#jeunesfilles

[corinnelitchfield]

Morning pages. #mdgirlineurope #arlon #belgium #jeunesfilles #inkwellfilter #writing #journaling

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 17, Arlon

(Tried posting this from my phone at least 3 times between last night and tonight and I finally gave up. Hoping it works this time.)

A decent night's sleep was just what I needed. I wake the girls around 7:15 per their request - this will help them readjust once day camp starts on Tuesday at 8:45 am. As I'm putting on makeup, I hear them arguing downstairs, then I hear Suzanne crying. I don't rush down, but instead wait to hear for heavy wailing, thuds on the floor, yelling. Nothing. Once I get downstairs, they are both sitting in the family room quietly reading. The vibe seems tense but I don't say anything, just watch as Charlotte pushes the drawer on the coffee table with her foot and Su pushes it back. I may not have siblings or kids, but I know thinly veiled hostility when I see it, so I convince Char that now is a perfect time to practice flute for 30 minutes before we leave for art. She leaves the room and Su keeps reading, then gets restless and I convince her to finish up her April Fools joke stand (or whatever she is calling it).

On the way to art they try to walk on either side of me, but the sidewalks are narrow and it's slowing us down. I make them pick a number and Su gets it, so she has to walk in front and Charlotte will be at the back. Cue the complaining. They snipe at each other a bit more en route, and I'm thinking this could be some misplaced stress on Char's part, considering what she told me last night. Or it's just the usual sibling BS. As we walk we are damn near constantly dodging dog poop. It's on the sidewalk, in the gutter, everywhere. Here's where Europeans could learn something from Americans because by and large our dog owners are pretty good about picking up after their dogs...except in Baltimore. Do not ask me how I know this.

We get to art and the projects begin. I've brought the pen case, which just needs some hand stitching before it's complete, so I finish that up while the girls work on making pendants, brooches, keychains with this foamy clay type product...the clay is very soft and I decide to make a little pin, too. Sarah preps a few plaster eggs for painting at tomorrow's session. The girls move on to another project involving metal charms with baked-on metallic powder. Sarah's son, who has shown up unexpectedly due to a little mishap while out with his dad, is working on projects and making a mess, which irritates Sarah. She repeatedly says "tu me fatigues" (you wear me out). Comment dit-on [how do you say] "Sister, you ain't never lied"?

We head home with several completed projects in hand and get lunch together. I tell them the story of locking my grandmother in the basement when I was little because she was paying more attention to my sick cousin Lara than to me, and how I got spanked for it later. We talk about what hackers are, why the word "Luxembourgeois" [for the language that's spoken in Luxembourg] makes me laugh (which involves me explaining what it means in the US when we call someone "bougie"), and then they play a quick round of news story, which involves Su asking Char the 5 Ws - they learned this from reading Anastasia Krupnik books. I tell them my journalist friends including Jan Haag, Krista Minard and Rachel Leibrock will love this.

After lunch they go outside for a bit and work on some sort of dance routine, but when it gets cloudy and starts raining, they head inside and upstairs for what turns out to be a binge watch of "Ocean Girl." This gives me an opportunity to work on Easter basket items that Carolyn set aside. There are quite a few empty plastic eggs, so I decide to write down some inside jokes from our past week plus some positive things like "you are special" and "be brave and strong" and put them in the eggs, then stick them in their baskets. They can hunt for the toy ones and the ones with the fancy chocolate eggs in them. When in Belgium, eat the chocolate - and the waffles, too.

Jean-Philippe emails me some information for Charlotte regarding a group project she organized in honor of her teacher, who went on maternity leave at the break. Char doesn't know how to access her school email from home, which she needs to do in order to get the project finalized, but through some detective work on both our parts and a link from her dad, we figure it out. Once that's done, she heads back upstairs to continue the binge watch with her sister.

I take the time to poke around and do random stuff, like visit the pond and check on the frogs. Dinah the cat supervises my visit. She loves to sit by the pond and lap at the water...and snack on les grenouilles. I really hope I don't witness that while I'm here. We head back inside and after a bit, I spy the black neighborhood cat up close. He cuts through the garden to go...wherever he goes. I go out on the veranda and he's sitting in the gutter, staring at me. I talk to him for a minute and he just stares, but when I finally say "Qu'est-ce que tu fais? [what are you doing]" he looks startled and leaves. Ahh, bien sûr, le chat ne parle pas anglais.

