's doing she'll say, "I'm jus payin'" (I'm just playing). She loves sleeping on her "big girl bed".
• One of the things that makes my heart so glad is to see Ayva's relationship with her Papa. They are so close. Sometimes I do get a bit jealous, I admit. Her first choice is mostly always her Papa. She runs to him for comfort, to kiss her bobo when she gets hurt. This has certainly helped her cope with having a new sibling in the house and because of that there has been very little acting out on her part. We are all blessed that Henri is able to work at home and often has time to spend with Ayva. Throwing rocks in the sea with Papa.   Here she is helping Papa put together her "big girl bed".
• It makes her Mama very happy to see that Ayva likes books. Lately she has been "reading" them all by herself which is a nice quiet time activity that gives her Mama a break. :) She has her little chair and other spots where she takes a book and just pours over the pages looking at the pictures.
• She has a very keen eye for detail. She notices right away if my hair is different or if I have changed my clothes or Livia's. If I happen to put make up on (not too often these days), she comments on it: "You so peely, Mama" (You're so pretty, Mama). It's very hard to sneak things by her. She knows where we are and what we will be approaching when we're in the car.
• She has learned a number of colors, but really only likes pink and purple. She still loves grouping things by color as well (like she does with the crayons). She has a number or plastic plates and bowls and two shelves at her level so that she can help Mama unload her things from the dishwasher.  These items are always arranged by color with her favorites (pink and princess ones) front and center. Orange and red are relegated to the back and blue and green are in the middle. It's interesting to watch her spend time arranging things.
• She has shown no real interest in letters yet. Nor numbers for that matter, but she does know 1, 2, 3. If she is misbehaving, she sure doesn't want Mama to get to 3! She does continue to test and push boundaries like any normal toddler and she certainly can unleash her inner drama queen, but for the most part, Ayva is very well behaved.
• We have decided to wait on potty-training until it gets a bit warmer. The ladies at the creche suggested this and we don't see any harm in waiting. She is very aware of all things having to do with this subject and so I hope that she will be ready once we start.
• Ayva is very articulate and has quite a varied vocabulary. She does make cute grammatical mistakes though with prepositions. She'll say she wants to go inside instead of outside or that she's in front of me when she's behind me. I like hearing which pronouns she uses and how she uses them. Some words she usually only says the French word (like merci or cochon for pig) and some she interchanges the languages (please or see poo pay (s'il te plait).  I find her language development (English and French) really interesting. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at the creche and hear her talk in French.

Well, that's Ayva in a nutshell right now.

Only in France...#1

After the birth of Livia, it was a mad rush to get her a passport as we were leaving for Canada on December 15th, not quite a month after her birth. We applied for both a Canadian and a French passport thinking the odds were pretty high that one of them would arrive in time, right? Ayva's French passport had taken 11 days to arrive so we thought the French would arrive first.

The days passed quite quickly and with our departure date looming we started to freak out a bit as neither passport had arrived. Henri checked in quite regularly at the Mairie (Mayor's office/town hall) as that is where the French passport would be sent when it was available. They never had any helpful information and they told Henri that there used to be phone number that you could call to check on the status, but they stopped that because too many people called it. Um, nice.

So Henri started trying to track down the status on the Canadian passport. The first go around they rejected Livia's pictures because there was "a slight shadow on the side of her face". Do you know how hard it is to take a newborn's picture within the strict parameters they have these days? Anyway we got re-takes and these were approved. By this time, Henri was on a first-name basis with the lady at the Canadian Embassy in Paris who was handling our file. They exchanged phone calls and emails - she was really great keeping us informed. When she called to tell us that the passport was on the plane from Ottawa and would be in Paris on Friday we were ecstatic until we realized that there was a big chance it wouldn't arrive in Corsica in time for our departure on Sunday. There is postal delivery on Saturdays, but only until noon. We didn't like the odds, so Henri actually flew to Paris to pick it up. It was a lot cheaper to do that than to have to re-book our trip. (The Canadian Embassy is not far from Le Champs Elysee all decorated beautifully for Christmas. A perfect place to find a special present for me, right? Ha ha. Henri spent the time in between his flights in a McDonalds as it had free WiFi.)

