Fall Traditions

Posted on November 6, 2013 by A French American Life

This post is part of the Multicultural Kids Blogging Carnival, hosted this month by Stephanie at InCultureParent.

We are enjoying our first real fall in a long time. In San Diego, the seasonal shifts were so subtle I hardly noticed them. This year, I greet fall in Colorado with wide, appreciative eyes. I love the changes, the reminder that time is passing, that seasons are changing; I feel it in my core, the physical linking of nature with the rhythm of our lives.

Autumn brings a season full of uniquely American traditions; fun times filled with celebration, friends, and family. Back to school time comes with the smell of fresh cut grass on the football fields and Friday night games. I don’t watch much football anymore, but I love the idea of it. I love the energy around the games, the tradition, the cheering crowds. Seeing stadium lights, even from a distance, sends a tingle of excitement up my spine, just as it did when I was a teenager going to my high school games. I romanticize it all; the injuries are much less glamorous… I’ve seen too many of those in my days working the sidelines and helping out at Saturday morning injury clinics. I plan to do everything I can to make sure football remains a spectator sport only for us all, but I digress.

In October, we hit the pumpkin patches to find the perfect future Jack-o-Lantern, along with gourds for our mantel. We run through hay bale mazes with the kids, pretending to get lost so they can show us the way out. We go apple picking, and then I try out all sorts of new recipes trying to make sure the bags full of apples we found don’t go to waste. We have friends over for pumpkin carving parties where the kids, because they are young, grow quickly bored, and we adults carve self-proclaimed masterpieces over pizza and beer.

Trick or Treating – my kids are finally old enough for this! My daughter practiced for days before Halloween – knocking on all the doors in the house, calling out “Trick or Treat!” Then the day finally came, and we took them around our block, proud parents of our adorable costumed cherubs. We ended up with way too much candy for such little ones – a 3-year-old and 18-month-old; or at least this is how I justify raiding their bags and gorging on chocolate during their naps. I love Halloween.

Final touches on our Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes from last year

New tradition this year: raking up the leaves and jumping in them. I have never, in (indistinct mumble) years, had the opportunity to do this. So when my husband finished raking all the stray leaves into a tidy pile, I had to exercise some serious restraint to let my kids dive in first, before me. We jumped, rolled, buried ourselves, and tossed those leaves around, cracking each other up.

Turns out you still have to clean them up after all that fun. Not cool. Sometimes being the grown up isn’t all I thought it would be.

In San Diego, I would still be wearing tank tops and flip-flops. Here, though, I’ve put those away. I’ve never lived in a place where people actually pack clothes away for an entire season. Colorado weather is wonky enough that a flip flop worthy day is still possible. But I have enjoyed actually needing my scarves and sweaters, rather than wearing them just because “ ‘tis the season” as I did in San Diego.

Next up – Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I love the relaxed nature of the day; any day centered on food is a good day, as far as I’m concerned. We travel to Arizona each year to spend this holiday with my large extended family – it’s often the only day all year that we see many of them, as we live far enough apart that get togethers are few. When I was growing up, we’d all meet at Grandma and Grandpa’s house – over the river and through the woods. Later my aunt took over hostess duties, but the last couple years, we’ve had it at my mom and dad’s place. My husband and I try to take the kids out in the morning for a hike or walk where we point out the unique beauty of the Arizona desert and try to get enough exercise to justify the ridiculous amount of food we will most definitely be eating.

I’ve explained to my kids that the weather is growing colder, the days are getting shorter, and the leaves are changing colors and falling from the trees because it’s fall. My daughter is fascinated by all of this – she never saw any of this in California, so she loves to point out the leaves blowing around the neighborhood and tell me it’s fall. As with so much of parenting, her awareness, the way she completely inhabits a moment with her whole being, helps me to slow down and enjoy it all, too. And as the kids get older, each fall tradition becomes more meaningful. Going back to school isn’t just a date in the calendar, it’s an event my kids take part in. On Halloween, we’re now part of the crew of neighborhood kids. Thanksgiving, I do my best to convince them that stuffing is the absolute best part of the meal, and that piling as much whip cream on a slice of pumpkin pie as possible makes for a perfect dessert.

