Wednesdays are, in fact, a French cultural experience when you are with French children. This is because, until 6th grade, when they start collège, they have Wednesdays off. Collège is essentially middle school, though with there are much bigger differences between 5th and 6th here than in the US. This means that on Wednesdays there are lots of different activities the kids participate in, rather than having stuff after school the other days of the week. What this means in terms of 'what Susanna does with her life for the day' is that I spend a lot of time driving.
Not that I mind that, now that I'm a semi-competant driver, though you can see why it was so important to learn how to drive, and quickly, because they started Wednesday activities (at least some of them) the week after they started school. Wait, I think that sentence started out going somewhere different than where it ended up. Crap.
But moving right along, the point is that on Wednesday this is what my life looked like (note totally French time notation):
- 11.00 - Lauriane to pottery
- 12.30 - Lauriane from pottery
- 12.30-1.30 - lunch
- 14.00 - Alix to pottery
- 14.45 - Lauriane to rock climbing
- 15.00 - Aymeric to multi-sport
- 15.30 - Alix from pottery
- 16.00 - Aymeric from multi-sport
- 16.30 - Lauriane from rock-climbing
- 18.00 - Lauriane to catechism
- 19.00 - Lauriane from catechism
It looks kind of crazy, but it was actually fun, mostly. The kids enjoy the activities, and they something fun to do outside of the house. And, to be perfectly honest, it means I don't have to come up with a full afternoon of activities that all three of them will enjoy.
It's a different approach to extra-curricular stuff, though, because in the US you get out of school earlier (I pick them up at 4:30 - 16.30, as it were) and so you do all your activities after school (my youngest sister's cheerleading practices come to mind). I'm honestly not sure which I think works better - because if both parents work and you don't have an au pair, you have to get someone to watch the kids one day a week or you have to have daycare. But the same can be true in the US, where the kids can get out of school before parents are out of work. Hard (if not impossible) to make a judgement call on 'better' or 'worse' between the two approaches.
Woah y'all, I introspected there. Ok, not really, but I did reflect on cultural differences! Win for my blog!
And now I shall leave you with an image from our arts and crafts session a few Wednesdays ago. Behold, here is what I have accomplished as an au pair:
Why yes, it IS a spiral bound notebook that I turned into a sheep, thank you for noticing (when you lift the head you get to the notebook, which is cleverly sandwiched between head and body). I know, I know, too awesome.
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