After three calls to the girls for dinner, they finally come downstairs. They have 2 meal options: try the chili their mom got at the store and have that with rice and tortilla chips, or have baked chicken and rice. "And tortilla chips?" Char asks. "No chips if you don't have the chili," I say. They both try tasting spoons of the chili, and as I expected both turn it down. But the rule still applies re: make your own food & clean up after yourself if you don't like what's being served, so Char opts for grilled cheese.

The pre-bedtime activity is Easter projects: dyeing eggs, decorating little wax egg candles, and painting egg cups. The girls set up stations for each activity and we rotate around. It's quite fun, even if our dye options ended up being red, orangey-red, deep red, light orange and yellow, because it turned out most of the dye from the previous year had been used up and I could only find red food coloring in the kitchen. They were still happy with the results, and when Su ended up cracking an egg in the process of coloring it, she simply peeled and ate it. An egg fitted with a decorative sleeve looked like deodorant, so more laughing and goofing around.

At bedtime, Char gives the day a 9. "I'm still stressed about Mommy," she says, "and I didn't have as good of a flute practice as I should have, but we got to watch that show and do other fun stuff." Indeed we did.

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 16, Arlon

I come down to the kitchen after 10:30 am and they are both still in their rooms. I boil water for eggs so the girls can dye them and consider the significance of the egg in two major holidays this weekend: Passover and Easter. Years ago in L.A. I attended a Seder at my uncle's parents' home. They didn't do the traditional readings, or ask the 4 questions, but they had the plate of bitter herbs and the egg, and at some point the father would crack the egg on his forehead. Even though I grew up celebrating Easter, I can never quite remember the connection between the eggs and the Easter bunny, though I do know all the Christian symbology. While I don't celebrate Easter anymore, I do often think about resurrection at this time of year, about the circle of life-death-rebirth and what in me is ready to die and be reborn.

Charlotte comes into the kitchen first asnd gets herself something to eat, and I go up to see if Suzanne is okay. She tells me she slept until 10. After a bit she comes downstairs and, after some debate over whether or not she's hungry, she opts to make herself some toast. They both ask me if their mom has had her surgery already, if she's out, when will she call. I remind them what Carolyn told us: no news is good news, and that Papa will call as soon as he can, which will likely be at lunchtime.

The next couple hours are tense. The girls are worried and trying to manage it on their own. When Suzanne asks if she can call her mom, I tell her that she will be resting after surgery and is fine, reminding her about "no news." "Imagine if she's not!" she cries out. "Come here, baby," I tell her, and pull her close. After a bit she is okay and we get to work on her hair, because it's hairdo day. I have Char pull up the YouTube video that a client of mine did in collaboration with a young gymnast on easy updos for gymnastic meets, and get to work on Su's hair. It turns out super cute, even if a bit crooked.

Around 1:15 pm Jean-Philippe calls. Carolyn is fine and resting after surgery. The heaviness lifts from the room and Char, who is prone to anxiety and worry, beams at the news. We hug each other while Su talks to her dad about the fencing gloves he got her and her grin is infectious. "Let's do a happy dance," I say, and Char and I dance around the room singing "Mom is fine, Mom is fine."

The rest of the day is gravy from that point forward. Leftovers for lunch - pizza for Char and noodles for Su - and some of their chocolate bunnies for dessert. Char and I go upstairs to work on sewing her pen case while Su gets on the computer to research. We have the case nearly completed by snack time, and after that, we start working on their video again. This is good, because the video is so ridiculous and the girls need laughter and silliness.

I tell them they get to decide what's for dinner. "Grilled cheese, but made in a pan, please," Char says. Her mom typically uses these special sheets to make them in the toaster, but she prefers them done on the stove because they get more melty and buttery. Not a problem tonight, though: I get out the pan, butter some bread and put together two sandwiches.

