Every year I get to experience another birthday I am awed at the fact that at 16 I never expected to live to see 20 and here I am 36, a wife and a mother. I never really take notice or consider it but I am highly blessed and fortunate to have made it out of those dark days and experienced so many things that seem fantastical.
My birthdays are never really good days for me, I’ve spent so many years depressed and feeling ignored on a day others are celebrated. I don’t always get a cake or gifts, but if I get birthday greetings it always feels like an obligation, if people didn’t know my birthday they absolutely wouldn’t go out of their way to say Happy Birthday, I just wanted to feel special, for someone to be happy that on this day I was born. It seems egotistical but who doesn’t want to feel like they matter?
I could write for hours about the birthdays I felt like the dirt on the floor but I want to talk about this one, this birthday that I felt so happy for the first time in a very long time.
What made this birthday so different?
Well, I got to talk to my mother, I know you probably don’t understand why this has such an impact on me but my mother is my everything, and living in different countries with a time zone difference means that we don’t always get to talk, sometimes several months pass before I hear from her and it wasn’t like I could call her, she was always busy, didn’t have a smartphone just a basic flip phone and I didn’t have a long-distance calling phone plan. So just the fact that I got to talk to her on my birthday made me very happy.
I was expecting to stay home and do nothing, you know the same thing we did every year since I don’t even remember but my husband asked if I wanted to go out and I said yes, so we went out as a family for my birthday. We went to a restaurant I’d never been to before and I had a meal I’d never had before, it was nice all I really ever want is to do things as a family and have good memories. I know it’s directly related to how I grew up, we didn’t really do things as a family and I want different for my children.
Here’s my birthday meal, a beef tataki, I also had a mojito, I was feeling adventurous knowing that I would be drunk before I even finished that one glass.
I took some pictures of the children but none of me, not at the dinner anyway, I came home in such a good mood, this had already been one of the best days I’ve had for the year but it was about to get even better.
My husband gave me my birthday present, a bottle of my favorite perfume. L’Interdit Rouge by Givenchy, I was lucky to receive samples before and fell in love with the scent but as you guys know those perfumes are not cheap and I just kept finding reasons why I didn’t have the funds to buy it even though I loved it. I even told my husband he could buy the cheapest smallest bottle and I would be fine with it but he got me a 50ml bottle and it means so much to me. It’s not so much the perfume but the thought behind it, the knowledge that he could have gotten the cheapest option but he got me a bigger bottle because he knew I loved it. I immediately pushed aside my Alien Goddess Intense perfume that I wore every day to put my L’Interdit Rouge at the very front of my shelf so it would be the first perfume I reach for and the first anyone would see.
Summer has come and gone so quickly, I thought I was going to accomplish more but life showed me that I shouldn’t make plans for the future.
I meant to post this in early September when the school year had just started but we’re now heading into the fifth week of school and it’s almost October. I’ve been very behind on my blogging, but I’m here to share my update now.
My daughter is two and a half years old and she could have gone to school this September if only she was potty trained, I said to myself that I was going to potty train her over the summer break but she’s just not ready. She won’t sit on the potty, she doesn’t really say when needs to pee or poop, and she doesn’t say that she has a dirty diaper. If I don’t smell it or change her frequently she would be fine to just sit in her dirty diaper all day.
People told me that girls were easier to potty train than boys but I’m not seeing any truth in this, my son would at least sit on the potty my daughter just refuses, she will cry and scream if you even suggest it so I don’t.
I bought her some underwear to wear but she goes through them so fast that I’m beginning to see that I need much more than 20.
Slowly but surely we’ll get there so I’ll be trying not to stress too much about this.
Other than potty training woes we didn’t really do much or go anywhere.
The Village
We’ve been to The Village before, several times in fact but not frequently so we took the kids there so they could run around in the play area and have some summer fun.
After the children played we visited The Waffle Factory which is a restaurant that serves only waffles. I got waffles covered in white chocolate and Naveen got waffles and whipped cream. My husband had waffles covered in milk chocolate. Oyanie refused to eat any of the waffles and choose to drink all the lemon water instead. The waffles were a bit difficult to cut especially with the flimsy wooden fork and knife they gave us. Marvin was in the middle of cutting his waffle when his fork snapped. I joked and said he used all his muscles on it.
The Aquarium
Going to the aquarium has been a dream of mine since moving here and we finally got to go.
We decided to go in the afternoon, the drive there probably took us half an hour and we spent two hours vising all that tanks and watching short movies, Naveen and Oyanie seemed to have really enjoyed themselves and Naveen made sure to tell me all about the fishes he saw and the sharks were one of his favorites to see.
