my days and nights in the city of light

How time flies when you are stressed out

2010-10-06T18:12:00.003+02:00

I swear to god, people, I came back to Paris in a good mood but every other person I meet has done his level best to stomp on my smiley face. Which is to say, I have had more than my fair share of run-ins with Paris' finest SOBs. Which means that I have been a bit too stressed out to do anything other than bite my nails and cry.

The most worrisome of this fine line-up of mankind is Ella's new teacher. She changed schools this year and its not been entirely what I had imagined. She is going to a private Catholic school in the 5th and it turns out to be so ridiculously snobby that I actually walked out of the parent's association meeting early, realizing that there wasn't a snowball chance in hell that I would willingly spend my free time hanging out with these people. But thats more due to the snooze factor than anything else. No, the problem is her teacher who is an absolute beyotch- to the point that I am considering taking Ella out of this school. We have already done an inscription for a different private school for next year so atleast I know that I am not stuck with this place, but still. A year is a LONG time to have to deal with this woman.

Then the downstairs neighbors started acting up again. The last time we phoned to ask them to keep the noise down, after midnight, they freaked out and screamed (literally) that 'it was now war!' I am baffled, as I had already declared war back in May. (Seriously, keep up folks) But in their drunken screeching, it appears that they were under the impression that as owners of the apartment (vs the situation of a renter) that they could do anything that they pleased. The concierge later told me that they previously were renters. And they also thought that they coproprieté would support them in a complaint against us (see, the way they figure it, we are harrassing them. Idiots.) when in fact, the coproprieté has asked B to be its president which would mean that he is the boss of the building (which would really help me out in my bid to sue the pants off these asshats for noise disturbances. I could make them replace their tile floors!) Anyways, what a delight to have to worry night and day about being attacked in a dark hall by the people next door, right?

Speaking of people next door, the lady renter in the apartment next to ours is moving out and we immediately phoned the owner to see if he would sell us the flat so that we could have that little bit of extra space that we are lacking and he not only said 'no' but shouted at us for even bothering him with the question. He is like 105 years old, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he might be tired of dealing with renters. Guess not. Of course, all of our other neighbors have kindly chimed in with helpful speculation regarding the tenuous state of his health and the likelihood that his kids will definitely sell to us. I hate betting on death odds. Seems like it is likely to attract some seriously bad karma. Anyways, noisy neighbors make us a bit skittish about investing any more in this place, but the For Sale listings are not inspiring me (although if we had a million and a half to throw at our next purchase, I might be feeling it...)

Who else has pissed me off lately? Oh right. My playgroup is a bunch of jerks. OK, not entirely. Its just that people seem to prefer meeting up separately, in groups of 2 or 3, rather than just sending out a note to everyone and suggesting something. That just seems not nice. And in my tender state, I have a hard time dealing. I just want a nice group of friendly moms who make me feel like I have an entire gang of sympathetic people to turn to once a week to mop up all the mommy messes that I have made over the course of the past 6 days, rather than having to get on the phone and beg someone to come out and meet me. This doesn't seem like it should be such an issue, but there you go.

And lastly, but most irritatingly, my colorist, who I LOVE, now has a three week waiting list. That means, I need to think about re-doing my roots THREE WEEKS before I notice a prob in the mirror. I might as well switch colorists now because that ain't ever gonna happen. I am always calling up and begging for a same day appointment. I'm never going to get my shit together to sort out an appointment. That sucks but I have to just face reality and move on, I think.

So there you go. Paris, why you bein' so mean to me? Treat me right or I am going to pack my bags and go. Swear. To. God.

We're back

2010-08-27T11:37:00.002+02:00

Of COURSE Georgia has the worst case of jetlag and after a rather difficult flight (So sorry fellow passengers of Delta flight 217- I mananged to keep the screaming to a minimum but frankly, I am well aware that any screaming is too much screaming when trapped in a tin can for 8 hours...) I am hoping to get this sorted out ASAP. First night back, I was awake with both girls from 2 til 5:45 a.m. It was horrific and I nearly lost it when Georgia knocked over my block tower for the 100th time, which was my signal that it was time for them to be put to bed. Honestly, when you can't even play blocks with your 1 year-old, you need to sleep. Thats a good rule of thumb, I've found.

Last night, I managed to get Ella asleep at 2 am, at which point (sigh), Georgia woke up. I made her stay in bed but had to go in and calm her down every 15 minutes til 4:45. Its nearly noon and she is still asleep, so as soon as I finish here, she is getting her wake-up call. I hope a week is long enough to get the girls back on schedule. I am so tired. So so tired. It doesn't quite seem fair that after skipping a night's sleep while travelling that they put me through this circus. I don't know if I'll manage to survive long enough to see the outcome.

On the other hand, being awake all night, I've managed to catch up on all my blogs after doing a bit of an internet detox this summer, which was much needed. I have also discovered a new kids series on DVD that I love- Shaun the Sheep, from the people who do the Wallace and Gromit stuff. So cute and funny (although that is coming from a severely sleep-deprived person, so I'll have to verify the funniness when I am fully conscious)! Of course, it was supposed to be a new treat for on the airplane but one of my darling children decided to poke around in the carry-on bag at some point, and turned on the brand-new, purchased-especially-for-this-flight DVD player, thereby assuring that the battery was completely dead by the time we got on the plane and needed to be entertained. Did I mention that our flight back was a little bit hellish?

I hate re-entry after a long long summer holiday.

On a more positive note, I was so excited to see Georgia's new room- the color is beautiful and the fabric stickers that I ordered are adorable. It looks like such a sweet little girl's room now. Will post photos as soon as I manage to download all 1500 (!) summer vacation photos off my camera. I went to by an external hard drive last night so if all goes well, it will happen this afternoon. Extreme tiredness is not usual conducive to successful computer repair jobs, as far as I am concerned, but I am optimistic. Also, dying to look through the photos! The new camera seems like it was taking great photos and I want to get a set printed out as soon as I can.

I also looked through my giant stack of mail and I got a place at the Ecole du Louvre night school! I have wanted to do the History of Art course for YEARS and never managed to get my paperwork in on time. Finally, through some stroke of luck, the day before we left in June I remembered to download the paperwork. I did the application and had Bruno post it. I totally forgot to ask about it all summer so it was a nice surprise to come back to. Between weekly art classes at the Louvre and the abonnement to the ballet, I feel like my culture quotient will go through the roof this year.

I am in such a hazy state of consciousness that I thought it was Friday yesterday, when I had booked the sitter. Luckily, she didn't mind staying late yesterday although she must have been a bit confused about what was going on. Between this and entirely unpacking our suitcases (she even ironed everything before putting it away!), I feel like I already owe her a giant bonus for the month. Seriously, she is worth her weight in gold and pretty much is top of my list when I grimly make me list of Reasons Why France is OK. Obviously, it is the time of year when I need to pull it out very often.

Anyways, B took off work early yesterday and we managed to get out on a date. When he visits us in the States we don't tend to get much alone time, so it seems like years since we've done this. He has been so sweet and 'affectionate' since we got home that its practically like dating a new boyfriend. I know it'll wear off quickly enough, but I'm enjoying it while I can. We walked around St Germain des Pres in the rain (so romantic) and did some shopping (for computer stuff- NOT so romantic) and then had the nicest dinner at Le Recamier in the 7th. We'd gone there years ago once or twice and I don't remember it being so good. They specialize in soufflés, which seems a bit odd- are there that many soufflé-ophiles wandering the streets of Paris?, but clearly this place is a favorite of the locals and we had to beg for a table on the terrasse despite the lousy weather last night. The waiter then turned away dozens of other people, despite the fact that the terrasse was still half empty, which of course, made me feel like One of the Chosen Few. Its true that Parisian waiters can be complete b*&!%#ds, but once you've cracked the code, its so nice.

I suppose I need to add that to my list of good things about Paris- being able to sit outside on a warm night, drinking champagne and eating apricot souffles with a lovely date. Today is going to be dedicated to back-to-school organization. Top of the list- haircuts for everyone.

Just a little bit longer...

2010-08-12T16:46:00.002+02:00

We had a great time when B came to visit, which obviously kept me away from the computer and out having fun. (Remind me to tell you about how we roasted a whole pig in a giant pit when his dad came to visit for a few days.) Once he left, we were really sad but it seemed like the summer had just whizzed by and it was already time for me and the girls to start packing so... I changed our tickets to stay for an extra 10 days. Its not so much more and we still get home in plenty of time for school but we don't have to try and entertain ourselves in the city for so long. B actually was the one to suggest that it was far better to keep the kids here, where they can run around outside and play at the lake, than to take them back to the apartment.

I am so relieved. I needed a bit more time to get myself back in the mood for city life. It gets harder every year!

Lots more photos to post but I have the Mother of all Computer Viruses on my laptop and I have it at the shop right now. Once that gets sorted out, I can start downloading a few more of the 1000+ photos I have sitting on my memory stick. Its going to be a big job.

wisconsin things

2010-07-16T18:47:00.000+02:00

Meeting the animals at the county fair

Wisconsin things

2010-07-16T18:45:00.000+02:00

The county fair

Belated birthday present

2010-07-14T18:43:00.000+02:00

Ella's birthday arrived just a week after my grandfather's funeral, so quite understandably, my mom forgot to send a present. Which worked out very well for Ella- she was paging through a toy catalog that had landed in the mailbox and found a kid's make-up kit that she ABSOLUTELY needed (I think I may have an Eloise on my hands after repeated readings of the Eloise anthology...). I said that I would bear that in mind when Christmas came along but it didn't take much more than one little 'Pleeeeeese, Mamie?' for my Mom to offer to buy it as a belated birthday gift. It arrived yesterday and has turned out to be even better than she had imagined. I remember playing in my mom's make-up when I was that age, taking turns with my best friend painting our faces all the colors of the rainbow. Make-up is the most thrilling thing to play with when you are that age. This looks like a sparkly pink Box-o-rashes to me, but you can't deny that it is Ella's dream present.
Oh well. I bought an economy-sized bottle of Benadryl on my first trip to Walmart for a reason.

Wisconsin things

2010-07-14T18:24:00.000+02:00

Tornado warnings
We heard the sirens this morning at 10:30 while we were at swimming lessons and drove home as fast as we could. The sky was so dark that the lights of all the signs had gone on and the air was ominously warm and heavy. I drove past the county fairgrounds, where all the RVs were sitting and said a little prayer for all those poor people stuck out there, with their animals, waiting for the judging to begin this afternoon. They already had the police cars sitting at the gates with the ambulance. I guess I'm not the only one who was thinking about what a disaster it would be if a tornado touched down in town. I'm now sitting in the kitchen watching the black clouds roll by, jumping up every time it thunders (wondering if it is actually the start of a touchdown), and flicking over to the weather site to track the storm clouds.

I don't actually mind the rain- its kind of nice to be stuck in the house on a stormy day. I just have lost the habit of hiding out in the basement.

wisconsin things

2010-07-12T19:45:00.000+02:00

Watching a butterfly crawl out of its cocoon

wisconsin things

2010-07-12T19:44:00.000+02:00

Wearing rodeo leftovers abandoned at the cabin as sunhats

wisconsin things

2010-07-12T19:41:00.000+02:00

Sunday afternoon, with all the family, watching a game at the baseball diamond

wisconsin things

2010-07-12T19:40:00.000+02:00

Baseball in the backyard after dinner

Wisconsin things

2010-07-09T15:34:00.000+02:00

Learning to ride a bike

Wisconsin things

2010-07-09T15:28:00.000+02:00

Freezie Pops
After spending the afternoon at the pool, the perfect snack is a freezie pop while drying off in the sun.

Wisconsin things

2010-07-07T21:28:00.000+02:00

Swimming lessons

wisconsin things

2010-07-07T21:26:00.000+02:00

Cheerios with blueberries for breakfast
Trying to get every last drop in her mouth

Blowing bubbles

2010-07-07T21:23:00.000+02:00

We tried ice cream and a visit to the lakeside park, but it was no good. We could not beat the heat. Then finally, it finally started to cool off around dinner time, when the wind picked up and blew away the humidity that had been hanging over the day like a heavy, wet blanket. We had my aunt and uncle over a dinner of grilled steaks and salade from the garden, with a gorgeous bottle of Napa Valley wine that my parents picked up last fall on their trip out there. We sat out on the patio and spent a couple of hours talking and drinking- we probably would have been there even longer if we hadn't run out of the good wine so quickly! The girls started getting a little antsy at the table, but that it what is so perfect about dinners outside. I grabbed a bottle of bubbles and they were happy to play for another hour while we watched them run and laugh around us. I managed to snap a few photos, to remember it all.

(and once again, there they are, in matching dresses. I swear- its like a disease. I promise myself that I will stop and then something happens, like my MIL gives me cash to buy something nice for the girls. Now, when she does that the EXACT SAME DAY that my invite to the private sales at Bonpoint arrives in the mail, its like the universe is telling me that I need to buy them these little outfits. How can you argue with the universe, people? You can't. You can only hand over your cash.)

Fireworks

2010-07-05T19:04:00.002+02:00

Well, 4th of July was a bit of a bust this year. We couldn't stay at the cabin at the lake because my sister was there with her kids so after a great day of swimming and grilling on Saturday, we drove back to my parent's house and crashed into bed. The next morning came far too early and the gray, rainy weather scared us, but we ignored it, hoped for the best, and climbed back in the car to drive to the parade.

By the time we got there, the weather had improved from downpour to misting so I said it was on. I put the girls in their costumes and signed us up. We were supposed to walk in the parade with my sister's kids and two of my cousins, but none of them showed up! Wusses. Georgia shocked me by getting totally into it and walking down the entire parade route waving a little flag at the crowds- only stopping when she lost her little pumpkin hat. Can you believe that she ended up LOVING her costume and happily wearing the entire time we were in town? I was astounded. This is the grumpiest, most anti-social baby alive (ok, I might be exaggerating a bit but she is not the easiest kid that I've ever met) but she is a total ham. Put her on stage and she shines.

Hey- I've been talking about putting Ella into one of those kiddie beauty pageants for a laugh and now I'm thinking that I might have to do it with both of them. Watch for us on the next episode of 'Toddlers and Tiaras'. I'll be the most crazy stage mom and my kids will be the ones giving interviews about how mean their mommy is.

So the kiddie parade went great and we collected our goodie bags before making our way back to my mom, who had been snapping photos. By the time we got there, the rest of the family had finally arrived. So had the big storm clouds. As the main parade started, the rain went from a light mist to a drizzle. Then it worked its way up to a steady rain. By the time the fire trucks were making their way up main street, it was a deluge. We had some rain coats and umbrellas but the kids just stood on the side of the road getting soaked. I mean, they didn't want anything to get in the way of some serious candy collecting, right? We eventually made our way back to the car, dripping wet. No afternoon in the park, drinking 5 dollar pitchers of beer and eating roast chicken while listening to the local band and the kids played silly carnival games.

We all got dried off and threw together a fun lunch of taco salade (another thing I forgot how much I love! Taco salade, kids, get yourself some!) then sort of hung around the window, speculating on the weather. Would it clear up in time for fireworks? Was it worth having the kids try and nap on the sofa? Or should we just bail out and hope for better things on Monday?

We bailed. We were all exhausted from rushing around all morning and the rain and whatever. I kind of hated leaving and felt like I really should just make the best of things, rain or no rain. But. But. But we were all SO tired. Its hard because there are so many people that it is nearly impossible to find a quiet corner. See, this is why we need an extension on the cabin- a few extra bedrooms a little bit away from the crowds would come in handy. In the end, it was my mom who really needed to leave. She hasn't really recovered her energy since her cancer scare and was practically collapsing from exhaustion. We all slept in the car and when we got home, she went straight up to bed for a few hours. Unfortunately, the nap in the car was in for the girls and we pottered around the house til after dinner.

Ella was holding me to my promise that I would take her to see fireworks in town. I'd only ever been to see fireworks at this little town in the woods so I didn't know what to expect. My mom was recovered, after her nap, and she came with. We brought a blanket and sat at the edge of the lake, just near the park. The fireworks were beautiful and the weather was warm. We could see all the twinkling lights on the lake from the boats out for the show. Ella oohed and ahhed and decided that ALL the fireworks were her favorite! It ended up being a great day.

Not enough Old Milwaukee to make it into my top ten, but it was pretty good all the same. Hurray Wisconsin, you pulled it off again and made it worth all the trouble that it takes to get here, each year.

4th of July

2010-07-05T18:12:00.000+02:00

First weekend of vacation

2010-07-05T18:09:00.000+02:00

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-04T15:53:00.002+02:00

We are up bright and early today because we have lots and lots to do. Per our long-standing tradition, we will go up to Winter Wisconsin to their 4th of July celebrations. I think I've already waxed poetic last year or the year before about how much I love going to this little small town celebration. Its Americana at its best and I must be doing a good job of inculcating my girls into the culture because Ella has been asking me every morning if we go to the parade in Winter today.

The kiddie parade starts at 11:30 and I am praying that the rain passes through by then. Its refreshing after the ridiculously hot day we had yesterday* but I whipped up the best costumes for the girls and I would hate to see all my efforts go to waste. Ella has her Cinderella costume and I made the cutest pumpkin suit for Georgia. Now- will she wear it? I have been calling her a pretty princess every time she puts it on and I may have persauded her to like it a little bit. I am still going to stock up on M&Ms to feed her the whole way down the parade route, just for added insurance. The headband with leaves and a stalk is killer cute and I want everyone to see it :-)

So tonight I will try to get both girls to the fireworks but since my parents insist that a one-bedroom vacation home is more than sufficient for 15 people (madness) there is a nap rotation schedule in force so that each child takes his turn in the one room. Needless to say, I needed more than one time slot after all the excitement of swimming and playing with cousins and sausage-festing so my kids are EXHAUSTED. Family time is fun but perhaps a bit 'over-stimulating', to put it nicely. I am not used to the non-stop party lifestyle. I may need to retire to the basement and close the door for a few days next week until I've managed to relax and unclench my teeth.

OK- time to scrub up my two filthy children and wrestle them into their party clothes. I may have sorted out my photo download dilemma (good side of having so many concerned people around is that the problem is chewed on until someone finds a solution) so I hope to post something in the next few days.

*Thank goodness that we spent the entire day up at the lake, in the water, eating every meal outside at the picnic tables with about 15 of my immediate and extended family. I could have probably done with a less pork-based menu but thats what I get for moving away and turnin' into a 'feraner' Have learned my lesson and will be packing a bag with vegetables and herbs and brown rice to round out yet another sausage dinner.

we made it!

2010-06-28T19:13:00.002+02:00

But just barely. There was a point in the flight when I had just pulled the last toy out of the carry on bag (and Georgia summarily threw on the floor with an insulted shriek...) and I glanced at my watch to see how much time we had left. I honestly, sincerely thought that my watch was broken because it said that the flight wasn't even half way over. I decided, judging by my level of mental and physcial exhaustion + the fact that we had no entertainment or snack food left in the carry-on, that we had about 2 hours left to go in our 9 hour flight. It was only when they flashed the flight info up on the screen between films that I realized that my watch was fine. I was nearly dead from the effort of entertaining the two girls- although mainly from trying to keep my favorite screamy toddler happy- and just had nothing left for the remaining 5 hours in the airplane. I prayed that atleast one of the children would fall to sleep but no luck. And the bitchy stewardesses made it very clear that they preferred to have the baby screeching in her seat to wandering up and down the aisle (which I find baffling but, OK! I'm sort of immune to her high-pitched wailing and was just trying to look out for the delicate ears of my fellow travellers.) It was a Very Horrible Flight and I thank the heavens that I don't have to do the return trip for seven weeks or I might do something desperate like run away and join the circus.

So we are here and atleast the jet lag seems to have been easy. We are up early but no earlier than on vacation in Italy. Georgia did do an extended scream fest between 3:30 am and 5 on Saturday night, but all the family was off at a wedding that night so I just let her scream her heart out. Ella slept through it and I have perfected the art of blocking the noise with a pillow over my head. She did good last night so I think we are sorted.

We did have a fantastic weekend of family fun which is exactly why I come here with the girls for so long each summer. It was my nieces 1st birthday and since her mom is pregnant again (brave girl...) my sister and I threw a party. We had bunting up and balloons everywhere, a homemade ice cream cake, brats on the grill and potato salad, a slip-and-slide, water guns, and a pinata! My favorite part was having my first brat of the summer- soooo good! I had mine on a wheat bun with grainy mustard and sauerkraut. Now tell me that I am not a Wisconsin girl through and through.

While the kids spent the afternoon running from from one water game to the next (hello killer humidity! I had forgotten how hot 'hot' could get) the grown-ups did their best to keep cool as well. We decided that hydration was the key and sucked down several pitchers of this fantastic punch:

Watermelon and Vodka Cooler

Muddle three branches of mint with a spoonful of sugar in the bottm of a pitcher. Throw in a big handful of ice cubes and pour a 1/2 cup of vodka over the top. Add 2 cups of pureed watermelon, a 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice, 4 shakes of bitters, and 1 1/2 cups of ginger ale. Serve and beware of the danger of getting PHENOMENALLY drunk since you barely taste the alcohol.

Hello summer! Next up: forcing my mother into making a decision on dining room curtains after "thinking about it" for the past year. Getting Ella into swimming lessons. Most importantly- finding an adapter for my computer as the one I brought along is mysteriously incompatible with the computer plug. When did 'universal' start meaning "everything but my damn computer"? Photos to follow.

Chia Laguna Beach

2010-06-21T22:45:00.003+02:00

DSC_0281
Originally uploaded by nicole_gt

Here is a lovely photo of me and girls on the beach in Sardaigne at Chia Laguna. There was hardly a person on the entire beach when we arrived and it was just perfect- a bit sauvage, with crystal clear turquoise water, rocks tumbling down to the sea for Ella to climb on, white sand, and at the far end, a little fresh water creek where we could wade. There was even a little bar on the other side of the creek, normally reserved for people staying at the big hotel hidden behind the hill, but since there was almost no one there, we managed to finagle a few lounge chairs and had cold drinks brought down to us when it got a bit too hot in the sun. A perfect day!

Big disclaimer- it started out Badly. The sky was cloudy and gray, so we put the kids in the car to do a bit of exploring. We headed up into the hills and after about 5 miles, Ella started looking green, we pulled over, and she vomited everywhere. We figured we weren't too far from the next town, so we wiped her down and carried on. Turns out that June 2 was a national holiday and everything in town was closed. After an extended game of charades with the old men propped up against a wall in the town square, we managed to find a small grocery store/tobacco shop open and I got some crackers and juice for in the car. We managed to make it to this beach without any further body fluids escaping from either girl. Oh- I almost forgot. We didn't remember to put diapers in the diaper bag so we were even more desperately in need of that grocer shop by the time we reached the town due to a poo-nami from Georgia. Oh, travelling with kids is SO MUCH FUN!

Sardaigne

2010-06-21T15:39:00.002+02:00

All in all we managed to have a great vacation in Sardaigne. Clearly, it was not as relaxing as a child-free holiday; in fact, I might go so far as to say that I was more tired when I came home than I was when I left. BUT it was so nice to see the sun and lay on the beach and just do vacation-y things that it was worth it. Ella had a great time. She asked (several times) if we could move to Italy. Georgia ate like a champ and I think she probably downed her body weight in pasta. B was enjoying himself so much that he tried to change our plane tickets so that we could stay a bit longer. Unfortunately we had flown with Meridiana, the Sardinian airline, and it was impossible to get anyone on the phone. When we asked the hotel travel agent if she could sort it out, she spent 6 hours on the phone for us and then gave up, saying, 'Well, they are Italian. Too bad you didn't fly with AirFrance.'

