It's just lunch, lady.

The week after Costco is a tough one to write about. And difficult to explain, unless I first describe the culture of school lunches in France. I wrote a little about this before, but I want to share a bit more detail.

You probably know already that school lunches in the U.S. are notoriously bad. Brown, frozen food reheated and served with ketchup, canned vegetables (if any!), and sugary milk. By comparison, the food in French schools is wonderful! There are chefs in each school district, the food is balanced and prepared fresh and served in courses. This takes place at the school, but "la cantine" is staffed by city employees whose contracts are separate from teachers or administrators. Here's a sample menu:

A little translation: Entrees are appetizers, Plats are main dishes, Garnitures are veg/garnish, Laitage is a milk product, and Dessert is self-explanatory. So here's the week of October 2-6 at Massillon:

Monday: Beets with vinaigrette, roasted chicken with zucchini, Camembert cheese and pears.

Tuesday: Tomato salad, pork stuffed with herbs, ratatouille (roasted summer veg), St. Paulin cheese, and praline dessert pudding.

Wednesday: No cantine because students have no school, or just a couple of hours in the morning.

Thursday: Boiled egg with mayonnaise, beef ravioli, semolina (not sure what kind of garnish that is!), local bleu cheese, and strawberry mousse.

Friday: Pearl salad (which I assume means salad with Israeli couscous or something), breaded fish fillets, pureed vegetables, cantal cheese and local yogurt with fruit. 

Sounds pretty appealing, right? There's always water, milk, and juice to drink, plus fresh French bread. This was one of the parts of French culture that I was most excited about; the kids having such a complete and balanced meal and encountering new foods at school. Naturally, it wasn't at all what I expected. 

For the first month of school I decided to keep both kids out of cantine altogether. Well, I had planned to introduce Lincoln to it the third week, but that was when the school asked us to move him up to second grade, so I figured skipping a year was enough excitement for one week. So finally in week five he stayed for lunch on a Tuesday. Well, that was the day I got a call at 2:00 p.m. saying that he'd been pushed down by another child on the "playground," which is a nice way of saying "the concrete courtyard lovingly nicknamed "Shawshank." Remember? 

Still, the following Thursday he decided to go again, with assurances from the school that the kid who'd pushed him had been given a talking-to. That night, he informed me that he'd forgotten to throw away a piece of cheese from his plate before carrying the plate up to the dishes counter. The lunch lady, rather than asking him to throw it away, grabbed him by the wrist, dragged him across the room to the trash cans, and made him throw it away. By Friday he seemed fine, and we chalked it up to another annoying difference between French and American cultures. 

Well, all that weekend Lincoln complained of chest pain. He couldn't sleep. He was o.k. when distracted, but as soon as the game of Uno ended, or the T.V. went off, or the karate class was over, his hand went to his chest again and he winced and gasped. 

My six year old was having anxiety attacks. 

Six. 

Because a woman employed to care for children can't keep her hands to herself, or use her words. 

That week he missed school for several days, saw his pediatrician, and went to the emergency room for an EKG to rule out a heart problem (which, thankfully was ruled out). Each of the three pediatricians we saw said the same thing: Cantine is a problem all over France, especially for foreign children. DO NOT make him go back. 

Fortunately, the reassurance that he didn't have to return to cantine and the knowledge that vacation was coming were enough to alleviate the worst of his symptoms, and he was able to finish the last day or two of the week. We are reevaluating the kids' schooling and thinking of moving them to a public school nearer to our apartment, so that they can avoid cantine and I can avoid spending four hours per day walking and busing to school. 

SO. That brings us to Saturday, October 14, when we were preparing to pack up the car and drive to Paris to meet my parents, hooray! And pick up our dog as well. During the week of Lincoln's anxiety attacks, I also learned that everything the airline had told me about a dog flying unaccompanied was wrong, and at several points it looked like he wouldn't make it at all. But thanks to the incredible generosity of my friends Kim and Angel, who'd fostered him all summer, the paperwork was signed off and he was good to go. Josh had meetings in Paris from Wednesday to Friday the 13th, so I got us mostly packed up and ready. 

