Life, lately

So…apparently my kids in school means I don’t blog anymore…Here is an attempt to fix that. As an update to my previous post (LAST SEPTEMBER) I have figured out a functional system to avoid the traffic!!! Go me!!! I leave the house at 8H00 am exactly, which is when the school bell rings. That puts us at the school around 8H10 and the traffic has already dissipated. I then pick them up before the end of the day traffic and so I avoid it on that end as well. The specialness of their school experience still makes my tummy tingle with excitement. Especially as they have totally picked up French and furthered their English and their Arabic, just today walking around singing a Moroccan kids song:

  

Ya Chaouen Ya Nouara

How sweet is that? They know like every word…all of that…that’s school. That’s not me. 

What else has happened since I last posted…oh not much…bah hah hah hah (maniacal laughter turns into sobbing). To be continued… but here’s a preview:

There is a new apartment involved, say whhhaaaattt? No way!! I know I promised I wouldn’t move again, like ever, but I am. So…

There is a major life event involved, or a series of events or a bad year of events that led to a major transition of which I am surviving, if not, floating through.

I have become obsessed with tea. Should this be a tea blog? No? Ok.

More school decisions to be made (this is a never ending process). Spanish School? French School? Jewish School? Moroccan School? HELP!!!!!!! I THINK I AM LOSING MY MIND.

I  have a live in nanny again, I did that last time I posted and then I didn’t this whole time and then….WAIT A MINUTE…maybe THAT’S why I haven’t posted since September…blame DISPLACED.

I went to Scotland, lots to revisit from there, here.

I should be graduating with my Master’s in International Higher Education in 18 weeks!!!!

A story I can’t wait to tell about rue de l’atlas.

And how could I almost forget? More Moroccan Salon drama...gotta love that.

Stay tuned...

First week reflections

I thought it would be like running. Marathon long days that start with me dragging myself out of bed totally underprepared, rushing to make the lunches and herd the kids into the car and fight traffic to drop them off late to school and me ending up late to work…

It’s not been like that at all. I know that it WILL be like that some days, but it hasn’t been like so far. The thing that has surprised me the most about the girls starting school is what a joy it is to facilitate it. Everything associated with this whole enterprise of sending my kids to school…is a joy. I love it. I don’t resent it, in fact it’s a  really special feeling. It feels like one of the most special times of my life. This is also a time in my life that is very difficult. But I am keeping my head above water because I can’t afford not to. I am full on at work, full on Master’s degree and full on school mom. And I know this is just petite section, it will turn into so much more but I am really enjoying this part, sadly enjoying this part. I am watching my daughters grow into more independent girls that spend the day outside of the house, not in. 

Now…if I recorded the drop-off / pick-up situation outside of the school and that video were to make it into the right hands, it would be a nation wide, prime time, news story by which many Americans would justify their belief that they are in fact living in the best country in the world.

Dropping my children off at school and picking them up is a daily nod to some ingrained cultural chauvinistic patriotism that I didn’t realize existed within me until I moved here…and had to drop my kids off at school. I mean Mae actually whimpers and comments on the amount of cars that are there and the fact “oh no mama, there’s tars here too” (she says t for c). 

Picture taken from:

Portail de la Construction et du BTP au Maroc - www.bni.ma -

The above photo is a regular traffic jam in the city...go ahead and up the anty by adding the pressure of having to get your kid to school on time and then having to get to work on time.

Yesterday as we navigated the two city blocks of dead stopped traffic and marched through the unpaved, dusty lots of land waiting to be developed, dirtying our sandaled feet in the dust, Mae was clutching my hand and crying that there were cars driving around us in every possible direction! When I say driving, I mean blowing their horns non-stop, being blocked in traffic and then intensely accelerating when they get unblocked. When we finally made it to the car and I was strapping her into her seat, a car that had been in a traffic jam that finally made it through the other cars  sped by me so quick that I actually yelped out loud thinking that I was about to have my body impaled onto the car seat. I screamed and Mae jumped and then she was convinced for the next thirty minutes that that car had run over my feet!!!!! She literally made me show her my feet! Poor thing! Poor me! 

So…everyday, after I make it back to the car, I sit for a few seconds to inhale the calm and I imagine the orderly lines of slow moving traffic and the reduced speed limits and the sidewalks and the crossing guards and even the school bus stop signs that protrude out from the side of the bus in America. Then I start my car and move on with my life.

Petite Section

So here we go…1 2 3 lift off…stop crying you silly silly woman!!!!!!! The girls start petite section tomorrow, which in the American system would be pre, pre-K. I have instinctually gone crazy preparing for it, new shoes, tons and tons of obsessing over healthy snacks, labeling book bags, picking out clothes, teaching  them to introduce themselves in French.

It’s no surprise really that I've 'lost the plot' a bit, with the amount of time I spent obsessing about which school they would go to. In the end we have kind of fallen into a school that works for us. It is very convenient location wise, way over-priced, in my opinion, but has a solid reputation for their age group. They follow the Moroccan privée school system. In that system explicit Arabic instruction doesn’t start until later, so if we need to switch systems we still have time for that.

