Moi-meme

I've never been "memed" and this week I got lucky. The very cool ,Dalïado transient French citizen extraordinaire, interviewed me with five burning questions. Read on.

1. You mention that your in-laws don't seem to notice you when they visit you, Baby S and Seb. Why do you think that is?

Oh my, that's where sarcasm will get me--"memed" into being grilled about my mother- in-law! I was being sarcastic and silly in that post. They don´t notice Seb either anymore. It´s all about baby S haha. Well, okay but being in all humor there is a ring of truth I'll fess up. Okay, let's try stepping back into the past. For a year or two when I first came to France Seb's family simply could not communicate with me. That was really hard for all of us. So without realizing it they just kind of talked over my head. No one can truly understand the difficulty and frustration of being plopped right into a foreign country with zero language skills. It's like having masking tape over your mouth. Besides the fact that people will often lose patience while you're struggling to find the right word. My mother-in-law used to cut off the end of my painstakingly slow French sentences sighing, then turn to my husband and say "I have no idea what she's saying."

Now it's better because I've learned French, although my father-in-law stilllll... taaaaalks... liiiike... thiiis... to me. It´s actually kind of funny.

And yet as I said before, baby S has lousy French and they never cut him off. How fair is that?

2. How often are you able to visit with your family?

I try to visit every year. These are my chicken soup visits. They're very important for morale. I make a lousy expat.

3. Are there any advantages to living "near" your in-laws?

Actually we don´t live neear them. They live about 8 hours away completely in the North of France. We only see them for holidays and vacations. We only see them periodically and then during those periods it´s like for two weeks straight they kind of move in with us. Whats hard about being an American with French in-laws is that the French live very much by a food clock and we Americans positively don't so we adapt to a new schedule schedule for days on end. I´m terrible at preparing lunch at 12:00 sharp. I'm usually still washing up dishes from breakfast at 11am. I just can't live by a clock and I'm a very bad hostess after the first 24 hours. I think I drive them nuts when they come and visit!

4. Do you think that you and Seb would be considered "hippie" parents if you were raising Baby S in the USA?

Oh probably. I don't think I've ever done much of anything the typical way. I've always been sort of a hippie fish. Seb isn't really a hippie parent though. He's very straightlaced. He's just a hippie parent by proxy, poor thing.

5. Do you have any concerns about raising your baby bilingually? Do you have any specific language learning methods in mind?

No not really. I think he'll have a much easier time than his parents do with the languages. He'll probably just pick both languages right up. They're very sponge-like these little critters.

We have no methods really. We're an English speaking household overall. It's just been our habit to always communicate in English. Seb speaks to baby S in French. I always speak to him in English. When we're around others or outside the house we tend to speak French.

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Okay it's your turn everyone. If you have the inclination and a blog I'd love to "meme" you. The first 5 people who would like to be interviewed by me must leave a comment with a resounding "yes darling please do."
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