I love fall. Even better now that I have kids to experience it with. For them – it’s all new and exciting. For me, it’s exciting all over again, as I see it through their innocent and alert eyes that don’t miss anything. They aren’t worrying about bills or getting home in time to cook dinner, they’re picking up a fallen leaf and examining every vein and edge, then showing it to me with delighted grins. The delight is infectious, and a reminder, along with the season itself, to slow down and enjoy it all.

Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by A French American Life

I love Halloween. We’re ready for our first Colorado Halloween, complete with crisp fall weather, a ground strewn with fallen leaves, and jack-o-lanterns that got put out too early and became squirrel feed.

Here are some of our better efforts from a few years ago (we had a pumpkin carving party with some French friends):

And here’s where we got our pumpkins this year:

If you happen to be in Paris and are longing for a taste of Halloween, check out Patricia Parisienne’s post from today – great ideas abound!

Now get out there and scare up some treats!

An American Teaching French – One Child at a Time

Posted on October 24, 2013 by A French American Life

This post is written for this month’s Multilingual Blogging Carnival, hosted by Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes. Check out the link for more great posts!

I got lazy last year. Having our daughter in a French immersion preschool made it so easy. French surrounded her. Everything she learned was in French. French was cool, because everyone else was doing it.

Now, I have to step up my game. I’m trying to find ways to keep French active in our lives. But my fears are coming to fruition: my daughter is starting to resist French.

No one around us speaks it, here in Colorado. Her schoolmates all speak English, and now that’s all she wants to speak. We haven’t connected with the French community here, though we remain hopeful about finding it.

Bringing Up Baby Bilingual has been my reference bible for French activities in this area. I know there are a surprising number of opportunities here, we just have to look a little harder than we did in San Diego. Here’s what we’re doing so far:

We have attended story times. I feel like a desperate twenty-something dude in a club on a Saturday night, frequenting these story times, eavesdropping on conversations, trying to find another mom, hopefully speaking French to her kids, who might be willing to fork over her digits and set up a play date.

Meanwhile, since we don’t have any French-speaking friends here yet, and since my husband is putting in a lot of hours at work, it’s on me to make sure French is a part of our kids’ daily lives. Here’s the real kicker: I’m resisting it. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. Because I’m not truly me in French (see this post). My affection for my kids comes in the form of “honey” and “sweetheart”, not “mon petit chou” (my little cabbage. Ewww.). A French teacher once pointed out to me that “honey” is gross to her, because it’s sticky and messy. I suppose I can see her point. I do find myself, for whatever reason, resorting to French when I need to be stern with my kids. “Assieds-toi !” When my son stands in the bathtub and starts jumping around. “On y va ! Vite !” When we’re late. French sounds scarier to me, and they jump to attention when I speak in French where they ignore me in English. I can already see their conversations as adults: “And when Mom started in on us in French, that’s when we knew we were in trouble!” Come to think of it, perhaps this is not the association I want to build….

Our bilingual bookshelf

We have plenty of French books, and I struggle here too because I focus too much on making sure I’m pronouncing everything correctly rather than immersing us in the story with an animated reading, the way I do so easily in English. Still, I’m trying. The more familiar each text becomes, the more fun I am when I read it, and the more attention my kids give me when I pull one of these books out.

Music. We listen to French music all the time. My daughter asks me to play, “Dansons la Capucine” every time we get into the car. French music is her music, anything in English is “Mommy music.” Sometimes she’ll tolerate a Mumford and Sons song or two before saying, “Mommy, I want French music! Dansons la Capucine!”