Fast forward to when we got back from our trip. We picked up our mail at our cousin's, thinking the French passport would be there. Nope. But Livia is now the proud owner of a carte nationale d'intentité. That's great for 20 years from now when she writes checks and needs proof of identification, but she can't travel on that. On the form Henri filled out, you can mark either passport or carte nationale d'intentité and he was sure that he marked passport. This was verified when he called my old buddies at the préfrecture. The lady he spoke with even spoke English and she confirmed that yes, he had marked the correct box and yes, they had made a mistake. Did she say, "I'm so sorry, we'll get right on that. You'll have your passport asap." Ha ha ha. Henri asked if they could just take all the paperwork/pictures they still have on file and actually do the passport this time. She said no and that he would have to do everything over again. Henri was almost speechless. And the kicker?  It now costs money to apply for one when last year it was free.

Only in France...

3 months

Dear Livia,

I am amazed at how fast 3 months has flown by. You celebrated your one month and two month birthdays in Canada and things were so busy and chaotic there with the holidays and visiting friends and family that I didn't even attempt to write you letters for those months. Bad mama. 

You are truly a joy, Livia. A chunky, smiley, happy joy. You are thisclose to laughing. You might be  a bit of a sumo wrestler in the making though. When I take your diaper off, I just have to laugh. You have these rolls on your thighs that just leave me in giggles. Your shape reminds me of a body builder - tiny waist and then these very muscular thighs. Well, your rolls aren't exactly muscles, but they are so squeezable. Your cheeks are the same - round and plump - and I've had to duck you out of the way to keep the little old ladies from pinching them. You are currently 15.5 pounds, 24.5 inches long and wearing 6 month-sized clothes. 

Your hair defies gravity. It is quite curly when you come out of the bath. Most of it is concentrated on the center of your head. You can have quite the faux hawk. One Sunday in Canada it curled into this long sausage curl right on the top of your head. A few people have said that it looks like Tintin's hair. Your papa has tried to brush it down, and it will stay down for a little while. I don't like it though as it makes you look a little bit boyish. Thankfully, your hair has a mind of it's own and will pop back up in various places with depending on it's mood.

You've been a pretty good sleeper, definitely something you and your sister have in common. We had a little bit of an adjustment coming back from the US, but you're mostly over that. Now your mama is just working on putting you on a schedule. While we were in North America there was really no point as no two days were the same. Now we are home and it will be nice to be in a routine for a while. But I know you babies - you like to shake things up so I will be going with the flow - your flow.  

One way in which you are different from your sister is that you are more of a mover and are stronger at this age than she was. You both could raise your head and keep it up pretty much right from the start, but the difference with you is that you don't want to ever put it back down. Ayva's body was like a wet noodle, a slinky. You are way more rigid and firm. If you could, you would be standing or sitting already. You have worn a bald spot out on the back of your head from moving your head constantly. Your sister never got a bald spot. I totally predict that you will be standing and walking waaaaay before Ayva ever did, which will mean more work for your mom! It won't be too much longer before we can put you in the Jolly Jumper. Your sister just used it as a place to hang out, but I think you will make that thing move which will put some muscle underneath all that chub. You love the bath and splash around like crazy. This has suprised your papa and I as Ayva was always a bit more calm in the water. I love to watch you splash your papa and am looking forward to when you take baths with your sister and you splash her. She probably won't like it. :)

Since you were born I have called you my Zen Buddha baby. You are very calm and patient. You have been a very observant baby right from the beginning, just watching everything around you with big eyes. When we stayed with your Grandpa, he told everyone that he never even heard you cry. It's true, you don't full out wail. Even when you got your 3 month vaccines last week, you just whimpered. Even when you are starving and I am taking too long to feed you, you don't really cry as much as you just voice your displeasure. You've only had one night, when you were about 2 weeks old, where you were just super hungry nonstop and cried. I brought you down to your papa, who was working at the time, and he rescued us.  

I think you and your big sister are going to be great friends. Ayva likes to pile around you your things - doudous, blankets, toys, clothes. I have to step in often to make sure she doesn't pile them on top of you though. She likes to pat your head and give you kisses. She is learning to always be gentle with you and to be quiet when you are sleeping. When you are on your playmat or in the crib, she likes to lay down right next to you. She calls you Liva (Lee-vah) or baby or baby sister.

Livia Ann, we are delighted to have you in our family. It has been a joy to watch you grow and change these past 3 months. 

pictures, finally!