Naveen was really excited when he saw a Blue Tang, he told me he saw Dory but no Neemo, a couple of tanks over I spotted a clownfish swimming in and out of an anemone and pointed it out to him when he yelled out Mami look Neemo! it made me really happy that he could see these fish in person.
Pool time
Since we are not near to any beaches and were not planning of traveling to one this year we made do with going to my in-laws and enjoying their pool.
Both of my children love the water and do not want to leave the pool anytime they get in it. Naveen definitely got a sun tan with all his sun exposure while swimming around with my husband’s cousins as well as their own cousins.
Back to School
Back to School for us was on September 1st. Naveen is in CM1 which is the French equivalent to 4th grade. Oyanie and I had to wake up early to take him to school, pick him up for lunch, drop him back after lunch, and pick him up after school.
It was the worst experience of my life, there were so many people jammed in front of the gate all trying to force their way in to drop their children off. I felt very uneasy with people stepping over the stroller or standing right up against my back, someone even touched my butt and I hated every second I had to spend waiting in that crowd of bodies.
The second day I decided I would leave the stroller home and we’d just walk until it was lunchtime Oyanie said her feet were “fatigués” which sounded like fatigee to my ears. I thought that if she was so tired I’ll just use the stroller next time but she refused so we walked again after school she was really tired and I got the stroller out which she did not like at all. Oyanie, when she doesn’t get a chance to nap, is a monster, she screamed, she cried, she threw things, I thought for sure she would sleep in the stroller but she did not and I don’t know how to include a nap into our busy schedule. If I let her nap after we drop Naveen off after lunch I’ll have to wake her up during her nap and she hates that just as much.
I really hope I won’t have such a busy schedule next week because we both need her to have her afternoon nap.
The 2nd week
The 2nd week went by much more smoothly, we don’t use the stroller at all anymore but sometimes I wish we did, when Oyanie’s little legs get tired of walking or she stumbles and falls she wants me to pick her up and carry her on my hips and walk is a workout, when we finally reach home my whole body is sore, my shoulders ache, my back ache, my legs ache, I know she won’t go in the stroller even if I bring it though. I have also gotten used to not having to try to find space to push the stroller through.
My baby absolutely loves picking up her brother at school, she gets to walk on her own, she points out all the airplanes she sees, they are her favorites, she gets really excited when she sees one in the sky and will scream with joy and point at it. She also likes stopping to smell the flowers and picks one every chance she gets, she almost always ends up dropping it before we reach the school when Naveen finally walks out the gate she runs up to him and hugs him saying “Vee-veen!”.
I am unimportant from that point forward, she wants to hold her brother’s hand, run with him, follow him, play with him, she wants to do everything with him, unfortunately, Naveen is hitting pre-teen years which means he doesn’t always want to be with his baby sister. He will ignore her, not hold her hand or tell her to leave him alone and it breaks her heart. She cries so much when does that and then she finally remembers me and comes to me for comfort.
I remember those days so well from my own youth, my sisters frequently pushed me to the side and made me feel unwanted, I had my brothers though and I made sure never to make them feel like I didn’t want them around. I can’t force Naveen to play with his sister though, he will be nine and I recognize and understand that he needs his personal space. Still, I also recognize that with only two children they are pretty much the only close family either one will have and Oyanie just wants to spend time with her brother. I have not yet figured out a way to navigate this turbulent sea. My mother never forced my siblings and me to play together but sometimes I wished she had, maybe it wouldn’t have taken us so long to finally get along.
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, in the last lesson I spoke about Dey, the 3rd person and thing (plural) pronoun. That was the last lesson on pronouns. I created this chart that is attached below to easily recall the pronouns.
If you missed any of the lessons you can find them at the links supplied below:
For this lesson I’m going to talk about common words you should definitely know, you can find the definitions of these words and more at the Crucian Dictionary.
I would be remiss if I didn’t start with Mawnin! If you don’t say good mawnin or mawnin when meeting people or entering a store you could be met with a frosty reception. Good manners are always appreciated. It is the same for Aftanoon and good night.
Ayo, also written as al’you, ahyou, or ahyuh, you use this word in place of all of you or you guys.
Ayo does make me sick.
You guys are annoying me.
Wahs wrung wid ayo?
What’s wrong with all of you?
Baxide or Backside is simply how you would say buttocks.
Yo baxide dohn listen!
You are hard of hearing. This is mostly said in frustration.
Bigman/Bossman, this is used when referring to someone who is well respected. Basically a sign of respect.
Ay, bigman/bossman yuh co lend me a dolla or wah?