The girls will finally be immersed in French all day and I am very excited to see how this year continues to develop linguistically.

Besides my tears at the beginning of this post, I actually don’t feel so torn up about this transition. I feel the opposite, really excited for them. After the summer they’ve had of their only activity being after I get home from work and on the weekends…I am super excited for them to go to school and I think they are too.

I am sure this will be a subject I continually write about, think about, and obsess about! I kind of had a flash yesterday of time moving forward. I started at a gym and the gym has a daycare facility and I dropped them off and they were soooo excited, they just thought it was the coolest place ever. I know that in a few months of them being in school every day that place will no longer excite them…at all. I got sad for their innocence and it reminded me of a quote I read last week on nostalgia about the very few moments where everything is perfect and even then we are already nostalgic for that moment. 

It was like that. I love them so much.

Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump and for better or for worse this feels like one of those moments. I am closing my eyes and jumping, stepping forward into a current of wind that I will ride right into the future. Here’s to tomorrow going well. I’ll post a photo once I have one. Until then this is a pictures of them last March on their first day of nursery.

PS: Now I understand why people have always asked me if I cut their hair!! They still don't have much hair and people still think that BUT when I look back at older pictures where they had even less hair, It does look like I totally scalped them!

Starbucks Casablanca

This feels familiar:

I am sitting in a Starbucks working on a paper for a class that is due now. I like what I’m wearing and  I really appreciate the intellectual engagement with the paper. I miss my “H”.  I miss her so bad. What I wouldn’t give to see her gliding through the doors with a bag, way bigger than her, hanging off of her shoulder. Slenderly sitting herself across from me and arranging her hair on one side of her head. She would probably then exhale, ask me how I am, listen, look at what I ordered, look at the counter, kind of half limp over to it very casual and careful all at the same time.  Geese…I miss you lady. Everytime…everytime I come to Starbucks I miss you so bad.

And “K”…one would think it would remind me of you too but it doesn’t as much. It was so far beneath your full capability. But it was always the only place I could have you captive, behind a counter and unable to slip off into your world without me. Although…truth be told you are so f’ing thorough and artistic with anything that you do that you more often that not always slipped off into that world too...leaving me standing there and waiting on you to come back until I got the point that you were busy and I knew you wanted to talk but always knew it was never the time or place.

There is a dead dog outside on the side walk and a tapas bar behind me. I have been apartment hunting in this neighborhood and want back here regardless of the dead dog on the sidewalk. I want back so that I can come here more, walk my kids here (MY KIDS – that girl that I was when I was here all the time now has KIDS) so that they can know and love it too.

I know some people would accuse me of killing the indigenous culture but honest to god a simple silver or aluminum teapot of black tea and mint leaves will never be dead in the Maghreb, NEVER. It runs way thicker than what Starbucks can do. 

The people that work here are Moroccans but they work at Starbucks and they seem genuinely interested in understanding, communicating with and pleasing the hoards of American pilgrims and Moroccan converts. I love them. They are a sweet team always smiling and genuinely trying to do it right. 

This is a safe place for me now in a time when I don’t have many. This is a safe space for me. 

From here I can write again. From here I can feel again. I want to finish my masters sitting at this table and then always remember what my life was and who was in it when I was here doing this. Yeah…that’s a good plan. 

Two and counting...

Dearest Sophia and Mae,

Tomorrow is your 2^nd Birthday. We have made it two whole years. In October of 2008 I was still living in my little apartment off the park in Atlanta. 

I had not yet decided to come to Morocco. I was in Paris on vacation in October of 2008. I had NO IDEA that within a year I would be giving birth to two twin girls. That I would be reunited with the love of my life and that we would turn into the vessels that would birth you and then care for you and then (now) begin to make decisions that will affect the rest of your lives. 

Every decision that we are faced with feels so heavy. I try not to analyze it all at once or I feel at risk of a panic attack. My god, how do parents, how did my parents swallow this responsibility. Or maybe it’s not so hard for everyone? Maybe some people make these decisions easier. Maybe these things are not as difficult for everyone. For me, though, for your mother, these decisions are huge. I am graying in the hair, I am wrinkling around the eyes. Yesterday while sitting in traffic and trying to accept the magnitude of what it means to be responsible for your lives I was actually able to empathize with the presidents of the United States - past and present. My thinking went like this:

“Holy crap, what is wrong with me. Why does this all feel so huge, am I making the right decisions? Are we making the right decisions for them? Will the decision that we make now about what school we put them in affect the rest of their lives? How will we ever save enough money to send them to college? To retire? To take another vacation? Oh my god, we need more money – no wait, we don’t – we have everything we need. I need to look at myself (opens the mirror) fcuk I am turning gray over this, look at those hairs, and oh my god my face is pale and ahhhhhhhhh this is why the presidents all go gray. I am graying over which freaking pre-school to enroll my toddlers in and a family savings plan and they are, in a way, responsible for so many lives not just in America but all over the world. I mean if THESE decisions feel big to me just imagine how THOSE decisions feel for them!”

So couple that with the keen awareness of the 99% movement in the states and the rough economic times that the United States are facing and the confusion over where to live and when to move and what to do, and you’ve got Madame (gray hair remember, no more mademoiselle) Basket case!

