Let's get one thing straight here: I am a full on NOUNOU. What's a nounou you ask? It comes from the French word ¨nourrice,¨ aka the Wet Nurse, from way back in the day...but now means the person that takes care of kids à domicile when parents aren't around. Since France doesn't have daycare like we do in the states, many families, especially wealthy Parisian ones, employ nounous. It's a few steps up on the intensity level from being an au pair if you're curious.
For the past week, I have been out in the French countryside for my nanny job, which explains the lack of updates on this blog. It's la Toussaint vacation, which means only one thing for French school kids: two weeks of uninterrupted vacation. It also only means one thing for me: surviving a week with my two girl kiddos at their Dad's house, which roughly translates to: survive being solitarily confined with no family, no friends, and no socialization all while caring for two girls under the conditions set forth by their demanding mother, sometimes in exotic locales like the French alps and the island of Mauritius, but mostly in the French countryside, and somehow remaining sane.
And relatively sane I've remained for the past 16 months I've worked for these people. Mom and Dad are separated, and not at all amicably, so I've somehow danced the tango between them, not to mention their respective new significant others. As the French would say, this is pas du tout évident. In fact, it has given me a sort of diplomacy (and holding-my-tongue) training that could be very useful later in life...
But that's only one part of the job. The other part is this: I must successfully imitate, and I quote, ¨replace¨ Mommy by bathing, feeding, clothing, entertaining, if needed medicating, and putting two girls to sleep under the following conditions:
1) All girls really want is Dad, who treats them like pets anyway, and won't wake up till noon (on the early side).
2) Make nutritious meals for kiddos that pass the test of a very picky 8 year old while there is often no food in the fridge to feed them. Not to mention tolerate said 8 year olds attitude.
3) Get them to bed at a decent hour when Dad wants to do his one fatherly duty of the day and cuddle with them a bit before they go to bed, but this often results in overly excited children who, in their final burst of energy of the day, get hyper and start doing somersaults all over the bed and/or falling off the bed and hurting themselves in the process. Normally, 45 minutes later, when they are good and wound up again, Dad decides he wants to go eat his dinner and leaves me to do the rest.
You know, in the United States of America, Child Protection Services would never let such a father have visitation rights...at least not overnight ones. But this is the world of fame and money and if you can pay to have a nanny for your child so you can treat them like a pet, why not, right?
And that's just the regime chez Papa. Chez Maman, I am a 24/7 on call modern day servant. I have been known to deliver baguettes at 7h45 in the morning and cancel numerous of my own outings. I get that I have to work to be paid, I'm not complaining about this, but I am irked by the mentality that if someone pays me I owe them my life at their convenience.
Only eight more months only eight more months only eight more months unless I get hired full time. Please sweet baby Jesus give me a job with a visa and an indefinite contract.
I'll stop there. France has turned me into a râleuse, but I digress. The point is that my job is a huge part of my life right now and therefore a huge part of my dating life in France. Simply put: it can REALLY impede having a love life, which is why last year I didn't even bother.
Anytime I meet someone new, I have been very upfront and honest about my job: I tell them I am the nounou for the daughters of two high profile individuals, an actrice and a rockstar, and that my job necessarily requires me to work two to three weekends in the French countryside a month, and that every six weeks I am gone working rounds of vacation. Then depending on levels of discretion and curiosity, I may or may not tell the individual in question who that rockstar is, but the gentlemen I have told usually know who is the father of my two girl kiddos.
Part of me just really wants my life back and wants to date normally and not in the small and limited spaces between being imprisoned at Dad's and at Mom's beck and call. Wants to be able to go out when invited. Wants to go away for weekends with whomever she's seeing and visit Europe.
For example, I received a text message from a gentleman I'll callThe Scientist on Monday inviting me to a concert on Wednesday night. I would've liked to go, but as I'm stuck out here in BFE Country, and he knows about my job, I had to turn him down. The Scientist is someone I met in Spring of 2011 through a mutual friend one night in the fifth when I was teaching some Frenchies to play beer pong (classy, I know) at an English pub. I mistook his intentions for platonic interests and he mistook my friendliness for romantic attraction. Needless to say, this resulted in a comic, marathon rendez-vous that spring that lasted near 7 hours. This climaxed with a message of, right before I went home for a month in Summer of 2011, ¨I'll be thinking of you while you're over the Atlantic¨, something nearly so saccharine I, the Charlotte York-helplessly-romantic-fool, nearly vomited. I have not seen him since, but he'll chat me on Facebook and recently, text me.
¨ It's ok, if you can't come Wednesday, I have other ideas :) ¨ his text read.
¨ On se tient au courant alors?¨ I shot back. Easy and gentle way out to back away back away back away. It's not that I don't like The Scientist as a person, I do. He is a wonderful gentleman. But I dread telling people I am just not interested like that.
Why is it that as soon as one wants you, they all come running? I have been in touch with Monsieur Lawyer all week, reading the book he gave me, which has kept him in my thoughts. He was adorable and sent me a text the other night of ¨ j'ai envie de te faire un bisou¨ to which I responded coyly ¨J'ai envie de te faire plein de bisous!¨ which elicited his message of ¨ohhhhh c'est chou.¨
Going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Thank God there has been a changement de programme and rockstar dad has decided to take the girls to Disneyland Paris this weekend and I am hence dismissed from vacay duty Saturday afternoon. I told Monsieur Lawyer, who has been understanding about my job, this yesterday.
¨Vivement que l'on se voit alors!¨ he responded. I smiled. Vivement.
After all, it's been about ten days since I've seen him.
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