Hey, sir, can you lend me a dollar?
Bin, how we pronounce been or was.
I bin yah!
I was here!
Cy’an, used for saying can’t.
I cy’an do dat tuh she!
I can’t do that to her!
Cyar, the pronunciation of car.
Dahs he cyar deh?
Is that his car?
The cy pronunciation of words such as car, can’t, and cart are said to be other influences from our Irish overseers.
Deh, this is one of the most important words to know in Crucian because we use it all the time. It is how we say The. And if you say deh deh it means there, except in the negative form on specific occasions. To use deh deh in the negative form sometimes you have to omit one deh. Deh is also used in between sentences for reasons I have not understood yet. It is such a complex word and you really need to understand it to be able to use it effectively.
Deh dawg dem deh deh.
The dogs are there.
Me’en ova deh.
I’m not over there.
Me’en deh deh.
I’m not there.
Me’en deh yah.
I’m not here.
Dehman, basically meaning The man but it can also be used as hey, we use this saying a lot in frustration and surprise.
Aye dehman! Dehman!
Aye dehman! yuh see dat deh!
Hey! Did you see that?
Mehson, the literal translation would be my son, it’s used pretty similarly to dehman.
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, today I’m going to talk about Dey or They as they say it in Standard English.
In Standard English, They have five forms (They, Them, Their, Theirs, and Themselves) but in Crucian it only has four (Dey, Dem, Dey-own or Dey’s, Deyself or Demself).
No doubt you’ve noticed by now that we pronounce the th sound as d which is called Alveolar stops, it’s more than likely a carry-over from our Irish Overseers, it’s actually hilarious and interesting. The other day I was scrolling through Tiktok and came upon some Irish videos and I’ve always loved the accent so I said why not? sounds good to me. Going through several videos I landed on one of someone talking about accents from Northern Ireland and how hard it can be to understand and I paused…
What’s so hard about it? I thought to myself, I understood everything!
Anyway, here are some sample sentences:
They don’t belong here.
Dey dohn belong ya.
Are you going to the party with them?
You goin tuh deh jam wih dem?
The red one is their house.
Deh red one is dey house.
Are you going to pay for theirs too?
Yu goin tuh pay fo dey-own too?
Yu goin tuh pay for dey’s too?
His parents are going to blame themselves.
He parents dem goin blame deyself.
He parents dem goin blame demself.
Ah the lovely deyself, it is Crucian for theirselves which is a non-standard way of saying themselves. You might hear theirselves said in some dialects but it is almost never written. In Crucian it is perfectly fine to say and write deyself and I find it more natural to say deyself vs demself. Like every other nuance in Crucian, these differences just comes down to personal preferences.
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, today I’m going to talk about the 1st person plural We, We in Standard English has five forms (We, Us, Our, Ours, and Ourselves) in Crucian We also has five forms but they are a little bit different, in Crucian we use (We, We or Allawe, Ow-a or We, Ow-a own, We own or Ow-a’s, and Ow-a-self or Weself), where Standard English would say Us in Crucian we say We or Allawe. Allawe is simply “All of us”, we never just say us it is always All of us.
Sample Sentences:
SE: We sang as we walked.
Crucian: We does sing as we walk.
SE: We don’t want a new carpet.
Crucian: We dohn wahn a new carpet.
SE: I hope he likes us.
Crucian: I hope he like allawe.
SE: You didn’t tell us it was her birthday.
Crucian: You ain tell we ih wuz ha buttday.
SE: We are already on our way.
Crucian: We deh on ow-a/we way.
SE: Don’t tell our parents!
Crucian: Dohn tell ow-a/we parents!
SE: Their children study hard while ours never study.
Crucian: Dey chirren dem does study hard while ow-a/we/ow-a’s (own) dohn study.
I know you noticed the two placements of does, I’ve been thinking of our use of does a lot and it seems to be used when we should be using a word in the past tense. Like in the previous sentence We sang as we walked, in Crucian it was we does sing as we walk. It doesn’t always work that way though, sometimes we just use the word in its present tense like He carried something on his back would be He carry something on he back or He does carry something on he back.
SE: Your house isn’t better than ours.
Crucian: Yo house ain betta dan we/ow-a/ow-a’s (own).
You might have also noticed the own after we or ow-a. Well, this only happens when using ow-a as a possessive pronoun vs using ow-a’s.
SE: We did it ourselves.
Crucian: We do it (by) weself/ow-a-self.
SE: We didn’t enjoy ourselves.
Crucian: We’en enjoy weself/ow-a-self.