The hotel where we stayed was fantastic for the kids. The kids club was just amazing, as were the girls who worked there. Ella did bowling, tennis, 'trampolini', art projects, swimming, baking- you name it. We took both Georgia and Ella every single day so that we could have some free time. There was also a kids restaurant with tiny tables and chairs, small plastic dishes and silverware, and special healthy kids meals all of it served at times that worked for the kids. We went every night for dinner and then took the girls back to the villa for baths, bottles, and bed. Then, a very sweet lady named Cristina came every night to stay with the girls while B and I took advantage of all the different restaurants and had lovely dinners en tete-a-tete. Almost all the restaurants were open air so we could spend a relaxing couple of hours eating and talking and drinking wine, watching the stars and listening to the waves on the beach. Originally, we didn't think that we would get the babysitter every night (mainly since it cost a fortune!) but in the end, we were having such a nice time every evening that we figured it was worth the cost.

We needed a bit of a treat by the end of the day since the mornings were so rough.

Now, we had what was called a family bungalow. It was nice. It had two rooms, separated by a sliding door. The front part was a living room which we used for the girls. Ella slept on the sofa bed and the hotel brought us a cot for Georgia. The other room was the bedroom and B and I slept there. HOWEVER the floors were tile and the noise from Georgia waking up at 6 am was so loud that none of us really slept much later than that. And since Ella was in the same room, Georgia would laugh and shout 'Ella! Ella! Hey! Ella!' until Ella started to play with her. Normally at home, we can ignore Georgia until she falls back asleep for another hour or so, but it was impossible while in this hotel room. My God! 6 am wake-ups while on vacation! It was horrible. Needless to say, we were pretty much the first people at breakfast everyday.

After doing a tour around the resort, we realized that some of the other areas had nicer bungalows but I didn't look into it enough to notice that when I was booking. It would have been nice to stay in one of the places that had grassy lawns in front of each bungalow so I could have laid out on a lounge chair while Georgia napped (we only had a terrasse). We might have also liked the two-story bungalow so that the girls were a bit further from our room. Oh well. This hotel is so well set up for families that I definitely think that we will go back. It was pricey but I think that we got our money's worth. The only thing that was disappointing about this holiday is that we really didn't see much of Sardinia! We only left the hotel that one morning and saw a bit of countryside on the drive to and from the airport. Apparently it takes ages to drive all around the island- B's dad took an entire month to see all of the island when he visited a few years ago. Anyways, that is the sort of ambitious plan that I would not attempt until the girls are much older.

Oh, and since the first day of vacation was Mothers' Day, the girls surprised me with a brand-new camera! Its a Nikon D5000 which is not one of the models that I had asked for, but I am getting the hang of it. Even with only a quick read through the instruction manual, I managed to take some gorgeous photos of the girls. I think it will work out, although I will probably still be figuring out all the buttons for the next few months. I have two photos in frames on the ledge above my desk and I sit here every evening looking at them and sighing happily, remembering what fun we had.

Of course, now I am in the midst of frantically preparing for our NEXT vacation and am wondering why I am so hot on travelling. Really, what would please me most at this point in my life, is an entire week of calm. No appointments, no schedule, no 7 am wake-up call(or, while we are dreaming, 8 am or even 9 am), no responsibilities at all so that I don't even have a shadow of guilt clouding my relaxing days. Ahhh. I am doing a great big exhale, letting all the stress out, just imagining it.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that my 7 weeks in Wisconsin will not contain any days like that. But a girl can dream, right?

Enough of that. Its back to the salt mines for me. I need to dash out and find a portable DVD player with atleast 5 hours of battery life for the plane ride over. Stupid f*-ing Delta has taken over the direct flight between Paris and MSP and is using some old jalopy without individual TV monitors. Hell, this plane is so old it probably still has a smoking section. I could care less really except that the flight to Sardaigne did teach me one good lesson and that was that Georgia is a rather difficult traveller (uhm, okay, a rather Screamy Traveller). I'm going to need to pack every entertainment known to toddler-kind to survive without an extended screaming fit in midair. I beg you all, start lighting candles for us now. Divine intervention may be my only real option.

2010-06-21T14:52:00.000+02:00

Have been trying to slow down and just smell the flowers, but its hard! We had a few days of readjustment after vacation, houseguests for a week, school fete (and I sang in English with the kids!), Fathers' Day, and now its the last days before we leave on summer holidays with so much to pack in. Trying to make appointments and shop and pack and, like I said, just enjoy being here before we are there. Proper posts are in the writing and I will post them as soon as I squeeze out a few moments of calm.

to get you through the week

2010-05-29T12:00:00.000+02:00

Check out those fat baby legs! She might be messy, but I just want to gobble her up, um-num-num-num.

A Very Bad Week

2010-05-29T11:59:00.000+02:00

This week was rough- day one started out with this little disaster; Georgia had been busy pottering around the house so I jumped in the bath. I was happily soaking in the steamy lavender scented water, reading a new magazine, enjoying life when she came in and tried washing off her hand in the water. I looked at her fingers and saw that they were covered in sparkly powder. I immediately knew that she had gotten into my stash of glitter powder. I asked her, "Oh Georgia! What did you do?!" She babbled at me in baby for a minute, waving her hands around, and then she pointed to her feet, and shrugged her shoulders, like, 'What can you do?' I peeked over the edge of the tub and saw that she had obviously walked through the glitter as well, as her fat little toddler feet were all pink and sparkly as well. I knew it must be worse than I had originally imagined. I jumped out of the tub, dripping wet, and peaked around the door. The camera was on the table so I snapped a pic to remind me to never be so naive as to think that a 1-year-old means it when she nods 'yes' to your demand that she leave the craft cupboard alone. Even if she looks like she really really means it.

And basically that set the tone for the week. I'm just going to pretend like it all didn't happen and it was just a lovely week of spring in Paris. La-la-la.

Luckily, yesterday afternoon I had a friend in town and it was the perfect antidote to all the Horrible, and I am leaving on vacation optimistic that the black cloud has blown away. I really hate the curse of the expat- you find all these lovely people to be friends with, go through a spell when everything is fantastic and funny and then they move home and even when you don't exactly miss them anymore, its still sad and lonely. Sigh.

But in the good news, I think my hair karma may have turned around. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on a bottle of Leonor Greyl hair conditioner about two weeks ago because I am desperately trying to grow out my hair. This week, I have had three girlfriends on three separate occasions, tell me that my hair looks gorgeous and ask what I had done. That is what I call a good investment- especially after my Year of Horrible Haircuts.

Today we are all packed up and ready to fly off to Sardinia. I checked the weather this morning and unfortunately it doesn't look like they are having the big sunny skies that I was hoping for. Lets all cross our fingers together and wish it hotter. I want to come back brown from laying the sun, relaxed from daily massages in the spa, and fat from gourmet food, eaten in lovely restaurants while the kids play in the room with a babysitter. Wish me luck.

PS Finally, my Mother's Day present was a new camera. B went to one of the shops on Blvd Beaumarchais and the guy gave him lots of good advice. He ended up with the Nikon D5000, which is not the model I thought that I wanted but I will see how it goes. Just in case its a bit too much camera, I'm still packing my handy Powershot. Either way, I am sure that I will bore you with far too many pics when I get back.

2010-05-25T14:32:00.000+02:00

This is the cover of the program from the ballet- can you see how gorgeous the set was? This is the entrance of the prince Solor for the engagement party at the Rajah's palace. Ella refused to leave before we had seen the 'elephant', so what could I do but agree to sit through the second act?

The ballet

2010-05-25T13:37:00.004+02:00

Oh god, Wednesday was complete chaos- is it a coincidence that Georgia's 5 am wake-up call is always followed by an all round bad day?- around here but despite all that, I managed to make it to the ballet with Ella and it was so worth it. What an amazing show!

La Bayadere is a classic Russian ballet, which was first produced in Paris by Nureyev in 1992 (although he didn't dance in the show, since he was 54 at the time). It is set in India and is the love story of a temple dancer (la bayadere) who falls in love with a prince. The Grand Brahmin, who also loves la bayadere, is jealous and vows to have his vengence. The prince is forced to marry the Rajah's daughter but the Brahmin tries to ruin things by telling the Rajah about the prince's other love. Instead of breaking the fiancailles, the Rajah and his daughter decide to kill the bayadere and after she dances at the engagement party, she is bitten by a snake hidden in a basket of flowers. The Brahmin tries to save the bayadere but the bayadere refuses the antidote when she realizes that the prince will never leave his fiancee. She dies and then comes back to haunt the prince.

Ella loved the dancing and the sets and the costumes, although the story took quite a bit of explaining. I was smart enough to buy a program on our way in, but not smart enough to read the synopsis before the lights when down (oops) so I was forced to ad lib my way through the pantomiming that the dancers did to explain the story. I feel a bit bad for the people seated around us who must have been fed up with our whispering but Ella did make up for it, I think, through her enthusiastic and heartfelt clapping. She even shouted 'Bravo!' at one point, which was adorable.

I did say in one of my posts that we didn't have seats together, but I explained to the ushers that she was sitting with her grandmother and I had a seat apart. Then, once I had figured out which was the better seat, I told the usher that her grandmother hadn't arrived yet, and was it OK for me to sit Ella on my knees until the entracte when she could go with her grandmother? No problem! And in the end, even if I had managed to get seats side by side, she would have been on my knees so that I could explain things. So, alls well that ends well, but it is good to know for future reference that there is a way to get around things if I find myself in this situation again. Honestly, I very nearly gave away the tickets because I wasn't prepared to go all the way there, fight with ushers for 30 minutes, and find out that they were still going to be assholes about Ella sitting in her own seat.

The show was so good that rather than just leave at 8:30 like I had originally planned (it was a school night after all) I let Ella talk me into staying for the second act. It was the engagement party scene and instead of the exposition that made up most of the first act, there was mainly just dancing. The scene was a palace, all decorated in gold, with the domes lit up beautifully. The Prince came riding in on the back of an 'elephant'. There was a dance by a 'golden diety'. They had about a dozen children from the Opera Ecole de Danse participating in the dances. It was perfect for Ella.

If I can sort out my scanner, I'll post a few photos.

2010-05-19T13:17:00.000+02:00

The sun was out this morning and rather than leave the curtains shut while we ate breakfast and wandered around in our pyjamas (remember that we have an enormous building full of fonctionaires/gov't workers across the street from us so everyone spends their day staring out the window and watching us like its some kind of low budget cable tv show), I pulled them wide open. I think that the girls were enjoying the sun as much as me because they dragged their toys over to a patch of sunlight and sat down to play. I couldn't resist grabbing my camera and taking a few shots. I love the way sun makes halos out of their hair.

I mentioned that my cameras are both getting a bit old and beat up so I went with B to look at buying a new on Saturday. Naturally, they didn't have the one that I had wanted to buy (the Nikon D3000) and they guy running the stand seemed to not know a whole lot more then me about the other models so I didn't get very far in making a decision. After about 20 minutes of picking up different models to try out in my hand, and studying the info cards, I was getting frustrated. I asked B if it wouldn't be just as easy to 'Eeny-Meeny- Miney-Mo' it. Even if I spent days researching the different cameras, is my decision actually going to be that much better than just choosing at random? I'm not convinced it would be. I definitely want to pick one out before we go on holiday but I don't know when I will get a chance. Thats really the problem I saw with walking out of the store with nothing- I don't have the time to be running back and forth to the shops. So, basically, if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear from you.

I had plans to go out to St Cloud this afternoon to see my SIL and her twin daughers who are a few months older than Georgia but I am putting it off a week. Georgia was up at 5 am, shouting on and off for more than an hour. I am praying that this is just her teeth coming in and not a return to her bad habits. I haven't mentioned it often enough here, but she has really sorted out her sleep schedule these last few weeks. Generally, she drops off to sleep at 8 pm and doesn't make a sound til 6 (barring any sleep talking that she sleeps through. Wish I could, but at the first squeak, my stomach knots up and my eyes fly open. Ah, mommy-insomnia. ). We've gotten quite cocky and started staying up past 10:30 and making plans to go out more than once a week. I know, crazy stuff, right? Well, I should have known it was too good to be true. Well, naps for everyone this afternoon, I guess.

Tonight I have tickets to the ballet to see La Bayadere and I am so excited but I hope that we all have enough energy. Wish me luck- on top of everything else, I don't have seats together for me and Ella so I am busy trying to figure out how I am going to work this out...

Desperately avoiding my closet

2010-05-18T13:07:00.004+02:00

I am desperately avoiding my closet for many reasons- right this moment, it is because my dressing is a complete disaster, with clothes piled everywhere, shoes kicked into all the corners, belts and scarves knotted up together on the floor, plus a box of summer clothes has exploded in right in the middle of everything. I have the mother of all clean-outs to do this afternoon and I am Unmotivated.

And suddenly I am inspired to blog! (Coincidence?)

The party on Friday night was fun and the chateau was just as beautiful as in the photos. The only bad surprise was arriving and finding half the guests dressed in jeans, including the birthday boy's wife. I wish someone would have written 'casual dress' on the invite because the 3 hours of standing in 4 inch heels for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres just about killed me. Thank goodness that I had plenty to drink so that I very quickly lost feeling in my feet. The dinner went on until 1 in the morning, and there was the expected river of champagne, so unsurprisingly, we both had massive hangovers and were not ready for our 9:30 am wake-up call. It was nice to not have the girls screaming us awake but it would have been nice to have been able to lounge around in bed for a bit longer. Sigh.

Of course, on top of a hangover, I realized that I probably should have been a bit more careful about what I ate. There were so many gorgeous things put out for hors d'oeuvres! Every 15 minutes, a waiter would come by with a new tray full of tiny little treats. So I tasted them all, some of them twice- thinking to hell with the diet for one night. I had been working hard so that I could indulge sometimes. But after weeks of eating low-fat/ low-cal my poor tummy wasn't used to rich foods. At all. Lets just say, I have learned a lesson that I won't forget...

I've done another bit of shopping despite my self-imposed ban. But! But! But, it was for a vintage YSL black drapped skirt, with the tags still on! Who could walk away from that, right? I found it at a shop on rue Birague, just near place des Vosges, called Delphine Pariente. It looks like there is also a shop on rue Charonne. I'd loved to go see it but I am afraid that there will be too much temptation- besides clothes that had so many pretty necklaces and right now, I feeling like I need to find the perfect necklace, something a bit quirky and maybe a bit sparkly that I can just wear everyday. I think that this shop probably has just the thing, if I would let myself look a bit. Best off staying away, I think .

We saw the last episode of Season 1 of Mad Men on Sunday night and I am totally hooked. Obviously, we are going to have to download the next season from Itunes because there is no way that I am going to wait til French tv gets its act together and puts it on the schedule. I kind of hate all the men, and yet, its kind of sexy too the way that they are all so macho. Its fantastic the way you both love and dislike nearly all the characters in equal measure. Betty? Sweet but also sort of annoyingly so. Joan? Gorgeous, but also a little too slutty. Peggy? Crazy, but also the underdog. And also the male character, but you get the picture. And I LOVE how everyone is always smoking and drinking- in the office, in bed, while pregnant, the nurses in the hospital while walking in the halls. I sort of wanted to download the episodes to watch while on vacation but I don't know if I can wait 2 whole weeks.

I think that this post is just pointing out how much I need to work on my willpower.

On a more positive note, I found a great healthy salade for summer that B and I have just been loving. I originally started out making this recipe, but there were a few things about it that didn't work for me. I don't tend to like eating raw onions, first of all, and it calls for two different spice mixes that I imagine you can only buy in the States so even if I wanted to fall the recipe, it would be impossible. Still, I was inspired so this is what I came up with:

Quinoa Salade

1/2 cucumber, peeled, deseeded, and chopped
8 fingerling radishes, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1 bag prepared quinoa from Bjorg

sauce:
1 lime, juiced
2 tbsp colza oil
2 tbsp pistachio oil
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp gomasio
1 tsp agave syrup
salt to taste
tabasco to taste

Mix the vegetables and slightly heated quinoa in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and adjust seasoning as necessary. Pour the sauce over the vegetables and stir well. Chill and serve.

Its fantastic! I think that you could really play with the seasoning for the sauce and I might even try adding diced tomatoes one time to see how that works but personally, I think it is already perfect that way it is. And with the pre-cooked quinoa, you can throw this together in about 5 minutes.

So Ella had been begging me to let her invite two of her friends after school. With all the holidays its been difficult to arrange but we made up invites for her two friends (with my phone number, asking for them to phone me to arrange things) and the next day I brought them to school with me. It turns out that one girl was away on vacation for the week so we only gave the second girl the invite. She was staying after school for gouter, so I told her to be sure to give it to her parents when they came to pick her up. They never called. The little girl told me that she had given it to them and she chattered to me about coming to our house every day when I came to get Ella (so clearly she hasn't forgotten about the invite and must have talked to her parents about it) but I didn't see her parents to check that they got the card. The first little girl came back to school yesterday. I gave her the invite to give to her parents, and they called a few hours later to arrange a playdate for today. Easy as pie to sort that out. Which leaves me wondering about the first invite.

Now the question is, do I send ANOTHER invite home with the first girl and just assume that she never gave the card to her parents? Or do I drop it, assuming that they got the invite but don't want her to come to our house? I pass them occasionally in the neighborhood as they only live a few streets away but they don't really act very friendly- although they have never been outright rude. Sometimes, I think that there are parents that are worried that I only speak English since they see me at school only speaking English with the kids. People get nervous that I might make them speak English to me so they just sort of nod and run when they see me. B says drop it. Ella tells me that she and the little girl discuss the visit constantly at school so I feel a bit bad for the kids by not trying harder to sort this out, but I also just want to drop it because it is sort of a bother to have to entertain someone else's kid.

Hmm. To be decided.

2010-05-14T13:24:00.003+02:00

Another day of school holidays, another round of princess dresses... Today we did a princess picnic in the bedroom and all the dolls had their best dresses on and ate baby boudoir biscuits (thank goodness I finally found a way to use those cookies, now that Georgia has decided that they are poison). We have a trip to the Jardins des Plantes planned for this afternoon, maybe even a visit to the 'zoo' with some friends but I am a bit nervous whenever I look out the window. There is no way to get there by bus from our house so that means we have to do the entire 20 minute walk, in each direction, even if the rain starts pouring down on us.

What? you think that I should just bring an umbrella? Well, thanks to our favorite Disney movie, Mary Poppins, Ella has a phobia about umbrellas. As soon as the window blows, she starts screaming at everyone to throw down their umbrellas before we all get blown away. The first time I laughed til I cried, by the 4th or 5th time, I was forced to admit that it went beyond a childish misunderstanding and she was seriously freaked out. So this is one of the reasons that I don't venture out too far on a rainy day. I've made plans to meet a friend there so we sort of have to go out today; crossing everything and hoping it works out. The weather says it will clear up a bit this afternoon and there is no risk of rain, but this would not be the first time Meteo France has had it completely wrong.

I also don't want to have too stressful of an afternoon because tonight, B and I have big plans to go to a birthday party outside Paris at a chateau. Oolala, right? We are even spending the night there and I am so looking forward to having a big comfy bed to collapse into at the end of what is likely to be a French party- ie a dinner with 7 or 8 courses, plus wine, plus enough champagne to float a boat. But a comfy bed means nothing if you need to get up at 7:30 in the a.m. to turn on a Disney film and prepare bowls of cereal for children who are bound and determined to wear 3/4 of that bowl. For the first time, we are leaving the girls with a sitter for the night. Hurrah! I feel like its my birthday we're celebrating. It doesn't worry me in the least, but it just means that tomorrow morning we won't be able to dawdle and try out the spa. Rats. B is desperate for a massage and I predict that I will have a monumental hangover since I've been on the (f*%?#-ing diet) wagon for so long. It would have been nice to have a massage to look forward to, as well.

I am a mess and I will only have a half hour to get ready between zoo and departure of the 'bus' so am a predicting a frantic witching hour at our house- which has only gotten worse since Georgia began to fight her second nap. Would have loved to have the afternoon to go and have my nails done and maybe a brushing at the salon since it looks to be a big fancy party but I organized badly and only asked the sitter to get here at 5. Double rats.

PS I am trying REALLY hard to clean up my language since Ella picked up the habit of saying 'Damn' when something went wrong. This goes back a ways- one day after I heard her use the word for about the third time I jumped up and shouted at her. It was such a shock, and she got into such trouble, that it really marked her. Only, she was so shocked that she couldn't remember if she was supposed to say 'damn' or supposed to NOT say 'damn'. Rats was one of the alternatives that I suggested. Its been a long road, but she has almost integrated 'rats' into her vocab. Which means, of course, that I have to integrate 'rats' into my vocabulary. We're getting mixed results, so far.

what day is it again?

2010-05-13T18:24:00.002+02:00

I have had to remind myself about 50 times today that it is NOT Saturday. I know that I am going to be confused until Monday comes around again. May messes me up with all the short weeks and obscure holidays that I can't entirely keep track of. Now, I'm sure today is something Catholic and I am actually a church-going girl, but I still couldn't tell you what it is to save my life- obviously this is a sign that I am becoming more and more French, and one of those Christmas-Weddings-and-Baptisms Catholics. Shhh- don't tell my mom and dad or they'll have me playing catch up this summer. I'm already worried because the other day ella said to me, 'Hold it- who is Jesus again?' Aiyiyi. My mother will murder me if Ella says something like that in front of her. And that will be the end of my 2-month-long vacations, free of charge.

Anyway, back to the real subject at hand- holidays. Well, in our house, we are celebrating Princess Day! If you have any experience with little girls, you know, when in doubt, dress up like princesses. I am so spoiled by full days at school and garderie that I die a thousand deaths when I have the girls all day long, all by myself. Plus, this shitty weather means that I can't take the girls anywhere other than the park on the corner, from fear of getting caught in a deluge. They are going crazy in the house and I cannot sit through another Disney movie. OK, it was kind of cute to see Georgia experiencing Baby Einstein Animals video this morning. They have nailed their target audience. Her mouth was round like donut for the entire video, she just kept up an uninterrupted string of 'Oooohs!', pointing and dancing to make sure that we were all aware of the awesomeness in front of us. I should have taken a video, it was fantastic.

But like I said, that tinkly music starts to grate on my nerves after awhile and I had to turn off the tv and find the kids something else to do. Princess dresses for everyone! Georgia was too cute with her fat baby belly filling out her dress. Ella demanded the same hairstyle as Cinderella, so back-combing her hair filled up a good 30 minutes of the afternoon. Actually, she has so much hair (a gift from her Mamie Micheline, a woman who does actually decline invitations on days when she needs to wash her hair) that it was sort of amazing to see just how big I could get her hair. Unfortunately, you can't see my awesome styling skills in this photo as she has her head tipped back; oh well, suffice it to say we are ready for Prom.

Thank goodness I had the foresight to ask the babysitter to stop by for an hour or so. I ran out of the house on some trumped up errand and got some air. I'm so in the habit of taking a nice big walk everyday, either on my own or with Georgia in the stroller, that I think I go a bit stir crazy when Ella is here all day and I can't put in a few kilometers. Plus, they must just chase in her circles the entire time that I am out of the house, because I laid them down for a small rest before dinner and they both passed out in like 10 minutes. Lovely.

I am listening to an old playlist on my Ipod and I forgot how much I like old Ray Charles. That song 'Night and Day' always makes me want to dance- and reminds me of that one episode of 'The Cosby Show' when they all sing for Claire. Oh- next song is 'Walking after Midnight' by Patsy Klein and then 'Lets Get Together' by Al Green. This mix is fantastic! I may never wake up the girls- I'll just break open a nice bottle of wine and kick back til B comes home from work.

Aaaaand done! (Not an entirely wine-related visit to the kitchen, the oven timer went off and I thought that it was the Universe telling me that wine was a good idea. Right?)