Anyways, besides all of the worrying I do…will continue to do…I also do the following:

I am still able to sweep you up from your beds in the morning, with your languid bodies plastering against my chest. Hold your hands to walk around the house. Get you to give me sweet intentional kisses. Make you laugh your heads off by throwing a really (not very funny) ugly face your way. Sophia you have learned how to throw except that you walk right up and throw hard, at close range, in the face of whoever you are throwing to. Mae, when you are sick Sophia becomes the ‘Mae is sick Sophia’. She is bad, she jumps on you and takes stuff from you and acts really like a controlling little tyrant. She also acts goofy and expresses all of these desires and emotions that I think she usually suppresses when you are well, because her personality has developed in relation to yours. But Mae, when Sophia is sick, it is the opposite, you listen for her cry and accompany me into the room. You bring her Dora doll to her side of the bed and kiss her on the head and are careful not to accidentally hit her. You translate her whines for me and call it to my attention if I overlook her needs.  You are sweet and caring and make sure she is ok. I am so proud of you Mae. You are a good sister. 

Sophia you are too honey, just not when Mae is sick! But when you are both well – you Sophia, you willingly give Mae your toy if she is screaming for it, maybe because you don’t want to listen to it or maybe because you don’t really care either way and prefer for things to be peaceful. Sophia you are able to lay with me for hours or even lay alone and read books. You are very outgoing and you don’t cling and will go to anyone that offers you a kind smile and open arms. 

You are both so loved and adored by your father and me. We can’t even remember what life was like before you got here, even though that was only two short years ago. 

You have also started talking to us. You tell on each other, you tell on the neighbors, you know the names of all the neighborhood kids and ask to go and play with them and the cows and the donkeys on a daily basis.

This past week we considered moving you back into Casablanca to facilitate your lives. Since you have been born I have had the distinct impression that I am only the conductor of your fate, that I am not the decider. I have the impression that you two were born with your own luck, your own money and your own destiny and that my job and your father’s job is simply to be open enough to listen to your fate and simply help you connect up with the wide range of possibilities that are out there for you. This debate about staying out here in the country or moving back to the city at a certain point made me revisit this idea that I am only a conductor of your destiny and that your home, the place where you are meant to live, will come to us and that we only have to be smart enough to recognize it. Well…it turns out…we are already living in it. We found this country house with ease. We found it for the price we need, your nannies presented themselves to us in a month’s time after we moved here and we have been in peace every since then. You have both learned to walk in between the raised beds in the garden and not to step on the vegetables. You have taught yourselves to imitate the noises of all of the animals you see every day here. Your skin gets sick if we take you away from the ocean air and it gets better again when we rub salt water on your legs. I dare say – your home is your home and you are not meant to leave it yet. You are not meant to return to Casablanca and live in an apartment and have a maid pick you up from school.

We just had to be smart enough to understand that. Now we get it. We are staying…until the next thing presents itself.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday little darlings! Thank you so so much for every single day since you were born. All of the worry and enormity of raising you is worth every single second of it. I am humbled and overjoyed to be the conductor of your fate. I look forward to seeing your lives unfold and I have absolutely no doubt there is greatness in store for you at every turn.

Stay at Home Mom - Could I do it?

 Since I have had my children I have constantly, as in everyday Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:00am and 6:00pm, contemplated being a stay at home mom. When they were younger it felt harder. Or maybe I have just gotten used to leaving them. Homeschooling is something I have become interested in through reading homeschooling blogs and having the opportunity to work in a primary school.  After my maternity leave I took a job at a K-12 here in Casablanca. I was the EFL specialist, the pay was ok and the vacation was great. It was a HUGE adjustment to leave them every day to return to work, BUT I finished at 4pm and always had the promise of one day being able to integrate them into that school. That school is more expensive that any school I would ever consider enrolling my children in…so the fact that they would be mostly free was a big plus of the job HOWEVER that school like all of the other Anglophone schools here in Casa had major discipline problems. My colleagues were some of the most passionate, caring, creative people I have ever met. They were invested. They were there early and left late and those kids were THEIR business. EVEN still it was through working at that institution that I started to understand that there is no direct correlation between price and quality in education. The most quality education you can give your child is an education that involved student led knowledge and skills acquisition and an education that nurtures the child’s particular learning style. This is why homeschooling is an issue that I contemplate everyday as my children hurl towards school age. I know I can teach my kids better than anyone else…

NOW this is the thing and bring us back to the title of the post, Could I be a stay at home mom? I romanticize it, but would the reality of it suit me?  Would I feel lost and lazy? Would I want to dress up and get away? Would I start creating outings for us that involved other mothers that were supposed to be for the kids but were really just a social outlet for me? I think the answer to all of those questions is YES. Yes BUT. Yes but I would adjust. I might feel lost at first, but I think if I laid out a quarterly schedule with learning goals and outings and what not that I could easily fill every of all of our days educating my children, writing on this blog, toiling in my garden and cooking for my family…

The reality is though; we are not in a position for me to do this. BUT maybe…maybe one day part time work will come along…who knows. I just know that I am curious…very.