You may say I'm a dreamer...

On Monday, I went to our first parent-teacher conference at Leo’s school. Leo is a bright student and he’s a big dreamer. Well, according to the teachers, he “doesn’t listen very well.” That doesn’t mean he’s defiant. That means they have to ask him to do something three times before he moves. That means he can stand in front of the toilet for 5 minutes and not get in or that he can sit at the lunch table and eat the cereal bar I gave him in his lunch box but not request the meal the school should give him (that has happened a couple of times). Maybe he’s too much of a rule follower, maybe he’s not autonomous enough, maybe he doesn’t care that much. I don’t know. He doesn’t tell us much. 

But I have noticed he does the same at home. If he watches TV, we have to yell at him for him to turn his head to us, hearing us call his name for the first time –when we have actually called him 5 times. You can tell he stops and thinks when we’re trying to get him to get dressed, brush his teeth, and overall get ready in the morning. 

Also, he just refuses to speak French. When we ask him if he speaks French he says “not all the words.” It’s a bit like it’s all or nothing. Either he knows ALL the words or he knows nothing at all.

Does he put too much pressure on himself? Maybe.

We’re left with a lot of questions. Nothing dramatic. He’s only 3. I just wonder what we’re doing to cause that. Maybe we rush him all the time. Maybe Jude’s arrival was more of a shock than we thought. Maybe school is not challenging enough for him, since he doesn’t really understand what is being said. It’s just hard not knowing how to help him. Then again, the teacher says he doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of this. He plays, he smiles, he talks. So maybe this is no issue? Maybe it’s just the way he is. I’m just anxious about his well-being and want to make sure he’s not afraid of trying, not afraid of asking for help and of sticking up for himself. So I’ll observe him more and see what he needs –and maybe see that yes, he’s a dreamer all right, and just let him be. We’ll see.

Mommy brain

Jude has been spiting up a bit more than usual lately. I was wondering if maybe it was the introduction of formula into his diet. And then I realized that I have been eating Haagen Dazs (yum!) like it's my job and ice cream is made with a ton of milk, and Jude doesn't do well with milk, and... What was I thinking? Well I was not thinking. Mommy brain!

School decisions

Last year we decided to enroll Léo in a French school. We moved a bit south (still too far from the school. Well, only 10 miles but round trip, picking him up takes me about an hour) and off he went, just 3 days after his little brother was born. Talk about transitions! Tomorrow we need to bring his re-enrollment paperwork to school. I think we're going to keep him in that school. The teachers are really nice and the philosophy of the school (students first) is definitely attractive. But two things have me wonder:

1- He still doesn't understand much French and is VERY frustrated. He doesn't listen during class because it's hard to focus when you don't understand what is being said. I am trying to talk to him in French more but he says "Mama, speak English (which sounds like "Enguh-lish!")". He cries almost every morning and finds new excuses not to go to class. He's really not liking this school too much. To be fair, he also had issues with his school last year, so it's not this particular school that he doesn't like, but the fact that he doesn't understand anything 3 hours per day is not helping.

2- The French system focuses a lot on play. I think it's great. Kids have plenty of time to focus on schooling. But if we decide to put Léo in public school when he's 6, I'm afraid he's going to be late. In France, you start learning to read and write at 6, in 1st grade. Here in the US, you start to read and write at 4 or 5. You arrive in 1st grade ready to learn math, pretty much. This year for instance, Léo's teacher told us students learn to recognize numbers from 1-3. Great. Except Léo had done that last year, from 1-10 pretty much. I see friends' kids the same age as Léo already adding numbers. And as much as I don't want to compare, I also don't want him to be late and made fun of when he arrives in public school.

So I think we're going to re-enroll him, because, well, it's too late now that the deadline is tomorrow (resolution for 2015: be more organized. No kidding. That's my resolution. Case in point!). I hope he's going to like his school, learn French, let me talk to him in French, watch cartoons in French, and learn as much as his American peers. The pressure. And he's only THREE!

Well that was a tough transition -and Happy 2015!

Happy new year!!

I went back to work a month and a half ago and man... that was tough. Organization-wise, we pretty much sucked. We had a nanny for a bit but she's so awesome she got a job and left (fortunately she's now a great friend), and the nanny who replaced her was not available all the time because of previous commitments or illness. So I had to take time off a few weeks after being back already, which was not the plan. Jude's daycare will open full time next week, so this right there should make our lives easier.

Work itself has been rough. I can't really focus or understand very deep conversations. My brain goes blank a few times a day. It's quite annoying. Also, one single project has now become my main priority -I'll spend 70% of my time managing it. Overall I still love my job and my team but my motivation is not quite back to what it was pre-Jude. I'm a bit over it right now.