Actually, I did manage to squeeze out enough time today to make an all-homemade, all-awesome lasagna. And none of that healthy ricotta-and-spinach business. The real deal, with bechamel and bolognaise and lots of mozzarella. I just spooned up plates for the girls so that they would be cool by teh time I got them out of bed, and it looks so good I think that I could eat up the entire dish. Of course, I am still fighting the good fight with that bastard kilo that won't budge so I will be having a very small and reasonable portion to minimize the damage. Last night when I showed B the dress I had bought, I explained my dilemma about how I said I wouldn't shop til ALL the weight was gone but it wasn't and I had bought the dress anyways.... and at the point where he was supposed to say, 'Baby, you look so hot already you should just keep the dress and forget about the stupid diet.', he actually said, 'So, are you going to return it tomorrow?'

God! Doesn't he ever read the script?!

a lazy photo entry

2010-05-12T18:41:00.002+02:00

I have been in a rotten mood all day which is no small part due to the fact that it is still gray outside. A quite large part is also due to an irritating email that I had last night. Of course, it showed up just as I was getting ready for bed and I read it and proceeded to dream angry dreams all night. I hate when that happens. Worst part is, I tried to do something nice but my 'friend' misunderstood my message and took it as a giant insult, which required a grovelling apology on my part because she went on and on about how bad things had been for her recently. Well, you know, things ain't a bed of roses around here either, sweetheart. I do understand that emails can be misconstrued if someone gets the wrong end of the stick- there is no 'tone' to help clear up ambiquities. But Christ almighty, I was trying to do something nice and I'm the bad buy? I just wonder, does she think that I took time out of my day to organize a bunch of stuff and then sit down to write her a message with the sole intent of being mean? Talk about raging narcissism. If I had that much time to waste, the first thing I would do is get a manicure, not dream up elaborate plans to ruin someone else's day.

Georgia only started screaming when I got the camera. 30 seconds before this shot, she was smiling and posing for me because I told her that she looked pretty with the flower in her hair. she has been so good lately about leaving clips and bands in her hair, I think because the fringe is getting long and hangs in her eyes otherwise. I don't know when or why she developed the sudden phobia for the camera. She better shake it off, because Momma is asking for a new camera for Mother's Day and there are going to be some serious photo shoots going on soon...

Here is a photo of Ella putting cherry chapstick on Georgia. I know- 90% of my photos of the girls together are taken in the bathtub but that is the only time when I have them corraled together. I think that this is so sweet with Georgia holding very very still and Ella concentrating hard on doing it just right.

And, finally, last night B and Ella went out and 'harvested' a few strawberries. Ella ate them without hardly chewing them and said, 'Next time, lets leave them to get bigger.' I'm not sure that I succeeded in teaching her anything about enjoying the fruits of your labor- literally or figuratively. And of course, this led to a 30 minute conversation on the different kinds of strawberries and the associated 'whys?' and 'how comes?' stretched us to limits of our knowledge on horticulture. So hard to patiently answer all those questions at 8 pm when all I want to do is throw them into bed and turn out the night.

Speaking of sleeping, after fighting her naps all day long, Georgia just fell asleep at 6:15 pm. If I don't let her nap, she'll be awake at 3 am because she is so over-tired. If I let her sleep for an hour, I might just get a teeny bit of lie-in tomorrow morning. Oh please please please Universe, let me get a bit of extra sleep on a vacation day.

Spring cleaned my little heart out and now I can't find anything

2010-05-11T10:09:00.004+02:00

It is another grey and rainy day in Paris and I wanted to go to a playgroup this afternoon but I can't find the raincover for Georgia's stroller. I had packed it away in the fall because I figured that between the hood and the foot muff, Georgia was fully protected from the elements. But where did I put it? It so big I don't see where I could have hidden it away. And I don't see how it could have gotten mistaken for a random piece of plastic and put in the trash, since it is so stiff and impossible to fold up. It has GOT to be somewhere. But where?!! There are not alot of hiding spots in our teeny tiny apartment.

And missing this playgroup is out of the question. Its been a battle to keep this group going. There was a nice group last spring, but I think three of the moms moved back to their home country and since they were three regulars, it really shook things up. Suddenly there were only two of us who went regularly. Then this fall, it seemed to pick up and then suddenly, there were quite a few moms who went back to work, which makes the group suddenly much smaller. Now, its spring again and with all the holidays and school breaks, its been impossible to get on a regular schedule. Before Georgia was born, I didn't know if I would be interested in joining a playgroup because I already had a group of mom friends, which had been my original goal when I joined after Ella's birth. But now I realize that it adds a bit of structure to my week and gets me out among people which sometimes doesn't happen when I am busy at the house, lost in the eternal struggle to get Georgia napping and fed. It bums me out when no one seems interested in hosting or meeting up. I don't take it personally, because I get it. Somedays, its just hard to get your shit together and even to commit to something fun. But I do wish that there were atleast a few people willing to make the effort.

Which is why I cannot miss today. I have been harrassing the group with emails every week and now that someone else is hosting, I need to actually go, rain cover or no rain cover. I'll wrap the stroller in SaranWrap if I have to.

Hmm, I wonder if all this angst over a rain cover is not a sign that I am in more desperate need of that beach holiday than I originally suspected? Must keep doing the countdown in my head as we FINALLY have everything booked: On the 29th we leave for a week's holiday at this gorgeous hotel!

Last week was a rollercoaster trying to finish booking everything, and probably 50% of the reason that I need this break. I would find a hotel and be ready to book and then discover a reason why it was totally the wrong place for us or something else would go wrong with the booking. I even had to borrow my FIL credit card (I was like being 15 again! 'which hotel? are you sure its a real hotel and not a scam to get my credit card number? how much does it cost? Are you sure that it is a good price? what does it include?' and on and on.) due to a last minute snafu. BUT I think it will all be worth it- there is a Kids Club! and a nursery! and babysitters! and a heated pool! and a spa! and a family room so that we don't have to sleep next to both girls snuffling and flopping around all night! Which all means, this may actually be relaxing.

I'm not even going to do a quick comparison with last year's 'vacation' to Crete, organized by my dear clueless husband. I just want that experience to fade from my memory as quickly as possible. Booking the hotel this year nearly sent me into PTSD and I had to force myself to push through the panic and trust that no vacation could ever be as bad as that one. (For one, the girls cannot get the chicken pox a second time, right!)

So now all that I have to do is pack our bags. And pray that our favorite Icelandic volcano calms down- although I have already looked into the ferry routes to Sardinia because I am not kidding when I say that I am going on vacation come hell or high water.

First thing in the morning

2010-05-10T11:59:00.000+02:00

Georgia loves when B gets home from dropping off Ella at school. He sits down with her and she gets her bottle and he drinks his coffee. She has developed this habit of kicking back in her chair and putting her feet up on the table and I can't get her to stop. Of course, now its a game and she does it just so that I'll come over and start tickling her feet. She puts her feet up, then she looks over at me and flicks up her right eyebrow while grinning, as if to say, 'Yeah, those are my feet on the table, whadda ya gonna do about it?' She generally starts giggling before I am even touching her.

Gardening

2010-05-10T11:39:00.000+02:00

I cleaned up the balcony aboug two weeks ago when we were having gorgeous sunny normal spring weather. It was nice to see that everything seems to have survived the winter despite the horrible cold that we went through. The boxwood topiaries were looking pretty shaggy though and I had been putting off attacking the very big job of trimming them. And then? Once I started? I couldn't stop. I was out there every day with my clippers, 'Oh, I'm just going to even out this little bit over here...' and 45 minutes later I was sweeping up an entire bag of leaves. It is like an addiction. I even spent a happy hour on the internet researching garden implements to upgrade from my 5 euro grocery store clippers - in fact, they are probably closer to finger nail clippers than hedge trimmers but I wanted something to fit on the shelf with the plant fertilizer. The priorities of an apartment dweller... But I've decided to stick with the nail clippers. The last thing I need is encouragement from a pair of shiny new clippers to go out there yet again.

I even popped over to the flower shop for a few geraniums to brighten it up and got a few extra things like tomato and strawberry plants for Ella to take care of. I probably should have bought plants slightly smaller and less mature to make it a bit more exciting but she is only 5 and I figured that they would all be dead in a few weeks under her 'loving care' (which translates into watering the plants hourly or every time my back is turned, whichever comes first.) Despite that, and the miserable weather lately, everything seems to be doing well and look! we even have some ripe strawberries! B and I are trying to decide just how toxic Paris balcony fruit is before we let her pick them and eat them. But its ok because I found the phone number for French Poison Control last night.

Now, I would love to start sitting outside again with a cup of coffee to enjoy it. There were a few days that Georgia would go out with me and go from plant to plant touching the leaves and smelling them. She would sit on the little step and just look around at the pigeons and the boats going by on the river. Ok, just sitting there and screaming 'Regard! Regard! Regard!' until I looked up and made a comment on whatever had caught her eye. I don't think we'll forget what her first word was. We were really enjoying ourselves- before winter decided to have the last laugh. Another week, another cold grey Monday morning. When will it end?

2010-05-05T12:01:00.000+02:00

Shoe shopping

2010-05-05T11:02:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, B surprised me and took off work for the afternoon to take me and Georgia to lunch- which we figured would be fine since Georgia was such a doll at brunch on Sunday. How much difference 48 hours can make! It was like being seated with a small wild animal. She twisted and turned and stood and sat and slid off the seat and shouted and tried to grab the 'neighbors' coat and bag and threw things and refused food and begged for food and was generally a pain in the tuckus. And then she sat down and leaned against me and started to fall asleep, looking like a sweet little dolly. As if that makes it all OK (well, it kind of does because she just kills us with the cuteness and through some weird biological process, the memory of the previous 45 minutes of Hell is erased. Oh evolution!)

B came to school with me to sit in on my English class with the kids, which he thought was hilarious. It is quite funny as they are all so enthusiastic but even Ella is pretty approximate in her prononciaton while singing. 'Hickory Dickory Dock' becomes 'Icky, Dicky, Dot.' They have their favorite parts in their favorite songs so they sing-shout those parts (they LOVE that the babies on the bus go Wah Wah Wah for example) and then 90% of the kids stare into space for the other verses. Anyways, its only 20 minutes and I like knowing all the kids and seeing how Ella acts when she is at school with her friends. Generally, French schools (in my experience) are so guarded about letting parents in to see what goes on that this is a great way to sneak over the 'gate' and have peek inside. And since I am in tight with all the teachers now, I don't have to worry about getting any flack about pulling Ella out of class whenever the mood strikes. Hope it works next year at her new school...

After we all got back home from school after a brief stop in the park that was just long enough to have us all longing for our winter hats and scarves (seriously, what is going on with the weather?!!), we decided to take Ella shopping for a pair of shoes. I had been trying to hold out for out trip to the States where I knew that I could get some summer sandals for next to nothing but finally I realized that we had quite a bit of warm weather to get through (well, in theory) and all ella had for shoes were knee high boots and an ENORMOUS pair of sneakers that didn't really look that awesome with skirts or when she was dressed up. I just can't believe how fast she outgrows stuff. Atleast I can comfort myself with the thought that all the good-as-new shoes that are too small will be in great shape for Georgia. Anyways, B was up for a trip over to Bon Marche since he had something else to buy and so we all jumped in the car.

I have to admit, that Bon Marche has a great kids shoes section. Its not very big or thorough and its expensive but every single pair of shoes is Adorable with a capital A. OMG. So I went through and picked out 5 pair that I thought were possibilities and asked for Ella's size. I would let Ella choose from those pairs. Well, one pair was sold out in her size. Eliminated. Another pair she didn't like. Eliminated. The other three were all nice and fit well and I walked away to browse while Ella tested them all a second time. When I turned back, B was at the cash register paying- for all three pair. I asked him what was going on and he said that since they all fit, he thought it was fine to pay. I explained that I didn't really think that she need THREE pair of new shoes but he said that he didn't want to be back in the shop in two months to do this all again so it was just easier to do it this way. Meanwhile, Ella was dancing in circles, singing a song about how much she loves her daddy. Did I mention that he cannot say 'no' to either of his daughters? That man is putty in their hands.

Oh, yes I know. There are four pairs of shoes in the photo- I figured that since he was being so generous there was no point in denying myself. I slipped in a pair of pink ballet slippers with a little pom-pom on the toe. So cute and so much cheaper than if I had bought them in the women's department. Word to the wise- if you wear a size smaller than a 38, head down to the kids shoe section. There are some really great summer sandals and flats. I have my eye on a pair of cobalt blue suede flats with a Pocahantas fringe around the ankle.

Photo albums

2010-05-04T15:46:00.002+02:00

I am currently sitting at my computer waiting for yet another set of photos to upload to Mypix so that I can have them printed. This will be my third attempt to find a site that will print them since I have been having rotten luck today. I like to have the white borders on my photos and I swear that all the sites used to do this but today, I can't figure out how to do it. So frustrating and such a waste of time. This will also be my second order for Georgia's first year photo album, although you could call it the third order because when I did Ella's album, I ordered doubles of lots of shots... and then forgot. I started sorting the photos into chronological order and realized that I had two or three of some prints and was missing whole months. Seems that I also forgot that I had randomly transferred a bunch of photos off the C:/ drive when a movie download got blocked due to lack of space. I never sorted things out so I ended up spending an afternoon sorting through badly labelled files trying to find everything I needed. Hopefully, if all goes well, this will be it and I won't have to worry about it again for another year.

Don't get me wrong- I LOVE having photo albums. It reassures me that even if I have a computer meltdown, I have copies of my favorites photos. I always scoop up my doubles and send them off to appreciative grandparents and great-grandparents. I end up flipping through the books far more often than I look through my old back-up discs. Ella has started to take down the albums and flip through them on her own, which makes me feel like all the work was worth it. BUT it takes so long! And it is soooo expensive. The prints may only cost a few centimes each but when you print out 400 photos (several times over...) it adds up. And albums! Cripes, you would think that a 100 euro photo album was some thing more than black paper between two pieces of cardboard but nope- thats all it is. I finally remembered that there is a Swedish company called Ordning & Reda that does fairly well priced albums and they sell them out of the Bodum shop at Chatelet. I popped over one morning last week and scooped up 5 in a nice blue linen fabric for Georgia. They had such a great selection in some really nice colors that I hadn't seen anywhere else. I would definitely recommend stopping in and having a look. I think I might run back and get some more because the pages are actually quite small and I can tell that I am going to need quite a few. I hate the idea of having to by a new model every year so I prefer to just have 4 or 5 extra albums on the shelf for the years to come and then be done with it.

Well, no time to get my order in today. The photos are still uploading and I have to run off to do English with Ella's class. Honestly, this is turning into the most ridiculously drawn-out project. I seriously just want to be able to eat dinner at the table again one night before leaving for summer holidays.

Georgia Eats

2010-05-04T15:26:00.001+02:00

Here is a short photo essay to give you an idea of what happens at mealtimes in our house. The first photo is what happens when I offer to feed Georgia myself (you'll just have to imagine the screams. Maybe go and murder a pig if you lack imagination). The next photo is her first attempt. Look at that sweet baby, concentrating so hard. Third photo is about three/quarters of the way through the pot of yogurt. I tried to wipe her face, but Miss G wants to do that herself as well. Please notice that she has actually managed to wipe a small part of her cheek- and then transferred that yogurt to her right ear. Well, she gets an 'A' for effort. Also, she has not put down the spoon as she is a very cynical 14-month-old and she suspects me of using the paper towel as a ploy to steal the spoon back and feed her myself. (She is not entirely wrong. I do tend to take advantage of any moments of distraction in order to quickly shovel bites in her mouth...) Fourth photo, I had to step in before she plastered her head in yogurt and wiped off the face myself. She is attacking that pot to scrape out the last bits of yogurt clinging to the bottom. The bib will go straight to the wash but amazingly the child and her clothing are remarkably clean. We are making progress!

just a quick round-up

2010-05-02T22:25:00.002+02:00

Two glasses of wine into the evening and I am chatty enough to try to get up a message before going to bed, but not quite eloquent enough for anything other than bullet points:

*LOVE that they are playing Mad Men in VO on Serie Club! I had been suffering through bad downloads, but this is much better. If only the kids had been in bed on time (or B had helped a bit more for the bedtime routine...) and I had seen the first episode.

*Went to Brunch Bazar over in the 10th this afternoon with the girls and had a great time. It is a bit too bobo for B, but I am definitely going back next month. Am glad that I planned ahead and dressed myself and the girls appropriately. Although, hopefully will have had my shopping spree by then as I had my only cool outfit on and would hate to do a repeat.

*We actually ate before we went over there because I was Starving and didn't want to trust my next meal to a bunch of hippies (well, its supposed to be all Bio and you never know just how seriously they will take that.) For the first time ever, Georgia sat nicely and Ella ate almost an entire meal without complaining so- dare I say it?- we had a nice family meal in a resto. A first!

*And although it isn't technically a first, Georgia did a full night last night. In bed at 8 and barring a weird shriek at 5 am, no noise until 6:30 this morning. Then quiet until 8:15. That, my friends, is magical. And the day before? She woke up at 4, I gave her some water, and she slept until 9!!! I feel almost human right now. Its lovely.

*I was surfing the web and came across this post which has got me craving waffles. I haven't had a good waffle since Christmas 2008. Why don't I have a waffle iron?!! I would totally make waffles... on occasion. I would ask for one for Mother's Day but I apparently I have a blank check (B said whatever Ella wants to get me goes, and I am prepared to brainwash/bribe/manipulate her to avoid any errors. I know, I'm shameless) and I'm not going to waste it on a waffle iron. But I'm tempted.

* So its decided - Sardinia will be our destination and I may have even found a hotel. Although I am really wondering if I wouldn't enjoy a stay at a really good agri-tourism farm? Nothing is officially booked so I will be mulling it over tonight but will be happy to just book things tomorrow. This looks nice, but I am not sure that they accept children...

Lets all cross our fingers and hope for a good night for Georgia. I could really use a nice start to the week. Ella is back at school, hurrah! It'll be nice to be back on a normal schedule.

Vacation plans

2010-05-01T14:37:00.002+02:00

So, we may be stuck in Paris for the ENTIRE school holidays but B has finally agreed that a quick vacation is in order. Hopefully we'll book everything this weekend. But we can't decide where to go- Sicily or Sardinia. Anyone have an input?!! I am leaning towards Sicily because I seem to find nicer hotels (lots of agri-tourism farms which would be great with the girls, I think) but B prefers Sardinia for the scenery. The problem is, he is referring to the scenery around Porto Cervo/Porto Esmerelda which is the pricest area on the island.

We are (probably) taking the kids, so it has to be family friendly. I want to have a babysitter available so that it is not All Babies, All the Time. I suggested doing something like Club Med and that suggestion was met with a resounding 'No'. He wants a hotel that is small and chic with a great restaurant. In theory, I am in complete agreement. But did I mention that I don't want to be on duty 24/7?

Also, I looked into a highly recommended place called the Romazzino Hotel in Sardaigne, but it was over 1000 euro- a night! That is more than we would like to spend but we will only be on holiday for a week so we don't need to find a great deal either.

You would think, by this point, my travel agent skills would be honed to a fine point and yet I am stuck. Help

2010-04-30T18:39:00.004+02:00

Ugh. Its been a Rough Day.

I went out last night with my French girlfriends for dinner at Cafe des Artistes in the 10th (lovely and definitely worth the hike over to that neighborhood) and had an awesome fun time. But I drank 3 glasses of wine which was just enough to make me cocky about getting home and into bed on time and so I didn't end up closing my eyes til 12:08. Which made Georgia's wake-up scream at 4:51 that much harder to take. Did you do that math? 4 hours and 43 minutes of sleep last night. Painful does not do justice to what I experienced this morning.

Of course, B (that ?ù%*?!) didn't go to bed before me and so he was even crankier about the noise which forced me to get up and deal with things for the entire hour that she sat in bed and groused about god knows what. Finally she had her bottle and squeaked only a tiny bit more before letting us sleep til 8:30 but then we had to jump from bed to get ready for our appointment at the Consulate at 10:30 to renew Ella's passport.

Did I mention that B was being cranky because he stayed up too late watching f-ing Cauet? And that, despite me mentioning this appointment several times over the past few weeks, he had FORGOTTEN about it? So this morning he had to leave early to run to work and sort out opening the shop. Which meant that rather than drive over, I was forced to carry Georgia (who is only adorably fat when she is walking on her own...) all the way there. AND I couldn't bring much in the way of entertainment for the girls because I was at my limit with the baby.

All of which made the 2 and a half hour wait that much more of a torture. Of course, it was easy to do all the documents and stuff but sitting there and amusing the girls for that long while horribly tired and slightly hungover was a true misery.

By the time I got home i knew that there was no way that little G and I were going to make it to our playdate. She needed a nap almost as desperately as me. So I cancelled, but I hate hate hate doing that, only today there was no choice.

I did manage to sleep for two hours before the screeching started again. A giant coffee helped get me through the rest of the afternoon but now I am drooping again and I have dinner and baths to do. I want to cry.

Luckily, my girls were totally worth it. Seriously, how many virgins do I have to kill to appease the gods and get a good nights' sleep?!!!

2010-04-28T20:18:00.000+02:00

2010-04-28T20:17:00.000+02:00

Beet juice

2010-04-28T12:10:00.001+02:00

I had a bit of a fright the other day when I stepped on the scale the day after I was too lazy to cook dinner and had B bring home pizza. Apparently, pizza hates my skinny jeans. So, I freaked out and ran to Naturalia to stock up on healthy food. I even deigned to click on GOOP when my google search showed that there were lots of recipes on the site for detox juices. Desperate times, desperate measures, right?

SO this morning, I finally had all the ingredients in the fridge to make a mega healthy pitcher of goodness- Beet Apple Carrot Grenadine Juice. Looks gorgeous. Smells oddly like dirt. Tastes pretty good. Digestive track gave it 30 minutes and is currently in revolt. I feel like I am going to vomit. So I guess the detox part is right on the money.

Big question is, do I finish the pitcher or dump it? I am leaning towards drinking it, just because it cost so damn much to make.

Ella's Big Girl Room

2010-04-28T11:49:00.001+02:00

I've been busy this week trying to finish up Ella's new Big Girl Room. Obviously, the bed and the desk are the big changes but once they were in place, I realized that are are lots of little things that need tweaking to make the new room work. Of course, the girls already LOVE it- Ella spends hours sitting at her desk drawing and even Georgia has decided that she prefers playing in there to anywhere else in the house.

The things that I would still like to do are find a new chair that is a bit curvy and reuphulster it with the green fabric that I used on the window seat. I also need to paint the little set of drawers on the desk and do something with the cork frame before hanging it. In these pictures, you can't really see that the bit of wall at the end of Ella's bed is a blank space. Before I had a set of 9 framed Chinese flower prints (the crib bedding was an Asian flower design which I really liked and used as the theme in her nursery) hanging there. I am thinking that instead of hanging them back up, I would like to get a giant wall decal of a tree with birds, something like this. I have seen a few that I like and I think that they are adorable.

I love the raspberry linen duvet from Caravane. It cost a fortune but it is so soft and cuddly and the color! I knew that it would match the red in the green flower print on the window seat pillows. The big pillow that used to be in the rocker doesn't really work on the bed but I can't get rid of it! That print is what pulls everything together. i think that I might end up taking it apart and sewing some smaller throw pillows for the bed. Like I said, this is still a work in progress so I am still waiting for inspiration to strike.

On Ella's desk I got rid of the giant flower pot that I used to collect all her markers and crayons and scissors and bits and pieces and instead sorted them in three tea containers covered in origami paper that I found at Palace des Thes. I think that they are adorable and actually its been working great for keeping things organized. Rather than having to empty that giant pot to find something, ella just takes one of the containers at a time- markers or crayons or colored pencils.

