And three years later

Well, well, it has been waaaay too long since I last posted here. We are not longer in Bangalore. We are now in Bali, Indonesia.
Bangalore was great. Great because we met beautiful people that I will never forget. We had a beautiful house, in a beautiful compound, Palm Meadows and I thought I was never going to be able to have a house like this in our future assigments. But an opportunity arised last February. We were offered to come to Bali. And as I always said, everything happens for a reason and two weeks after we landed in the beautiful Island of the Gods. Time was a deciding factor because I was already 32 weeks pregnant and would not have been able to fly for too long and we would have lost this great opportunity. So, we packed quickly as it always goes in the hotel industry ( and I honestly preffer so you don't have time to stress about it) and just started our new journey.
We arrived here, found a house, bought the house, found a school, a hospital and 6 weeks later, delivered our third baby together: Josephine Ayani de Foucault, named after the hotel where Charles works.
And now one year later, after we finally settled in, I thought it would be great to continue what I started a few years back. Enjoy!

Bang, Bang, Bangalore

We are in Bangalore since March 31st. It seems as if every year we move around the same dates. Last year was Bahrain. I was calculating how many times we have moved since August 2005, when Emilie was just 3.5 months old. There it goes:

August 29th 2005: Seoul, Korea to the Kingdom of Bahrain
May 2nd 2006: Bahrain to Montreal, Canada
September 30th 2006: Montreal, Canada to Bahrain
October 30th 2006: Bahrain to Mumbai, India
December 2nd 2006: Mumbai to Gurgaon, India
March 31st 2007: Gurgaon to Bangalore, India

That does not include our move to the house in June.
It has been hard for Emilie. New places, new friends, grandparents and sisters coming and going. And with all that,she is great. Great with her sister. Wakes up every morning, very early, most of the times before six, ready to start the day. She takes care of Angeline, sings for her to get her to sleep, tells her " no crying Angeline, mama coming". Angeline just admires her. She laughs when looking at her and Emilie laughs back. It is so beautiful to see them together. And I feel so bad I lost the camera and I can not capture this precious moments. I was worried when I was pregnant with Angeline that I was not going to be able to give Emilie the same time she was getting. But now, I just can not imagine one not having met the other one. Emilie asks where is Angeline when she is taking a nap and Angeline just looks for her sister at all times. Forget about "twinkle twinkle" "itsy bitsy spider" and all, she is too busy learning from Emilie.

Bangalore is great. The hotel is beautiful. It is really a palace. We go to the pool every afternoon. Angeline, Emilie and mama. Just great. Emilie tries to get her head in the water. It is a start. Then to the room. Dinner, bath and in bed by 7:00. No cooking for me. Nice break.

I am taking the girls to Spain mid-July and Alex and Gabi will join me at the end of July. We haven't seen them since September and that is damn too long. Excuse my french. It has been hard, but harder for them and Charles. Charles will join us beginning of August. Then Nice for a week at the end of the month.

I miss everyone of you. Truly. It has been hard to travel so much but I will not change it for anything in the world. Everywhere we've been we made wonderful souls like you. Hopefully here, we will make more friends and the list will keep growing. Thank you for being there, always, even when we don't talk.

Les de Foucault

Richard Gere

How can I forget to post that we met the Richard Gere, the One and only One?

Last Sunday we went for luch at the Oberoi Hotel in Delhi. The restaurant we wanted to go was full and we chose the Italian restaurant. Only two other tables were occupied. One of them, a mom and 3 children, the other one : two ladies and a man. I thought one of the ladies was Shilpa Shetty, the indian actress who appeared in the Big Brother TV show in the Uk and was humiliated by one of her flatmates. That show made her even more famous in India . When she removed her sunglasses, my suspicions were confirmed. A little later, another man comes in. Five minutes later I realized it's Gere!!!! He called the manager that was talking to us and asks us if he could borrow him. We say "yes", he says "no, no it's ok, you keep him",we respond "no, really we will share!!!!
At the end of lunch, after facing him for over an hour, and after few glasses of Champagne, I ask Charles to get an autograph for me and he tells me to go and get it myself. Life is too short, I think so I go straight to him, tell him that I promised myself I would never do something like that to which he responded: "But you are going to do it anyway aren't you?", I told him I asked my husband to do it but he refused and I did not have the choice... He left asking us where we were from and if we would like to have dinner with him.

The last part is a lie....(he did ask us where we were from) That was me dreaming...No I am jokking, I would not change Charles for anyone in the world. (1000 points for me right there...)

Anyway, I thought i would share. Two and a half years in LA and we get to see him in BFI.

Moving again

We have been very busy!!! I know people have been asking about updates and I was not able to touch the computer very often with Angeline sleeping in the same room. But I am glad to say that she now sleep through the night for the past month or so and I have a little more time for "myself". Anyway, we are moving again. Yeah baby one more time. Where? To Bangalore, south of India. The project here has been delayed and Charles has been offered a job there with the same company. Everything happens for a reason and when we went to Bangalore a couple of weeks ago we realized the reasons are: better climat, better job, better house, better healthcare, better lifestyle in general and of course, better hotel for Charles.

We are moving on April 30th. The movers are coming on Monday.

Emilie is learning english, french and spanish. She speaks fairly well in spanish and has made a big improvement in english since she joined the Pumpkin House, a playschool located not too far from the house. She is very tall, has now green eyes and looooves to sing and dance. She memorized the songs very fast. She is already into clothes and would take them all out of the closet if she could. She walks with mommy's shoes like a pro. She loves

Angeline and kisses her, plays with her and sings to her. She cries if she cries and vice versa so sometimes we get the entire concert.