I’ve ambitiously (Naively? Stupidly?) offered to do French activities and story times at my daughter’s preschool for any kids who are interested. I’m scaring myself with this one. The mere thought of trying to put together a French lesson for a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds is giving me performance anxiety. If you know me, you know I don’t do anything half-way. I’m all in. Type A perfectionism overachiever at its most intense. I don’t cut myself any slack. I’ll nitpick at myself for mispronouncing one of those ridiculous vowel sounds until I’ve convinced myself that I’m unworthy of even attempting French. Stuart Smalley, care for a session in front of the mirror with me?

I know they say a language can’t be taught through TV, however, my daughter adores La Maison de Mickey and asks to watch it daily. So, a few times a week, I turn on an episode (Thank you, Roku). She does, in fact, pick up a few new words each time. We talk about the show in French, then we all do the Mickey dance together.

The other day, she pulled out a stack of French flashcards and handed them to me. “Mommy, can you do these with me so I can learn French so I can talk to my cousins?” Again, flashcards get a bad rap, but I wasn’t about to deny her a learning opportunity. I was pleased to see that she remembered a ton of vocabulary words in French. I often ask her to tell me what different things are in French. My husband and I try to both speak French when we are all together, and when the kids say something in English, we translate it into French, then ask them to repeat it. Incidentally, my son’s first French word is, “Coucou !” Translation – a form of “hello” mainly used with families and children.

As for my own learning, I’m planning to crash a French class or two at the University of Colorado in Boulder next semester. When I’m excited about the language, I can pass that on to my kids. Taking classes always makes me happy – if someone would pay me to be a student for the rest of my life, I’d take that job in a heartbeat. I remain determined that my kids learn French, and that it is not a secret language they share with their Papa only.

I believe that plugging into the French-speaking community here is our best hope for ensuring that our daughter and son, and me too, speak French fluently. Like many things, this will take time. And I still dream of a summer in France, maybe in a few years, when the kids are older, where the kids and I all take French lessons. Actually, I’d be fine with a yearly French immersion. Complete with lots of bike rides, croissants, and crepes. That would work for me.

Trader Joe’s croissants for now… whenever TJ’s opens in Colorado!

As always, we remain determined, if a bit daunted, to raise our children bilingually and biculturally.

What is Assimilation, Anyway?

Posted on October 17, 2013 by A French American Life

I often meet people, my age or older, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. and intentionally avoided teaching their offspring their native language, believing that it would both inhibit their child’s ability to learn English and interfere with their assimilation into American culture. Every one of these now grown “children” expresses regret that they didn’t learn their family’s native tongue.

How times have changed. We now understand that, especially for young children, learning two or more languages is not only possible, but developmentally advantageous. Immigration laws have changed. Our world, too, is smaller. Once upon a time, people boarded a ship knowing they would never see their home country again. They were forced to cut all ties and make a home in the place they landed. Now, we are a Facebook or FaceTime exchange away; we can hop on a plane and be almost anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours, and we can easily find others like us wherever we are: just Google a meet-up group for whatever suits you.

We don’t have a standard definition for what “First” or “Second-generation American” means. Is the first generation the one that did the immigrating? Or the first generation born in the U.S.? As for the term “assimilation,” multiple studies aim to determine how immigrants are assimilating but struggle over how to define what assimilation actually means. Do we measure it by learning English (or the native language of whatever country is being examined)? By civic participation – becoming a citizen, becoming involved in some way? By cultural participation? Did your kids dress up for Halloween? Did you stuff yourself with turkey and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, then cheer on your football team while indulging in pumpkin pie smothered in whip cream from a can? Some studies look at economic achievement: jobs, home ownership. Others attempt to examine patriotism. Even more difficult to define: do immigrants feel American? And what does that mean, when even the idea of the “typical” American can vary so much, depending upon what region of the U.S. we are considering? What exactly is the essence of Americanism? Or being French?