The big vase of peonies looks so perfect sitting there that I wish I could have them all year round. I LOVE peonies. At my grandfather's hotel, there was an old, abandoned garden under some pine trees that no one took care of. The only thing that still grew was an old peony plant. Every spring, for a few weeks, it would be covered in giant white blossoms that smelled so strongly that I knew that plant was in blossom the moment I opened the car door. I used to fill the house with vases of those flowers- no one else seemed to notice them much at all, which I could never understand. I waited all year for those flowers. I have spent years trying to convince my mother to plant some in her garden and she refuses. She thinks that the plants are messy, since they end up all flopped over when the blooms get too heavy. I dream of the day when I have an actual yard of my own that I can fill with peonies. Until then, I guess I'll have to make do with bouquets like this one.

Like I said, Georgia has decided that she would rather play in this room than her own, which is such a bother because that means making an inspection every morning to make sure that the room has been baby-proofed. But the real issue is why won't Georgia play in her own room? Personally, I think it is because of the orange colored walls. Its a perfectly nice color and it feels so warm in there in the wintertime especially, but it just doesn't work for a child's room. I put my foot down the other day and said to B that the wallpaper has got to go. He can choose whether he wants to replace it with another wallpaper or with paint but the decision to change the color has been made. Of course he refused to answer, as he thinks that it is a stupid project and he doesn't want to change anything. I don't care anymore. I like it best when we agree but in this case, I've made a real effort to make it work and it doesn't. Now it has to go; the only thing is, I'm not sure I am quite capable of doing it all on my own and if he gets stubborn about this, I won't have any choice. Yikes. Do I dare?

Picnic in the tuileries

2010-04-24T18:23:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was so lovely out and by some stroke of luck, I had a playgroup picnic to go to- it seems like Murphy's Law that if there is a gorgeous day, we end up scrambling around for something fun to do but pick any miserable cold day, and I am bound to have scheduled an afternoon of freezing my ass off on a park bench. Even more lucky, B had the day off so I kept Ella home from Centre de Loisirs and we all went to the Tuileries for lunch.

Its definitely still springtime- we originally put our blanket under the shade of a tree to keep the babies out of the sun. But it was icy in the shade! I was practically shivering before I had the sense to move the blanket over a few feet into the sun and there we stayed, for four hours. That morning, I started getting another one of these weird ocular migraines- I'm going to have to see the doctor about it soon, its so annoying- and so I couldn't run around to the shops to pick up some lunch like I had planned. I scrounged around in the fridge and finally ended up with a pretty decent lunch. I made David Lebovitz's Roast Chicken , a carrot salade with lemon and tahini sauce (which Ella, Georgia and B refused to touch...), a couscous salade, and cut up some vegetables. When we got there, the Paul stand was just nearby, so we even managed to have coffee and dessert. A perfect picnic lunch!

I had the girls dressed up so that I could take some nice photos, you can see how well that worked out. Georgia is such a grouch, it is unbelievable. Finally, I asked B if he wanted to take her for a walk in the stroller and since he had some errands to do in the neighborhood, he took her for about an hour and the rest of us could enjoy a bit of peace. Ella eventually grabbed the camera and snapped a bunch of shots. I left out all the close-ups of her eye; her shoes; several shots of a dog's behind; and the dirt. On the otherhand, I think she takes great portraits but she seems far more fascinated by these weird close-up shots of things like tree bark. Very arty. I guess that must be her French side.

When we got home, the babysitter was already at the house so we just dumped our dirty, tired children and headed straight out of the house for the evening. So nice. Being alone without the kids during the day always feels very decadent, especially when we don't have anything planned. We sat on a terrasse and had a drink; we window-shopped; I finally managed to convince B to fill up the car with useless junk from our cave and drop it off at the Emmaus in Charenton. That place is so weird- its squeezed in between brand-new buildings, Credit Foncier offices are across the street and Natexis offices are kitty-corner and the Emmaus building is this sketchy dump, behind rusted iron gates. Its so out of place and kind of scary. We got of the car and B said, 'Very smart, Nicole, carrying your Chanel bag.' as if he thought I would get mugged on the 5 meters between the car and the drop off gate. I don't think its as bad as that, but it does look bad compared to the neighbors. Still, we'll be back. I saw that they take baby stuff and books and it looks like any weird shit you feel like giving them. I am on a mission to get my cupboards cleared out.

We could have just gone straight out to drinks and dinner but it was just SO nice yesterday evening, that I decided that I wanted to change into a dress and heels. All winter, I end up going out in the same uniform of head-to-toe black, and it hardly seems worth the bother of dressing up when it is all covered with long coats and scarves. Last night, I didn't even need a jacket! I loved it. I could get used to this. Of course, as I dressed last night, I realized that my wardrobe is in dire need of an intervention. I have about 1 outfit that is suitable for polite company, the rest is only good for wrangling babies in the park. I swore that until I was absolutely 100% back to my pre-pregnancy size, I wouldn't do any shopping and I am hovering on the edges, but am not quite there. I really thought that the ten days of no wine (due to antibiotics) would push me over the edge. Up until now, I've resisted giving up my nightly glass of wine, but this forced me to do it. You know what? Nothing. I don't loose an 1 inch or an ounce. On the otherhand, hurrah. Who wants to give up wine? So, I have to find another way to get there.

Damn you, Muffin Top, and your tenacious grip on my ass.

Big girl bed

2010-04-23T10:26:00.000+02:00

This week, I've been out of the house running around Paris trying to find all the bits and pieces to finish off Ella's new room. We got rid of her toddler bed and now she is officially in a Big Girl Bed, with a roll out bed underneath for when her friends come to stay (I have been BESEIGED by little girls begging for an invite every night when I go to collect Ella at Centre de Loisirs. Talk about buyers' remorse...)

I took this photo the first night, when Ella was soooo excited to get into bed that she was practically shaking. She loves her new bed. Loves it! But when I tucked her in and saw how little she looked it just about made me cry. I couldn't help but think about the first night, when she was just brand-new, and we tried to lay her in her crib but she looked so tiny and lost in that great big crib. Its such a shock to see the time pass like that. And to remember how it felt that night, wondering if we were awful parents, 'abandoning' our little baby in that room, in that great big bed, leaving her all alone. I now, 5 years later, she was cuddling up to me, whispering to me about how much she loved her new bed. When I see her so happy I realize all those worries about doing the right thing were so silly. We did everything great and now we have this gorgeous, happy, sweet little girl. I don't think that I could even imagine making it to this point. Just getting through the night, at the point, seemed like an insurmountable hurdle.

I want to say that this just gives me some perspective on things. But in fact, it doesn't really. That day feels like it was yesterday and I am in exactly the same spot, but at the same time, everything is so different and I feel a million miles from that moment. I can't believe that there was ever a time when we didn't have the girls taking up every minute of our day and every space in our heads.

I scream, you scream, we all scream....

2010-04-23T10:16:00.000+02:00

but not for ice cream. Just because.

Sunny days

2010-04-23T10:14:00.000+02:00

Lately, Georgia wakes up from her nap and by the time that I get in her room, she is already standing up and pointing to her coat. I give her her coat and with her eyes still half stuck shut, she stumbles to the front door, and bangs on it, calling out "Ma'am! Ma'am!" til I get my shoes and coat on, and we can go on a walk. I go in a different direction each afternoon, and we headed to the Jardins des Plantes yesterday. They don't have all the flowers in the ground yet, but the trees were all flowered out.

On the way home, I stopped on Ile St Louis to get Georgia her first ice cream cone. To say that she was underwhelmed would be overstating things. She wanted one, desperately, while we were in line. As each person walked past, licking their cone, she went crazy with the pointing and yelling. When I finally gave her a cone, she got this sort of confused look on her face. I tried to guide it to her lips but that just made her mad. So I snapped photos while she held the cone gingerly at arms distance, with a suspicious look on her face. So, not exactly frame-worthy. Then, while I put my camera back in my bag having admitted defeat, she turned the cone upside down and rubbed it on her coat. And this round goes to Georgia.

The Cleaner

2010-04-21T12:47:00.002+02:00

Georgia is currently in a 'cleaning' phase. How cute. She likes to pick up her toys and put them in the toybox. At dinner, when I ask her to wipe her face, her takes her napkin and sort of rubs it around her mouth. Very very sweet. If she gets her hands on a sponge, she walks around the house wiping things. And she likes to put things in the trashcan.

Things she has put in the trashcan this week, including but not limited to:

1. All of our coffee spoons.
2. My Carte Vitale
3. 7 euro in coins

I should be more clear. These are the things that I FOUND in the trash. I'm not quite sure how many missing items were deposited in the trash before I figured out her new game. Or how many things have sunk to the bottom of the bag and haven't been spotted.

She also has started 'tickling' us- she grabs your bare flesh with her two little paws and kneads it frantically, while giving this little machine-gun laugh. Thats your cue to laugh manically and yell 'Stop! Stop!'. It kind of hurts but its a much cheaper game than her other one.

And she maintains the fine balance between 'tear my hair out with frustration' and 'so cute I want to eat her up'. How does she do it?

Bring me your tired, your hungry volcano refugees...

2010-04-17T14:14:00.003+02:00

I've got my very own volcano refugee coming tonight! And it is none other than my partner in crime from my Parisian nanny year! So excited!! Am trying to quickly organize a brunch at mine for tomorrow with a bunch of our old school friends who live in Paris. I don't know if I can even get ahold of everyone, and between staying up late last night (honestly, what is with all the wild parties, Neighborhood?! I finally got the downstairs neighbors to fall into line and now its the kids who live in the building next door and install their DJ's speakers against our party wall. You know it was loud when two solid concrete walls are vibrating from the bass. I spent my remaining 4 hours of sleep dreaming of the quiet Wisconsin countryside.) and all the sickos in our house, its probably a terrible idea. BUT. But I haven't done anything but sit around and be miserable all week and I know it would be a great party and only I will really mind how absolutely filthy the house is. So I'm going for it. Knowing full well that I will be in panic mode from 11 til 12 tomorrow but hey! I am stocked up on steroids! Surely those athletes don't use them for nothing!

As an aside, I am so pumped up after I take one. I don't know if there is some sort of psychosymatic thing going on or if they are really giving me some very enjoyable side-effects. But I like it and I am using it.

Also find myself pondering the wisdom of taking two a day. Just as an experiment, of course...

You have to have heaps of sympathy for my little refugee, though. She was in Montenegro (she does consulting work for the UN and usually is in Kinshasa, so I can only imagine that this was supposed to be a quick stop before flying back to London) and just managed to sneak on a flight to Zurich before all the flights got cancelled. Her boyfriend, god bless him, got himself to Zurich and is driving her to Paris tonight and they will catch a ferry back to London tomorrow at 8 pm. They are missing out on a romantic night in London with dinner at a Michelin starred resto, so I am desperately phoning around trying to get her something similar in Paris, to make up for it, without much luck. Not quitting yet!

So wish me luck. Today, despite the lovely weather, is turning out to be hellish. The girls spent the morning discovering new ways to torment each other, and me. Lunch was worse than usual, between Georgia 'feeding herself' and Ella refusing to eat anything. For the third day in a row. I don't know what happened to get them playing so nicely for the last half hour so that I could write this and drink a nice (calming) cup of green tea, but I thank god for it. I was very much at my wits' end.

That is really one of the hard parts of parenthood- the erratic swings between complete and utter pleasure at the simple presence of your children and then 5 minutes later the exhausted scream of frustration as they push every single one of your buttons, in rapid succession.

2010-04-16T13:24:00.003+02:00

So to recap yesterdays post- I thought that I was dying and was grateful that my lovely husband allowed me to wallow in my sickness in peace. But then! He quite wisely put his foot down and called SOS Medicines. When I am sick, I really only want to lay in bed and sleep. Sorting out a visit to the doctor is far and away the last thing on my mind. Thank goodness he was there to make the call. When the doctor showed up, he barely glanced in my throat before exclaiming, 'Good God! That must REALLY hurt!' and prescribed me a giant dose of Amoxicillin (sp? I'm too lazy to get up to go and look at the box... What? I'm still sick. I am) and a few days worth of steroids. My throat is still sore, but thank god for those steroid pills. Within a half hour of taking the first one, I was feeling human again. I slept like a baby and woke up full of energy. Which, thank goodness, because Ella is now home sick.

I may have to work on B a bit more re: the quickie vacation to the beach to celebrate the fact that his safe deposit box was, in fact, still safe.

Funny story. He went yesterday morning to the bank to check his box, having made an appointment with them last week. He took my little Canon Powershot with him and had spent the morning practicing taking sneaky photos, because he REALLY wanted photographic evidence (probably to drag out, along with the musty old story, at every bloody dinner party for the next 30 years...) of the fire. Imagine his dismay to arrive at the bank and see a brand-spanking-new vault. The paint was fresh, the carpet had just been installed, the lighting was high-voltage fluorescent. Even the boxes looked totally new, except for one which had been half-opened with some sort of torch and they apparently couldn't find a way to 'fix' before the visitors started arriving. He opened the box, in the presence of the bank employee, a huissier, a guard, a cleaning lady (huh?) and his father. As he stared to put it all the stuff in his briefcase, the bank employee started giving him the hard sell 'Oh, you aren't leaving your things? You know, you can leave your things. Its perfectly safe now! We've repaired everything.' etc etc. He told them that he would think about it. How different from two weeks ago when he went in to speak with them and they refused to even acknowledge that there had been a break-in. Not so chatty then, huh, little weasly bank man?

In a very small gesture of celebration, he gave me the money to go and buy the ballet tickets that I had looked at for next year. I kept warning him that it was very expensive (the exact figure changes based on a dozen different factors, like how many shows you are getting tickets for, which category, which 'bundle' you choose, things like that) and so when he asked for a figure I told him 'well, for one person, it would be around x amount.' He was a bit shocked and said, 'oh thats more expensive than I thought. Well, here's x+ 30 amount of euro.' And I had to point out that I would be buying tickets for me AND Ella, so he would need to give me twice as much. He took a big gulp of air, but he handed it over.

Well, of course he did. This poor daddy can deny his daughters nothing. Lord help us all, the day that they discover this!
__________________

OK- that was a rough 15 minutes. Georgia started banging on the door to go out to play. So I picked her up, only to discover that a poopy explosion had occurred. So I took her to the bedroom to change her. While I tried to maneuver the offending diaper into the trash, she wiped her hand across her still filthy ass. As I wiped off her hands, she kicked the paper towels off the table and they completely unrolled across the room. I finished wiping her butt to discover it was quite red. So I let her off the table to walk around a minute to dry the skin, while I rolled up the paper towels. When I turned back around, I saw that she had peed on the floor. So I UNrolled the paper towels and mopped it up. I put her on the table, got the tube of diaper cream and put some on her skin, then a diaper, then I looked in her cupboard for some new pants. When I turned back around, I saw that she had grabbed the diaper cream, taken off the lid, and wiped it across her shirt. So I got a new shirt as well. Just then my phone rang. The babysitter was ill and would not be coming today.

This kid. I am not going to detail the horrific torture that is mealtime, now that Mademoiselle has decided that she only wants to eat if she can feed herself. And even then, its 'Non!' for about 90% of what I offer. It is a lesson in perseverance and patience, let me tell you. I find myself spending my free moments fantasizing about these Wile E. Coyote scenarios wherein I drop an anvil on her head, or knock her out with a giant mallet. In my version, after the stars disappear, she sees the error of her screechy ways and starts to eat like a little angel, from a spoon that I have offered her filled with lovely nutritious food that will NOT give her fire butt.

People, a few years ago, I had a normal fantasy life like all of you. I am constantly reminding myself that these are 'the good ole days'. Enjoy them.

Sick day(s)

2010-04-15T10:30:00.003+02:00

I have not been this sick in years, quite honestly. It started with a sore throat a few days ago and by Tuesday night, I could barely lay still in bed because my entire body felt like it was covered in bruises, my joints ached, I was ice cold and couldn't stop shaking, and when I did manage to I drift off, I had crazy fever dreams. I woke up on Wednesday morning soaked with sweat but still shaking and told B that he was going to have deal with the kids on his own. There was no possible way for me to get out of bed. He is such a star. He took Ella to centre de loisirs and arranged for Georgia to spend the day at garderie. He went back and forth from work to fetch them and drop them off. Then he took them to park to give me some extra quiet time and fed them and put them to bed. All of this on top of getting up with Georgia all night long (for two nights). She was either sick as well or going through some sleep issue AGAIN so he was probably in there every hour.
I know that this is part of the job of being a parent, whether you are the mother or the father, but I just am so so grateful for everything that he did. Its hard being sick, but when I feel something coming on, I immediately stress out, thinking about how impossible it is to deal with the kids when I am not on top form. Its nice to be reminded that I'm not actually doing this on my own. Big gold star for B.
Also, the sad truth is that the only time that I manage to lose weight is when I am ill. I suppose it gives me a silver lining to look for when I am lying in bed, writhing in pain. On the other hand, maybe this is an indication that I have zero willpower and I might want to try working on that rather than having to lick My Little Petri Dishes every time my jeans get tight.

2010-04-13T11:04:00.002+02:00

I spent yesterday burning through my To-Do list- although a last minute cancellation by the cleaner/babysitter sort of threw a spanner in the works. When will I learn- life with small children means that nothing, not even cleaning out a closet, goes smoothly. I really am baffled as to how someone who works full-time is able to keep on top of things. I'm here all day and school holidays are always sorted out about a week in advance, all my tickets are last minute, my closets are stuffed with clothes that fit no one, I have boxes of stuff for Emmaus stacked up next to the door for weeks at time, there are currently 452 unread messages in my Inbox (most of which seem to from JCrew offering me free shipping...) and I haven't filed away my Important Papers (instead they are stuffed unopened in a drawer) in over a year. Granted, I waste a lot of time over the course of the day, but not enough to fit in a job. I know, I know. The busier you are, the more you get done. One of life's great mysteries.

Georgia continues to tormet us with sleep issues. We had a great week of quiet nights when she would lay down at 8 pm and wake at 6 am for a bottle, giving us another hour and a half of calm before waking with Ella at 7:30. I would LOVE to be able to sleep til 8 in the morning but I have come to grips with the idea that it will never happen. Besides, don't they always say that you can accomplish so much more when you get up early in the morning? I am stll waiting for that miracle to happen. In the meantime, I'm sort of like the commercial for the chicory cafe that is running on TV right now where the bear gets out of bed and only turns human once he has had his steaming cup of coffee. I'm getting to the point where I can deal. But THEN we went to the country and Georgia couldn't sleep in the cot that she had and woke us up hourly. Thank god for my dear husband who sent me into the other bedroom to sleep, knowing that there was no way that I would survive the weekend with his family if I had a sleep deficit as well. Things seem sorted out once we got home and then the night Sunday to Monday was just like old times. A shout out at midnight, a squeak at 1 am and then hourly wake-up calls at 4, 5, and 6 with a final hysterical meltdown at 6:50 (the meltdown was me and B, just to be clear...) But when Ella came home from school crying about a sore ear, it all sort of made sense. Georgia must have been suffering from the same thing. With everyone doped up on Doliprane and decongestants, we had a full night's sleep last night. Lets hope thats the end of it. Earaches are the worst.

One of the things I managed to cross off my list yesterday was 'Buy tickets to the US for summer vacay.' I hadn't really decided what to do for the summer. B and I tossed around the idea of me coming back to France the beginning of August so that we could fly together which would have been convenient. BUT, he will be working non-stop in August and no one else will be around and I just dreaded the amount of organization it would take to keep the girls occupied. Finally, I just typed in two dates, randomly, and there were seats available on the direct flight so the decision was made. We'll be coming back on the 15th of August, which gives us a week or so to go to the country to see B's family and plenty of time to get sorted for school, but it cuts our summer in WI down to 7 weeks, from 10 weeks last year. The time goes so fast that I hope I don't regret this.

As I was filling in the info to book the tickets I realized with a horrible panic that Ella's passport has expired. Thank god that they make you put the info with the purchase or I might not have remembered until we were literally checking in at the airport. I immediately went to the US Embassy website and sorted out a rdv for renewing it. Now I have to try and remember to get proper photos done. I don't know where or how B did the photos for her French passport, but Ella looks like the Littlest Prisoner on Death Row, complete with hopeless, lifeless stare, knotted hair sticking up on oneside, dirty sweater buttoned wrong, I think she might also have food on her face. Honestly, I have to scan it for you it is just so horribly bad (I pasted the extra copies in her photo album. This is something that will definitely come in handy some point down the road). I don't need a glamour shot (although suddenly, I'm thinking that it would be a little awesome to have her wearing mascara, lipstick and a bouffant in her passport photo!!), I do want something a little less mug shot. By the way, when did passports go up in price to 83 USD?! It seems like between me and the girls, I am ordering new passports every couple years and its always a new, and higher, price. When your passport costs more than any ticket on the Ryanair website, it seems like it might be too expensive.

And I probably lost 30 minutes yesterday searching for her social security card, since I never noted down the number ANYWHERE. Smart, Nicole. My dad is always telling me to destroy my card! before it gets stolen! and used for evil!! But I feel like that is a bit, I don't know, tempting Fate? I KNOW that I will suffer permenant brain damage the day after I burn it and will never ever again know what my number is. Further evidence that I have been living out of the US for too long, I don't ever remember my number and I don't what to do if I loose it. I don't actually know what I am supposed to be using it for, although I am always reading about when you should refuse to give out your number. Oh, my head hurts.

Despite lacking my sitter, I decided that I would make a cake with Ella and Georgia. I mean, the house couldn't possibly get any dirtier so why not just roll with it. I put Georgia up in her high chair right next to us and Ella and I made a Strawberry Rhubarb Cake that turned out fantastic! Rhubarb tastes like spring, to me. And its pink! I don't know what is going on- I let Ella talk me into buying three bouquets of pink roses this weekend and then cooing over the compote. Maybe there is to much estrogen in this house?

Eat your greens

2010-04-10T11:17:00.001+02:00

I am on my eternal quest to discover the secret to the juice recipe at the Spa at George V. On Thursday, I tried out 5 kiwis + 1 cucumber (minus what the girls begged off me first) + 3 Granny Smith + a bowl of seedless green grapes. Close, but not quite. I think I need less kiwi and just a bit of mint. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get my juicer to effectivly juice a bunch of leaves- I end up with about 2 spoons of liquid for 3 euro worth of mint and 40 minutes of clean-up. Not what I would call a great return on investment. I'm thinking of throwing in the towel on this one and just buying a bottle of mint syrup. Even a sub-par juice is still excellent, though. I could live on this stuff.

That night, I was clearly energized by the jug of green juice that I had inhaled earlier in the day and I whipped up one of my favorite dinners from my Joel Rebouchon cookbook, Saumon au Choux Poelé. The cabbage is blanched and then sauteed in butter with a bit of cream. I actually prefer to poach the salmon since I can't stand how the smell of fried salmon lingers for days, so I deviate slightly from the recipe. All of it is served with a generous drizzle of beurre blanc. I follow the instructions to the letter when it says 8 tbsp of butter in the sauce. Very naughty but so worth it. Georgia loved this so much that she was trying to swat me in the head whenever I got distracted between serving her bites and she had to wait. Ella, naturally, moaned like a dying walrus when I said that she had to eat the 'salade' but did actually clean her plate which is a rare occurance. I'll take that as her stamp of approval. Poor B had to eat his cold but he said it was still good.

This is not a meal to get me ready for bikini season, but then I have time. We had good news from the bank regarding the break-in (to be confirmed...) but rather than celebrate with a vacation to the Spanish coast like I had been suggesting, we are probably going to use our savings for an investment. Yawn.