Good news: my brother and his girlfriend have been here since Christmas Day. They're staying until January 12th, which gives us a lot of time to hang out and talk. I love this time together. Last time we saw each other was in May 2013. Too long without seeing my favorite person in the world -the 3 boys in my house excluded.

I'm enjoying the last days of vacation with everyone. I hope you had a great holiday season!

Going back to work

I am going back to work in one week. Jude will be 2 months and 2 weeks old. I am so conflicted about this. One the one hand, I love my job yes (well, right now I'd be inclined to say I like my job, but I'm a bit bitter). On the other, I am so in love with my baby that it pains me to leave him. I went back to work with Léo when he was 3 months and 3 weeks. My mother-in-law flew to Seattle the first week to take care of him, so he went to daycare when he was 4 months old, which at the time seemed young, too. This time around, the daycare we have chosen is not yet licensed, so we're going to hire a nanny until the infant room opens. This was cause for stress, but now that we've almost secured a nanny I want the State to take a loooong time to visit and license the daycare facility. I am so so happy to know that Jude can stay home with me for a bit longer. I just want to hold him and see him smile. Also I know what I'm doing (kinda) with him and I feel like writing a 10-page instruction manual to his care-givers. With Léo, it was more "please raise him for me because I have no clue how to raise a human being." It's different with Jude obviously because now I know what I'd do if I didn't have to go back to work, in terms of talking to him in French, carrying him (because it's nice and because of his flat head... which I'll talk about in another post), and just experiencing his growth.

It's so bittersweet. I am quite upset at the lack of paid leave in the country. It's ridiculous that I had to forego vacation for more than a year to have a decent "maternity"leave. This time around I really feel like I'm letting someone else raise my child. I am so heartbroken. I know he'll do fine and he'll know I'm his mama no matter what, but I also know I am trusting other people with Jude's development and it's a bit hard for me to accept this time around.

So I have one more week of talking to him In French and making him smile (for the 20 minutes he's awake between feedings!), of holding him close and smelling his soft hair. I can do that in the evening when I come home, I know that. I can also see the 2nd or 3rd (or 101st) time he does something if I miss the 1st. It's just that I know what I am missing now and it's hard to leave him, so young, to someone else.

That being said, I'm glad someone else will be getting puked on 5 times a day. Let's see the positive here, ha!

Anyway... One more week and I'm back at work. We'll see how it goes!

Talking to Jude

I have never felt comfortable talking to Léo or Jude. I don't know what to tell them. I end up saying "Hi baby!" 103 times in a row. But last week I read this blog post and it clicked! Talk to your baby not to increase their vocabulary but to tell them what is happening to them before or as things happen. That has helped tremendously. I still say "Hi baby!" too much, but I also make sure I talk to Jude as a human who deserves to know what is happening around him, not a mere participant in my life.

(I know the site is affiliated with the RIE method, which stands for Resources for Infant Educarers. I haven't read much about that because I don't want to feel like a failure for not following such and such method.)

Loving two children: same but different

I was wondering how it would be to love two children. While pregnant, I knew I loved Jude but it was nothing compared to what I felt for Leo. Actually I didn't feel as close to Jude as I did with Leo, even while pregnant. It's probably because I was so busy with life and Leo and didn't spend every waking second thinking of the baby growing inside me. It all changed when Jude was born of course. Well,  a few days after he was born!

As with Leo, I didn't feel much for the baby right away. With Leo people said "aren't you loving him so much?" and I didn't know how to answer because, well, no I didn't. I mean I did. He was my child, but he was also a stranger. Sane with Jude -with the added "bonus" of major guilt over having to share my heart, time, and arms between the two children. Actually on the first day I only held Jude when we were alone, not in front of Leo. Joe was a bit afraid I would reject the baby. I was just cold.

And then, as with Leo, the overwhelming feeling of love came. I was dealing with quite a bit of hormonal craziness with Leo, so my love for him was a bit too much. I cried and cried because I just loved him so much and was afraid to mess him up somehow. I held him a lot. I cuddled him all the time. And I had plenty of time to "bond" at night, since he didn't sleep much for the first few weeks. It was really intense love. It was different with Jude. After a day or two, I just... loved him. A deep and strong love. So deep and so strong. But this time I am level headed, Jude sleeps well at night, and he doesn't like to be held that much (how different they already are!). There is no freak out about my love for him or my fear to mess him up (I will mess him up somehow and it's ok!).

(By the way, the guilt I felt about sharing was gone in about a week. I thought I'd have a lot to say about that, but no. It just went away in a snap)

I love them both to a level that words can't express. They are my life. But the love I have for them feels different. It is not different in intensity (both are 20 on a scale from 1 to 10) but in how I think about that love. I don't know if that makes much sense. In a way I feel my love for Leo was all over the place and my love for Jude is very steady, almost calm. Might have to do with hormones!

I'm just so happy to love these two little guys. And I'm happier to see who they are, how they will interact, who they will become.