Henri and Ayva have taken a walk up to the post office and mayor's office to try to track down what's happening with Livia's French passport. We leave next Sunday night to go to Canada/US and it's obviously vital that Livia have a passport. We have also applied for a Canadian passport for her, but the pictures were rejected as there was a slight shadow near one side of her face. We have since gotten them re-taken and sent them off in the most expensive fashion (42 euros!!) and the Canadian Embassy received them the other day. Hopefully between the two countries, one of them will get their act together and send us a passport. Otherwise, Henri and Ayva are going to leave Livia and I here while I get things sorted. I really don't want to travel alone so I hope that scenario doesn't happen.

But back to the real reason I'm finally posting: pictures!! I can't seem to get a full post finished without having to end it to feed a kid or clean up a mess or so some laundry. However, if I hurry, maybe I can get some pictures posted!

  The night before the big event.

Right before the epidural wore off and the really "fun" stuff started! Also note that I had slept maybe an hour the night before.

There's my big girl! Livia Ann!

After not eating for almost the entire day, here is what awaited me for dinner: cooked endived - yum!

  My little blondie.

Ayva meets Livia for the first time - melted my heart!

Livia and her roommate/fiance, Ludovic. His mom and I were so happy to finally leave the hospital after 6 days!

Proud papa with is little gnome!

Babies smell delicious!

I forgot how much I love new baby smell. The top of her head, her breath - so yummy! Just in case you couldn't tell: baby girl #2 finally arrived last Tuesday, the 18th at about 5:45 pm.

Her name is Livia Ann Chuckles. Livia is a Corsican name that is pronounced Leev-yah, but we're also going with Olivia without the O as that is how most English-speaking people would pronounce it. Ann is for my mother-in-law, Ann- Therese. And Chuckles? Well I'm sure most people who know me, or have read this blog in the past, know where that came from. Yes, from my dear husband Henri. I didn't even know about it until I read the text message he sent out with the birth announcement. Like Ayva's third name of Zonk, Chuckles was something Henri called the baby off and on while she was in utero. I should have known that he would add it when he acquiesced so suddenly and easily to my name choice while I was in labor (he really wanted to name her Ella. While I like that name and was a fan for quite a while, I did not like it paired with Ann.) I was thinking he was feeling sorry for all the pain I was in and so gave in because of that.  I should have known he had ulterior motives.

After being in the hospital, plus a shared room, for almost a week it was so great to be set free! But then, wouldn't you know it - the Internet died the night I got home. That meant I couldn't post here, but more importantly it meant that I couldn't call anyone back home either. So now that the Internet miraculously turned back on, I'm slowly catching up. I've about finished typing up Livia's birth story. It's pretty long, but it's something I wanted to document for myself more than anything. I never got around to doing that after Ayva was born and I regret that a bit. I'll post it, plus pictures in a day or two!

We're all doing great despite Henri having a killer cold, Livia and I having minor nursing issues (getting the right latch-on can be a beeyotch!) and Ayva learning to share and be quiet. Plus we leave for Canada in 3 weeks!!

More later...

C'mon baby!

I'm in limbo land. If I was in North America, I would be 4 days overdue. Here in France they count 41 weeks as end of term and that date is this Sunday, the 16th. Nothing is happening much as I far as I can tell. I've had tweaks and pains here and there, but nothing significant. So far it looks like things are proceeding like they did with Ayva (slowly!). If it continues this way, we'll make a trip to the hospital next Monday to pay a visit to the midwives for some monitoring and testing. With Ayva these daily trips continued for several days before they finally decided to induce me.

I know I should be trying to relax and savor this time when I only have one little girl to look after. I should be trying to be sleep as much as I can before the night feedings start instead of staying up until 2:30 to finish the latest Jodi Picoult book. I should not be baking as much as I have as pretty soon I won't have any excuses for eating whatever I want.

I should be taking more walks in the remaining sunny days with Ayva and Henri.  And hey, I thought black was supposed to be slimming.

I guess I'm just feeling blah today, pregnancy fatigue.  And we still don't have a name picked out. In fact, last night we even had a bit of kerfuffle about it. We just can't seem to get on the same page.