Well, something in the hotel in Paris disagreed with Josh, and my never-allergic husband broke out in hives. We spent Saturday traveling to Urgent Care, realizing that they require an appointment, traveling home and then back there again, only to receive steroids and antihistamines that were completely unequal to the task. Saturday night was the expats' Halloween party, so Josh stayed home while I took a Ghostbuster (Sylvia) and a karate master (Lincoln) to an apartment downtown for pumpkin carving and a potluck feast. 

I brought deviled eggs, but not the cute and spooky ones!

It was such a great evening. I don't know how our hosts managed to pull it off - that many pumpkins, that may families, and yet it was almost totally relaxed and fun! 

The first half of October was a whirlwind for our family - but then, every week here has been a whirlwind in some fashion. After the Halloween party we came home for quick showers before bed, ready to drive all day Sunday and finally hug our Mom and Dad/Nana and Pappy again! And that's the real reason I barely blogged in October: I was having too much fun with my parents to write about it.

Debacle d'Automne

What a weekend! Last time I wrote it was almost lunchtime on Friday, and my dishes for the school's annual autumn buffet were simmering away in the crock pot. Friday Fours - five hours with three expat four year old girls, traded off among we their three stay at home parents - was a great success, with only one injury (a fat lip) and about a thousand chestnuts collected and distributed into the backpacks. Many of those were collected on our way to one of our favorite parks, Montjoly. It has two playgrounds and a little hill with exercise equipment that the kids love.

We were on the bigger of the playgrounds when an older man arrived with his grandson. Chloe, one of the girls, pointed to the boy and said that he was in her class at Massillon! That's unusual in our little community of Chamaliéres, so I said Bonjour to the grandpa and started up a little conversation. Turns out that this grandson is the fourth generation of his family to attend our little school, and the grandpa lives right around the corner from the park.

I'll pause here to note that I am, in case you didn't know this, a history enthusiast and a huge fan of the musical Hamilton. After memorizing the cast recording thanks to a good friend who lent it to me in February 2016, I started reading several books of Revolutionary War history, and my personal favorite was "Lafayette in the Somewhat United States," by Sarah Vowell. The Marquis de Lafayette was born not far from Clermont-Ferrand, and at 19 he defied his King to bring supplies and chutzpah to the colonial uprising in North America. Without his courage and diplomacy, it's likely the British would have prevailed and the United States would never have existed at all. And he's an incredibly charming and compelling figure - as is his fictionalized personage in the musical, a role originated by Daveed Diggs. 

SO. The playground. The old man told me, in very slow and patient French, that he'd been to a funeral earlier that week, and that the wife of the deceased is a direct descendant of Lafayette himself! You should've seen me, twisting my brain into a knot as I tried to explain a rap-based history musical and "Somewhat United States" in a language I barely speak. But we had a nice moment. 

After a bunch more chestnut collecting and a quick stop home for potty and snacks, the four of us rode the bus back to school at 4:30 to collect the older kids and reunite the little ones with their parents. A couple of young men stood up when we got on the bus so that the three girls could sit across two seats. The men laughed and flirted with the girls in English, and then asked me "So they are your twins?" I laughed - no, no, these are not my three triplet preschoolers. I'm pretty sure I'd have grey hair if I had three all the time! The two non-Sylvie girls were happy to see their parents and siblings, and Sylvia asked if they can all come over for lunch every day. That's a no, but I'm looking forward to the next play date!