Post dinner is going to be sewing time to finish Char's pen case and get Su's project done. While Char teaches her sister how to say "I am potato salad, you are potato salad" in German, I work on sewing the more difficult parts of Char's pen case. Carolyn's Singer is nice to use, and I manage to get the case done, with a few areas that need finishing up, but winding a new bobbin for Su's project continues to kick my butt and I finally tell Su her project is not going to happen tonight. I feel bad about this but I am truly exhausted, emotionally and physically. To be honest, I think we all are.

Char gives the day a 9, but is still very worried about her mom and her healing process. "I will feel better once she's back home," she says, tears rolling down her face. "It's hard having such a big heart because you feel everything," I say, and she nods. I sit with her a long time and we talk about many different things, and I feel awful leaving her to get some rest of my own, but if I don't take care of myself I am useless for both her and her sister. "Read for a while if you need to," I tell her, "but try to get some sleep if you can." She says "okay, I love you," softly as I close the door.

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 15, Arlon

Last night at bedtime, Charlotte confessed that she'd been having bad dreams and that it typically happens when she oversleeps during vacation. Carolyn had told me about this via FB messenger, so I expected Charlotte would bring it up. She asked me to wake her up in the morning, like her mom does, so at 8:15 I head downstairs and gently nudge her, saying "Charlotte, it's time to wake up." She thanks me and says she'll read for a bit.

After my shower I head downstairs for breakfast and tell the girls I'll be working for a bit, then will come down to make lunch. They are fine with this, because today is projects and pizza day: aside from Charlotte's flute lesson at 3, we don't have to do anything else, so there will be pizza for dinner and sewing afterwards, plus any projects in between. Around noon Su comes upstairs asking for fabric to make a hankie for her papa. She finds the fabric she wants in her mom's stash, and I tell her we need to iron it before she begins any sewing. As we get started and Char joins us, I take the opportunity to show them how to iron their dad's shirts, using the technique my mom taught me, which she learned from her dear friend Chuck Randall: use the square end of the ironing board because it's easier to slip the front sides and the back over the top and get nice creases. The girls have way too much fun spritzing the shirts (there are 2 that need ironing and I tell them one shirt per person) and singing made up songs, which turns into a discussion of Disney princesses and "can we make a funny video?" They put on dresses that are decidedly princess-y, and we do a few takes of them fake-ironing Papa's shirt while singing in a fake-y Disney princess way. It is so funny and they are having so much fun that they decide they want to take things a few steps further and shoot more scenes. "The set dressing budget is zip, so keep that in mind," I tell them. Su wants more creative control and final approval on storyboards and edits, plus fancy opening credits and captions. I tell her I am not Steven Spielberg. "Who is that?" I start listing movie titles, but realize they probably haven't seen E.T. or Raiders yet, so I just say "He's a very famous movie director in Hollywood." I tell them to write out the scenes they have in mind and I will say yes or no. They come up with a very reasonable list, aside from Su's request for a "fire" (uh, NO), and I tell them it will be our project through Easter weekend. We brainstorm a title - I tell them it has to be in French and English, because so many good fairy tales come out of Europe. I mock up a Canva graphic for the title and keep grinning at how clever they are, and how much fun this will be to put together...provided they don't lose interest by Saturday afternoon. Stay tuned...

While Char has her lesson with Yorick, Su works on her French homework on le futur simple. She does it first, then hides her answers so I can try to answer as well. Turns out to be a very useful exercise for both of us, because she sees where she made mistakes and I get to practice reading en francais. Not that I haven't been doing that for 2 weeks - I read French much better than I speak it, in my opinion. It's putting together coherent sentences that trip me up. As I work on the exercises, I remember my college friend Erica, the woman responsible for leading me down the path to fountain pen addiction and who helped me so much with French essays in my intermediate class at GWU. We haven't seen each other in close to 25 years and we'll finally reconnect on Monday, when she'll take the 3 of us to the traditional Easter Monday celebrations in Luxembourg City, not far from where she lives. We're all looking forward to that.