Most bicultural or non-American families I know raising children today diligently work to make sure their children know their native cultures and native languages. They fear their children will grow up unable to communicate with family back home, or unfamiliar with what to our friends is so familiar. They embrace many of the traditions and culture of their chosen American home, yet they actively retain their own cultures as well. For us, in our French-American home, the blend is mostly easy. We both already celebrated Easter and Christmas. For my husband, Halloween and Thanksgiving are fun new holidays (though no self-respecting Frenchman would ever stuff himself silly. As for American football… he’s making valiant efforts at appreciating the sport). I had no issue with long meals full of visiting and drinking wine more often. We were both happy to have an extra holiday in July for fireworks and barbeques. Sometimes I think we should move to France just so we can enjoy May, where public holidays mean a month of, well, joie de vivre, and August, where the whole country goes South for vacation.

The challenge for most of us remains teaching our children the second, non-English language. In San Diego, multicultural families surrounded us. One time at the playground, I counted seven different languages being spoken. Seven. We were the norm there – multilingual, multicultural. Here, in Colorado, I rarely hear a foreign language. And for the first time, I feel self-conscious when I speak to my kids in French. People stop and stare. I assume it is because it is so, well, foreign here.

We have no doubt our kids will learn English. With our American family, school, me, and peers, they’ll have plenty of exposure. Unlike many of the families from generations past, we desperately want our kids to speak French and to know their French heritage. We hope they are proud of their unique cultural make up. We hope they can feel at home, that they will have a sense of belonging, in the U.S. and in France. It’s the changing face of our world – a multilingual, multicultural, small world. Where we embrace rather than disconnect from our heritage, where we are proud to speak another language, where diversity is a beautiful, colorful thing.

Photo Day: Ile de Porquerolles

Posted on October 14, 2013 by A French American Life

The Ile de Porquerolles is just off the coast of southern France, an easy boat ride from the mainland. We visited this lovely place a few summers ago when we were working/playing on the Cote d’Azur. We spent a day there, walking the dusty trails that led through olive tree groves, vineyards, to a lighthouse, a windmill, and spectacular views.

Arriving at the harbor, and look: there’s an ice cream boat! What a fantastic idea!

Gorgeous bougainvillea

Olive tree grove

Not a bad place to be a cat

View over the cliffs from near the lighthouse

Moulin

Plage de la Courtade

Walking back toward the Bay

The Bay, with the fort in the background

The French Version of Me

Posted on October 10, 2013 by A French American Life

Something strange happens whenever I go to France. I morph into a slightly different person.

I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not. I’m not even on my best behavior. No, it’s about the language. I can’t quite be myself in French.

In part, my French is not fluent, so I always feel I’m in a bit of a fog, not completely able to hear, understand, or express myself. But there’s more. My sarcasm and dry humor don’t often translate. I’ve tried, and more often than not I end up getting confused looks or worse, offending people. In French, I tend to be quiet and withdrawn, while in English I am extroverted, confident, sometimes even gregarious. I tend to be much more serious in French; again – my humor doesn’t translate. In English, I tease and joke with everyone and I constantly poke fun at myself. I’m not there yet with my French. Instead, I resort to a goofy, unsophisticated sense of humor that relies heavily on facial expressions and body language, whereas in English I’m known for being so deadpan people can’t always tell if I’m joking.

I phrase things differently. In English, I can be precise with my word choice, allowing myself to be diplomatic or irritated, straightforward or sarcastic, serious or funny. In French, I must rely on my limited vocabulary, gestures, and an exaggerated tone of voice, making me wonder if I come across as dense. It’s so easy to misinterpret what I hear or to say something I didn’t intend to say. Like my wedding vows or the time I announced “Je suis femme !” (“I am woman”) when what I intended to say was: “J’ai faim !” (“I’m hungry.”)

There’s also the inherent cultural aspects of a language. French speakers tend to be more animated, their voices sometimes almost sing-songy. I find myself adopting this mannerism as I speak French. I start doing the French Blow. French speakers tend to repeat short phrases. I say this is because they are always talking over one another, so they have to repeat the same things over and over in the hopes that someone will hear them eventually. In English, I would find this repetition annoying but it seems to be simply part of the language in French. I tend to adopt this mannerism as well.