This business about being old and responsible is such a bore.

Wisconsin Town Elects 19-Year-Old Mayor!

2010-04-10T10:50:00.000+02:00

Wisconsin Town Elects 19-Year-Old Mayor!

Just when B was starting to warm up to the idea of moving back to Wisconsin, we stumble across this on the internet. I'm not sure he considers this a reassuring sign. I don't know- I think it is kind of cool.

Life List

2010-04-08T10:20:00.005+02:00

Last night I had a hard time falling to sleep- I blame it all on those f*&é"' Kardashians. I was so much better off when we didn't get the E! Channel but French tv is so bad that it makes this stuff look entertaining and suddenly it is 11 pm and I am up past my bedtime wondering if Khloe Kardashian was actually born with a cleft palate and if Scott Disick is the gayest baby daddy I've ever seen. Seriously, sitting through a thirty minute show will lower my IQ by atleast 50 points. Anyways- so I started trying to pull together my Life List, which is much better use of brain space.

Before I forget all the good ideas that I had, I want to post them here. This is definitely a rough draft of The Life List, but its a good start, I think. In no particular order:

1. Plant a flower garden.
2. Hike to Machu Picchu
3. Sail to the Galapagos Islands
4. Go on a shark dive
5. Dive in the Komodo Reserve in Indonesia
6. Frame and hang on my wall a photo that I took
7. Throw an enormous surprise party for someone I love
8. Make an impact (either through my actions or a large financial endowment) on a charity
9. Go in the thermal baths in Iceland
10. Take a surfing lesson
11. Do a zipline in the jungle
12. Do a real safari
13. Make a batch of jam
14. Knit myself a sweater
15. Write a book about my childhood
16. Give a speech at a conference
17. Learn to speak Italian
18. Audit the art history class at the Louvre
19. Do a cooking class with Cordon Bleu
20 Go on a yoga retreat in India
21. See a glacier
22. Scan all the old family photos and give a CD to each of my family members
23. Be up-to-date on all my doctor visits
24. Have my wardrobe sorted out by a professional
25. Embroider my monogram on something
26. Find or have someone take a photo of me that I LOVE
27. Have a library of all the books that I truly love in hard cover
28. Organize a vacation with all my best girlfriends
29. Teach my daughters to cook my signature recipes
30. Make a real difference and improvement in a child's life
31. Go skiing in Switzerland
32. Swim with dolphins
33. See the pyramids in Eygpt
34. Go on a gondola ride in Venice
35. Drive a really fast car
36. Walk on the Great Wall of China
37. Take a road trip across the US
38. Do a silent retreat at convent or monastary
39. Buy a stock on my own with my own money
40. Ride a camel in the desert
41.Visit Tokyo
41. Make ice cream with my kids
42. Rent a helium tank use it to fill hundreds of balloons for a party and the rest for making our voices squeaky
43. Climb one of the major mountains in the world
44. Ride a parade float
45. Take piano lessons again until I can play a song that I love
46. Drink a glass of local wine in each of the top 10 winemaking countries of the world. The countries are Italy, France, Spain, Australia, Chile, United States, Germany, Argentina, Portugal and South Africa
47. Learn how to juggle
48. Build a house with Habitat for Humanity
49. Take a trapeze lesson
50. Eat caviar
51. Take the girls to Disney Land and get a photo of their faces (pure joy) as the characters go to hug them.
52. Surprise someone with the gift that they always dreamed of
53. Volunteer at a soup kitchen on Christmas or another special holiday
54. Try glass blowing
55. Visit Murano
56. Buy a piece by Toso & Barovier
57. Dive at the Great Barrier Reef
58. Host an exchange student
59. Buy a piece of vintage clothing that I look great in and that my daughters lust after.
60. Dance the merengue in Venezuela
61. Take a ride in a helicopter
62. Organize a candlelit party in the park, overlooking the Seine

I would love to have a list of 100 things, so I'm going to keep thinking. Maybe the best part so far about making the list is that I realize how much living I've already done. I've been going through other people's lists, for inspiration, and I'm shocked at how many items I've already done and it does remind me that while I might often feel like I do nothing but sit home and take care of babies, its far from the truth. I've travelled to places that I've dreamed about like Rome and Rio. I've mastered lots of skills like knitting and sewing since I am at home. I've pushed myself to do things like host Thanksgiving or learn a foreigh language. I've made the effort to find time to do things that are important to me, like put together photo albums for my family and throw parties so that I can invite everyone I love.

One of the things that I thought about after my grandfather died in February is how he had such an inspiring way of doing and not talking. He was a great example of someone who just tried things. People talked about him being an eternal student- his whole life, he never stopped trying to learn- but I think that part about him doing things was even more importaint. I remember when I was about 12 and I wanted to help in the kitchen. He would tell me to just do it, stop looking at cookbooks and asking questions, and make something. When I made a TERRIBLE lemon meringue pie one day, he just laughed and threw it in the trash and asked me what I would be trying out the next day. I'm sure he never realized what a huge lesson he was teaching me that day, but its something that has stuck with me ever since. Its so important to go through life with an adventurous attitude and just try things out without worrying what might go wrong. I'm just starting to realize how important that is.

I was thinking that I should be an item on my list 'Teach my children to be adventurers' but it would be redundant. If I do everything on my list, they will learn that automatically.

Petitehistoires.com

2010-04-07T17:38:00.004+02:00

We just got back from the Opera Bastille and I wanted to quickly post on the spectacle that we saw. It was called Petiteshistoires.com and it was a dance spectacle just as much fun as the last show that we saw. I bumped into a friend of mine with her son, as we were searching for a seat. Last time, we arrived early and they didn't open the doors until the exact time of the show, so naturally, rather than stand around in the drafty lobby for 30 minutes, Ella and I went shopping (at a shop on rue Turenne called Troizenfants, so I think that we have E's spring wardrobe sorted. Everything there is soooo cute.) and popped in at 5 to. When all the seats were all ready taken. Oops. Luckily, my girlfriend managed to make room for us right in the front in the middle of the auditorium so it worked out.

It was a show that was described as 'Hip-hop' in the program, but was really eclectic as far as music- there was a bit of rap, there was quite a bit of classical music, a few jazzy old-timey things (I am a real music afficionado, if you can't tell). The dancing was more just modern dance than strictly hip-hop although there was a lot of street-style and it was really cool. The dancers were all young guys and they did stunts and tumbling, that were super impressive. It was very very poetic and some parts were just funny, so that you could little giggles bursting out all over the auditorium. It was a show listed as appropriate for 8 years and older, but I don't know that the younger kids missed out on much. It was slightly long for them at an hour and a half, and Ella got a bit antsy for the last few bits. There was also a bit of commentary that was a sort of difficult to understand due to the music and I think that I even missed out on exactly what political message that they were trying to get across (again, I am not French enough for alot of this high culture...). I am really impressed by whoever organizes the Jeune Public shows. They strike the perfect balance between fun and accessible and educational. I love it. I will absolutely be taking my kids to everything that I can get tickets to- which I ought to do, since it is practically on our doorstep.

The Egg Hunt

2010-04-07T17:36:00.002+02:00

We dashed outside in between the rain clouds and had 30 perfect minutes of Spring weather for the girls to hunt for chocolates in the flower beds.

And if at first you don't succeed

2010-04-07T17:33:00.001+02:00

try, try again.

I always tend to like the rejected photos better than the 'final shot'. (Yes, the middle photo is a shot of Georgia throwing her boiled decorated Easter egg on the tile floor. No, I am afraid to say that the egg did not survive...)

Family time

2010-04-06T12:08:00.002+02:00

Good lord. What a weekend. I think that the girls had a great time, atleast. B and I, on the otherhand, are ready for the sanatorium. The traffic was horrific, for a start, and Georgia is no good in the car which makes for a hellish voyage, no matter what. The weather kept us more or less trapped in the house, because if you dared skip out into the sunshine, the rain was sure to appear 30 seconds later. We missed ¾ of Easter Mass because not only did no one actually check the church schedule, pretty much assuring us problems, but both the time AND the locale was different from normal. Oh well, atleast that meant no wiggly kids to deal with. Church ended before we got to that point. There was no internet at the country house, which was a shock to my system. I really could have used an escape mechanism over the last few days. I suppose it really isn’t any wonder that I got into rather shouty discussions (OK, one of them was an out and out fight) with two members of the stepfamily. I was still having stress dreams about it all last night. Hmm. The only good thing to come out of it all? I will no longer be even a teensy tiny bit guilty about spending every Christmas in the States. Its one thing to have a rather miserable Easter holiday but I will not let these lunatics wreck Christmas.

But there were good things too, so let me make a list to remind myself to not be so whiny:

1. I downloaded The Blind Side on to my laptop and we LOVED it. It was a good film and it made you think and it made me grateful for what I’ve got. I suppose more to the point, it made me feel that rather than worrying about my ‘career’ I should be more worried about what exactly I’m doing to make the world a better place.

2. The girls looked adorable in their Easter dresses and I got some great shots.

3. The Easter egg hunt was a big hit and so were the baskets.

4. My MIL liked the coffee cups! (but she sent the mugs home with me. I’ll never figure this woman out.)

5. It was nice to be out of the city and the apartment to enjoy a bit of space and fresh air.

6. We ate one fantastic meal after another and I didn’t have to cook a single one. Heaven.

And actually, if I’m honest, it does feel good to finally stand up and tell off someone who has been asking for it for ages because he finally steps so far over the line. I would love to tell the whole story here, but I am going to give it a bit more of a think first. I appreciate family harmony as much as the next guy- hey, probably even more because I have a huge family that spends lots and lots of time together. I will never understand people who find it easier to go out of their way to be jerks, rather than just be nice. I’m always telling the girls, ‘Just, be nice.’ Maybe that’s not such a trite thing to say. Its actually great advice. You don’t have to knock yourself out doing amazing things or being brilliantly entertaining. Just, be nice and people will like to have you around. It is that simple.

Last minute

2010-04-02T10:00:00.002+02:00

So, B announced rather late last night that I should probably cancel our dinner reservation for Friday night. Why? I asked, confused. Because, he answered me, it will probably be better to leave Friday night since they said on the news that the traffic was predicted to be Rouge on Saturday (rouge=red=hours sitting in standstill traffic to try and leave Paris=screamy babies for many more hours than I can handle).

So it was decided. I thought we would leave when he got home from work at 7:30 but he cleared that up this morning when he asked me to get Ella from school at noon so that we could leave at 3. This means that I have about 4 hours to squeeze in a full day's worth of preparations. So clearly blogging is the best use of my time... I know I know, stupid. But I think I am in denial.

I am just trying to pretend that there is no stress. Georgia spent the last hour bringing me books and sitting on my lap, making me read them over and over again (hence the photo. Ella took that the other day. I asked her to get a shot of me and Georgia and I ended up with a bunch of lovely photos of the book cover. Oh well. You get the idea.)

She has just laid down for a nap. I have an hour and half to perform miracles. I guess since it is Easter weekend, that is sort of the theme, right?

Happy Easter, everyone. May you get lots of chocolate and not be required by the resident 5 year-old sceptic to explain exactly how a rabbit managed to get it all to your house. Google to the rescue?

Easter's on its way

2010-04-01T14:52:00.002+02:00

So, I think I finally have the finish line in site, regarding all my Easter projects. A quick rundown:

1. I finished decorating the girls' Easter baskets. I had to make one from scratch for Georgia, since last year I didn't bother to do anything. I found the basket at the quincallerie on rue des Ecoles last week and popped up to Rougier et Plé on Monday to pick up some crepe paper to make the flowers. I spread everything out on the dining room table( crepe paper, wire, florist tape, yarn, beads, and my green Happy Tape) and have been knocking out a few flowers every time I get a few quiet moments. I think that they turned out so well! I made daisies, lilies, clematis, forget-me-nots, a sort of hyacinth/lilac thing, and tulips plus some regular generic sort of flowers. After I got Ella's basket out of the cave, I thought it looked a bit scruffy next to Georgia's so I spruced it up a bit with some new things. Now, the next big hurdle will be transporting them to the country this weekend (and back again) without having them completely destroyed. It was hard to get everything well attached to the baskets without a glue gun. I guess that is the next item on my craft shopping list. Just when I think that I have every possible tool any crafter could ever need or use, up pops something like this and I wonder how I managed for so long without getting one. Yeah, so I may have to confiscate this basket from Georgia the Hun as soon as she finds it on Easter morning so that I can keep it safe til I can do it right.

2. We dyed Easter Eggs. I think that they turned out beautifully despite the fact that I had to improvise with gel food coloring, which wasn't all that easy to do. On Tuesday, I had to walk up Blvd Beaumarchais on my way to the craft store and I passed in front of a Franprix. I remembered that I was completely out of diapers and so I took advantage and popped in to pick some up. While wandering around I stumbled upon a stack of white eggs! Now, you non-Parisians will think that this is no big deal but here in Paris all the eggs for sale in 99% of the shops are brown eggs, which are not fun to try and dye. There are years when I have gone into a dozen different grocery stores and chased up leads from all my girlfriends only to come up empty handed. So really, this was a stroke of luck. I was also excited about doing them since my friend Hestor brought us an egg decorating kit from Holland. If only I had read the directions BEFORE starting the job. To get the plastic bands to shrink to teh egg, you dip them in boiling water. Ella had already dyed the eggs but most of the color came off in the boiling water, as you'd expect. I was all ready to drag out the dyes a second time, but then I had a lightbulb moment. I realized that Ella was happy; no one else cared the least little bit how brightly our eggs were colore; maybe, just maybe, I could let it go? And I did. People, this is huge.

3. I have a basket ready for to be planted with spring flowers to give to my mother-in-law as a sort of centerpiece. I also stumbled across a store in the 11th called Le Fiacre which had a ton of stuff for Easter- baskets, stickers, cards, gift bags, towels, etc. I bought some stickers for Ella to put in her basket as stickers are always always always a winner with her. A also managed to find some really nice little English coffee cups for my MIL. Last time we were at her house, she broke nearly everyone she had in some freak dishwashing accident. I also got some mugs as I hate having espresso in the morning and I HATE drinking cafe au lait from a bowl. I will never be that French. I am hoping that the present of something that she needs will win her over and she will accept the mugs (under normal circumstances, she would just open the box and then hand it back to me, saying, 'Keep them, I don't like them.' She is nothing if not blunt.) We shall see.

4.The girls have matching yellow dresses. Georgia will be wearing the one Ella had when she was 1 and Ella will be wearing a really pretty little sun dress from Chloe that I found at Fifi de Vem. How funny that the last three items of clothing that I bought Ella have all been Chloe. I never thought that it would be my go-to brand for dressing my kids but what can you do? The children's line of clothing is To Die For.

5. I have my closet packed with chocolate treats for the girls but I am a bit miffed at Georgia. The other day I popped into one of my fav chocolate shops, just off the Place des Vosges and bought a few bags of friture for me and B. As we left the shop, it started to rain and so I ran home, not paying very close attention to Georgia in teh stroller. I should learn my lesson. I got in the door and she was missing a shoe (she is the middle of a stage of taking them off and then immediately screaming for them to be put back on. We can do this a hundred times in a row and she does not get bored.) So I had to grab and umbrella and go back out to find her damn shoe. Then I went back into the apartment and unloaded all my bags from the pousette, only to find that the bag from the chocolate shop? It was empty. The sales girl had given Georgia a sample - which she inhaled- and then she kept pointing to the sack and saying 'Num-num? Num-num?' which is her word for 'feed me!'. I didn't think she needed another piece and obviously I should have learned by now that if there is one thing that will motivate Georgia, it is food. By the time I discovered the empty bag it was pouring rain outside and I was done. So I may go and get something else or I may just call it Fate's way of reminding me that I am on a diet.

The littlest fashionista

2010-03-31T12:06:00.001+02:00

Georgia has recently discovered a new game- she goes into Ella's room and grabs shirts out of her dresser, then she comes to me and holds them up, saying 'Huh? huh? huh?'until I slip them over her head. Then she sort of swans around the room, posing and checking to see if anyone is watching her. She kills me with the cuteness, sometimes. Today we managed to get on a record 4 shirts before she got bored with the game. Of course, now they are all scattered over the living room floor and all the hardwork that the cleaner did yesterday, refolding and rearranging Ella's dresser, was all for nought. But look at that little grin! It was clearly all worth it.

Passover

2010-03-30T23:13:00.002+02:00

If only it was me celebrating and not my noisy neighbors. Called the police AGAIN. They were lovely to us, again. Told us again to not hesitate to call. They told us to keep writing the letters and then take the whole dossier, letters + police complaints + stuff from the syndic, to the mairie to do a process. I heard the crazy woman from downstairs saying to her husband that he needs to complain at teh next reunion of apartment owners about our complaints. Little does she know that I've already been doing my work in the hallways, gathering support for a strict amendment to our building regulations that while hand out fines to owners who disturb the quiet between the hours of 10 pm and 8 am.

I can't tell you what a state I was in while waiting for them. I honestly think that I need to get something from the doctor to calm me down because I was nearly hysterical. When you hear 20, 30 people arriving for a dinner. When they only start eating at 10:30. When the shouting and laughing is so loud at 10 that you can't hear the tv, then you know you are in for a bad night.

So I guess our spring holiday is officially off

2010-03-30T10:23:00.002+02:00

After scouring the internet for an hour last night, B finally found an article on the bank robbery on BFM.com, some weird little news station. I think it is pretty strange that this info wasn't on any of the major French news sites. TF1 had their top article in the police/justice section about a robbery in a small casino on the French border, in a town that I had never even heard of and yet there was nothing about a major haul from a bank in the center of Paris, which included taking the security guard hostage and threatening his life and torching the place. Hmm. Very curious. That's the thing that makes us about 99% sure that everything in every box has been taken. If the bank has made this much effort to keep the thing out of the news, it must be A Very Bad Situation.

The only good thing about this is that I had lots of important papers that I came across as I was setting up the new desk area that I had wanted B to put in the safe. Thank goodness he didn't get around to it or this would have been an even bigger disaster. Lesson learned- I'll keep my valuables in my mattress rather then trust them to this particular bank.

Unfortunately, it looks like B's grandmother's jewelry was in a different safe deposit box belonging to his uncle. She had some really beautiful things (her father was an antiques dealer in between the wars, so you can imagine the type of things that he had collected) that don't look likely to be handed down to the great-granddaughters.

B must be coming to terms with things though. This morning, he told me that he was planning on taking the key to his safe deposit box and framing it; he figures it'll be a fun story to tell people, atleast. My goodness, has my cynical Frenchman decided to look for the silver lining? He has clearly been spending too much time with his American family. Next thing you know, he'll be wearing Crocs.

weekend in review

2010-03-29T10:45:00.002+02:00

Well this weekend was all ups and downs. It was nice to have so many plans, but it is really exhausting! And if I had known about the time change, I think I would have been dreading this weekend. But finally, that was a breeze and the real problems were all the blame on the French.

I'll do the bad stuff first. I don't want be spreadin' B's bidness all around, but he has had a rough couple of days, poor guy. For the last few months, his business has been audited and they got the results on Friday. Now, it seems to me like this was pretty much the result that he had predicted but apparently he had harbored secret hopes that it would go differently. The auditor made some pretty far-fetched assumptions to come up with his valuations which means that the 'bill' to be paid is astronomical. So now, they need to hire a lawyer to appeal the 'bill' and all this will probably take a year or two. And since B is a pathological worrier, that means a year or two of worrying constantly about the result. Sigh.

The second problem that he had this weekend was a lot more exciting (really? you say. More exciting than discussing accounting errors? Oh Internets, I know it is hard to keep up with my thrilling life over here. But seriously, wait for it...) - his bank was robbed! Personally, the last word that I would use to describe the situation is 'shocking' but I'll let you judge. The bank office where we had our checking accounts and safe deposit box has been closed for renovations for the last few months. This branch is near B's office so I hadn't seen it until a few weeks ago when we drove by in the car. B pointed out the window and said 'Look at how safe they keep our money...' The front wall of the bank had been removed and was replaced by... plywood. You know, thin flimsy pressboard. Can be snapped in half by a hefty toddler jumping on it in the middle. Well, apparently, they had moved the front desk part to another location down the street and just weren't terribly worried about the safe deposit boxes so plywood was considered sufficient protection from the bad guys. Geez- I don't even think that plywood is sufficient protection from strong wind, but you know, thats just me. I asked him if had left anything in the safe and he said yes. I said that I hoped it wasn't anything important because personally, that wall of plywood didn't reassure me much. And I guess I was right because Sunday morning, B stopped by his office to pick up something and he saw firemen and police all over the bank- or I should say, former bank. There had been a fire. Set by the bank robbers, who broke into the safe. B called me right away and he was practically in hysterics because the police wouldn't tell him anything. Again, I can't say that I was at all shocked and I pointed out that if the fire was only caught at 8 or 9 on Sunday morning, it was probably only set a bit before (its right on avenue de l'opera and there are lots of people around even early on Sunday morning so it couldn't have burned for very long). That would mean that the robbers had probably been in the bank all night and had had plenty of time to get in all the safe deposit boxes. It was probably a safe bet that whatever he had in there was gone. Well, we spend the rest of the day, on practically on hourly basis, having this same discussion over and over and OVER again. He tried phoning up this morning and the staff at the replacement office didn't even know that there had been a break-in. Oh, French people and their great attitude of 'Whatever. Not my problem.'

At least I can't complain about not getting enough sleep this weekend. I'm not saying that I couldn't have slept for hours more each morning but atleast there were no noisy neighbors to wake me and the time change totally worked in our favor. Tonight will be the real test, but last night Georgia was in bed at 8:30 (a bit later than usual due to the time change and a late nap) and didn't wake until 6:45. I managed to settle her back to sleep til 7:15, when I gave her a bottle and when she was done and had woken us up by banging her bottle against the bars on her crib (honestly, she finally wakes up happy one day and do we get to hear her cooing in bed? No. Its like waking up to an episode of Prison Break.) Despite the noise, this is magical. People, seriously, a Full Nights Sleep. Even if she did wake me up at a very critical point in my dream about hanging out with Brad Pitt and our kids in the park ( we were exchanging very longing looks but I refused to kiss him because Angie would shoot daggers at me each morning before she left for the movie set and I was afraid of the paparazzi taking a photo of it. Don't know where B was during all this. Perhaps at the bank, sifting through safe deposit ashes? Anyways, best dream I've had in AGES. But also kind of random since the scraggy goatee Brad's rocking right now is actually pretty gross. )

I guess I'll just keep working backwards. Saturday night got sort of screwed up since I was supposed to go out with an old uni friend in town for the weekend but we got our wires crossed and I ended up with a babysitter and no place to go. I told B that after my hellish afternoon of hangover + kids birthday party (boy, kids sure like popping balloons, don't they?), I was bound and determined to ditch the kids for a few hours of quiet adult company. He made reservations at the Thai place at the Village St Paul and we had a lovely dinner, discussing a dream vacation inspired by my brother and his sailing adventure. We are going to fly to Panama, get on a sailboat and sail to the Galapagos Islands, where we can spend a week diving and hiking and visiting stuff. Can't wait. The nice thing about B is that once he gets an idea in his head, he won't let it drop (OK, full disclosure; this is also the most irritating thing about him. Funny how that works, isn't it?). I was teasing him this morning when he asked me to cross my fingers and say a pray for him, since he was off to the bank to see about things. I told him that I would be praying hard because if everything turned out fine, he would be so excited that I would be able to book an awesome vacation for May; but if he got bad news, I didn't have a snowball chance in hell of going anywhere til the fall because he would nix all my ideas simply on principal (the principal being that people who are robbed don't have money for vacation. Never mind that the stuff in the safe has nothing to do with our finances...)