After flute and snack time, I let the girls have computer time while I take care of random tasks. I head up the stairs to my room - three flights of old wooden stairs that make my right knee crackle - and discover Dinah the cat napping on the green blanket, the same one my cats love and that Alyxia in the Paris AirBnb loved. She is full of purrs and sweetness, and I debate over attempting to clip the claws Madeleine and I missed last week in our clipping session, but decide against it. With this kitty, it's definitely a two-person job.

At 6:45 we get the order in for pizzas at Pizza Toni, which is a 3 minute walk from the house. Carolyn had warned me about Pizza Toni, saying it wasn't that good and they somehow manage to never have exact change, but the girls love it. I have a ton of Euro coins and cents in my wallet, so I figure I'm good. Su and I walk down to get the pizzas. The bill comes to 17,90 Euros. I hand my coins to Su and tell her to start counting...and we are one euro short. I hand the man a 20 and quelle surprise - he can make change! It's a Thursday of Mysteries, indeed!

The girls chow down on the pizza. Carolyn was right - it's not that good. But the girls are happy and I want to ensure their minds are preoccupied with fun activities and food they enjoy the night before their mom's surgery. Charlotte's been particularly stressed about it and I expect we'll have a chat at bedtime. That's become our habit: I ask her to rate the day and she gets a quiet moment to talk to me about whatever is on her mind. She's a sensitive, clever girl who thinks deeply about many things - all of which is relatable, because I was that kid, too.

We head upstairs for sewing project time and I end up working on ripping out some stitches on the pen case project and redoing them, while Su begins hand stitching the edges on Papa's hankie. She asks to use the machine and after conferring with Carolyn via PM, I tell her yes. But things are taking longer than anticipated, Papa calls to talk to the girls, and we don't get to her hankie since the machine will need to be rethreaded and a bobbin wound with black thread. They are disappointed, but I tell them their regular bedtime/wake time schedule will need to start on Monday, so it's just as well. Tomorrow we can work on sewing again...and I'll make it another easy day for them.

As expected, Char and I get into a deep conversation at bedtime. "Are you worried about Mommy's surgery?" she asks me. "Not really," I say. "Why not?" "Because I know several people who had hip surgery and they were walking a few hours after it was over," thinking of my aunt Carol, who went through it last year. "Who else do you know?" Ah yes, there's that probing mind again... "Well, the other people were much older than your mom, but they didn't have problems either." She looks at me and says, "I miss her," and I can see the tears starting to form in her eyes, and I take her in my arms and don't let go until she pulls away first, because I know how hard the unknowing is when you are 11 and super sensitive to everything. "When I am upset about something, Mommy usually comforts me, then she changes the subject," she says, so I do just that. We talk about sewing, about where I used to live in California, about learning state capitals (she knows without me telling her that Sacramento is the capital of California), and by the time she's ready to fall asleep, she seems more at ease. I give her a kiss on the head and shut her door, and as I walk up the stairs, my knee snap-crackle-popping, I thank the universe for watching over my friend tomorrow morning during her surgery, and her daughters, too.

