The Older Woman

Our neighbours daughter had her fourteenth birthday this weekend and we were invited along to the celebratory Goûter.

My son, who is 3 and half years old, was memerised by all the giggling girlies who were trying out the new make up, music and hair accessories. It was all glitz and glamour and dancing to Mika, until someone suggested football.

Now that really impressed Théo, an older woman who looked good and could still kick a ball!

Give a Mum a laugh and pass this on ............

My friend Sally e-mailed this to me. Have not stopped laughing.

FOR ALL THE GREAT MUMS

I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and asked her not to do that.

"Why?" my daughter asked.

"Because it's been on the ground, you don't know where it's been, it's dirty and probably has germs" I replied.

At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Mummy, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart."

I was thinking quickly. "All mums know this stuff. It's on the Mummy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mummy."

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

"OH... I get it!" she beamed, "So if you don't pass the test you have to be the Daddy."

"Exactly," I replied back with a big smile on my face.

When you're finished laughing send this to a Mum

A p.s to my post (Homework - Cahia de Vie)

I came across an interesting website called http://www.frenchentree.com/
which has a section called Your Guide to the French Education System. Full of interesting facts.

Now for interesting true stories I suggest you check out this: http://boards.babycentre.co.uk.
It has a section called: Parents in France/French parents

Could hardly believe what I was reading concerning the maitresse in the maternelle section of this school:

There are also many things said about his teacher, not just from English people, one of which was that something was stolen from class (by 3 year old) and she sat them all down and told them she was going to the police and they were thieves, she had most of them in tears even when their parents came to collect them, and many didn't want to go back!

So far we have had a positive experience with our local Maternelle but I would really be interested to read yours. Please leave a comment and let me know.

maternelle

Homework night - Cahia de Vie

Sunday evening is homework night at our house - well not really homework as such but my son, who is 3 and a half, sits down with me and his cahia de vie.

Théo is in the petite section at Maternelle and each Sunday we sit down with his cahia de vie and review his weeks work, look at the announcements and then fill in a couple of pages of things he has been doing of interest over that weekend with family and/or friends. If you have anything especially exciting to report then you bring it to the teachers attention on the Monday morning and your child then talks about it to the class.

What a system - fantastic. It bridges the gap between his school life and home life in an interesting and simple fashion. Your child also gets an opportunity at public speaking at a very early age! Furthermore, as Théo speaks English at home and French at school it has also helped to bridge both the language and culture gap. When he started last September we were encouraged to put in photos of family and friends. We wrote underneath both the English and French names that Théo uses.

The photos also cleared up another mystery. The maîtresse was under the impression that Théo had a brother called Oliver and had been asking him what section of school he was in. Théo had been telling her that I would not let Oliver come into school even though he had BEGGED me. She could hardly believe her eyes when she finally saw a photo of this much talked about Oliver. Yes there was the photo - Oliver chasing a ball! He is of course our much loved, loopy weimaraner. But so much more than that in Théo's eyes.
(for pics of Oliver please look at blog entry Oliver the Weimaraner)

maternelle

Watch out Sangliers about

Comme d’habitude, I popped into our local Café for a cafe-crème with another Mum after the school drop-off. She was looking a little shaken and told me that her car was at the mechanics because of a run-in, literally, with a sanglier.

My friend had been on her way to Nimes at 6am, driving at 80km/h when a sanglier came into contact with the left, front side of her car. Will she be eating daube de sanglier tonight, (wild boar cooked in a thick red wine sauce)? Apparently not, after making contact and wrecking the side of the car, the sanglier carried on running aside of it for some distance. I said to my friend that he was probably making sure he could get a good look at her and memorise the number plate!

There is an on-line magazine called http://www.lost-in-france.com/ which reccounts this popular urban myth. One evening some men were out driving through the forest when they hit a large animal that ran out in front of their car. Getting out to investigate they found that they had hit a male boar/sanglier. The animal wasn't dead but had been knocked unconscious so they decided to lift it into the boot of the car. Some miles further on they heard loud noises coming from the boot and turned round to see that the boar has recovered consciousness and was now, very angrily, making it's way out of the boot. They were forced to abandon the car while the boar completed it's exit, pretty much writing off the car in the process.

For further information about the sanglier please visit this page hosted by wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanglier

sanglier