Friday Lunch

Just Ailbhe, Finian, and I home for lunch today, Fiacra had lunch at school. From when I picked Ailbhe up from school to when I dropped her off again, she never stopped talking. When Fiacra is talking like this, he asks constant questions, often questions that require thought to answer. Ailbhe is different, she just needs an occasional "mmmm", "wow", "I see" to continue for hours.

A lot of her chat was about her plans to build a boat. Most of our friends in Canada and family in Ireland are included in the building plans (be warned), which seems to be taking place at the Orchards'. I admit I tune in and out but was paying enough attention to pick up two nuggets of conversation today.

The first, "I don't see far distances so well anymore." Anymore???? Yikes - may need a trip to the optometrist.

The second, "My class is like Emmanuel, the big class is like JK." Emmanuel is the daycare Ailbhe went to last year. She's completely right. The first two years of Ecole Maternelle, which includes 3 and 4 year olds, seems to have a big focus on pre-writing and pre-reading skills. Ailbhe hasn't done any actual writing practise at all. So in a single year, "the big class" of Ecole Maternelle, go from not writing at all to script handwriting. This seems like quite a big leap.

Meanwhile, Fiacra is enjoying his school lunch. He described it to us over dinner, "there was meat with dots in it, we had to have 2 slices, I tried it but didn't like it. There was meat with gravy. It was a type of meat we don't have at home. I ate it but didn't really like it. I ate all the carrots and my yogurt."

Before bed, I looked on the schoolboard website to see what the menu was:
Saucisson + beurre
Sauté de kangourou sce venaison
Petits pois carottes
Yaourt vanille Bio
Fruit de saison
Chocolatine

Saucisson is a cured sausage, I'm guessing this is the meat with dots. I'm not sure why butter is mentioned. Kangourou is, as you've probably guessed, kangaroo and is probably the meat we don't have at home.

To deflect from the meat, I asked Fiacra what the "fruit de saison" was today.

"An orange"
"Was it peeled?"
"No"
"Was it a mandarin or an orange"
"It wasn't a mandarin, it was an orange"
"Were you able to peel it?"
"No, I just hacked at it with my knife, and got some pieces out"

The kids now have two weeks off school, but I'll be eagerly awaiting the April school menus.