Friday night, I had my weekly girls night out which was fab. I am sad all over again about my friend who moved home to the Netherlands. She is so lovely and I realize more and more that she was sort of the corner stone of our group of friends. You know how there is often the person who is the connection between different groups? And without that person, no one is the catalyst to get different people together? Its funny how it works out; I talk to all these people when I bump into them on the street or in the shops or at the school gate, but the only time that we go out is when Hestor is around. Hmm. So dinner was fun although we went to Chez Janou to eat. I don't know. Lots of people love that place but I think it is a pain. First of all, the no seating til your whole group arrives is ridiculous because the bar area is like a cattle pen from 8 til 8:30. The guy that runs the place is obnoxious, even though he sort of acts like its just his schtick. Ugh. The Rude French Waiter act is maybe funny for tourists, but I'm so over it. Just whatever, ignore me or bring my dinner but don't harrass me, please. Thank goodness that I was too drunk at the end of the meal to care about the tip. I think I paid 7 euro too much and I hope that one of my girlfriends too the change. It would kill me to think that I left it as a tip for that meal. The food was fine, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't great. Anyways, I think i like that place better in the summer when you can sit outside on the terrasse.

That reminds me, while talking about restaurants. On Sunday afternoon, while strolling through the Marais with the girls, we decided to stop for a coffee. That whole area around rue Francs Bourgeois was just heaving, per the usual, so I decided that we should head up rue Turenne a bit to find somewhere less busy. We went into Le Cafe de Deux Musees and it was fantastic! I had been there ages ago and sort of forgot how nice it was. We ordered the apple tart (mainly because the waiter said that was all that they had left...) and it must have been just out of the oven as it was still warm. It was honestly just so gorgeous that it immediately went to the number one spot on my list of Best Tarts Ever. So yummy. The wait staff were all really nice and cheeky (take note, Chez Janou, there is a difference between cheeky and rude). The salle is nice and old-fashioned. And the regular menu looked nice and well-priced. We took the card and hopefully we'll remember to go there for one of our mid-week, low-key date nights. I am on a mission to find some new restos in our neighborhood because we have gotten into such a rut and then last week, it started raining as we wandered around looking for a place to eat and we ended up in a very sub-par place just off place St Catherine. Ok, it got is in and out of the rain which was our main goal at that point but the food was abysmal. Oh well. I guess that I've learned my lesson- never go out on a warm evening in March and expect to have all night to stroll around and find a nice place to eat. Unless you left the house with an umbrella.

I'm also going to try Au Petit Marche on rue Bearn. One of my girlfriends recommended it and its also close by so I'll post a review as soon as I get around to eating at all of these places. It shouldn't be too long. The warm weather, and Georgia's improved sleeping habits, have made me antsy to get out of the house more often. I think I might even need to go have a look through Craigslist to see if I can't find a nice American student looking to pick up a few hours of babysitting.

A have a few minutes before I need to go and get Georgia from garderie so I am going to make a real To Do list and try and be a bit productive this week. I am embarrassed at my lack of motivation lately. In fact, I am so embarrassed about it that I won't even go into the details. Lets just say that its amazing that I manage to leave the house fully dressed.

2010-03-27T18:19:00.003+01:00

You know what is the worst thing for a hangover? A children's party. UGH. I having nothing but regret about that second bottle of wine from dinner last night.

And it never fails that after weeks of quiet, all our friends descend on Paris at the same time so we are out again tonight. Full report to come. Right now, I have to wipe off my face paint, feed the kids and throw on some grown-ûp party clothes before the sitter gets here in a half hour.

I think I kind of liked it better when we were hermits.

Friday favorites:

2010-03-26T10:12:00.001+01:00

Baby curls

Georgia woke up from her nap yesterday with a head full of sweaty baby curls. I could eat her up!

2010-03-25T15:57:00.002+01:00

Turkey, 2008

"Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as as well be your own instead of someone elses."
-Billy Wilder.

Right now my instinct is to get the hell out of Dodge and go on vacation. Preferably on a boat. Where there is lots of sun and an endless supply of fruity cocktails. Maybe I should join these guys?

If only my instincts and my bank account could sit down together and figure out how to make this happen...

2010-03-24T22:30:00.003+01:00

Shit. After going into the commisariat the other day and talking to the police, I swore that I would absolutely call them the next time the neighbors had a party and made any noise at all. Looks like they are having a dinner party right now. Am I going to have go through with my threat?

As soon as I heard the first burst of laughter, I got a gigantic knot in my stomache and it is only getting worse.

_____________________

Ok. Police came and the police are lovely. Of course, it took them 45 minutes to get here and we stood in the hallway talking for a few minutes so by the time they came into listen, the noise had mysteriously stopped. They told me that it is no problem for them to come by and just to call as soon as it starts up again. They will do a warning when they hear the noise and after that they can start giving amend. Honestly, they made me feel really positive about things because they were so ready to help out.

After they left, I realized that it probably didn't hurt that I was dressed in leggings and tissue T-shirt. And it was a bit breezy in the hall. (in my defense, I didn't actually expect them to come and chat with me. I thought I just needed to point out the door.)

peeps!!!

2010-03-24T18:53:00.000+01:00

peeps!!

2010-03-24T18:52:00.001+01:00

Peeps!

2010-03-24T18:41:00.003+01:00

So, I have done two kitchen experiments to make Peeps, and my conclusion? How in God's name do people manage to eat this much sugar in one go and not kill themselves? I never even heard of Peeps until I was in my 20's, so beyond the point where I would be tempted to try to eat something that so closely ressembled a plastic chew toy for dogs, but I was intrigued by all the hoopla surrounding 'Peep season'. So after I'd had a few successful attempts at making marshmallows, I figured that I would give it a go. Especially since Ella was dying to make them on Saturday afternoon while Georgia napped. As far as kid friendly recipes, this is a winner. It only takes a few ingredients and it is sort of magic when you watch the fluff start to build up in the bowl. On the other hand, marshmallow fluff is amazingly sticky so be prepared to take your assistant directly from the kitchen to the bathtub. Thank goodness that I thought to stick a chef's hat on her head or things would have gotten a bit screamy when it came time for clean-up. Otherwise, it all cleans up instantly with hot water. Easy-peasy, as Ella says.

First of all, when I make marshmallows at Christmas for putting in hot chocolate, I prefer to use a recipe with egg whites because they turn out lighter and fluffier. However, when piping the marshmallow it seems like everyone tends to use a recipe without egg whites. The mixture is a bit thicker and it isn't as sticky. This is my recipe:

4 sheets of gelatin (approximately 7 grs)
1/3 cup water

Place the gelatin and the water in the bottom of a large mixing bowl and let the gelatin soften for 5 minutes.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Put the ingredients in a saucepan over medium high heat and stir until it comes to a boil. Put a thermometer in the mix and remove the syrup from heat when the temp reaches 114 degrees C. Pour the syrup over the gelatin and begin whipping with an electric mixer. Continue until the mixture is thick enough to hold its shape when you lift the beaters, between 6 and 10 minutes. Bear in mind that the mix will thicken as it sits so it is best to stop mixing when the hold is slightly less than ideal.

For my first batch of Peeps, I used vanilla sugar. I don't think that you could taste the vanilla at all in the final product so this was a waste. In the second batch, I used about 2 tbsp of strawberry sugar (a treat that I bought Ella one day when shopping at the Grande Epicerie. I think that they have about a dozen different flavors available). This was perfect! The flavor wasn't overwhelming but you can definitely taste it. I would absolutely try this again with other flavors of sugar. I suppose as long as you are ingesting this much sugar, why be bothered about the artificial chemical flavoring, right?

Pipe the shapes onto a tray filled with sugar. Immediately after piping, spoon sugar over the top of the marshmallow, as well. For this, I used colored sugar that I had bought at G. Detou and ground up finely in my food processor. I tried to use the sugar directly from the bottle but it was too chunky and it literally hurt my teeth to eat it. I think that it is best when the crystals are nearly powdered.

I have a frosting gun from Pampered Chef that my mom gave me for Christmas and this worked great because it forced out the marshmallow even as it dried and got thicker. If you were using a pastry bag you would have to work really fast. It took me quite awhile to figure out how to do the ducks and even longer to figure out the bunnies (the trick? I needed a smaller nozzle for piping the ears. Good thing that I actually have two of those frosting guns) But it took me so long to figure out how to do the bunnies that half of my marshmallow mix ended up solidifying in the bowl before I could use it. Oh well. B and Ella still insisted that they couldn't identify any sort of animal in the piles of marshmallow on the tray so finally I put some melted chocolate in yet ANOTHER pastry bag and piped on eyes. They are slightly more convinced now but, honestly, since neither of them as ever seen an actual Peep, I'm not sure that they are experts on the subject.

It wasn't that hard of work and they are adorable. The only problem is, I still think it tastes like chewing on a sugar cube. B and Ella do not agree and would probably eat an entire plate of these insulin bombs in one go, if I let them. Now that they are a bit 'stale', I think they taste a bit better. I still don't dare take these to my in-laws for Easter or I am sure to hear a screed about why Americans are obese. As far as Peeps go, they might actually be right.

French moms have more fun

2010-03-24T10:46:00.004+01:00

I think that they might. From what I can see, they spend less time freaking out about being a perfect mom and a bit more time out with their husband on date nights, out with their girlfriends for lunch, and on general maintenance (maybe this is the key to why French women age so gracefully? They never let things slip). I tend to feel a bit envious around my French girlfriends who seem to have mastered the balancing act and look great doing it. That doesn't happen all that often around my American girlfriends.

I noticed an interesting post on Slate this morning about the book Le Conflit, La Femme, La Mere written by Elisabeth Badinter (a french philosopher/auther). I hadn't heard of this book in France but apparently the English translation has caused a bit of a stir. The author argues that current ideas about what constitutes good mothering are a threat to women's liberation. Its true that while I pretty much accept as law the idea that it is better to breastfeed, make my own baby food, and use clothe diapers (whether or not I actually make the effort is another thing...), all these things mean that my presence at home is a necessity. So long, career. But she goes further to say that in order to raise perfect children, women are ready to put themselves in second place on every level. Is this really moving forward? I've never really looked at it in that way, but I have to admit that she might have a point.

I am of two minds. As it said in the post from the London Times that I put up last week, I do think that staying home with the girls is a luxury and I think that its a waste of time all around if I don't appreciate this opportunity. But Badinter has a good point; all the time I see women who are so invested in being the Perfect Mother that they are nothing else. First of all, I think this is a catch-22. The more you try to be the perfect mom, the more pressure there is on your kids to be the perfect children. At some point, they are bound to realize all the weight on their shoulders to justify having their mother dedicate her entire life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to their well being and success. Result? Kids that are even more fucked up than the average, and who probably turn around and blame the poor woman for all their problems for the rest of their lives. And in a way, I guess they would be justified in doing this. Its interesting to compare this to what is going on in Germany; here's a great article by a friend of mine, who is currently living in Paris and dealing with her own struggle, balancing her two jobs (journalist and mom).

There is also the curious link between the increased competition for spots in top universities and the time that women commit to their children- specifically ferrying them from activity to activity; helping with homework; etc. While all this time investment on the part of women maybe an 'over-investment', the simple truth is that is does seem to pay off when you look at Ivy League admissions and see what sort of profile that they demand from incoming Freshmen. Kids can't do all that stuff (be an athlete, a great musician, a volunteer, a well-travelled, well-read valedictorian) if the parents are supporting them all the way.

This year I've been a bit lazy and not even bothered to sign up Ella for a single activity. I've thought about getting Georgia into the baby music class at Gymboree but with a 9:45 start time on the other side of Paris, I figured it would be a waste of money (I would NEVER be on time). But one of the main reasons that I want to move back to the States is so that the girls can get in activities since I think the French way of non-stop studying for 10 years straight is pointless and ridiculous. So I suppose I should stop feeling guilty and accept that this is just a sign of my supremely liberated subconscious asserting itself, right?

I better get that subconscious in check because apparently, this "snowplow parenting" does work to a certain extent. I would love to see one of my girls graduating from Harvard, so I better sort out this conundrum, and quick.

Indestructible

2010-03-21T20:49:00.005+01:00

Oh, today is just getting better and better. Georgia and I were playing at the coffee table with some paper and crayons, when she sort of stepped back and got that very funny look of concentration on her face that babies get when they are, you know, doing their business. If I had any doubts about what was going on, they were erased a moment later when a smell wafted over towards me... B and Ella got home just then and B took Georgia for a change while I chatted with Ella. Suddenly, B called out to me, with a frantic note in his voice, 'Nicole! Nicole, I think you better come in here and see this.' I thought that she maybe had a bit of diaper rash. Not even close.

She was sitting up and clearly there had been a bit of a poo-nami since the baby was stripped naked. Bruno pointed at her back, and I looked. At first I didn't notice anything odd, so B finally pointed his finger right at it, and said , 'Look at that!' Ladies and gentlemen, it was an orange crayon, probably 5 cm long.

I laughed, thinking Ella must have stuffed it down Georgia's pants, and we finished cleaning her up. I was carrying her into the bathroom for a bath when it suddenly dawned on me that Georgia had been wearing a onesie and that Ella couldn't have put the crayon in her diaper. I grabbed Ella and interrogated her but she denied all knowledge of the rogue crayon. (My suspicians increased when she started giggling, but I suppose, to a 5-year-old, there is nothing funnier than the scatological humor of your parents finding weird things in the baby's diaper. Man, this is going to be all over the cour de recré on Monday...)

I turned to B, and said, 'You don't think that she...' and he answered, 'I think she did.'

Now, Georgia is not big on putting weird things into her mouth but lately she has liked carrying around a crayon whenever Ella starts drawing. I've even seen her kind of gumming the big fat ones, but she's teething and I guess I figured, since they were non-toxic and so enormous, there was no worry about her swallowing them. But this was one of the skinnier crayons. And she does generally eat really well so I guess that I could imagine her trying to eat a crayon. Only, she hasn't been eating well the last few days which may have been due to a sore stomach- like maybe due to crayon indigestion. Oh geez, I can't tell if the pieces are falling into place or if I'm just taking myself into it. But this crayon seemed huge! How on Earth would she have managed to actually swallow it? But then, how on Earth would you explain this crayon in her diaper, otherwise?

I've just done the worst thing possible and googled 'baby swallow crayon diaper' and it confirms my fears that a baby could totally eat an entire crayon. I guess that I'll give the pediatrician a call tomorrow and see if I need to do anything else about this. I'm suddenly worried about what else she may have been ingesting on the sly.

Anyone know a hit man?

2010-03-21T11:37:00.003+01:00

Currently hating on our downstairs neighbors after a HORRIFIC night of noise. That b&*#/! was cleaning her kitchen til 3:30 in the morning after they had their clearly drunken dinner guests shouting in the hallway at 2 am (after sitting around the dinner table screaming from midnight til 2 am). I can forgive the noisy party and the noisy guests. Maybe it was a special occasion and they haven't had one of these parties in a long time, so whatever. BUT I cannot deal with the fact that after we put up with that noise, they go so far as to move the furniture, drop their bottles in the recycling and reorganize the kitchen cupboards in the middle of the night- when they know perfectly well that we hear every crash and bang. I was so stressed out by the noise that I just got out of bed and turned on a movie, waiting for her to stop. 3 hours I sat on the sofa. Thank god that Bruno fell asleep at 2:30 and was able to take care of the girls this morning.
I am going to talk to the president of our copropriete tomorrow as well as the police. From now on, I don't care how special the occasionm, I'm calling the police at midnight if there is any noise at all from their flat.
And I'll be scanning the real estate websites in search of a new place. These people are going to kill me. Atleast the girls did their part on request and screamed like lunatics at 7am in the room above our neighbors bedroom. Was it terrible that I got out of bed at actually give the kids a tambourine and mini piano, to help their 'singing'?

Easter's on its way...

2010-03-19T11:09:00.003+01:00

So the party was fun last night. Very girly. Just what I needed. We even called up my friend's plastic surgeon, who met us for a drink at the Fumoir, and told us all about botox. He had us all contorting our faces in ridiculous ways so he could show us just what he would be doing. We are going to do a Champagne and Botulism party in two weeks time- meet at his office for a group appointment. Apparently some of the girls are totally addicted. I thought about doing it just to see what it was like. I really hope that I don't get to the point where I can't do without. Hmmm- wonder if this is such a great idea. Oh, and the dress got a thumbs up from everyone (including my dear husband), they said that I looked very skinny wearing it, and I ask nothing more from my clothes. Also, the consensus was that my haircut was good and I should make another appointment with Barbara even though I had to pay such a ridiculous amount at my last appointment. The collective gasp when I announced how much I paid made me feel slightly better about how my own jaw hit the floor. It did me so much good to get out of the house and hang out with my girlfriends. I like my mommy friends who I see all the time at playgroups and the school pick-up but - and maybe it is just because the kids are around and its hard to let your hair down when technically we are all 'at work'- its just not fun enough. So lesson learned. Even if it means spending all day Friday in a sleep-deprived haze, I am going to try and make plans to go out, alone, every week. A mental health day, so to speak.

Easter is coming up and I need to start on our projects. So far, I have the stuff for the peeps, which we will try out tomorrow. I've scoped out the baskets at my 'supplier' over on rue des Ecoles (I don't know the name but this quincaillerie has just about any kind of woven basket you could need). Georgia needs a basket this year- and she definitely needs her own supply of treats. She is such a little monster. If Ella has any sort of food, Georgia thinks that she needs to have exactly the same thing. No matter that Georgia has only 2 teeth (and at this point, they are still only half teeth). I cannot imagine the battle that will break out on Easter Sunday if Ella comes waltzing in with a basket full of chocolate bunnies and I try and hand Georgia a teething biscuit. Still, I don't know what I can buy that will look like a chocolate bunny but actually be somewhat healthy for a 13-month-old baby to eat. I've already talked to the lady at the chocolate shop about setting stuff aside for me so I don't have to worry about her running out of stuff before I manage to get there. I'll have to see if she has any suggestions. Internets, can you help?!!

Anyways, baskets. After looking through the pics on Marthastewart, I've decided that I'll need to make one filled with flowers for my MIL. We are going to her house for Easter dinner and she never buys herself flowers so I think she'll like it. The photos I saw on the martha site were Gorgeous. If I can manage something half as nice, we are set. Maybe I could even take the basket over to my fav flower shop and have them do it for me?

I think it would be fun to dye eggs with Ella, but of course that means running around to every grocery store in town to try and find white eggs. Its so weird that the eggs they normally sell in the shops are brown. I have two weeks, so I should manage to stumble across them if I keep my eyes open. Now is one of the times when I wished that I had renewed my Message membership. The forums were great for hunting down things like white eggs. Oh well.

I would love to have the girls in matching Easter dresses so I might have to do a bit of shopping yet. My mom always got us pretty dresses for Easter and so its basically a family tradition; B can't argue with that :-)

Friday Favorites

2010-03-19T11:09:00.000+01:00

How cute are these cookies? I found this pic via Ohdeedoh and clicked through to the website, I am Baker. I think that I can say that this is a new favorite website. Am totally inspired to head into the kitchen to give this a try.

Sartorial question

2010-03-18T14:48:00.004+01:00

I need your help, kids. I would love to do one of those cool style boards like Nicole does over at Making it Lovely, but Georgia is on the edge of waking up and I probably only have about 30 more seconds til she is screaming. I finally did go out this morning and buy that dress that I had been talking about. But now, which shoes? The ones that I am wearing with bare legs (navy suede from COS) are nice and low and comfortable but a bit boring. The red ones (red python from Georgina Goodman) are comfortable, but I don't know about the red. The last pair (navy suede with gold piping from Miu Miu) are really high but they are probably the nicest. I'll be wearing the dress with the blue velvet jacket from Dolce & Gabbana since it is a bit chilly today, same reason that I'll be wearing the tights. I'll just be wearing little gold earrings (to match the gold buttons on the cuff of the jacket) because I can't seem to find the coral earrings that I had planned on wearing.

So, what do you think?!!

(PS Bear in mind, that another option would be to ditch this dress as it is awfully summery. I haven't even cut off the tags yet. Now that I look at it, it really ressembles another dress from Forever 21 that I have in my closet. In fact, it might actually be a bit cooler than this one. Hmm? Need help here.)

(PSS I drained my camera battery trying to snap a decent photo but the light is too weird in my room and it was impossible. This is the best that I could do...)

Editted to Add: I decided to wear the most comfortable of the three because I didn't know how much I would be walking/standing and it ended up being the best choice. Although Sisters 1, 2, and 3 are going to have some explaining to do for not weighing in on time!

Spring has sprung

2010-03-17T18:21:00.002+01:00

Wednesday is exhausting for all of us! Georgia just collapsed in bed for a nap before dinner and I am too exhausted to start dinner so I am going to take advantage of the quiet and play on the computer a bit. I never realize how much walking we've packed into the day until I get home and sit down and then never want to stand up again.

We actually got a lot done today, which is unusual for our Wednesdays. I suppose having to get up at 7 am with the girls gives me an extra hour or so that I never used to have... This morning, we did stay around the house so that Georgia could sleep. She didn't have a great night (as I predicted) and even though she didn't seem sick, I figured we must be just on the cusp of some new germ invasion. While Georgia snoozed, I wanted Ella to play something quiet, so she got out her writing paper. Its that special lined paper that we used to use for penmenship. She really likes practicing her letters and is actually getting really good at it, I think. We've started connected/cursive writing, but just practicing loops and things, not actual letters. I am always so surprised to see how well she can sit and work at something. Its frustrating to think about how much further along she would be in just about every area if she hadn't gotten stuck with this awful teacher who is just clocking in. Oh well. Atleast I have time to work on reading and writing with her.

After a lunch of my favorite broccoli and chedder soup that I whipped up, we dropped off Georgia at daycare. I couldn't believe how nice it was outside. It really truly is springtime. I even let Georgia walk most of the way there. It took us YEARS of course, but with such a lovely sunny sky and warm breeze, it wasn't any bother at all to dawdle on the sidewalk.

Ella was begging me to take her to the park, but I had one errand that I really wanted to do this afternoon. I am getting things together for Easter and I've decided that I want to make peeps. We had such good luck making the little ghosts for the Halloween party that I figured it shouldn't be too much trouble. The only thing is, I wanted to find a superfine sugar to sprinkle on them afterwards. I figured I would only be able to find this at G Detou and dragged Ella over with me this afternoon. Well, they don't have it. Worse, they didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I'm not crazy, I know that there is such a thing. I ended up getting colored granulated sugar and I'll just try to grind it up in my food processor I guess. But you never have to worry about leaving a store like that empty handed. While standing in line to pay, I also spied tubes of Tahitian vanilla beans (God! Even through the packaging, the smell was so gorgeous that my mouth started watering), giant Italian capers (I can't remember which recipe I use these in, but I do remember that I absolutely needed them for something.... OK now I am officially turning into my mom) and walnut oil which I have been out of for months and my beet salade is just not the same with this.

Shopping done, I agreed to swing by the park at Chatelet, and we bumped into some friends of ours! Not very surprising, really. Who could bear to stay indoors on such a nice day. We caught up on news from our vacations while the kids rolled in the sand. They are waiting to hear if their son got into EABJM, one of the nice bilingual schools in Paris. Only downside is that the campus is buried somewhere in the deepest darkest corner of the 15th and its impossible to commute there from central Paris. If he gets in, they are going to move, which will be sad for us. Ella LOVES their little boy and I've been friends with the mom, meeting almostly weekly, since our oldest kids were born, 5 years. Anyways, once the kids had sand packed into every nook and cranny, it was time for a gouter. Ella and I went off to find some ice cream and on the way, I bumped into another old friend. This was a bit weird, as it was a guy that I knew before Ella was born and hadn't seen since. He was sitting on a terrasse and I caught him looking at me. I couldn't place him so we had this bizarre conversation (I don't think that he actually remembered my name, either) and it was only on my way home that it all clicked. Still can't remember his name though (did I mention that I think I'm really turning into my mother?)