The kids and I rushed home to clean ourselves up and collect Josh, then headed back to school for the Fall Buffet. What an event! There were dozens of primary school families, dishes of food from all over the world of which the Scotch Eggs and Chinese rice and red bean balls were my favorites. At least a hundred kids running wild all over the enormous courtyard in near-darkness, while parents sit and stand and mingle about, drinking cassis- or peach-enriched white wine and switching around among a bunch of languages. We early-eating Americans jumped into the kids' buffet early, feeding our little ones at 7:00 LIKE ANIMALS. (Somehow the French children manage to eat at 7:30 or 8:00 and still get enough sleep at night). I reconnected with some families I hadn't seen much of since the pre-rentrée open house, and had a chance to talk with some closer friends while the kids occupied themselves.

Now for the debacle: My husband does not enjoy crowds, and after Lincoln's playground accident earlier in the week, he was really nervous about all the running around on concrete. So by 8:00 he was more than ready to leave, while the kids and I were having fun. I relented by about 8:30 and we walked toward the bus stop. The electronic sign said our B bus would be there in 8 minutes, but flashed "Pert" occasionally. When a C bus came - one that stops very near our house, but not as near as the B line - we let it go by since the B would be along so soon.

Then we realized that "Pert" stands for "Perturbation," or disturbance, and the B bus wasn't coming at all.

So it was 9:00, an hour past bedtime, and we were stuck at a bus stop with two exhausted kids, one crabby husband, and a certain blogger who had had about enough of the lot of them. I managed to call us a taxi and we took a ten minute ride with no car seats for the kids, punctuated by whines and gripes from the kid who didn't get a window, the one whose seatbelt hurts, etc etc etc. When we finally got home I fairly held the kids down to brush their teeth, then tossed them in bed and huffed and puffed myself into a restless sleep.

Luckily for everyone, Saturday was all about delicious food! I can't wait to tell you about it.

Tuesday/Thursday

Another busy week has come and nearly gone. It's Friday morning at 10:50 and I have ten minutes before I need to leave for the bus to pick up four kids this time - two other expat parents of four-year-olds and I have begun switching off Friday afternoon play dates, so that we each get a break, and today is my turn with the little turkeys. Sylvia is beside herself with excitement and I am delighted that a) Josh can take Lincoln back to school after lunch, therefore saving me two extra bus trips with four kids, and b) the weather is beautiful so we can spend some of our time at the park. 

This morning I've taken the kids to school, visited two grocery stores to find ingredients for the Buffet d'Automne at the school tonight - it's an annual affair wherein each family brings three national dishes to share: one for adults, one for kids, and a dessert. I'm making pulled BBQ chicken for the adults, cheese quesadillas for the kids (I've been to Mexico a couple times, and cheddar inside a flour wrap is decidedly American), and brownies. Then I came home and got the chicken cooking, prepped some simple lunch stuff for the kiddos, ran up to the Chamalieres butcher shop to pick up a pork shoulder roast I ordered yesterday, and had a fast cup of English Breakfast tea that Josh brought back from London this week. 

Whew! 10:55 now, just a few minutes left!

Here are a couple snapshots of our week so far. First up, check out the bathrooms at the "maternelle" section of the school, which houses kids age 3 (sometimes older 2s) to 6 (end of Kindergarten, known here as Grande Section). Sylvia finds it hilarious, thankfully - a shyer child might be a bit uncomfortable! There's no segregation by gender, and parents and teachers are often in there alongside the kids - helping them, not using the toilets ourselves, haha!

 You may notice that in all of the pictures at school, or on our way there, Sylvie's hair is pulled back. Lice are a big problem at Massillon every year. Known here as "Les Poux" (lay poo), they start up in September and remain until school lets out in June. So every morning we attempt pigtails or a ponytail, then spray both kids' hair with a preventative essential oil blend from the local parapharmacie. So far so good.

Not so good, however, is my attempt at French braids! To be fair, this was my first time trying and I had about two minutes before we needed to leave for the bus. They didn't last the afternoon - Sylvia has started attending school in the afternoon on Thursdays only, during which she has an hour of English class - but she was so patient and loved having them in for a bit! We have some more practicing to do. 