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 13, Arlon. Cold, rainy day, and fortunately we didn't need to go anywhere, so staying in and working on projects was the general order of business. For me that meant getting some work done in the morning while the girls read Calvin and Hobbes comics collections, which they love. We play à Table again at lunch, and this time Suzanne has to say "J'aime pas, c'est pas bon" [I don't like it, it's not good] repeatedly until Charlotte finishes eating. They play with a balloon until it pops (I have no idea where it came from), then somehow manage to convince me to blow up a new one for them. The girls come up with a game with elaborate rules and penalties, influenced by Calvin & Hobbes, and draw boundary lines on the tile floor in chalk (which they wash away when the game was over). At one point it seems the game is called "Red Condor," then the name is "21 Points." During the game, Su occasionally yells out "conquistador" for unknown reasons, but mispronounces it each time and never corrects herself when Char or I correct her. This tendency to not correct herself is a pattern with her, as she likes to say "I got no clue." When I finally question why she never says the phrase properly, she says "it's my dialect." "Oh, that's your French side coming through?" I ask (Papa is from Brittany and Mommy is from the U.S.). "No, it's my SUZANNE dialect." The girls get some computer time before Char's flute instructor Yorick arrives for their hour-long lesson, and I convince Su that she'll feel much less hostile about homework come April 8 if she gets most of it done in small chunks between now and réentrée (return to school). She moans and groans, but pulls out her homework, which includes worksheets on le futur simple verbs and irregular verbs. "Ooh, this is a good refresher for me," I say, thinking of how my friend Erica corrected my French papers in college - and did major revisions for me, too. "You want to do my homework, then?" she says, her eyes wide and a big grin on her face. "Nope, I just want a copy of it for myself." Nice try, kiddo. After Yorick leaves, it's snack time, and I split an avocado with Char, who only eats a fourth of hers and gives me the rest. Then Su shares part of a Belgian sugar waffle with me - sooooo good. Between the waffles, speculoos (I stupidly opened the jar at the house and now I cannot stop eating it. I wasn't a fan of the Trader Joe's version, but the "original" one? Bring it on.) and these savory crunchy things Carolyn convinced me to try, I am going to be ruined when I get back to the States, looking high and low for all the foods I liked in Europe. Post-snack, Char and I get to work on sewing the components for her pen case. I figure out how to thread her mom's sewing machine (mine is an Elna from the 60s and hers is a Singer from the 80s, so it's a different setup) thanks to Char finding the manual on her desk. Char has perfectionist tendencies, which I can relate to, but I tell her the phrase handed down from her maternal great-grandmother to her own mother, who told it to me: "It cannot be seen from a galloping horse." I also tell her the phrase from my dear friend, the late Jim Skinner: "It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be really good." Even with these bon mots, she still thinks everything on one component needs to be completely redone because the stitching is off in one small section, no matter what I tell her. But she is thrilled to be sewing and during one break she gives me a big hug (this girl LOVES hugs) and says, "thank you so much for doing this project with me." We talk a lot about sewing and she is surprised that I learned most of what I know from watching YouTube videos. Dinner gets a late start due to time overruns with sewing and a call from their mom, and by the time I get back to the table I discover the girls have picked out all the tomatoes from the tomato/carrot salad and left me with a bowl full of carrots. This, to me, seems quite symbolic of what parenting is. I tell them I made an executive decision regarding their request for sewing project time instead of read-aloud before bed: no sewing tonight, it's too hard for me to split my attention. They are disappointed and try to persuade me to change my mind by saying their mother lets them do this, but I stand firm. "I'm the grown up, it's my decision, and I know you're disappointed but that is a part of life." Oh no...I just turned into my parents. We watch a couple episodes of "Ocean Girl," a mid-90s Australian sci-fi series that strikes me as Brooke Shields from Blue Lagoon meets SeaLab 2021. At bedtime, Charlotte gives the day a 9, "because Suzanne was a bit grouchy today," but is full of hugs for the sewing time we had together. "I think there are three kinds of family," she tells me. "There's the family you live with, then there's aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and then there's the family you aren't related to, but you love them a lot, and you're in that family." Excuse me a minute...I have something in my eye.

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 12, Arlon

Day 12, Arlon: Do I have DST to thank for an easy morning, with one kid sleeping in late and the other being extra mellow? Perhaps. Suzanne wanted to make more lemon ice cubes, since I showed her how a couple days ago and she loves making lemon water/"lemonade" to drink. I have never seen a kid so into citrus. Lunch was inspired by Barbara's post-holiday concept of "get your own supper" in that I wanted to clear out some leftovers, and the girls were totally fine with this.

Another warm day meant more yoga outside. "You're our yoga teacher for 2 weeks, except you don't get paid...well, you get paid with love," Suzanne tells me. "That's the best kind of payment you could give me," I reply. This Mary Poppins thing ain't too bad, me thinks. A hot glue gun to make crafts and repair barettes, lemon ice cubes, leftovers for lunch and yoga make them happy? Sweet. Oh, but wait...

Suzanne's late morning/early afternoon April Fool's prank sales project gets disrupted when Charlotte inadvertently sees behind the proverbial curtain. Tears, apologies, reminders that I didn't see anything and Char may forget between now and Sunday. New rules are set: no going into Suzanne's staging area until Sunday evening. The girls have computer time & we play music via YouTube while Char and I work on prepping fabric for her pen case (Beatles, Sia, Duran Duran [the last 2 were my request]).