I'll try and check back in when I have something more interesting to post. Like baby pictures! She can't stay in there forever, right?!

my little birthday girl

Ayva turned 2 years old a little while ago. I am just gobsmacked at how fast the time seems to have passed.  Ayva goes to the creche two full days a week now. This has helped considerably her French and socialization. The ladies who work there are called les taties. They like to report to me what French she says etc. and they seem to really love her. How could they not. :) Ayva seems to have her mother's good memory and can sit at the table and name all the kids around it. Les taties seemed to be impressed by that. For birthdays it seems to be traditional for the mom to bring in a cake for all the kids. I went the easy, but ugly, route and made banana-chocolate chip muffins. The ladies greeted them with a bit of skepticism as muffins are not at all common around here, but there were none left when I picked up Ayva and one lady asked me for the recipe! 

A few days later we had a family birthday part for Ayva with a bit of a Winnie the Pooh theme as he and his friends are some of Ayva's favorites (for the record, she is also a big fan of Nemo, Dory and Bruce, and Yanni (Aladdin), Genie, and Abu. This is after a couple of months' obsession with all things Sesame Street, especially the Count and Cookie Monster.) Theme parties are also not really very common around here, which is nice as then you don't have that competitive thing that seems to exist between moms in North America. I did want to make Ayva a Pooh cake though and developed a really simple idea that Henri actually ended up completing! I tell you, even after 11 years of marriage, that guy is no end of surprises. 

 

It was a really nice afternoon even considering Ayva had literally sang away her two hour nap time. I don't think she slept a wink - it's like she knew what was to come. With her papa checking out her new Winnie the Pooh puzzle. 

Out later with one of her favorite presents: dolly poussette. She combines a lot of phrases into English-French or just says both words together like chaud/hot, fini/done. It's really been interesting to see her two language skills evolve simultaneously even if we don't always understand what she is saying.

i'm baaaack...

but probably just in time to go on maternity leave.  yes, i am waiting patiently for baby girl #2 to arrive. i'm only just over 37 weeks so i still have some time to go. last week at my last doctor's visit, she was already weighing approximately close to 7 pounds so i figure she can come anytime. people keep telling me that second babies usually come earlier and then the lady at the boulangerie this morning said she would come very soon - who knows?

we still don't have a name picked out and this is causing me some consternation. with Ayva, we had hers pretty much picked out by the time i was 6 months along. this time, while we have several names we both like, we just can't seem to pick one and go with it. plus there are added distractions of Henri coming up with some real doozies. while we were on holiday in Tuscany (doesn't that sound snotty!) he came up with Zeena Kirby Joy. this is his third wacko idea. the first was Chuckles, the second Zelda and now this monstrosity. now perhaps, dear reader, if i have any of those left, you understand my frustration. how can we come to a consensus when my other half has such bizarre ideas?

Ayva turns 2 Thursday and i am just in awe of how fastfastfast the time went by. i mean it doesn't really feel like i gave birth to her yesterday or anything, but it certainly doesn't feel like it's been 2 years! she's at the creche right now with her tatis (what they call the ladies who work at the creche. the singular is tati, which i guess is an even more familiar form of tata (aunt)?  she goes Tuesdays and Thursdays and that seems to work for us. so far she hasn't bitten or been bitten by others (that was always my fear when i thought about putting her in daycare). after spending a week with cousins and speaking non-stop French, she does have quite a bit of French going on in that little head of hers. i've noticed that when we are around family, she does speak a lot in French, and then with just us she combines her words. she'll say "fini, done" or "tetine, soolie" (her word for soother/pacifier). it's really quite adorable to watch all this develop.

well, i have some errands to run so i better get to it.  i'm going to try to make Ayva a Winnie the Pooh cake and need to find some supplies and i need to mail off my ballot for the US election plus all my Bookmooch books.

