Babysitting...in another language

So as some of you may or may not know, I have been babysitting for a family here in Paris since September. I wanted to find a babysitting job to make some extra money, so I went on a couple of interview but nothing was really a great fit. Well, on the way back from Tours in September I was sitting by myself in the quad seat on the train. A family ended up sitting in these seats as well. For a while I just watched the kids interact and laughed to myself at some of the things they were doing. The little girl asked her mom for train tickets to play with (in Paris the metro tickets are really small so kids like to play with them) the mom only had a couple. I knew that I had some in my wallet, so I took them out and gave them to the little girl. She politely said "merci" and happily played with the tickets. Her little brother was getting fussy so they gave him sunglasses to play with. I had my sunglasses on and he was sitting across from me so he kept on looking at me with my sunglasses. The parents and I started talking and the next thing I knew I was starting the next day. My friends laughed so hard when we got off the train.

Now that I have been with the kids for a while I am really starting to learn their ins and outs. The family lived in London for about a year and just moved back to Paris a couple of months ago. Alexandra (4 1/2) is the oldest so she started to learn a little English, but I am trying to work with her so that she can pick it up easier when she starts in school. Thomas (2) can be my troublemaker. He of course doesn't speak any English, so I end up speaking mostly French with both kids. It is hard to understand babies in English, you can only imagine how hard it was for me at first to figure out what he is saying. Now, I have a pretty good idea, but there are still some times when I turn to Alexandra and ask her to help me figure out what he is saying.

This is such a great experience for me, first of all because I always loved babysitting and secondly, I am getting a chance to practice my French and learn new vocab words I would have never learned otherwise. Even though both of them have their naughty days (Thomas is a spitter and Alexandra doesn't want to speak English because she knows that I speak French) they are great kids. I could make the sequel to Adventures in Babysitting, just in another language! Love from Paris...