She is still not potty trained yet. I am always waiting to settled in a new place and at this pace, she will be potty trained when she is 20 years old!!!

Angeline is very, very active. She started slow and I was wondering if it was because I could not giver her the same attention I gave Emilie but now she is the Busy Bee. She loves watching her sister and I am afraid she is learning waaaay too much. She loves Syrah and seems so amused by her. She is almost 8 months old. Time really flies.

Life here has been the same. I think Indians must think we, foreigners, are a LITTLE out of our minds. They just drive us crazy and we all scream and scream to the guard, or carpenter or store manager that just will not understand how to do his job. I asked and I guess everyone feels the same way and we all end up screaming our lungs out. And the day we don't.. we miss it. We know it will not change anything but we feel so much better when we get it all out.

We can not be mad all the time because there are children in the street being used to get money and the government does not do anything about it. Or because they are naked or with their heads uncovered, dehydrated, and hungry. People "rent" the kids to get more money out of us. So we don't give money. We give food, most of the time bananas. And we peel them for them to make sure that the "parents" don't take them to resell. I just can not imagine my children to go through this. What a childhood... Are we spoiled or what? These kids don't have diapers, they are potty trained the natural way... They do as they are told, they work looking for food for the family in the trash, or picking up leaves from the ground, or collecting bottles. They don't cross the street, they play in dangerous places, they don't have a choice but to grow fast. The older kids (3 years old sometimes) look after the babies. They carry sometimes 2 of them. They feed them what they have and give them water. They become the parents before they even stop being babies themselves. And we worry if our baby gets too much TV, if the naps are scheduled correctly, what are we getting them for their birthday, if they are buckled correctly and what is the best car seat in the market. We forget that the basic things as water, food and love are the most important things and that thousands of children right outside the door don't have them. And for every smile we get from them, our day becomes a little more brighter. And days bring weeks and weeks months, and here we are, 5 months have gone by since we arrived and many bananas later, we are moving, to meet many more friends and to give many more smiles. I wish I could do more, and I know I will.

Update

Happy new year everyone!!!
It has been a very busy year but we are finally in our apartment. And almost everything is done !!!
This is the most challenging and stressful move I ever had... Everything is a challenge. For example. We have a rental company and everyday we are supposed to have a driver at 8:00am. Almost everyday the driver is late. When I say late, I mean an hour late!!! Then when the driver gets to know the area (yes, they don't even know where to go in Gurgaon...), then they either get sick or they have the misfortune to lose someone in the family, or someone in the family is sick. So after having a driver for a few days, someone new comes. Of course he gets lost on the way to the house, arrives an hour late again, and we have to show him where to go. Today, I lost it again whith the GM from the rental company. He said he is sorry, again, and he will call me back. Again... he never called. This is the land of the yes m'am, I am so sorry. In 10 minutes it will be done, and the land of it never happens.

"Tomorrow we will come back to finish. " That's what we were told when they brought the curtains. Tomorrow meant in a month.

The carpenter always comes at 5or 6 pm when I am preparing for the nighttime "routine" with the girls. I tell him to come back tomorrow, in the morning, and after days of trying to find out when he is coming back, he shows up, again ,at the same time.

We are in Delhi

We arrived on Wednesday. We are staying in a hotel...again!!! Got reaaaaly sick for a couple of days where I could not move. If you are in your country you think it is just a bug but in India...who knows. It started on the plane and got worse at night.Could not move, felt I had been hit by a truck and had a high fever. Called the doctor and gave me 2 sets of antiabiotics, and 3 other things. I took them for one day, felt better and stopped. I don't like medication and I though afterwards that if I take antiobiotics from the start, my body will not respond to them on future occasions. Now I am fine and ready to find an apartment!!!

Almost moving

The container has arrived to Delhi!!! It needs to be released and clear customs. We might move to Delhi this week.

We are awaiting for our apartment in Gurgaon (South of Delhi). It needs new paint and new appliances, AC... It could be done in less than a week but as I am learning, things happen here, we just don't know when... I just hope it is before our stuff clears customs.

The hotel looks finished from the outside but everything needs to be done inside. The biggest mall in India will be connected. YEAHHHH no traffic to go shopping!!!!

Also, golf, nursery, school will be in the area. The apartment is within walking distance.

Angeline smiles all the time. She has kind of a schedule: wakes up around 7, nap 9-10, nap again 2-4, goes to bed between 8-30 and 10. Wakes up once or twice at night, sometimes more.

She eats every 2/3 hours. At night she can go up to 5.5. Not bad.

I try to make her take her naps when Emilie is awake so I can be with her and vice versa. She usually takes her morning nap when we are by the pool because she needs to be protected with a mosquito net (she is too young for lotion) and I can not take her out of the stroller. Then when Emilie takes her nap she gets my time.

Emilie talks aaaall the time. But not in public... People can not believe she can talk non-stop at home. Of course she talks louder when her dad and I are trying to have a conversation. She wants to be part of it... She now, talks with an Italian accent. She is so funny. Just hanging out with Matthia for a couple of days and she talks like him: maaamamaaamamaaaama!!!!

She also started calling me mammy ( I don't know where she learned it from). She learns the words of songs very easily and as almost any child, dances, dances, dances. She now has green eyes and they have not changed for the last couple of months.( They were bluish for over a year). She is starting to use the potty but it is not consistent. (well I am not consistent). I think we will start more seriously when we are settled.

She can not leave the room without saying goodbye to her sister and always gives her a goodnight kiss.

Well, now is my turn.... GOODNIGHT everyone!!!