Mardi à Jeudi, 13-15 Novembre 2012: Reconstruction

The past few days have been hectic as usual with the reconstruction of the house. In three days time the men knocked out four walls and the main staircase, made a new, more comfortable staircase (5x the size of the original), knocked out the floor in the upstairs kitchen (for headspace in the stairwell), and moved the water pumps to a new room. Crazy...And they call that working slow!!! The house has already made such a transition. It's amazing. Even with all of the craziness going on, I feel so at home here. When I refer to Céline and Didier as my "mom" and "dad", I really feel that they are such. I still have my "mé" and "phaw" at home though. As much as I hate my real mom, I will always be a part of her, and she a part of me.

Camille and Léa have started calling me their big sister. I love that :-) They're such good girls and where I've failed with my own sister, I'm teaching them. It's so important to me that these children respect me, my opinion, and my life lessons. It's crazy though, I don't even have to suggest it. For them, it's automatic. I want you all to understand that I'm not trying to re-create all of the years that I should have spent raising my own little sister. I'm starting anew. These are different individuals and I am going to teach them what I believe should be valued in the world. Such as feeding the hungry, donating time to the less fortunate, compassion for the homeless, education, and making a difference in the world. The older kids Antoine and Nicholas already have all of that down. The triplets need to get out more in order to understand. The extent of their outings go as far as school and that's it. I'll be here for a year so I'll have ample time to show them what's out there.

As for other lessons in life, I've been teaching the kids english words every day. The problem is that if you ask them 5 minutes later, they've already forgotten. Céline had the brilliant idea of putting post-it notes all over the house. Being a visual person myself, I feel like this will really help them. So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow after I take Gregoire to the creche. 

Tonight after dinner the kids sang for me. They're so freakin' cute. Baptiste has such a beautiful voice. I would listen to him sing all day, every day. He's so good at projecting his voice and holding his pitch. Check out the video below.

Good night world...(And I mean that! How am I getting readers in Brazil, Russia, and South Korea?!?)