Unfortunately we had a bit of a bad day on Tuesday, the day I took the bathroom picture. It was Lincoln's first day staying for cantine, at my insistence. A lot of the expat kids stay Tuesday or Tues/Thursday for lunch, and he's ready for more independence at school. Plus, the menu is incredible - tuna and tomato tart to begin, then a fish fillet, fries, and green beans for lunch with yogurt and cake afterward. There's always milk, juice, water, and French bread available as well. He was nervous, but excited to eat with his friends. I got a text around lunchtime from a friend - Lincoln had fallen on the concrete courtyard before eating, but she was there collecting her younger child and patched him up with a bandaid. Sylvia and I came home and had a leisurely lunch, basking in the four hours between bus rides. 

But then I got a call from the school. Entirely in French, Lincoln's teacher told me that he'd fallen and been hurt, hit his head. My French comprehension is still fairly abysmal, so I could not tell whether she was telling me he was badly injured or just had a bonk! I was upset, naturally, and managed to ask if it was serious or not - non non, she assured me, ce n'est pas grave. Finally she gave up trying to communicate with me and promised to have another teacher call me back in English. 

Mrs. Seymour called and suggested I pick him up - he wasn't badly hurt, but a bit dazed from the concrete/face collision. And this is how he looked when I arrived. 

 My poor buddy, on his first full day! He'd been playing when another kid grabbed the back of his clothes and started swinging him around in circles, not stopping when Lincoln said "Stop!" and "Arrêt" repeatedly. When he did let go, Lincoln went down face first, bruising both knees in the process. He had a well-deserved afternoon of movies and cuddles, and Josh and I set a meeting to talk with the primary school director - they're looking into it, and promised to keep a closer eye on the physical play at - as some of the other expats call it - the Shawshank playground.

Thursday, needless to say, everyone came home for lunch! I grabbed some sandwiches and tarts from Maison Vacher (our bakery) and a little barquette of carrot salad at the butcher shop. It was a beautiful day, Sylvia's first afternoon with no tears at school, and Lincoln is already excited for cantine next Tuesday. Allons-y!

School

I never thought I'd be sending my kids to a Catholic school! But once we learned that expatriating with Michelin was likely, we heard about Massillon, the private Catholic school in Clermont-Ferrand that most expats attend. It contains EBI, Ecole Bilinguale Internationale, which teaches English separately to native speakers and as a foreign language. The school also offers French as a foreign language for first-year arrivals. Most speak English as a first language, but there are also Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, and other languages represented. Lots of local kids attend the school for the Catholic education or for the English. And the catechism classes are optional - our kids will take a global religions class instead, once they're a little older.

SO. School starts later here, early September, and the structure is really different. School is in session for six weeks, then out for vacation. A typical week looks like this for the Maternelle (ages 3-5) and Primaire (ages 6-10) students:

Monday and Tuesday: Classes 8:30-11:30, two hours for lunch, classes 1:30-4:30.
Wednesday: ages 3-6 (end of first grade) are off. Ages 7-10 have class 9:00-11:00 a.m. only. Most kids do a sport.
Thursday and Friday: same as Monday and Tuesday.

French kids don't learn reading in school until first grade, age 6-7, called CP here. But Lincoln loves to read and was moving fast in his Montessori school in the U.S., so his reading was way above the first grade level in his English class here. So after two weeks of school, the directors (one French, one English) of the primary school asked us to agree to a trial advancement, placing him in Grade Two for English, and CE1 for French. We're on day 4 of that trial now, and it's going well. In fact, his FLE (French as a foreign language, or Français Langue Étrangère) teacher casually mentioned to me in a meeting this morning that "Of course he can already read in French, so that is helping quite a lot."

He can read in French?! The hell?