I decide to make curry for dinner, since it's on the "kids will eat this" list, but when we sit down to eat, I tell them my rule (which was the one my mom had for me): if you don't like what's being served, then you make your own dinner, whether it's a sandwich or a bowl of cereal or whatever, AND you have to clean up after yourself. They eat a bit of curry, then Char opts for a grilled cheese sandwich and Su wants one too. They negotiate a deal in which Su will clean up and Char makes the sandwiches. I clean up & put away the meal I made and eavesdrop on their process, then once they are done, I check to see if they fulfilled their end of the bargain. Someone forgot to put away the cheese...and the pan's not washed. I find Su in her room and strongly recommend she go down and check everything - I will go with her. She washes the pan and last of utensils, then spies the cheese on the counter and has a fit. "Charlotte forgot to put away the cheese!" she yells. She wants to make Char come down and do it, but I say that Su is here right now, it's easy enough for her to put the cheese away, and to think about all the times her mom has picked up the messes left behind by her and her sisters. She puts the cheese away and stomps upstairs to yell at her sister, and I opt out of interfering unless things get violent.

Can we also thank DST for the G-rated confrontation? Perhaps. Raised voices but no punching that I can hear, and no thuds on the floor. Su goes into her bedroom, grumbling, and shuts the door hard. I go talk to Charlotte about the fine art of negotiation and diplomacy, and what might be a better strategy for the next time: agreeing on all the terms of the deal first, and not negating someone else's feelings (she didn't think it was fair for Su to be mad when it wasn't anyone's fault). I really think this girl could have a bright future in the legal profession.

The day ends with a short read-aloud session of The Rescuers, which had me thinking of Kirsten and Torbjorn because it's a Norwegian mouse that's in need of rescue from the Black Castle, and a group hug with lots of laughs, jokes about who is the ham, cheese and pickle in the sandwich, and a rhyming game. Char gives the day a 10 because "I got to sleep in, we did yoga, we worked on sewing, I did some writing, and I ate good food." What more can you ask for, really?

[drivenblue]

Marche 🏢 #marctalbot #drivenbluephotographies #downtown #centreville #montreal_galery #montreal #montreal_gallery #phototheday #urbanphotography #urbanlife #blackfriday #bn #bnw #noiretblancphotographie #bnw_quebec #bnw_legit #bnw_international #bnw_life #bnw_city_streetlife #bnwsplash_perfection #bnw_city #bnw_greatshots #bnw_world #bnw_montreal #bnw_downtown #ig_bnw #jeunesfilles (à Centre de congrès et d’expositions de Lévis)

[corinnelitchfield]

Day 10, Arlon: Carolyn, Jean-Philippe and Madeleine left early this morning, making this our first day as a threesome (me, Charlotte and Suzanne). Worked on fun spring break projects, including a 3D Big Ben puzzle and a KNex Ferris wheel. Warm sunny day, so after lunch we walked into town to visit the stationery shop - each of them picked out a journal and for once I refrained from buying anything...for now. Headed to the post office, then back home, where we had a short journaling session and a discussion about the origin of Frankenstein (I got asked about Percy Bysshe Shelley and my English Lit major took over) while they tried out my fountain pens. Charlotte now wants a Sailor Pro Gear Slim (I don't blame her, really) and Suzanne wants a Retro51 Chakra ballpoint. I may have created 2 pen loving monsters. Then yoga outside on the sun-filled patio with me leading the session. These girls are true yoginis!Post snack, Char and I went out again to get a zipper to sew her a pen case like mine, and we got a pistolet à colle (glue gun) for Su, who has been talking about having one for crafts since I arrived. Light supper of grilled cheese and salad, then movie night time, prefaced by requests to see "Bruno photos" (Lee, they LOVED your behind the scenes photos) and look at fountain pens on Instagram. Snuggled up to watch "Ballet Shoes" (1975 BBC show) and then off to bed. #mdgirlineurope #jeunesfilles #arlon