The Inaugural Anti-Climax

We celebrated all night long back in November, but now this big day and I was babysitting and the cable was out. I managed to watch the inaugural speech in 2 minute shifts while the boys were distracted, but I don't know anything about the rest of what happened. I hear Bush was escorted to a helicopter by our new president and that some folks were excited to see that.
It seems a little unreal, probably because I'm isolated from all of the circumstance. I suppose also because I hardly believed I'd ever see the day when W would actually go away. Seemed like a nightmare that wouldn't end. He's been our president since I was really old enough to even notice politics.

And then there were two....

Amber left us this morning to move back to London. She is in fact stepping off her train in the UK as I type this. She arrived here 2 months ago and has since been quite a bit part of Myriam's and my life since then it seems like we've all been friends forever.
She is another one I met in my french class, a fellow jeune fille au pair in Brussels, but unlike my story she managed to find what was possibly the single worst family in this city. It never ceased to amuse/horrify me to compare our two lives. She worked 12-13 hours a day while I worked 3, she took care of 4 kids while I have 2, she was left alone frequently for entire weekends with some or all of the kids while her host parents went on holiday while Valerie is horrified if I'm left to deal with the boys for more than 3 and a half hours. The list goes on culminating in my 3 christmas dinners while Amber was sent to eat spaghetti with 11 (count 'em 11) kids and manage to get them all in bed while her host parents and extended family ate a 5 course meal without her. Almost so tragic as to be impossible.
So, while I'll miss her, I'm glad she got out sooner rather than later.



Here is the photo of Amber on the train going to Antwerp just before her birthday dinner. She's warming her shoes on the window vent. Poor thing, born in South African weather, was struggling with the cold. Myriam joked that this was her final descent into hobo. All three of us have made an art of looking about as homeless as possible; wearing several layers of clothing under our coats along with mismatched gloves and hats along with an astonishingly large sack each of all the necessities like tissues, cookies, maps, umbrellas, sometimes a change of clothes, you get the gist. It is surprising people never stopped us to to give alms.

Opples and Bononos

Tonight I couldn't help but eavesdrop. I handed the boys over to Valerie tonight as usual and she took them to the bath. But tonight was more amusing than usual. Sound travels up the stairwell pretty clearly in the house. It was a pretty quiet bath, they're usually splashing around and making the bath toys do nose dives off the spigot with a resounding ker-splosh but not tonight. Tonight I heard Matthieu leading all three of them, Thomas, Valerie and himself, in a rather self-amused rendition of "I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas" (for those of you who don't know this timeless classic, it follows the structure of the title/first line swapping out the vowels of the main characters- specifically apples and bananas- with a-e-i-o-u in their respective verses)
Anyway, this tickled me not because he was getting it all wrong and simply repeating his favorite line involving 'Os' but because I'd been singing this song for the majority of the bus ride/walk home from school both to amuse the kids and to keep my mind off of the bitter cold weather we've been having lately. This public display of silliness resulting in vague looks of interest from the boys and a mixture of appreciation and apprehension from our fellow bus-riders.
I suppose it's probably not such a big deal to most of you, but it's the first really amusing story worth telling about how I'm beginning to fit in around here as a part of the boys' family.