But he can, so after putting both kids through moving away from home and friends and grandparents, learning a new language, starting a new school with lots of kids with whom they can't communicate at all, and adapting to a COMPLETELY different educational environment - one in which the teachers are rumored to yell at the kids and call them stupid, although we haven't had any personal experience with that - we've now also asked Lincoln to start that adjustment process all over again with older kids, no Americans in his French class whatsoever, more school on Wednesdays, and being the youngest kid in the class. This was not an easy decision. But he's so big for his age, and much more studious and calm than many of the elementary school children we know, so his age doesn't stand out like it would for a smaller or more energetic six-year-old. And I really think a full year of studying spelling words he already knows and reading books he could read last year would have been devastating to his overall love of school. Still, we have over a week left in the trial/observation period, so we'll see how it goes.

Over to Sylvia! She's in the equivalent of a K4 class, called Moyenne here. It's much gentler for the "maternelle" kids - no FLE class, English only one hour per week, and for the first few months she's only attending school in the mornings. It's exhausting learning a new language under any circumstances, and since she can't read she's learning it all by listening and absorbing. I can say from personal experience that listening and speaking in a language you don't really know yet is incredibly taxing, so I'm glad she has the afternoons off. Except for Thursdays, because she needs to be there for English class. She had a really tough transition the first couple weeks and cried every morning at drop off. But this week she's come into her own, putting her "cartable" (backpack) on the shelf herself, dropping her snack bag and notebook into the right bin, and walking into class without fear. I give it two more weeks before she's speaking French with some regularity, at least to her teacher. Of course by then it'll be vacation time, after which we start all over again. For now it's really sweet hearing her occasionally drop a French word into conversation with her brother or me:

"What does "qu'est-ce que c'est" mean? My teacher says it every day!"

All of which brings me to my schedule. We live in a beautiful apartment that is within walking distance of the center of Clermont, but far enough out that it's quiet and calm, and most of the noise of the city and the university students is too far to bother us at night. The place is gorgeous and roomy and a stone's throw from a quaint and practical little town square with a small supermarket, two bakeries, a butcher, three or four cheese shops, fishmongers...it's perfect. There are two city bus stops within five minutes' walk of home. But unfortunately we're a half hour walk from the school, which is too far for the kids, so we must take the bus. It winds up being about 30 minutes anyway once we've waited for the bus, ridden four stops, and then walked a few more blocks to the school entrance. I love how much we walk here, and I can feel the benefits in my own health. But because the kids aren't ready to eat at the "cantine" at school yet, I spend FOUR HOURS per day commuting. Half an hour each way to and from the school at 8:30, 11:30, 1:30, and 4:30, four days per week. Of course some days I take the kids out to lunch, or spend one of those 'off' periods in between shopping or something near the school, but it's an inordinate amount of time nonetheless.

I'm tired. The plan was for Lincoln to start eating at the cantine one or two day a week starting about now, but he doesn't want to yet and I don't want to pile one more stressor onto him when he's just started CE1. Lunch at school for the older kids means at least an hour of running around wild with all the other primary kids, in a concrete courtyard - that's "recess" here - and then eating whatever's on the menu when your class is called. Brown bag lunches are strictly forbidden, so some days it'll be a burger and green beans and yogurt, and other days it's squid provençal with bleu cheese after! I think Lincoln would actually love the food, but the extra 'recess' time is intimidating for now. Sylvia's not allowed to eat at cantine until she can speak French. So. I'm tired, and of course Josh hasn't been able to do any of the school runs yet because of his leg. Just this morning he was able to bring them for the first time, so there's an end in sight! Oh, and yes - I could drive. But there is no designated parking for the school, the streets are half the width of those in the U.S., and traffic is heavy in the mornings. It wouldn't wind up saving much time in the long run, and the stress of dealing with parking isn't worth it.

There you have it: French school so far! The kids get a little anxious when I drop them off, but in the afternoons and evenings they're always happy to have been at school. I'm sure I've missed lots of the funny differences, so ask away if there's something you've wondered about! I'll answer questions in either language - may be Lincoln can read the French ones to me.