Yet it cuts deeper than the way I express myself, it affects the way I think. Of course, there’s no direct, word for word translation from any one language to another. Getting to the level in a language where you actually think in that language is an exciting milestone to reach. Then, it has become a part of you. Language shapes our minds. So much of a culture is wrapped into its language, and vice versa. When living in a foreign language, our very core changes, sometimes subtley, sometimes more.

Photo Day: Aix en Provence and the Abbaye de Sénanque

Posted on October 7, 2013 by A French American Life

I’ve never been to Provence in the fall, but summers there are magical. Here are some more of my favorite photos:

Aix-en-Provence

Place du General de Gaulle, Aix-en-Provence

Fresh fruit of Provence

Abbaye de Sénanque, from the road above

Abbaye de Sénanque and lavender field

Me in a lavender field

I adore sunflowers!

Vineyard tucked into the hills of Provence

Another view of the Abbey, with lavender fields

Lavender

Je t’adore, belle Provence!

Snow on October 4 Whaaaaaat?

Posted on October 5, 2013 by A French American Life

I take it back, I take it back! DON’T bring on the rain! DON’T bring on the snow! Weather gods, can you hear me?

Actually, it wasn’t so bad. The kids had fun playing in their first snow. But October, really? Welcome to Colorado’s crazy weather.

What I Learn From My Daughter

Posted on September 30, 2013 by A French American Life

Something unexpected happened this summer. My daughter’s French took off. I had feared that being out of French school, away from the structure, the exposure, and the other kids who spoke French would cause her to lose ground. Instead, she’s now speaking conversationally. Sometimes. When I switch to French, she switches to French. And with her father, she’s about 50/50, French/English. She loves to babble French sounds; it’s almost like her French is a year or so behind her English. The great thing: she’s enjoying it. She likes speaking French.

This whole thing has made the prospect of not having access to a French school much less scary. We’ll have to devise some sort of plan to make sure reading and writing in French develop – I still lean toward summer school in France for all of us – but I’m finally relaxing about the whole thing more and starting to believe the other bilingual families who have reassured us to not worry, it will happen.

I learn a lot from my daughter, too. Like when her friends came over and one of the boys stole a toy from her and ran away with it. She ran after him shouting, “Ça c’est à moi !” thus I learned the French version of “mine!” If I had guessed, I would have said, “C’est la mienne !”

It’s so strange sometimes to hear my daughter speaking in a foreign tongue. Before meeting a Frenchman and deciding to have children with him, the thought that my children might speak a language that I didn’t speak never crossed my mind. It’s developing organically in her, whereas in me it’s taking great effort. It makes this part of her a little mystery to me.

Recently, we spent some time with one of my husband’s brothers and his family while they were visiting California. Before we saw them, we told our daughter that she would be seeing her cousins and that she’d need to speak in French because they don’t speak English. She had a lot of questions.

“Mommy what language will Papa speak?”

“What language will you speak this weekend?”

Over the long weekend, we had to coach her and translate for her with her cousins. As cousins do, though, they found a way. Cousins always seem to share a special bond, an instant connection. Even with the language difference, they had fun together. By the last day, our daughter began to spontaneously, without our interference, speak to them in French.

She likes to talk about what languages people speak. She’s exposed to so many languages; in her class alone there were native French, English, Spanish, Turkish, Hindi, and Chinese speakers. Lots of multicultural families. Every once in a while she’ll babble something and tell me that she’s speaking Spanish. She’s not, but still, the awareness of different languages at such a young age is a gift, I think. With exposure and continued effort, I believe we can get there. We can’t give up. We won’t.

Après la déluge, and be careful what you wish for!

Posted on September 26, 2013 by A French American Life

“And when the skies fill up with clouds, I want something to happen. Thunderstorm, snow…. Anything is better than gray clouds that just sit there, doing nothing but being gray clouds blocking the sun.”

