The Three Blonde Musketeers

They sing this song to Felix in the crèche. Sylvia also sometimes sings it to him… It’s such a true Belgian song, I love it:)

Les Déménageurs (Belgium)

Track 2 – “Bonjour, tout va bien“ 

Bonjour tout va bien 

J’ai mes dix doigts, mes deux mains

Deux yeux encore fatigués 

Comme tous les matins

Elle aurait bien aimé rester plus longtemps dans lit

Casser son réveil et puis dormir jusqu’à midi

Mais voilà, elle est là un peu plus réveillée que vous

Grâce au petit chocolat chaud qui m’aide à tenir le coup

Elle aurait bien aimé rester plus longtemps sous la douche

Jouer à avaler, puis souffler l’eau hors de la bouche

Mais voilà, elle est là un peu plus réveillée que vous

Grâce au petit chocolat chaud qui l’aide à tenir le coup

Bonjour tout va bien 

J’ai mes dix doigts, mes deux mains

Deux yeux encore fatigués 

Comme tous les matins

Elle aurait bien aimé manger encore quelques croissants 

Tous chauds dans le four, le chocolat fondu dedans

Mais voilà, elle est là un peu plus réveillée que vous

Grâce au petit chocolat chaud qui l’aide à tenir le coup

Elle aurait bien aimé écouter encore la radio

Y a des messieurs bizarres qui racontent des trucs rigolos

Mais voilà, elle est là à chanter au milieu de vous

Maintenant que vous êtes réveillés

On va pouvoir faire les p’tits fous 

Bonjour tout va bien 

J’ai mes dix doigts, mes deux mains

Deux yeux encore fatigués 

Comme tous les matins

(English Translation)

Hello, everything’s alright

I have my 10 fingers and my 2 hands

And like every morning

My eyes are still tired

She would have loved to stay a bit longer in bed

Break her alarm clock and sleep until noon

But here she is, slightly more awake than you

Thanks to a hot chocolate drink that helps me hold on

She would have loved to stay a bit longer under the shower

Swallowing and blowing the water out of her mouth

 But here she is, slightly more awake than you

Thanks to a hot chocolate drink that helps me hold on

Hello, everything’s alright

I have my 10 fingers and my 2 hands

And like every morning

My eyes are still tired

She would have loved to eat another few croissants 

Nice and warm, straight from the oven with melted chocolate

inside 

But here she is, slightly better woken up than you

Thanks to a hot chocolate drink that helps me to hold on

She would have loved to listen a little longer to the radio

Where you can hear some strange men telling funny stories

But now that you are woken up

We can do crazy things together

Hello, everything’s okay

I have my 10 fingers and my 2 hands

And like every morning

My eyes are still tired

I feel like I should blog a little bit more about my adventures with the three blonde musketeers, so here goes. Last week I brought them for the first time to football (soccer) practice. It’s about a 20 minute tram right and a 10 minute walk to Smash Academy, which not only had soccer practices but also dance, tennis,  rugby, judo…very random, but a really beautiful building and area. It is tucked in some woods but had a giant green field for soccer, and a big bubble for indoor tennis. The main building where the offices, a cafeteria and terrace are is old and brick, looking more like a building from a British prep-school campus than a sport school… But in Brussels, everything is old and made of stoneJ. I love watching the boys play, they really get into it and are actually quite good. Especially Jonas, who usually makes 2 or 3 successful goals during their match they play for the last 20 minutes of their 1 hour practice. Jonas, I can tell, has become a good team player. He doesn’t seem to mind if he messes up or loses, he just keeps trying. You can tell that when he was younger though, he really was a sore loser because sometimes he will yell at a kid on his team if he misses the ball when it’s passed to him or something. But, overall he’s pretty good about itJ It’s so funny to watch Niki play because he is at that age that when there is a pause in the game or something, he just stands there and stares off into space, pulling his shirt over his arms (it’s a habit of his, playing with his shirt..). His dream, as he’s told me many times, is to play for the Bayern-München German football team. So, whenever he complains about going to practice, I just tell him, “You know, Niki, the Bayern-München football players practice every day for 4 hours straight. How are you going to do that if you don’t even practice 1 hour a week now?” This seems to convince him. Here are some pics from them playing:

Jonas is the one in the blue shirt

 Since it’s getting close to Halloween, I thought I’d teach the boys a little bit more about this American tradition. We bought some pumpkins to carve this weekend and yesterday we did some arts and crafts. We made some scary “mini mummies” out of empty apple juice containers and paper, as well as some parchment paper ghosts and black bats to hang in their rooms. The boys LOVE making things, and Niki was especially proud of his mummy. He kept saying how cool it was that no one would ever know it was actually just a juice box covered in paper. He drew the “scariest” face he could think of and added some red hair to the mummy, every few seconds saying “He looks so scary!!” I picked up the mummy and, using a deep scary mummy voice, said “I am waking up from the dead, coming out just in time to scare all the little children on Halloween!” Niki screamed and ran from the table. He was actually scared of this juice box…it was just the cutest thing! The boys were so proud of their mummies (especially the fact that they had a hidden secret...that they are juice boxes...) that they wanted to bring them to school and trick their friends. I felt kind of proud for coming up with a craft that made them so excited:)

The other day we made cookies with the boys! (when Sarah was here!)

This is the grandma who stayed over last week while Sylvia was in Geneva

Jonas is such a loving little boy. On Saturday morning, when I slept until 2pm to recover from Nuit Blanche, I woke up to find this sitting outside my bedroom door:

Also really random, but the other day when Jonas went to the “game cupboard” to get a Kartenspiel (card game), I noticed, for the first time, something really quite funny. Take a look:

What a great place to keep the liquor stash!

Jonas loves to find the differences between British English and American English. He is always pointing out different words when I use one that he didn't learn in school (he learned British English)

For example,

British: Rubber, American: Eraser

          Biscuit, Cookie

          Boot, Trunk (as in a car)

          Autumn, fall

          Loo, bathroom

          Knickers, underwear

          Torch, flashlight

          (and my favorite) Zebra crossing, crosswalk (they also say “Zebrastreifen” in German, meaning zebra stripes. How weird is that?)

He also tends to say “shall” instead of “should” or “would” and uses the word “have” a lot more.

For example:

“I’d like to have a bath” instead of “I’d like to take a bath”

Interesting stuff. Never thought I would not only be learning German and French here, but also British English. Life's just full of surprises:)