I Hate France Day

We were about 2 weeks into school when I picked Theo up and he was acting quiet and moody. I ask if he had a bad day? No. Are you sad? No. Are you mad? No. Did something happen? No. Do you not want to tell me because you think I will be mad? No. Do you think it will make me worried? No. Do you think it will make me stressed out? Yes.

Who, me?!

The moodiness continued. We picked up Sam and were walking to the park on the way to the Metro when Theo stopped, turned around and said 'America is that way'. Ah ha....

I told Theo that I had been missing home a lot that week too. I said I missed seeing friendly and familiar faces, I missed being able to get my groceries in one place (see post for Dinner, Plan D) and I missed the comfort of being in our own home. Sam chimed in that he missed our old house because one of the neighbors had passed out fake hands filled with candy for Halloween, which apparently makes our old house much better than the new one we moved into right before leaving ;)

I then proposed to Theo that maybe we should have an "I Hate France Day", which we get to declare when we are feeling really down and missing home. On that day we get to choose something special to do. In my case it would be going out for dinner! Knowing Theo I suggested we go home and make popcorn and watch an hour of Star Wars. I would have suggested getting a special treat at the patisserie but we are pretty much doing that on a daily basis as it is!

Theo was intrigue by this idea and by the time we reached home he was feeling better about things. I told him it stressed me out more not to know what was going on with him so he told me that school was hard and tiring. He said he doesn't understand any of the French and so doesn't know what's going on most of the time (3/4 of his school day is in French, after all). On top of that he thinks that his teacher, Madame Noël, expects him to know what is going on now that he's been in school a while. Mind you, at the time this occurred he'd been at school just under 2 weeks - ha! I assured him that it would take a few months for him to know what was going on. As luck would have it I had a meeting with his teacher the very next day so I could ask her and indeed prove to him that he had some time.

To date, we have only had one I Hate France Day, so things are not so bad! Theo has finally learned to say to his teacher "I don't understand" in French, which has helped his situation quite a bit.

The yummy pastries definitely make the whole experience a little less painful too.  :)