We had enrolled Charlotte at our local nursery, mainly because it would give me some time during the week when my OU restarted and so that Charlotte could mix with other children. The first time she went was on her first birthday, 2001. What a birthday present, happy birthday Charlotte. The plan was that the first time she would stay for only ½ an hour and I would stay too. She would then go the next day but I would leave. It would then be every day for a week gradually increasing the time she stayed as she got used to it. This was the plan. The first day went as planned and I stayed. She wasn’t walking yet but she followed me everywhere. The women tried to distract her but failed miserably. The next day was the day when I left her for the first time. I could still hear her screaming half way down the road. She went every day of the following week but we never managed to increase the time she stayed, as she was so upset. The following week she went twice a week and we managed to get the time up to an hour – she should have been at 3 hours by now.
In our interview they had told us that if sometimes the children can’t get used to it they ask the parents to take the children out for a couple of months and then try again but apparently this rarely happened. Just before the winter half-term they told me that she just wasn’t adapting and if after the holidays things weren’t any better they would ask me to take her out and try again later. She went back after the holidays and the difference was incredible. Even the women said it was amazing how she just suddenly adapted. She started going regularly every Monday and Wednesday morning for 3 hours.
Everything was fine, I was able to take up my OU again studying ‘Software Systems and their Development’. I would study on the mornings she was at nursery and in the afternoon while she had her nap. However in June came a notice that the nursery would be shutting down from September to December for refurbishment. They had a back up plan which involved using half of another nursery in town but it would only be for mothers who worked and it would have to be every day from 1pm to 4pm. I didn’t really feel Charlotte was ready to go every day so decided that I would keep her at home and wait for the normal nursery to open again.
This lasted for one day. As I sat down to do my studies the first day in September I rapidly found out that I couldn’t do it and look after Charlotte. I phoned the nursery in a complete state of panic asking what I could do. Bring her down they said, I did and up until the end of October she went every day from 1pm to 4pm. From October, because I had finished my studies for the year and taken my exam they asked me to cut down her hours to 4pm to 6pm. I couldn’t argue with it, I wasn’t doing anything.
The only thing that started to become evident at this point was that Charlotte no longer needed a nap in the afternoon. If she was with me I kept her going till the evening, that way she went to bed for the night earlier. However the days she went to nursery she was taking her nap and then in the evening was not falling asleep until 9pm. More on this later.
When Charlotte was 18 months old I started taking her to tumbletots. This was held in another town 30 minutes away and contained mainly English speaking mothers and their children. The set up was that there would be songs to start with, then the toys would come out and the children would play whilst the mothers had a chat, coffee and biscuits, then more songs. Although Charlotte enjoyed the songs she never really interacted with the other children. When it came to playing with the toys, Charlotte stayed by my side the whole time.
I met some very nice people although some did not remain friends, not because we fell out just because our children grew up and started school and thus the mothers lost contact. However I did meet two very nice women with whom I am still friends with today. Emma who was married to a French man and had a little boy Ryan just two months older than Charlotte. Emma is quite extrovert and not shy about introducing herself where as I am quite the opposite. However Emma wasn’t happy in France and just before Christmas 2002 she announced she was moving back to England. They now live near Bournemouth, she’s had another baby and I have been to see her twice.
My other friend, Becky I met through Emma. She has two children, a boy 2 years older than Charlotte and a girl 6 months older. I wouldn’t say we hit it off straightaway but that’s only because we are so similar. We are both shy and have similar views on things. When Emma left it seemed to throw us together, plus the fact that we lived in the same town. Three years on, she is probably my closest friend here and I can tell her anything and I hope the reverse applies. However, Becky has also now returned to England.
When Charlotte was 2 (the beginning of 2002) she started to go to nursery 3 times a week. The only worry we had was that she wasn’t speaking French, in fact she wasn’t really speaking anything, but when she did, she spoke in English. The women at the nursery assured me that she understood everything they said she just didn’t speak it.
In September 2003 Charlotte started school. The set up here in France is quite different to that in England. Children start school the year they become 3 although it's not obligatory until they become 6. That is they start school in September if they become 3 during January – December of that year. For example, Charlotte narrowly missed out on starting school a year earlier because she was born on 11th January. If she had been born 12 days earlier she would have started school a year earlier. This might seem young to be starting school but the school they start is called ‘maternelle’ and is a bit like pre-school and is not obligatory, however I don’t know anyone who doesn’t send their kids to the maternelle. When Charlotte started school, because they were late in changing to another building, the school she went to was too small and therefore as I didn’t work they asked me to keep her in the afternoons. This didn’t bother me at all as it would only be for 2 months.
After the Halloween holidays, the new school was ready and she was now able to go all day, although I picked her up at lunch time. Unfortunately for me, in their first year at maternelle the children are put into a dormitory for an afternoon nap. Being as Charlotte hadn’t had an afternoon nap since she was 18 months and she was now nearly 4 you can imagine my horror. I asked the headmistress if I could bring her back after the nap as this is what Becky had done with her little girl the previous year, but she said no. To say that Charlotte went to bed late was an understatement. She just wasn’t tired in the evening. She would sometimes not fall asleep until gone 11pm. The only reason why I still sent her in the afternoon was because I knew she would start speaking French quicker if she was there all day. So for 10 months I put up with Charlotte not going to bed until I did.
In January 2004 I started putting Charlotte into ‘cantine’ at school one day a week, that is to say that she had her lunch at school 1-day a week. She did not appreciate this (and still doesn’t) but it gave me a whole day to myself which meant I could do things without clock watching.
In Easter 2004, I met my first French friend. Charlotte’s temporary teacher was leaving and we held a little party for him. A woman approached me and asked me if I was Charlotte’s mother as her little girl Lea was always talking about her. Charlotte and I were then invited over one Saturday afternoon and Nathalie and I have been friends ever since. I have quite a few French friends now due to Charlotte having friends at school.
Up until children are 11 years old, they do not go to school on Wednesdays. In the old days they used to go on Saturday mornings but even this has now finished in some areas, including ours. This gives way for extra school activities. For Charlotte, when she become 4 in 2004 I enrolled her in dance class. She was always dancing in front of the television at home when music was on and she said she’d like to try. She was the youngest of her group but she loved it. At the end of the academic year they put on a show in the local cinema for all the moms and dads to see how hard the children have worked. I am so proud!
Charlotte has now (2008) started primary school, speaks French fluently, no longer has an afternoon nap (thank god) and so goes to bed at a reasonable hour and still does dance. She also does pottery on a Wednesday afternoon. She’s no angel but I absolutely adore her and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
I am blessed.
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