TTFN as Tigger says!

july already?!

so i've been thinking lately about why i've lost my blogging mojo. really, it comes down to the name of my blog. before i start typing there are so many other piddly things that jump into my mind: oh, i need music, do i remember my password to log into my Typepad account, should i grab a drink before i start, and what the heck was i going to write about? when i get to that last one, i get so frustrated i just hop on Facebook, write on a few people's walls and my need to write is satiated.

however that does not help in chronicling our life in Corsica. plus this blog has brought me some good things, for example, this month's issue of Islands Magazine features an article with yours truly! i've never done an interview before and it was an interesting experience. it's rather strange to read one's own words in print and of course i think i sound like a big dork. ahem. but it does give a slight, but accurate, insight into our lives.

back in January/February, this blog helped me snag a little job writing for easyJet's inflight magazine in the destination guide section. for two months i wrote about Ajaccio and Bastia both before i realized that it was a lot of work, time and travel, and therefore just decided to concentrate on Bastia. it's been rather enjoyable writing these articles each month, although i must admit that they are some of the cheesiest things i've ever written. that's saying a lot as i once wrote for my high school newspaper - interviews of the band teacher are never going to win a Nobel Prize for literature. the only downside is that i don't get an expense account in order to try out the restaurants. :(

now that school is out and i am no longer doing the English Assistant thing at the lycée and IUFM (where they train wanna-be primary school teachers), i've been working "part-time" for a British tour company as a client representative. this is the same company i worked Sundays for last year. while i really enjoy this job, it certainly comes with challenges. as i have to liaise with cleaners and owners, my French is definitely improving. i still find it incredibly difficult to talk on the phone in French, but by the end of the season, i'll be a pro. i hope. my favorite part is the client visits where i get to sit and chat, in English, to some rather fascinating people. of course not all clients are fascinating and there in lies some of the challenges. for instance, how do you react when a client hands you a square of toilet paper with two tiny black specks - squashed bugs - on it. she wants to know if they bite. your first reaction is to laugh and say, "not anymore!" alas, that is not the right and proper British way to answer.

and speaking of challenges, i should go now as i need to search in the pages jaunes for a company that can take care of wasps. one of my properties is inundated with them and it's my job to get that taken care of as the owner basically shrugged his shoulders in that way that only a Frenchman can do, and said, "The villa is in the country, not Paris or London. A few wasps are normal." yeah, thanks buddy.

so that, and incubating a baby girl, is basically what i've been up to in the last little while.

poo

on Thursdays Ayva goes to the creche in the afternoon. we usually try to squeeze a nap in after lunch before we take her. most times we end up having to wake her up and today was no different as Henri and i were in a bit of a rush to go to a funeral. :(

i went into her room and was hit by the biggest whiff of poo ever. i was just thinking, "great, we're in a hurry and now i have to change a poopy diaper."

and then i looked down on Ayva.

the first thing i saw was her bare bum...what?! and then i saw the poo. all over her legs. all over the head of her bear, Blue. on her blanket. alllll over the white sheet. her diaper was flung over the side of the crib to the floor and it was unscathed.

wow. i always knew i had something like this to look forward to, but never thought it would happen with Ayva. this is a girl who can not stand it if her hand has a speck of dirt on it. even if her hand is wet with water she brings it to me to wipe off - and now she's covered in POO?!

what else can i say - it was a fun parenting moment and not one i am likely to forget for quite some time. i don't think the aroma will fade from my memory too soon either. thank goodness i'm safely through my first trimester or i would not have been able to hold down my lunch!

corsicamadian? americorsadian?

coucou, anyone there? i'm not sure anyone actually reads this thing anymore, but maybe this will get your attention:

we're expecting another Corsican-Canadian- American baby!

yup, that's right, after what seemed like months and months and months of trying, one of the little guys was finally successful! currently the size of a lentil bean, the tentative due date is November 9th. i say tentative because i have yet to go to the doctor yet. some of you might remember the ribbing my doctor gave me with Ayva, and i'm so not in the mood for fat comments this soon into the pregnancy. i'll wait until i am feeling a little bit less hormonal.

so far, i am feeling pretty great. lots of little things seem different than last time. or maybe my memory is just wonky. Henri hopes that doesn't mean i am having a boy as he still wants to have all girls. at this point, a girl is what we are used to, but a boy would be great too. i think. right now it's hard enough trying to fathom my Ayva-filled heart having any more room for another child. but i have heard many stories how miracles happen and that your heart just opens wide and lets another little person in. i can't wait!

