Saturday, October 27, 2007

Misbehaving Manolee, Part I

After breakfast this morning, Manolee "takes me" to the bathroom. While I am holding onto her on the toilet, I let out a big yawn. She looks up and speaks:

Manolee: Maman, why you so tired?
Rae: Because you came into my bed last night
M: Yeah?
R: And when you come into my bed, I sleep v badly. Why did you come into my bed?
M: Because I woke up and I thought I was going to cry and cry and cry. (Giving me at this point a challenging, order-defying look). Why, is that a PROBLEM? 

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The Thing About Toilet Seats

So we went to get a new toilet seat today for our new flat. I insisted on changing it, though PeeWee was reluctant (hello? Why does this even require a thought? As though this was an unnecessary splurge - hello?)

So I drag him to a DIY place and I told him we will be quick since we are just picking a toilet seat and I just want something basic.

Hello toilet seat aisles!! Holy crap! There were two aisles! A plethora of toilet seats, a veritable extravaganza. Not just diversity in styles and colors, but in sizes! HELLO!? Why do toilets vary in size? Why? Who knew? What, homebuilders actually choose what size toilet seats they want? Based on what? It reminded me of what my friend C. once said, about buying a place in Jersey and facing the decision of what type of grout to choose for the bathroom. Why oh why make life so complicated? The thought of going back to the flat without a new toilet seat, and the thought of actually having to measure the seat from the last owner just about made me ill.

PeeWee was not v helpful (after all, he did not know about the different sizes either), he just kept on making fun of transparent toilet seats (his comments frankly I did not understand - I think he thinks the purpose of having toilet seat covers is to hide what is underneath in the bowl - hello? The bowl should ideally be empty of any material so ideally there should be nothing to hide, yes? So it is of no consequence really whether the seat cover is transparent or opaque - HELLO!? But actually now that I am writing this in a relative calm state of mind, I think I prefer transparent seat covers - with French toilets, one never really knows whether you have accomplished the flush successfully with no residue the first try.

Anyway I was in no mood to enlighten him that the cover is to prevent germs from sprouting out when you flush, and I think he saw that I was devastated about not knowing which toilet size to get, so he tried to be helpful and said that he thinks our toilet is on the small side and that we should just pick one anyway. So I pepped up a bit, and immediately chose a bright orange one for 29.99 euros. Now it was his turn to go ballistic. He looked at me as though I had three heads, huffed and said, Fine, whatever you want, you choose, right? I was like, does that mean you don't like it? He continued to huff and split out rather vehemently, "No, I don't like it, I don't want it in orange" - I was left stunned... why oh why?

Fine - so in order to maintain peace in the household, I compromised and picked a silverish/grey one - the pipes in the bathroom are grey, so would be ok. He seemed appeased with that choice and stopped puffing.

We are still not sleeping at the new flat yet, so we came back to my mother-in-law's house, and the suspense is rather intense whether the seat is the right size or not... stay tuned... but if it does not fit, I am gonna go return it and get a transparent one! PeeWee will really have a conniption then and I am gonna have to give him a formal lesson on the purpose of the different parts of the toilet seat cover! 

Monday, October 1, 2007

Life in Rennes...

...has been pretty good for me since school started in late August. After two months of taking care of the girls largely on my own (what a shocker - it's such hard work!), all-day schooling was certainly a welcome relief! Manolee is in Pre- Pre- Pre-K-equivalent (Petite Section Accueil, they call it here), and Hanaya is in the second grade (they call that CE1 here - so technical, no?). Manolee had a tough time adjusting for the first two weeks, but is doing much better now, especially since she's found a couple of admirers in her class (stories of kisses from boys have already started... ah.. these French boys!)

What I can tell you is that life abroad very often means looking forward to the next visit stateside - for us, that will be at the end of October 2007 - we will be seeing many of you soon (in between the all-important and frequent trips to Target!)! 

Write us! You know how to reach me if you are reading this!