That would be a direct quote from my previous entry.

Yikes.

We arrived in Colorado along with the downpour and worst flooding this area has seen in decades. The storage facility where everything we owned was stored flooded; lucky for us the angels that are our moving company loaded our things into a van and got them out of there before the waters hit the facility. I am forever grateful. Overall, the worst of it for us was that we had packed for hot days filled with hiking the national parks of southern Utah, and instead found ourselves shivering in our car with the heater cranked up. We got lucky, much luckier than many here.

A wet but beautiful Zion

We’ve settled in, are back online, and now trying to reestablish: find preschools, activities, make friends, and for my husband, start work. I discovered this blog a year or two ago, and I’m counting on Bringing Up Baby Bilingual to help us find the French community in Colorado. (Looking forward to meeting you in person, Sarah!)

Did I mention it is ridiculously beautiful here? Stunning. Green, open, the Flatiron Mountain range soaring upward in the west… I feel a peace that I haven’t felt for years. I belong in a place like this.

Doo, doo, doo lookin’ out my backdoor!

People are incredibly friendly and relaxed here. Wow, are-you-for-real friendly. Smiles are genuine and easy, people don’t hesitate to pause for a chat. The neighborhood we landed in has neighbors that actually do stuff, together. Block parties, camping trips, an Oktoberfest this weekend…. They have a Google calendar to plan their events. They banded together to help out flood victims. Many of them have stopped by to welcome us and make sure we got on the mailing list so we’d be included. This is old school Americana and I can’t believe our luck! Plus, Louisville, our new home, has the cutest little downtown with several yummy restaurants we’ve been systematically trying out.

Café de Paris – a touch of France in Louisville, perhaps?

We made the mandatory visits to Ikea and Bed Bath and Beyond. We cruised down the freeway through the Denver suburbs to Ikea with our jaws dropped. Everyone here drives the speed limit. Not over. Right at it. In San Diego, we push it by a minimum of 15 miles an hour everywhere. We grumbled that people were moving so slow, then had to laugh at ourselves. Isn’t this part of why we came here? To be in less of a hurry? Reduce our pace from frantic to chill? In Target, I wandered through empty aisles where I never once had to maneuver around a traffic jam of carts nor squeeze by two or three people to grab what I needed from a shelf. When I got to the check out line, where I went straight to the conveyer belt and did not have to wait behind a minimum of five people, a party of two got in line behind me and the cashier sighed, “Ohmigod it’s crazy in here today.” I looked around. “Crazy? Really? This is crazy?” She sighed again. “Yes, I think we just don’t have enough cashiers or something.” Same thing at the post office today; I entered and did a happy dance because there were only two people in front of me. They guy behind me said under his breath, “Oh, no, a line.”

We visited our local park where a small group of 8 or 9 year olds were playing, scooters strewn over the patio and no parent in sight. My initial reaction was concern – where are their parents? Who lets their kids go to a park without supervision? What if they get hurt? Kidnapped? I could never…. And disappointment: how will I ever meet other moms if they aren’t taking their kiddos to the park? Then I caught myself and realized: this is how it is supposed to be. This is how my childhood was, the childhood I now idealize. Where I hopped on my bike and cruised the neighborhood, and the rule was I had to be home at dusk, or when my mom called out my name for supper. This is why we wanted to move here.

Where we hung out our last night in San Diego

Transitions are hard. San Diego in our rear view mirror was a strange sensation, though we’ve been mentally preparing for it for almost two years now. It’s finally sinking in; this is our new home, we aren’t going back. I crave El Zarape, I wake up thinking I’ll take the kids to Kate Sessions Park to see our friends, or hike Torrey Pines. I miss my peeps. Yet, here, I’ve reunited with some dear long-term friends, and best of all – I’m back in touch with my soul. The soul that belongs in mountains with a book, a cup of hot cocoa, a fire in the fireplace, and hiking shoes at the ready.

Dare I say, bring on the snow?