Espagne!

let's just hop right into things without me going on about what a horrible blogger i am. i think we all know that by now. :)

so Spain was fantastic. Barcelona is an amazing city. the people seem to take so much pride in it. i mean, i saw a man cleaning a public telephone. sure, he was probably getting paid, but i have been to many major world cities and have never seen that. as i've used a lot public telephones, i wish more cities paid employees to clean them.

i really can't say enough nice things about Barcelona. we stayed just off La Rambla which made exploring the city very easy as we were within walking distance of just about everything we wanted to see. or we could take the metro which was just across the street. fabulous, i tell you. our hotel was nothing to sneeze at (i love that saying), all the employees smoked in the lobby and that got annoying, but as i mentioned it was very centrally-located. plus they bought Ayva a teddy bear as a present which was very sweet.

my dad and i took in a football (soccer) game at this stadium along with 75,000 other FC Barcelona supporters. wow, was that an experience. Barca ended up tying the game with 10 seconds left. i'm not sure you can quite imagine the hysteria that erupted. thankfully, i captured it on camera so i can relive the moment whenever the mood hits me. the only bummer part of the night was that the game ended around 12 am. what time did the metro stop? yep, 12 am. we, and thousands of others were stranded and left to walk home.

i got a lot of exercise in Spain. we walked everywhere. that walk home from the stadium was over and hour and a half. good thing too as i ate more than my fair share of pastries. i was under the misconception that Spanish desserts suck. i think i thought this because Mexican desserts suck, therefore all Spanish-speaking country's desserts suck? i was completely wrong. i found their pastries to be far superior to the French. they have this croissant that is dipped in chocolate on both ends and has chocolate inside it too! oh.my.goodness. they just got better from there. stupidly, i never took any pictures of them. guess i was too busy inhaling them to take the time to get my camera out and take a click.

i have put a few pictures up on Facebook that you can take a look at. here and here and here. more to come as soon as i can find where Henri hid them on my computer.

bad news

growing up, my parents didn't have a lot of friends. i mean, sure they knew lots of people through church and work, but there weren't many that they socialized with. Ed and Nancy were a couple that my parents met when i was two years old and hit it off immediately from what i've heard. both couples ended up having three kids roughly the same ages.  my dad and Ed were in business together at least two times that i remember. we had family sleep overs often, where one family would descend upon the home of the other, the kids would take off and surface just for meals and the parents would play Whist until 3 AM. almost all of the New Year's Eves (my mom's birthday) i can remember were spent this way. in the tapestry that makes up my childhood memories, this family is one of the big threads, a constant running all through it.

and now i've just received an email from my brother telling me that Ed committed suicide. i'm just in shock and disbelief. i don't even know what more to write.  this, on top of my parent's recent divorce just makes a mess out of so many memories for me.

newsy goodness

last night i finished off my articles and sent them away for editing. totally a great feeling to be done with that for a week or two before i start it up again. at least they are monthly and not weekly. i'd really have to come to terms with my procrastination then. :)

more job news, or a case of when it rains, it pours: i've been hired to be an English assistant again. this go around, my hours are split between to places: a lycée in Bastia (yay! no three hour drive for me this time!) and the IUFM, which is basically a teacher's college helping wanna-be pre-school and elementary teachers to prepare for their big test to become teachers. not sure that made sense, but it means i get to work with adults for a change.

i'm excited about getting back out working, but a little apprehensive about figuring out childcare for Ayva. i have two leads for daycare, so hopefully one or split time between both will work. it will just be an adjustment for all of us.

i've also heard, informally, that the company that employed me  last summer on Sundays, would like to hire me part-time this summer. i really enjoyed the work and would like to take on more, but that would mean i would be tied to the island until October. not sure that sounds too appealing, when other more exotic places are calling my name. nothing is for sure on that one yet though, so we'll see.

my dad is coming next week for a 12 day visit. this will be the first time that someone from my side of the family has visited us here. i'm pretty stoked as we are also going to go to Barcelona with him!! i think i've mentioned before how little goes on in Corsica during the winter. so that led Henri and i to thinking about something else we could do with dad while he was here. 12 days is too long to be cooped up in the village, especially for my dad who wouldn't last too long without ESPN. Spain is somewhere we've never been and Barcelona seems like the top attraction there, so here we come! if anyone has any tips/suggestions au sujet de Barcelona, let me know.

what's old is new

hi.

what?! Cara is blogging again?!

yeah, i know, i've been a bad, bad blogger...*hangs head in shame*

really, all is ok. i just wasn't in the blogging mood for oh, almost 3 months now. i'm not really particularly now either, but know that i need to in order to keep documenting our lives in Corsica in a more concrete way. Facebook just doesn't meet that need.