At the beginning of the lesson I said Crucian had five forms for the 1st person plural We but in actuality you can simply use just three! We, We own, and Weself. It really just comes down to your own preference.
I hope you enjoyed learning about the Crucian way of using and saying We. The next lesson will focus on the third-person plural They, I’m skipping the second person plural because it is the same as the second person Yo – Yu
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, today I’m going to talk about the 3rd thing Pronoun Ih or as they say in Standard English It.
Ih is an interesting word while it means “it” it can also be used to say “there’s”. With Crucian it’s really best to learn by listening since there really aren’t any formal rules you just hear and repeat. I guess this is why our writing system is so fractured everyone writes the words in their own interpretation to how it sounds.
As for Ain, it seems to only be used in the negative form in specific situations. I haven’t really figured out what those situations are yet.
In Standard English, It has three forms It, Its, and Itself. Ih also has three forms in Crucian, Ih, Itz, and Itself.
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, in the last lesson I mentioned that I was going to focus on the 3rd person pronoun He but I felt like it made more sense to talk about both He and She since they are very similar.
In Standard English, He and She both have four forms (He, She, Him, Her, His, Hers, Himself, and Herself) in Crucian He and She also have four forms (He, She, Hiz, Ha, He own, She own, Heself, and Sheself).
As you no doubt noticed we don’t say Him or Her it’s He and She, once more I don’t exactly know why but I’m sure there’s a reason for that.
While I was doing this lesson I realized that sometimes instead of Hiz or Ha I sometimes will use He or She, I hadn’t noticed until I started forming the sentences. I find that very interesting because by itself I will say Hiz for his and Ha for hers but in a sentence, it is more natural to say He or She.
In the next lesson, I will talk about 3rd thing, It or Ih as we say in Crucian.
Welcome back to #CrucianwithMami, today I am going to talk about the Crucian second person pronoun Yu sometimes said as Yo.
In Standard English you have four forms (You, Your, Yours, and Yourself) in Crucian there are also four forms (Yu, Yo, Yo’s, and Yoself)
I wish I could offer an in-depth explanation as to why we say Yoself in Crucian rather than Yurself but I feel like I’m learning about my own language alongside you!
Here are some sample sentences:
SE- You are a student.
Yu a student.
SE- Wash your hands.
Wash yo hand dem. (I will explain dem in another lesson)
Welcome to the first lesson of #CrucianwithMami, I originally wanted to start with the word “Deh” but I’ll leave that for the next lesson.
Today we are focusing on the two forms of I that are used in Crucian, the affirmative form I and the negative Me’en.
There are no strict rules when using I but Me’en is never used in the affirmative form.
If you wanted to say I’m home in Crucian you’d say – I home or I deh home
If you wanted to say I’m not home in Crucian you’d say – Me’en home or Me’en deh home
Another way you’d say that in Crucian would be – I’n home or I’n deh home
Unlike other languages, there are no informal or formal forms as the entire language is considered informal. Using either Me’en or I’n just seems to be a personal preference.
I originally posted about this on the Facebook page and realized that I had not posted about it on the blog, I sincerly apologize for that.
You might notice a new tab on the blog’s menu “Crucian with Mami” well that’s there because I started a mini-series in an attempt to teach my children Crucian.
On December 19, 2020, I decided I was going to do something about the fact that my son doesn’t speak the local creole from where we were born, this is what I posted on Facebook:
Being an Expat parent is not easy especially when your child speaks only the community language and not your mother tongue so today I’m starting a mini-series: Crucian with MamiIn Crucian (the creole of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where I’m from) we call our mother’s Mami. My son stopped calling me Mami when we moved to France in 2015, social pressure, everyone calls their grandmother Mamie and their mother Maman. It’s an indescribable feeling going through a terrible pregnancy, waiting 9+ months for your child to finally call you Mami, and then just like that in the blink of an eye, it’s taken from you. It felt like he forgot me. I understand fitting in when out and about in public but I had hoped that we could still keep a little of our culture at home. As it is now my son doesn’t talk to any of my family, he says he doesn’t understand them because he only speaks French. I don’t want this for my children so from today, we are going to be doing Crucian classes with Mami. My classes will teach the difference between standard English and Crucian, we’ll listen to Crucian music, hopefully, eat Crucian food, and read Crucian literature. As we say in Crucian “Leh we go!” (Let’s go!)
Crucianize
I started going over the language and trying to figure out the most important aspects of it so that I could teach the children. I decided I would start with the word Deh, I recorded a sound clip and soon realized that it would be much better to start with pronouns in Crucian.
For the first lesson, I covered the two forms of I used in Crucian.
Crucianize 