I'm glad that the weather has finally decided to turn into spring. I have plans for tomorrow night- I'm supposed to meet a girlfriend at the Hotel Meurice for a defile of purses and shoes, which really means, we are going out for free champagne and canapes. I don't think that there will be a repeat of last week's pathetic attempt at reviving my social life. Between the warm days and the evening sunshine, I feel like getting out of this house and enjoying myself. I might even go out shopping tomorrow and have another look at that DVF dress. I need to finally hang up my all black wardrobe and start looking a bit springtime.

Things that I am liking today

2010-03-16T14:02:00.004+01:00

Despite the nice suuny sky, doesn't look like I am going out this afternoon as Georgia is acting a bit under the weather. Don't
quite know what she's got, but I have had a few good nights sleep in a row so I suppose that means I am due for an all-nighter. In order to get a post up, I will do a quick list of things that I am liking today:

*Soup
On Sunday afternoon, I cooked up a pot of Jamie Olivers' Tomato and Chickpea Soup (found in his cookbook Jamie's Dinners, which I picked up at The Little Red Wheelbarrow a few weeks ago; its turning out to be a great purchase), so yummy. I just ate two bowls of it for lunch and finished off the last of it. I LOVE this recipe- here is my version:

Saute 100 g finely chopped chorizo in a tbsp of oil. When the oils come out of the chorizo, add two sticks of chopped celery and a chopped onion; saute til cooked through. Stir in one clove of crushed garlic. Add 4 cups of chicken broth, 2 cups of crushed tomatoes (or chopped fresh tomatoes), a lg bag of spinach leaves and a can of drained chickpeas. Leave to simmer for 40 minutes. Puree about half the soup (I use those liquidizer wands). When ready to serve, top with sliced prosciutto, chopped boiled eggs and a drizzle of really good olive oil. Die and go to heaven. Voila.

I suspect that I could eat it this everyday for a good long while before I every got sick of it.
PS: notice the dish? So far, I'm happy with the change- food looks so good in these dishes!

*Fleur de Geisha Tea from Palais des Thes
I am also burning through my box of tea that I got as a present from our friends who stayed in our flat while we were away skiing.
I had smelled it while I was in the shop and thought that it smelled nice, but I like it even more than I thought I would. As I am still trying to watch what I eat, I have been drinking gallons of green tea every afternoon. It gets boring. But this tea has such a nice flowery smell that I would be drinking it even if it wasn't green tea.

*Tetines
And since Georgia is under the weather, she is allowed to hang on to her tetine all day long, even though it is normally limited to bed time. She is just cranky cranky cranky. I got her up from her nap because I heard her making noise and brought her in the kitchen for lunch. She refused everything that I offered her, even though I broke my own rule (normally, in this house, you eat what is offered or you go hungry to til the next meal. Doesn't matter how short you are...) and opened a second jar of baby food to try and tempt her to eat something. No luck. She kept squeaking until I just put her back in bed. She slept another 45 minutes and then I took her temp (nothing), gave her a Doliprane in case it was sore teeth, and now she is wandering around the house alternately playing with her toys and breaking into inconsolable sobs.

*the new brochure from the Opera de Paris
Yesterday in the mail, I got the calendar for the 2010/2011 season of operas and ballets and the paperwork to pre-order tickets. Since I've been taking Ella to see shows this year, I've realized that even though tickets are expensive, they are a worthwhile expense. I really really enjoy going and I just don't know why I always put off buying tickets when it was just for B and I. Ella adores going to see the ballet and, as I've said before, I think that it is just as worthwhile as sending her to ballet class. She probably gets more out of it; as well. I have been pouring over the book and trying to decide which ballets I want to get tickets. Then I mentioned to B that they also had some great operas scheduled for next year (Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Les Noces de Figaro) and maybe we should think about getting tickets for that as well. I was really surprised when he told me to go right ahead and book them, if I wanted. I think I will!
The only downside is that when you buy all these tickets at one time, the total bill is pretty impressive. I don't think B quiet realizes just how much this is all going to cost. On the positive side, I think that I can probably go down a category and still have good seats since the pre-order tickets get the best places.

That reminds me- I did manage to get tickets last week for the Nureyev ballet Le Bayadere. Because I was in such a tizzy Monday morning from the unexpected arrival of the painters, I totally forgot to go online for the tickets until I was sitting down for lunch. I logged on and the website was completely blocked due to high traffic and I ended up getting pretty much the last tickets available. I have 2 seats in category 3, which is good. But they are not any where near each other, so taht is kind of bad. Well, its really bad since I had planned on taking Ella. Hmm. I don't quiet know what I'm going to do abou this, but I figure no point worrying til it gets a bit closer. At worst, I have B or a girlfriend go with me, and take Ella to see something else. Or I could just show up with Ella and hope that someone switches places, or that they just let us sit together anyways.

*My brother's blog
My little brother has taken a sabbatical from work to go an A Big Adventure. He has a buddy who bought a boat and they sailed it through the Panama Canal. Now they are getting the boat ready and will be sailing out of Panama City today or tomorrow for the Galapagos Islands. From there, they will go on to the French Marquesas (I'm trying to talk B into flying out there to meet them). Wow. Maybe this is something that has to go on my Life List. It sounds like an amazing thing to do- a bit scary, but the most worthwhile things tend to be the ones that push you to your limits, right?

A generation of women bred to work

2010-03-15T14:19:00.003+01:00

I just wanted to post the link to this article from the Sunday Times of London. I think it is such an excellent discussion of how the work/home balance for women really operates. And it makes the excellent point about the fact that previously women considered freedom the ability to have career and work outside the home. I love this line, 'Our mothers hoped that we would be more independent from men — but they equated independence entirely with money. So while we no longer rely on men for cash, now that we are working, we need them in so many more ways than before.' So true.

Something that I often remind myself of, especially on those days when I feel like I am 'missing out' by staying home with the girls, is that this lifestyle is a huge luxury- the luxury of time at home with my children. Quite frankly, this is probably what annoys me most about French people (read: fonctionnaires. I got caught in the middle of ANOTHER manifestation on Friday afternoon and had to walk home 3 km because there were no buses running. Arg.) who complain about their underpaid, under-appreciated work. When you have a 35 hour work week and upwards of 5 weeks paid vacation a year, you are in a very enviable positon. They work so very little that they actually have the luxury of time with their family, time to do other things, and yet they completely do not appreciate it.

The article also makes the excellent point that modern families have so devalued the skills that our grandmothers took for granted that we've lost all those skills. We now sit rapt before our televisions to watch programs that teach us how to cook, clean, and raise children.

I think that the most interesting point that the author brings up is 'now what?' What do we teach our children? I'm glad that I have daughters but they do make you have to think that much harder about what you want to teach them about a subject like this. I kind of flipped out over Ella's 'Princesse Parfaite' book about coquetterie the other day because she was so enamoured with the idea of being a little princesse who only wore pink dresses and never rolled in the mud, playing with the boys, or went out with messy hair. But then, where is the line between what I want her to be and what she wants to be? I suppose, the best answer is that anything she wants to be is cool. If I want her to be something else, then I should be that way first- I think children definitely definitely turn to their parents example first when they are trying to make-up their mind about things- and if my example is convincing enough, she will be that way. I don't have to say anything. So the question is not, how do I make Ella and Georgia into awesome women? but how do I make myself into a really awesome woman that they can look up to and aspire to be?

Just a normal weekend full of fun...

2010-03-15T11:47:00.005+01:00

We had a nice weekend- but it just seemed like it flew by! Its getting to the point that I long for Monday mornings, which is a sad state of affairs.

Saturday, especially, was a complete whirlwind. I made an appointment for Ella to get her hair cut at that kids place up in the the 11th, Mum & Babe. I think I've mentioned it here before. Well, we got off to a bad start when we left late and I couldn't find a plan de Paris to throw in my purse. Then I thought, 'Well, I've been there before two or three times. I'm sure that I can find it without a map.' Yeah, famous last words. As soon as we got on the bus, I knew that I was in trouble. I couldn't remember which stop. I was watching out the window for something familiar but no luck so finally we just jumped off when I knew that it couldn't be any further along. We wandered around, asking people if they knew where the street was but no one did. On the other hand, it might have been because of my bad pronunciation- Keller, is one of those stupid names that looks English to me and so I don't know how to pronounce it in French. Arg. I couldn't find a kiosk to buy a map so I ended up having to go into a Monoprix and search for one. When I finally looked up the street, I realized that I hadn't a clue of where I was headed so atleast it was money well spent. Despite all that, we ended up only being a few minutes late. You would have thought it was an hour, by the reception we got. They were HORRIBLE to us, even though there was only one other person in the whole salon, and she was downstairs getting a facial. They barely acknowledged us when we walked in. They didn't offer to take our coats or the pousette. They didn't ask the kids names. There was no chatting while we were in the chairs. I was going to party so I wanted a brushing that was a little more 'going out' and she said 'no, your hair is far too short. I'll just blow it straight.' And the one who cut Ella's hair didn't even look at me when I was trying to explain to her what I wanted done. When they were done, no one came with us to the coat closet or the front desk so I had to stand around with two antsy kids while all the staff stood around in the back chatting. They acted a bit nicer to the people who came in after us, since clearly they knew them better. I used to always tell people to take their kids there for a haircut but I don't know if I would do that anymore. It is nice that Ella's cut only cost 12 euro (and I'll admit, that it turned out very nice, which is better than the Camille Albane downstairs does for 25 euro) and that the baby can go in the playroom, but still. This was French customer service at its nadir. And this time when I didn't tip, I did not feel the least little bit guilty.

After all that, we still had to get lunch in a restaurant (MacDo, which was a first for Georgia and after she spied the Chicken McNuggets and fries, there was no question in her mind about eating pureed baby food.), go to a first birthday party, go shopping for a PACS present for B's friends, and buy/order a big bed for Miss Ella. I was running so behind schedule that the babysitter was at the house before us. Thank goodness, actually. She ended up feeding our over-excited monkeys while we threw our party clothes on and hustled back out the door. Good thing there was a big glass of chilled champagne waiting for us on the other end of that car ride or I don't think that we would have made it!

Once we got to the party, I discovered that I was not the only person there who had no idea what the deal was with the Pacs. We did bring a present and weren't the only ones but they ran the gamut from a bouquet of freesia to an engraved silver picture frame from Christofle (I'll let you guess which one we gave...) I'd say that the bigger mistake was dressing up in high heels. There were far too many people in a very small living room, so I spent all but 15 minutes standing. I still have sore feet! To think, I used to be able to spend an entire day dashing around Paris in a pair of heels twice as high. Now, I am so used to my ballet flats and Geox that I can't even make it through an evening without needing to pull out my crutches and heating pad the next day.

I am an old old woman.

On Sunday, we were shattered despite the fact that we were home and in bed at 12:30. The people downstairs went away for the weekend so, per the usual, their son had his friends over. At 3:30 in the morning. I got woken up when they came in but drifted off again. By 4:30 I had had enough, as they were only getting louder and I banged on the floor. They quieted down, but then a girl in heels starting walking around their living room and the tap!tap!tap! of her heels on the floor woke up Georgia. Who woke up the upstairs neighbors and Ella. So then at 5 am I had to go down and ring the door bell to ask if the noisy girl could possibly remove her shoes since she had inadvertently woken up another 4 people. This kid was clearly horrified (by the fact that he woke us or the looks of me? Hard to say. I didn't dare glance in a mirror before going downstairs and I can only guess how scary I looked...) and apologized profusely. But I HATE having to ask them to be quiet since Georgia is a such a noisemaker.

That kid, honestly. If she is not screaming at 5 am because she was woken by a bad dream or a sudden noise, she is screaming for her bottle. Or screaming to get out of bed. Or screaming for Ella to come and play. Or screaming at some food that she spied on the counter and would very much like to eat, if you don't mind. There is no volume control on her. Yesterday afternoon, we all laid down for a nap after our turbulent night and I ended up getting up first when I heard Georgia waking. But she wasn't actually ready to get up yet, it seemed. EVERYTHING was making her mad. And so, her natural response was to scream at me. No! I don't want water! NO! Nothing to eat!! NO!!!! I do not want to look at a book! or my toys! or a movie! or your stupid face! Finally, because I wanted to let Ella have a bit of nap, I ended up clamping my hand over Georgia's mouth and hauling her out on the balcony. She calmed down almost immediately. I'm hoping that I have found a magic cure for this problem but I worry that it is only temporary. I put her out there 2 more times before Ella was good and woken up. So you can see why I feel like the last person in the world with any right no complain about noisy neighbors. I just pray that she outgrows this. Some kids are just noisy though. Am starting to wonder if we are going to be forced out of apartment dwelling and into the suburbs because we never manage to shut her up. And she was such a calm baby.

I also managed to clear out our old dishes from our cupboards yesterday and put the new ones in their place. We decided our old orange Fiestaware had to go. I've been looking around for plain white round dishes but all I could find was stuff basically the equivalent of orange Fiestaware. Most importantly, I needed to be one hundred percent certain that it was dishwasher and microwave safe, since I've had a horrible experience with some mugs that I bought at IKEA.* Finally it dawned on me that I should just use my wedding china which was Louvre, by Bernardaud. We've had it for 11 year and use it fairly often, for nice dinners and parties, and not a single piece has chipped. Its not too fancy looking for every day, I figured, so we are going to give it a trial run of one month and see how things go. Then, if we decide to go for it, I'll think about getting another set of dishes for parties, something a bit fancier (maybe this , or this, or this, or this!) Anyways, I hesitated as put the dishes in the kitchen, thinking that it would be a shame to see them all getting chipped over time when I like them so much. But then I stopped myself. If you're lucky enough to own beautiful things, you shouldn't waste your good fortune by hiding it away in a cupboard. You should use them and enjoy them everyday. How it can it be anything but good to enjoy beautiful things, right? Right. So the dishes stay.

Which still leaves me with the conundrum of what to do with the Fiestaware which is in perfect condition, after I don't know how many years of use. Amazing. I suppose that I should try and Ebay it or sell it on Craigslist, but I suspect that B and I will be making a trip up to Emmaus this week to drop it off as a donation. We still have the dishes from our first apartment sitting down in our cave and we've never needed them so they will go as well. Thats one thing about apartment living - it teaches you not to get too sentimental about your stuff. If it isn't being used on a regular basis, its got to go. I'm sure someone else out there will enjoy having and using all this stuff, as well, so that it makes it even more stupid to box it up and store away for some imaginary future life of mine when I finally need it again. I've been thoroughly heartless lately and that Emmaus has been the lucky recipient of a mountain of stuff. Anyone out there looking to stock up a new apartment should definitely head over to Emmaus on boulevard Beaumarchais :-)

* I needed some coffee mugs and I just picked up some nice simple ones at Habitat one day, without checking that they could go in the dishwasher or microwave. After a few months, I started noticing that the handle on the mug was hot when it came out of the microwave- even when the contents were still barely warm. Then, one morning, I reached in to grab my mug of warm milk while Ella was running around underfoot, and the handle was scorching hot, so hot that I ended up with a blister over the entire surface of my thumb. I was just grateful that I didn't drop the mug of hot liquid on Ella when it happened and thats when I decided that I couldn't possibly use those mugs anymore, because they were too dangerous. Someone finally explained to me that when the pottery is not dishwasher safe, it can 'absorb' water. Then, when you put it in the microwave, this water heats up and if it gets too hot, can actually make the pottery explode!

Friday favorites

2010-03-12T11:16:00.002+01:00

I tried to get a nice photo of Georgia when we were playing with bubbles the other day (she goes CRAZY if she spies a bottle of bubbles, all other activities must come to a screeching halt until I am woozy from lack of oxygen and she is covered with a fine layer of soap suds). Every shot, she had her tongue sticking out like this, or her eyes were shut like a little drunken geisha. She clearly takes after her father and therefore will never ever be elected Miss Photogenic. I've always thought that she was her father's daughter- from the chubby cheeks to the bottomless pit of an appetite, no worries about babies being switched in the nursery at the maternity clinic.

So after my lovely little nap yesterday, I was in a great mood. I ended up calling up a girlfriend to meet me at one of the galeries last night. Except I called the wrong girlfriend. The one who ALWAYS changes her plans at the last minute. So there I was, hair done, make-up on, undressed in front of my closet, trying to decide what to wear when I get an SMS. She had decided to go to different vernissage in the 8th off avenue Montaigne and wanted me to meet her there, after I saw my friends. I did really feel like a girls' night out and I should have just sucked it up, because we probably would have gone out afterwards and had a great time. BUT but but. I didn't have enough enthusiasm for the change of plans to get myself out the door on my own, on such a miserable night. I told B, when I came out of my room wearing my pyjamas, that if it had been a nice spring night, it would have been totally different. On a cold March night, I much preferred cuddling up with him on the sofa and watching TV. So that is what I did.

Which in the end was good, because Georgia had a bad night, after a fairly great week of sleep, and did her patented sleep torture move (I like to call it 'Going Guantanamo'). She woke at 5:30. We went in 3 times to give her her pacifier, start her music box, settle her down, til finally giving her a bottle just before 6. 10 minutes later she yelled hard, so I went in and saw that she had lost her pacifier. Again. Then she yelled again, every 10 minutes for another 40 minutes, til it was time for us to get up, more or less. That, my friends, is a hard night. She collapsed into bed at 10 a.m. for a morning nap and I imagine will sleep for 2 hours. Atleast I am getting good naps out of her on a regular basis. Thank god for small favors.

And now i wanted to post a photo of another beautiful bouquet from my favorite florist on rue St Antoine, Christian Collin, but I think my camera has died! It got knocked on the floor the other day and landed with an ominous 'thump'. It did turn on right afterwards, but now it's dead dead dead. Maybe I just need to charge the battery but I fear my little Canon has moved on to that big camera shop in the sky. I'll miss you.

Hmmm. Wonder if this means that B will let me get the Nikon D-3000 now?

Irritations- in bullet points

2010-03-11T09:53:00.005+01:00

* you know what is bad for a diet? Birthdays.

* I've finally convinced B that now is a good time to replace Ella's junior bed with a grown-up bed, but it turns out that finding a lit gigogne is going to be a bit of a pain. The big department stores don't have anything great and on the internet, I'm finding nice stuff but all the shops are on the other side of Paris, miles and miles apart. I was 'supposed' to go and look at things this morning. Honestly, I can't be bothered.

* I need to get my haircut, but I don't want to make another appointment at David Mallet after my last visit cost so much. Also, as my hair has grown out, I've realized that the girl who cut my hair just gave me the same haircut as her own. Except we look NOTHING alike. So she looks super cute and I look like an Afghan Hound. Torturous decision- do I give her a second chance (since she was also trying to repair a really horrible cut) or do I find someone new to cut my hair?

* I have a list of about 5 doctor's appointments that I need to make and there is nothing that I hate more than seeing doctors. Not because I am scared but because I consider it such an appalling waste of money. And time. And yet, my teeth won't clean themselves.

* My Outlook Express won't open and I hate looking at my email online.

* I desperately need to go to the grocery store. But it seems like I am at the bloody grocery store every damn day of the week. How is that even possible?!!

* B was really a PITA this morning. Since this is a giant letter of complaint, no point in sparing him (although I probably should...) 1st. He didn't clean up dinner dishes last night, although all he had to do was stick things in the dishwasher and start the machine. And instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, he stayed up til midnight and had plenty of time to do this. So I had to do it this morning while he was tired and cranky on the living room sofa. 2nd: I asked him to make Georgia's bottle up before he went to bed. He didn't. So this morning I got up and, in the dark with no glasses on, I had to do it. I HATE this so much. I literally cannot see a thing and her shouts increase in volume with every breath so by the time I manage to pour a reasonable amount of milk in the bottle without spilling it all on the floor and then get the bottle safely capped and in the microwave, a good 5 minutes have passed, by which time Ella and our upstairs and downstairs neighbors are all up and slamming doors. 3rd: He took the computer this morning- interrupting my morning routing- while I was cleaning up last night's dishes, to look at the same computer sites that he was looking at til midnight last night. He KNOWS that this pisses me off. I did refrain from yelling because its not unreasonable for him to use the computer when I am not there, especially if he has something important to do before work where he doesn't really have a chance to sit at the computer (even if it did look like he was just dawdling). Still, on top of all the other things, I did feel like he was really trying to push my buttons this morning. And if he had just said something like, 'I'm sorry I am being such a slacker. I feel awful due to this cold/a bad nights sleep/work stress (or anything basically).', then I would have forgiven him immediately. But he has got that awful man habit of clamming up just when he most needs to explain stuff to me.

* Ugh- no babysitter for tonight and I have two vernissage that I would love to see. Rosy Lamb, who sculpted the bust of Ella, is opening her atelier tonight and the Felli Galerie is having a vernissage of Pietropoli- and I love both the galerie owner and the painter. If I was feeling up to it, I suppose I could try and dig up a girlfriend to do the rounds with me but its another one of these miserable cold days and I do not feel like spending my evening dragging myself around in a pair of heels in the dark.

* We have a party to go to on Saturday night to celebrate the PACS of a friend of B's. And I'm irritated that they didn't just get married because I don't know if I need to get them a gift or not and, as a final indication of my rotten mood, I am unreasonably irritated about this. Do they have a registry? B had no idea. Because if they do, I would just go and buy something off of it. But maybe they don't because they plan on getting actually married somewhere on down the line. Do I just get a card and stick money in it once I do a quick survey of the other guests who might have a better idea of what is going on? These are not my friends and I don't care, I just want to be nice. Why can't they help me out and do the normal thing and get married, which has a clear cut set of guidelines regarding the present giving. Christ, people irritate me.
And more irritatingly, B said that I can't go and buy that DVF dress that I spied last Friday- even though it would be the PERFECT thing for this party. He insists that I have something I can wear already hanging in my closet. NOT THE POINT.

* Oh- one more. Why are all the shows I download on some weird mid-winter hiatus? I keep checking my account, ready to sit down to an evening of mindless American television viewing, only to be disappointed by an empty screen.

(Editted to add: Hey guess what? I took an hour and a half nap and ate 5 (!) Milano cookies for my gouter and now I'm not cranky anymore. Hmm. I guess I might need a mommy around here to manage me because it never dawned on me that I might just need a bit more sleep. (Last night at 4:30 a.m. the upstairs neighbor fell down and I laid in bed for probably an hour, straining to hear what was going on upstairs. If you have read this blog long enough, you'll remember that our downstairs neighbor fell out of his bed the first year we were living here and yelled for help because he had broken his hip. But we didn't realize that he lived alone. So we did nothing. And he died. I think that I am understandably a teensy bit nervous about bumps in the night...) I am going to have to think of a pretty amazing treat for little Georgie-boo to thank her for collapsing in bed for 3 1/2 hours. )

color disaster?

2010-03-10T12:18:00.003+01:00

The painter just left and, as expected, he did an excellent job. But I think I may have screwed up! The media unit has this bronze finished mirror on the drawer fronts and in the back of the niches. It looks really pinky beige next to the paint, all of a sudden. I does match the bronze color in the wallpaper perfectly and the paint on the baseboards and trim, so its not completely out of place. Only, only... maybe I should have used this opportunity to change the color of paint in the living room. I didn't want to because I felt like the color was fine before. It goes all the way into the kitchen and the kitchen cabinets are a slightly darker shade. The stone countertops relate to the wall color really well, also. And normally, I thought that the stone was the same color as the trim throughout this space. So we come full circle, as the trim is the same color as the bronze mirror door fronts.

So why does it look so odd to me???