so. um, yeah. what's new?

oh! i got a new job, completely out of the blue, thanks to this blog. i am going to be a published writer! as it is thanks to this blog i'm not too sure it's appropriate of me to go blabbing the details. let's just say that i am now a travel writer, perhaps somewhat obviously, on the subject of Corsica. i will give it a think though, and perhaps later i'll share more. although i've working on my articles for a while now, today was the first time i actually ventured from the cozy confines of my home and "interviewed" someone. man, is it hard to be speaking and listening to French and trying to take notes in English at the same time. this skill will need some honing as my notes are a bit of a jumbled Franglais as you might imagine. i do feel like the two hours spent jabbering were quite well spent though. don't people say that it's all about making the right contacts?

now onto Ayva. my darling 15 month old little wonder. sometimes i just get so overwhelmed with the fierce love i feel for her. we just returned from 5 weeks in Canada and the US and it was so interesting to see her really make the transition from baby to toddler while we were there. it's an acknowledgment that does sadden me too, though. i suppose none of these grand choses will be exactly easy to watch. i was at the post office the other day and ran into a guy that has a son a few days younger than Ayva. his parting comment was that pretty soon they'll both be in school. i replied, "nooo!" but he reminded me that many people put their kids in maternelle at two years old. yeah, we'll see about that.

how can you get irritated at a face like that? plus she no longer has vampire teeth, with her two top front teeth literally poking through on the plane ride to Canada. so on the next visit to the pédiatre, he can't ask me again if she is the daughter of Dracula or if we have any Romanian blood.

Ayva and i have now been back for a week and i am must say that i was really glad to come home. it's not that i didn't enjoy our time there, because i really did, even though it was emotionally hard-hitting in a great many ways. the trip really just served as a confirmation, highlighting that our home right now really is this crazy yet calm, complex yet simple, little island.

la rentrée

well, we're home. back from a 7 day cruise around Italy, Greece, and Turkey. back from 3 glorious days in Rome. back to sunny fall days in Corsica, so life is not that bad.

our trip was truly wonderful and i would love to go into details now. alas, i have a baby and in-laws and supper all calling my name. suffice it to say, i think we may be looking into spending a month this spring in Rome learning Italian. anyone want to join us?

here are a few more pictures in the meantime...

Ayva's first cupcake on her birthday. she really wasn't too interested in it. when she tries new things she likes to do it on her own terms, in her own time. she doesn't like it at all when someone pushes something on her for her to try. tomorrow night we're having her cousin's birthday party and so she'll get to try some more cake. i'm sure it will be a big hit the second go around.

another first: McDonald's french fries in Civitavecchia before we boarded the ship. a much bigger hit than the cupcake. you can see what we call her little vampire teeth poking out in the second picture. she now has four, those two and the two lower center ones.

we celebrated Halloween on the cruise, although i think i only saw two other children dressed up. Ayva was the belle of the ball. people even came over to our dinner table to take her picture!

i loved our time in Rome. we stayed in a wonderful apartment right in the middle of the Trastevere neighborhood. i don't think we could have asked for a better part of town. we walked to everything we wanted to see! i almost liked wandering around the little streets of Trastevere more than seeing the big sites like the Roman Rorum or the Colosseum.

Happy Birthday, Ayva!

today is Ayva's first birthday! this picture is from earlier in the month when the weather was still really warm. you can see her first tooth. she's had two more come in since then.

i know i have been a really, really bad blogger/mommy. i still have to write up Ayva's 10th, 11th, and 12th months. i might just put up some pictures instead.

we just got back from her one year checkup and all is going well in the growth department. Dr. C. did ask if i had made her any flans or souffles. grr, i was hoping he'd forget about that. Ayva pretty much cried the whole time he was checking her out. he said that it's a good thing she is so beautiful or she would be annoying. hmm.

for the rest of the day, we are going to take it easy. Meme and Grandpa arrive in a few days and then on Saturday we are having a joint first birthday with Matteo!

we can't wait to see you Meme!

creepy kitty

on one our walks, Ayva and i came across this cat. it just stared at us, even when Ayva started barking at it thinking it was a dog. i couldn't figure out at first what was creepy about it, besides the staring. then i realized it only has one ear!