I’ll welcome ideas for other posts like this one, either other expressions I’ll try to translate or general French-English-translation posts ideas. If some little French mystery or weirdness has been nagging at you for a while, now is the time to ask.

Below are English expressions = their French equivalent (and the literal translation of the equivalent, if it differs):

• Naked as a jaybird = Nu comme un ver (Naked as a worm)
  
  
• Putting all your eggs in one basket = Placer tous ses oeufs dans le même panier (idem)
  
  
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, Better safe than sorry = Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir (Better to be safe than to cure)
  
  
• The lion’s share = La part du lion (idem)
  
  
• The early bird catches the worm =(+/-)= L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt (Early risers own the future)
  
  
• To rain cats and dogs, It rained buckets =
  Il pleut des cordes (It rains ropes)
  OR Il pleut à sceaux (everybody around here pronounces it “à sciot”, but I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be “à sceaux”, which would be buckets)
  OR Il tombe des clous (It is falling nails… wow, that sounds harsher in English)
  OR Il pleut à boire debout (roughly: It rains enough for drinking standing up)
  
  
• Beggars can’t be choosers, Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth =(+-)= À cheval donné, on ne regarde pas la bride (If the horse is given, you shouldn’t be picky about the bridle)
  
  
• The cherry on top = La cerise sur le sundae (The cherry on the sundae)
  
  
• Getting ahead of one’s self = Vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué (Selling the bear’s hide before killing it)

I love my sister, but sometimes she’s SO ANNOYING!!

Like this afternoon, I’m forced to go lie down for my nap, but baby gets to play some more. Mom says she already had a nap this morning, so she will nap again just later. *scoff*

Then, 45 minutes into my actual nap, she’s waking me up with her fussing. It’s not enough to mess up her own nap time, she’s barging on mine. I have some milk in the living room and doze off on the sofa for a while.

I’m barely pulling my disheveled head up from the cushions when mom plops her down next to me, being her cheery and energetic self. I protest soundly and stomp off to my own bed again, where I fall asleep a third time.

Seriously.

- Xavier

This is my last official day with just Orléane – Xavier will be home tomorrow too, and I start work on Monday – and I’m home alone right now.

See, I had to go for some routine blood tests this morning – which means I skipped food/drink since last night – so I left little Léa with my parents, then I drove Xavier to daycare and François to work, and I was pulling up to the hospital, happy at the thought of releasing my bladder for the urine test, when I realized: I forgot the doctor’s order at home across town.

Yeah.

I dreamed of breakfast. I drove back and forth on slipping snow to the point that I sort of forgot what time of day it was and where I was headed.

But it’s over now, I’m munching on toast and I’ll go get Orléane next door when she wakes up from her nap. Yay!

It was an ungraceful ending for a beloved object, to say the least. I can’t say I’m displeased with how things turned out, though.

Xavier was very attached to his pacifiers, especially a white one he had. Although we knew that – him being almost two and a half years old – we should be encouraging him to cease using them, we were not eager to start a war with our little boy over his favourite material source of comfort (and a bedtime “must have”).

One evening, we threw the story of the Soother Fairy out there, just for kicks. Xavier thought the idea was fun and, one by one, he started to stash his pacifiers under his pillow each evening. I felt like a robber, trading off his much valued nighttime solace for 1.14$ Hot Wheels.

Then there was only one left. Xavier decided his toy car collection was large enough for now; he preferred to keep the soother.

A week after that (over a week ago), he woke up in the middle of the night to stomach flu. Back up came his evening milk, his dinner, his lunch… and what else would lead the charge but the plastic object held between his lips?

By the time I had him bathed and lying down on the couch, his bedding in the washer, the floor hastily mopped up, and the now grotesque pacifier cast out with the garbage (I was NOT trying to salvage that thing; I had already decided to reuse one of his old ones which were hidden in a cupboard, if need be)… by that time, my boy had already nodded off on his own, his stuffed dog by his cheek.

When he and I installed clean sheets on his bed the following day before his nap, I did not add the pacifier, and he forgot to ask for it. He did start to formulate such a request occasionally when going to bed in the subsequent days, but a quick change of subject distracted him easily.

A little glitch: with no easy way to going back to sleep in the last days, he sometimes cries loudly for a couple of minutes, and wakes up his light-sleeper of a sister. Drat!

It is still a victory, and we are proud of our growing boy.

Now onto potty training. (I don’t suppose stomach flu will take care of this one.)

This weekend, I have found a way to make everybody smile around me: I let go of support and I just take long walks throughout the house, all the while wearing a bursting pride on my small face. I love it.

And guess what? The bruises (from walking on my knees all the time) have even faded!

Note: I’ve just turned my reply to Simon’s comment on my last post into an entry of its own. The post was about Xavier’s English immersion sessions at home: here is the link.

There is a law that protects French in Québec, and this law restricts access to English school to French speaking children, unless they come from an English family. Despite the fact that my kids would not even be eligible for English school, I think my choice would still be to send them to a French school.

Beyond the learning of a second language (and the general communication abilities that come with it), attending school in a second language implies many other things:

• Steepling into a different culture:
  • Subjects for school projects and research likely originating from the foreign language’s culture;
  • Friends and interests unavoidably derivate from the foreign language’s pop culture;
  • Exposition to teachers with a political agenda;
  • Literature studies inclined toward the second language’s heritage.
• Knowledge gained on math, science, art, etc., using a completely different vocabulary than everyone around – and, possibly, available resources as well;
• Another version of history taught in class which, I fear, would take out much emphasis on local history;
• Fewer classes in the mother language, ie. a poorer (read and written) primary language, depending on the child and parents.

Just to deflate some of what I have just listed:

• I do not consider the second language’s culture or literature as inferior.
• I do not assume there are no teachers with political agendas at the primary language school (I actually expect there to be more of them, unfortunately).
• I do believe a lot of the difficulties of this approach can be compensated by the parents’ devotion.

In our situation of French being a minority language, and in this particular household where English culture (from online culture to literature to television) takes a big place, it makes more sense to me to compensate for what language and cultural knowledge are missing in class at home, where we are well equipped to do so with weekly immersions and media. This is not a critique on the weakness of the English program in public schools; I am aware that they have a lot of ground to cover on a variety of topics, and unfortunately they cannot set the faster pace that a personal approach can. English takes an important place in our own work and hobbies, and we find it a crucial tool for opening up to the world around us (not to mention online resources), so it will be easy for us to communicate it to our children.

I am not sure how this translates (excuse the pun) when evolving into a majority language and considering sending one’s children to a minority language school; the situation is certainly different, but I believe some of the considerations are the same.

To conclude, I want to note that I am not inclined to propose Québec should become an independent country and that the French language here should be protected at all costs, nor do I rush to ban our mother language and culture, which I hold dear. It is all about balance, as I hope this post – and, heck, this whole blog – can evidence.

PS. I also have another entirely selfish reason for not wanting my kids to be too “international”, which is my fear of seeing their path taking them millions of miles from my small mommy heart!