A new tiny person.

A brand new person arrived in the world on 5th May. I mean she was in the world before that, but she was packaged better, in the body of my sister Jo. I was hoping Jo would be crowning just as the king was being crowned (that would be fun) but she was 12 hours off. Her first baby was not straight forward and she lost a lot of blood. It was covid times and her husband wasn't allowed in the hospital and she ended up discharging herself because her care was so awful. This time it all went smoothly, she went in in the evening, had her at 10pm and went home at midnight. When I told my French friend, who has also just had a baby, this she couldn't believe it. My friend also had a simple birth, she went in on a Tuesday and chose to come out on the Friday, and then her visiting midwife told her off for not staying in longer.

Miriam Elspeth and Hannah Margaret

My sister lives in Bradford so I was very excited when I found out that this year Ryanair have started flying a new route, Perpignan to Leeds/Bradford. I once wrote a blog about how much I hated Ryanair, but I have now decided, due to this new route, to forgive them. I even made them an 'I forgive you' video on tiktok. I got very cheap flights, 40 euros return. I just flew with hand luggage so it was super easy. I missed out on holding my nephew who was born in covid times so it was super nice to hold my newborn niece. I can't believe babies exist, and everyone was a baby. I know I've done it twice but it's still amazing that a person grows inside another person and that they can squeeze out. She was very adorable and just wanted to be cuddling a person all day, and that was a lovely job mainly because the baby cuddler didn't have to do the other jobs. There were three adults so we did all do our fair share of baby cuddling and other jobs.

I think most people know this, but just in case you don't here's a public service announcement: If your friend has a baby and you visit them and just hold the baby when it's happy, you are not really helping. Your friend might be happy for the company, but she would be even more happy if you, got her shopping, did the washing up, held the baby while the parent sleeps, entertained an older child, cooked a meal, hang out her washing. I was only there 3 days but I tried to do some of these things. The most tiring job was entertaining big brother Zac who is 2. He is a very adorable little boy but he's also a savage (all 2 year olds are). He wakes up at 5:30am and he wants entertaining all day. Newborns and 2 year olds have opposite needs really, I don't know why it's so popular to have both at once. It's like owning a cute little house trained bunny and a wolf. In the long run it's a nice gap though, my kids have the same gap and most of the time they're best buddies.

I've really forgotten how difficult that stage is. I do remember it being difficult, Eric was born in May 2017 and I didn't get any nursery for Percy until September, and we were paying for that, so we did the minimum possible which was 1.5 days. They were cute, but it's so relentless trying to entertain a two year old when you haven't slept. You don't get any head space and you are constantly being touched. Baby groups were life savers though, I went to one my church ran and it meant Percy could go off and play with new toys and I could keep an eye on him while sitting down feeding Eric. It's kind of impossible to enjoy that bit when it's so relentless. Then you look back at photos of them and think "aww they were so cute, I miss that" but that's because you're not remembering the times when they thought 4:30am was an ok time to wake up and play, or they pooed in the bath.

But look how cute they were!

I think my sister and her husband are doing a great job though, Jo is super patient which really is an achievement given the circumstances. When I flew back I felt very grateful that my own kids were out of the baby bit, and although they have their moments they're pretty easy really. They had a great time when while I was away. We didn't realise that both school days I was away were actually holidays. In France there is no May half term but there are five random bank holidays, plus Wednesdays are off school anyway.  Dan couldn't really take the time off so very kindly my friend Flick took them out to the aquarium one day and a gallery the other day and then on the weekend Dan took them to see the Mario Movie, which they absolutely loved and didn't mind at all that it was in French.

In other news I passed my A2 french course! Last time I had to wait two months between finishing the A1 and starting the A2 but this time I started the B1 the next day which was great, although it's a bit annoying that it's on Wednesdays (as well as Fridays) because we have to pay for the kids to go to the school club.  This is the last course I can get for free, after that I will do some paid online evening classes and try and look for work. If I pass the B1 and jump through some other hoops, like have an interview, I can eventually get citizenship, which means we will all finally be EU members and we could move anywhere. Except why would we leave France when we've just spent so much time learning French.

I'm enjoying my lessons and I love meeting a random selection of refugees and immigrants. Last week I learnt how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors Ukrainian style. They chant a long rhyme before doing it which made it tricky because I went after they said 3 words, assuming they were counting, but what they were actually saying was "paper beats rock, rock beats scissors...etc" but guess what? they have a 4th thing! "The Well" as in what you get water from. The well beats the rock and scissors because they sink but paper beats well because it floats.

On Saturday I"m doing 8 minutes of stand up comedy in French!! If I never mention it again, it went badly, so don't ask me about it.