Hopefully, once the tv is back in place and the tchackes are all back in the niches, it will be better. Cross your fingers.

_______________________

Editted: I just found my Farrow & Ball color chart and I started holding up samples. I was right- the Slipper Satin is too yellow, which is really noticeable on the media unit. I should have switched the wall color to Dimity, which has a slightly pinkish cast and this would have worked much much better with the bronze color in the wallpaper and in the mirrored glass. Am I going to have to live with this an entire year before we can repaint and fix things?!! Actually, the walls we repaint all the time, but I bet B will completely refuse to change the color if it means having to repaint these cabinets. Oh boy, I really messed this one up.

total chaos

2010-03-09T11:34:00.002+01:00

Our house is a complete disaster zone yet again today. The dining room was all finished yesterday and Ella's room should be finished today, but the living room will remain a work in progress through tomorrow. Ugh. I had to have the sitter stay an extra hour last night because there was no way I could manage keeping both girls out of trouble and occupied while also throwing together a quick dinner. The guy doing the work is actually fantastically neat and very polite so he won't so much as move a curtain without asking my permission or instructions. The walls that he has finished painting look amazing- which is really saying something, since B is a great painter and I thought the job he did two years ago was impressive. The new built-in unit should look great when he is done. If only I didn't have to try and keep Georgia occupied in the house while all this is going on.

Good lord, is it cold out! Normally, I would just pop her in the stroller and spend two or three hours walking around Paris- good for my ass and good for entertaining Georgia. I took her with me yesterday while I ran a quick errand and the poor kid was mute with misery. Her nose was streaming, her face was bright red, she even left her hands under the fleece muff (which she NEVER does) while she pushed her head into the seat to try and stay out of the wind. Clearly, a longer walk was out of the question. I let her run around in the halls of our building for a bit yesterday and she screamed her head off, she was so thrilled, so I won't abuse the kindness of my neighbors by doing that again today. Basically, we are forced to sit in her room all day. I don't mind, and certainly she has enough toys that we don't get too bored, but she has suddenly started to obsess over her favorite books. I think I read 'Petite Singe' (Little Monkey), oh about, 800 times yesterday. And tied for second place (that is, I only had to read each of these books around 400 times over the course of the afternoon...) were 'Les Petites des Animaux', 'Animaux Sauvages', and 'Ou est Mon Chaton?'. I am trying to be zen about it and consider it as a chance to perfect some of the problems I had with gender pronouns and les accords. I wonder why my old French teacher, Catherine, never suggested that we read aloud from Ella's library? So many opportunities for instruction. And, unfortunately, so much more in line with my abilities. My French library is rather sparse (and B's is quite frankly, non-existant) so we did readings from Beigbeder's 'L'egoiste romantique' which is a bit too (porno)graphic for a french lesson and then switched to 'L'elegance du herrison' by Murial Barbary which has too many long words susceptible to mispronounciation, which made our lessons a real bore. I actually should give ole Catherine a ring so I can show off my perfect pronunciation of 'la lapine and ses lapereux!' (I'll probably save the 'boinga boinga boinga sound effect for Georgia)

Its funny that I just noticed that all her favorite books are in French. Hmm. I suppose the actual text is not that significant and since she likes the baby books with things to touch and feel, I don't have many English language ones which take up too much space in the suitcase so I end up leaving them in the States. All the same, I should probably start paying more attention to my English. Ella is so bilingual (she switches between French and English during a conversation depending on whether she is speaking to me or B.) so I don't worry too much about being strictly English-speaking. As usual, Georgia is keeping me on my toes. She is clearly understanding English, since I can give her an instruction like 'Pick it up and put it on the table, please' and, with no gestures to help explain, and she will do it. She also understands 'Yucky! Spit it out!' and 'Come here and let me wipe your nose.' Although that last one either sends her running in the opposite direction or has her doing one of her full body wags to indicate a No, with a capital N. Speaking of which, I'm sure she'll be saying her first 'no' any day now. They grow up so fast.

I know that she is probably right in line with the average development for a baby her age, but God! I just find her so genius! I don't even want to look at my 'What to Expect' book because it is so much more fun being completely amazed by her. Its really one of the joys of being a parent, seeing a child actually develope each skill. You see them struggle and struggle and then finally the lightbulb goes off and they succeed at whatever they are doing and then- the best part- they look at you with this look of proud amazement. If I had a dozen kids, I think I would still find it mesmerizing to watch them learn things like how to put small toys in a jar, how to pick up a cheerio, how to use a crayon. The other day, I watched Georgia trying to put her shoe on. It was hilarious. She knew that you had to aim the toes towards the hole but after that it was all a bit vague. So she would turn turn turn the shoe in her hand til the hole was pointing down. Then she would need two or three tries to actually get her toes in the hole. Then she would try to balance the shoe on her foot as she slowly let go and eased away. And then it would fall off and she would let out a little grunt of frustration, before trying it all again. You also realize, when watching a baby learning, just how tenacious they are. I often think about how frustrated I get with a task after two or three failures. I mean, I get really really fed up with my computer when things are disappearing or not following commands like I expect. These little tasks, which are NOTHING compared with the struggle of learning to walk, for example. It is the ultimate lesson in patience.

Its a good lesson for me, right now. I've been spending time online, doing research into going back to work. I think that I need to go back to study, atleast for a bit, before trying to get back to the career that I would like to be doing. BUT finding the right program and applying and getting financing and then sorting out babysitting for the girls while I am doing a course. Its all so complicated. And its so easy to just to just sigh, and go all Scarlett O'Hara about things. ('I'll just think about it tomorrow...') Obviously, I need to commit myself to this and not let up until I've sorted things out. Its so easy to let things slide when you know that the problem is still rather far off in the future, just a vague cloud on the horizon. The best birthday present I could give myself is not a day at the spa but a list of '40 by 40'. I think I need to get serious about getting stuff done. Starting today.

Whiplash

2010-03-08T10:57:00.003+01:00

Seems like the world should just back off a bit and let me ease myself back into normality rather than waking me up on the first Monday after Me Week with a hysterical painter leaning on the door bell to be buzzed in. 45 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive. Arg. SO despite having spent an entire week having my body buffed and polished from head to toe, I ended up throwing on a pair of saggy jeans and my glasses, quickly pulling my hair into a pony, and rushing out the door with Ella so that B could talk to the painters' boss while I dropped her at school. Then when I got home, I had to bundle up Georgia and haul her off to garderie. I NEVER do morning drop-off and I NEVER EVER leave the house looking like I did this a.m. so it was rather embarrassing to bump into just about every single person I know in the neighborhood looking like shit. Well, it was nice looking good while it lasted...

I would love to type up a long description of my lovely birthday celebrations but the painter is using some sort of toxic chemical bomb in place of paint, I believe, and my eyes are actually burning right now. Good god, this can't be a normal paint smell? I know I am a bit out of the loop since we've only used Farrow and Ball in this apartment, which is low VOC and there is no smell at all. I don't know what I'm going to do with Georgia. She is due home from garderie in an hour and there is no way she can be in the house if it smells like this. Hopefully, since this paint is just the base coat on the cabinets, the smell will disappear at it dries. Its so cold out today, a nice long walk is out of the question.

I suppose I could always pop over to the Louvre and wheel her around for a few hours. I used to do that with Ella all the time in the winter when she was little. On Sunday, Bruno asked me what I wanted to do and I did propose a visit to the Louvre but since it was the first Sunday of the month, the line to get in was about 200 people long and he nixed that idea straight away. We ended up doing a bit of shopping and then getting a snack at the food court in the Carrousel du Louvre. When did they change all those restaurants?! I must have been there a year or so ago when I was still pregnant and it was the same as it had been for years but they've kicked out all the old stands and made it much more fancy. I like it but my fav thing about the place was that it was a fairly inexpensive place to grab lunch if you were touring around central Paris. I was always sending people there after a morning of museum-ing. I had forgotten to pack a treat for Georgia so while the rest of us had a hot drink, I needed a something for her. I ended up finding a little pot of applesauce at the French food stand (called Beauduvin. What does that even mean?!?) and it cost me 2.50 euro. People, there was not even a half a cup of compote in that cup. I don't know if I can extrapolate and assume that the entire food court is charging equally crazy prices but I'll definitely be thinking twice before sending friends there for a meal.

Oh- I do want to mention one funny thing that happened yesterday. I got Ella up and had her get dressed to go to Mass with me while B stayed home with Georgia, who was still napping. When we got outside, we were confronted with a hoard of sweaty people charging past our door. Apparently there was the Paris SemiMarathon yesterday. I hadn't heard a thing about it so we were taken a bit by surprise. Well, straight away, Ella started with the questions. "Where are all the peoples going, Mommy?" "Why do they want to go so fast?" "Why doesn't that guy have any pants on, Mommy? Isn't he cold?" "If I run to church, can I take my pants off? Ok-can I take my hat off?" "Why is that guy holding a flag? What does it say? What does that mean? But why does he hold the sign while he is running?" By the time we made it to the corner, I had depleted all my mental energy for the day. And after standing there for 5 minutes, I realized that there was no way that we could get across the street to go to church. The organizer manning the barricade said that he expected the road to be blocked for atleast another 30 minutes as there were over 27,000 people running that day! Oh well. I figured that we might as well go and get some bread and cheese for lunch, since the shops were atleast not blocked off. As we continued on our way, the questions kept coming, but the one that she asked me again and again was, "But mommy, why are they running???" I guess I didn't have a very good answer because finally she just gazed up the road as the hundreds of people sweated their way towards us and she sadly shook her head and sighed, "I just don't understand it."

Oh sweetie, I thought to myself, you are not the only one. And then we went off to buy ourselves a piece of cake.

Me Week

2010-03-03T11:43:00.004+01:00

Its my birthday tomorrow! Hurrah, right? Except that I'm turning a number that I don't particularly like AND my babysitter is not free tomorrow night so that I can go out to dinner AND since B has been working every day of the week since we got back from vacay (and will continue to through next week) he won't have a present for me or have any special surprise planned. So what's a girl to do?

Well, I've declared it Me Week. Easier said than done, considering that Georgia is still possessed by demons. Currently, she is laying in her crib, screaming against the injustice of nap time with the fire of a thousand suns- despite the fact that she had been up since 5 am. I am wishing that I had put Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones on my wish list...

But I've become accustomed to all that and figure that this week, with no pressing project on the horizon, I should make of list of things to do just for me and organize my day to make it happen. So, Monday, I dashed off to Bikram Yoga and signed up for unlimited classes for the week. I did a class yesterday as well but it looks like there is no way to squeeze one in today. Even if I can get 2 more classes in this week, I'll be happy. Its so hard (although easier to get back into that I would have expected) but I feel so amazing afterwards. I've made it through both classes this week without even glancing at the clock, which is something, since the classes are 90 minutes long. That 90 minutes is a blessing and a curse. It is so long that there is time for even the most stressed out mom to feel the tension seep out of her knotted neck muscles. However, how many moms can carve 90 minutes + showering time + transport time out of their schedule on a regular basis? Must work on that conundrum some more, as I am feeling less stressed today than I have in ages.

Since I can't get to class today, but both girls are out of the house for a few hours this afternoon, I am thinking about getting a manicure. I have the worst nails you've ever seen- they are soft and break off if I so much as look at a pop can. They are flat, have ridges, and are generally awful to look at. But in the hands of a good manicurist, I can enjoy atleast 24 hours of lovely hands. Then I give the girls a bath or shove my hands in a bag and before you know it, they are chipped and broken again. But its Me Week, so its worth it.

Tomorrow, I have a really big treat planned, since its my actual birthday. I have a facial booked at the Fourseasons George V Spa. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this place. Probably about once a year, I manage to finagle a visit out of my dear husband. Its generally not so hard, since he is terrible at picking out presents or even organizing a dinner out; whenever I suggest that he replace whatever he had 'planned' with a complimentary visit to this fancy spa, he tends to jump at the offer. I only have a few hours in the morning while Georgia is a garderie, but I am going to dash out of here as early as I can manage in order to take advantage of the sauna and the buffet. There is a juice that they serve that is out of this world- its some secret mix of maybe green grapes and kiwi and cucumber and mint? I don't know exactly but I probably drink a liter of it every time I visit.
Friday, I'll try to get back to the yoga class. And sitter is coming that night so I'll have to try and make reservations somewhere nice for dinner.
Baby still screaming (clearly she didn't get the memo about it being my birthday...). If I don't post anything over the next few days, its because I am probably laying in the bath and drinking wine while reading a novel. Really.

Georgia's Polka dot Party

2010-03-01T14:28:00.000+01:00

It was a great party and I had so much fun doing all the projects and decorating. We chose a polka-dot theme mainly because Georgia does not have a passion for much of anything and this seemed like an easy thing to do to give Ella lots of little projects that she could help me with- specifically the polka-dot garland. She helped me punch out all the circles and then glue them to the string. It looked really pretty. We also had lots of fun doing the polka-dot cookies. The cake turned out better than expected- I used the extra royal icing from the cookies to pipe dots on to tin-foil the day before the party. Because the cake was for the babies, I didn't want to use too much sugar and chose a mascarpone/whip cream frosting with fresh vanilla bean for flavor. Just before bringing it out, we took the dried dots and stuck them on the frosting. So pretty! And with my new printer, I was able to print off stickers with Georgia's photo for the hats and party favor bubbles. Georgia was in a rotten mood for most of the afternoon (not surprising since she had woken up at 5 am that morning but wouldn't lay down for a nap with so many people in the house.) so I wasn't able to really take many photos. Half the reason I went to such an effort for the party was so that I would have a few nice shots for Georgia's photo album which is a bit sparse compared to Ella's. So much for that plan...
I had also planned on getting a bunch of helium balloons that morning before the kids showed up. I remember that at Ella's first birthday, the kids LOVED the ballons. However, I got up that morning to hear the wind howling down the street and ominously grey clouds covered teh sky. I decided that it would be next to impossible to walk home from the shop with a bunch of balloons tied to the stroller so I had to abandon that plan, which was a big disappointment. I just feel like helium balloons make it such a party. I should have just coughed up the 50 euro for the mini helium tank that you take home to blow up balloons. Next time, I'll know not to take the risk on February weather!
But I did have one happy surprise at the party. I had chilled a bottle of nice champagne, after one of the mom's RSVP-ed by mentioning that she felt that the first birthday celebration was really for the mother- which I heartily agree with. I do feel like I need to celebrate my 'survival' of the first year of Georgia. After I served the cake, I opened the champagne and asked if anyone would like a glass. Every single mom took some! Yeah, drinking in the afternoon! These are my people :-) Now, I loved Ella's playgroup. I am still friends with most of the moms and we go out together and exchange houses for vacations. I like them. BUT they were not up for Cocktail Playgroups.

Happily waving February good-bye

2010-03-01T14:04:00.001+01:00

I don't think that I am the only person to be saying 'good riddance' to the month of February. It was rough, and I even managed to squeeze in a vacation. Well, two, if you count flying to the States for a funeral (although I think we can all agree that it doesn't really count, even if I did get to eat pizza from Drag's.) The weather was tough. I had to frantically dash from one major project to another. I gave myself whiplash (I don't think that I mentioned this. I fell down badly on the last day of skiing and the next day? I had to actually use my hands to turn my head from side to side. A week later and I am mostly better although I still creak when I get out of bed in the morning. Way to celebrate another birthday is coming up, body!) We were all sick- and some of us, more than once. Its Lent and I gave up alcohol so I couldn't even reward myself at the end of a hard day of cupcake baking and baby wrangling with a nice glass of wine. Oh, and my appointment to my lovely new hair salon was marred by the MOST EXPENSIVE BLOWOUT and/or MANICURE ever. When I told B how much it had cost, he was actually going to call them up and yell at them because he thought that they had taken advantage of me or cheated me or something. I had to admit that it was just a ridiculously expensive salon and now he may explode when I mention that I still need to go back this week to get my hair cut. Life was hard in February.

Forgive me for taking off an entire week from blogging but I am EXHAUSTED. The minute that we got back from vacation, I was ready to start burning through my prep list for the big birthday party for Georgia, but Monday morning I got a text from the sitter/cleaner to tell me that she was ill and she didn't know if she would make it to work all week. I couldn't have gotten any worse news. First of all, since we had all had The Gastro that Never Ended, I suspected that she wouldn't be back to work any time soon. And Secondly, Ella was on school holidays and was quite frankly, being a PITA. After spending a week alone with B and I, it seemed like she was determined to make it her full time job to have my full attention at all times. OMG, the endless questions! The constant harrassment to play games. The insistence that she was incapable of doing the smallest task without constant supervision. Plus the fact that I also had to entertain Georgia- who was being extra clingy due to our little vacation. I was at my wits end. By noon on Monday.

Luckily, Ella's school has a great centre de loisirs during the holidays and it turned out that there were a few kids from her class who would be there. She didn't want to go, we literally dragged her out of the house on Tuesday morning. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, I came to pick her up and she sent me home! She wanted to keep playing so I made dinner and then went to fetch her at 6 pm. Its funny but I would swear that the people who organise this put in more time and effort than her regular teacher. The schedule for the week is just a list of amazingly fun stuff for kids. Granted, there are only 30 kids and something like 6 animateurs/-trices, but still. I am more and more happy with my decision to pull Ella out of this school and send her to a private school next year. Not only does her teacher this year seem to have been slacking off in the extreme but she only worked about 9 days since January. She'll work a day or two and then be on sick leave for two weeks. And this is despite the fact that she only works part-time the way it is. Since I go to school to do the english class with teh kids, I am always shocked to hear that she has been put on arret maladie, when the day before, when I was in class, she was perfectly well and chatting to me about her plans for the evening. Hmm, a cynical person might think that she was abusing the system. Of course, she might very well be dying of cancer, but I highly doubt it.

So Ella was happy to dance out the door every day at 8:30 but that still left me with the Littlest Dictator. Good lord, this kid is a handful. She started walking really well while staying with her grandparents so she's become quiet brave, only the smallest things can send her crashing to the floor. Things like the edge of a rug. A piece of paper on the floor. A bit of light flashing in her eye. Its getting to where she is so covered in bruises that I am horrified to send her to daycare. They must think that I am either the most incompetent parent alive or that I am using her in cage fighting. I honestly don't remember Ella being such a klutz. I also don't remember Ella being so difficult and disagreeable. Ella used to be happy to sit by herself and play. Georgia is almost never happy to sit and play by herself and even when you play with her, she'll suddenly get a bug up her ass about something and starting crying and throwing things. I really really hope that its all due to her teeth but I'm beginning to fear that she is just a Difficult Child.

Georgia has started sleeping well, some nights, but then like last night, will give a good yell every 10 minutes for 2 hours. She isn't entirely awake but she isn't entirely asleep either. That means that you have to listen closely for the tipping point from Sleeptalking to Hysterics. Especially since she learned to scream. Oh that adds a whole new level of fun to the 4 am sleep-training that we are trying to do. And since she learned to shake her head 'no', she won't eat anything either. The first three bites go down just fine. Then its a big, full-body waggle indicating 'No!' So I try to alternate with bites of a dessert compote. That will work for a few bites. Then, another big 'no'. Generally at this point, she starts pointing at stuff around the room that she wants to eat instead. My tea. Ella's sandwich. A candle. Mainly stuff that she can't eat, but try to convince her of this. Meals have gone from being the easiest part of the day to a slow torturous death slog.

Oh, I know, I know. She's just a baby and she is just doing what babies do. But, gosh, sometimes parenting is a thankless job. I think that part of it is that I am sort of ready to move on to the next thing. When B came home from work the night before Georgia's birthday party, I asked him what he though of all the decorating and baking and projects I had done with Ella. He answered, 'i think you need a job'. Yeah, maybe I do.

Last day

2010-02-19T18:19:00.000+01:00

Last day skiing and the snow is falling down hard. When B and I went up to the peak this morning, visability was probably about 5 meters! It was fun skiing in the fresh snow but because the temperature wasn't too cold, it was still pretty pack-y and so the skiing was tricky. You couldn't see anything hardly and even when you could make out the terrain, it was hard to tell if you were heading towards a bosse or a pile of fluffy snowy. I was doing pretty good and we were going down a beautiful run, lined with pines, when I tried to turned and my ski got 'caught' under a pile of snow. I twisted my knee, slammed my head into the ground, and just to really rub in the humiliation, went sliding upside down for about 10 meters, packing snow into all the cracks. I shook it off and made it down the hill, but I'm feeling it now...
In any case, we had lots of other things to do this afternoon, taking the time to enjoy all the fun that La Clusaz has to offer. We took a ride around the village in a horse-drawn caleche. It was so pretty, going through the hills of the upper village, with great big fat snowflakes falling from the sky. I went and had a hot rock massage this afternoon (well-timed, considering my big tumble). We still have to do some shopping to get a nice present for little Georgie-boo for her birthday tomorrow. And we are all trying to make room for one last fondue before we head out tomorrow.

Carnevale

2010-02-18T08:45:00.000+01:00

Watching the mardi gras fireworks from the terrasse of the hotel on Tuesday night.

Skiing La Clusaz

2010-02-14T19:31:00.000+01:00

Friday night we made it out of the house at a fairly reasonable hour - 7:30- and spent the night at B's parents' house in the country so that we could drop off Georgia. First thing in the a.m. we jumped in the car and were off for the mountains. It was going so well for the first 5 hours but then it was the typical traffic jam once we got near Geneva and finally after 8 hours in the care (3 more than we had planned) we arrived at our hotel. What a relief to find that it is just gorgeous- a regular Alpine chalet with a really nice restaurant and a great pool/sauna/hottub area. There is even a spa and you can bet that I will try out a good number of their treatments, especially the massages.

I really wasn't sure that I was going to ski this week. I hadn't been skiing in 3 years and I was sort of nervous since I haven't been very sporty lately. And I worry about being cold since I am a walking icecube. But then we got up today and there was the most gorgeous blue sky. You couldn't not want to ski. SO I caved and bought a week long ski pass and after dropping Ella at ski school, B and I jumped on the lift. It is amazing how good it felt to back on skis. We both had a good first run and rushed to get up the hill a few more times before having to pick up Ella at ski school.

Luckily, ski school went well and with the smallish bribe of a pair of waterwings for the pool, Ella has agreed to return tomorrow. It was awful dropping her off because she kept slipping in her skis and there was a little kid next to her screaming bloody murder (to which the monitor replied, 'just let him scream and he will eventually wear himself out. Then he'll participate. ' OMG, I am so glad that I never got sent to ski school as a 3 year old.)

It has ended up being slightly more expensive than we expected as I forgot my ski pants and glasses for Ella and underwear (and of course there are no cheap underwear in the entire village so I ended up spending an absolute fortune on a weeks worth of Simone Perele. Not very sporty but maybe rather appropriate since it is valentines day.)

We had a nice swim when we got back to the hotel and are off for a gourmet dinner. I think after a week of this, I will be more than ready to deal with Georgia again. Must say that the last night before we left, I wondered if I was going to make it through to morning.

Guess who got their first tooth?

2010-02-11T21:30:00.000+01:00

I was saying to one of the other mom's at the party yesterday that Georgia was acting like a real jerk the last few days (and nights). She laughed and asked if the baby had been acting a bit cranky. I told her 'No. She's being a real jerk.' Opened mouthed stares from everyone. Apparently you shouldn't call your baby a jerk?

It continued this morning. Yelling from 4 til 5. Refusing her bottle. Then yelling for her bottle. Pointing to her pacifier. Then throwing the pacifier to the deepest darkest corner of the toybox. Then crying to have it back. Then chucking it in the trashcan. You get the picture. After pissing and moaning all through her lunch, the light bulb finally went off, and I rubbed my finger over her gums. FINALLY it seems like her first two teeth are poking through.

Kind of a bummer though because I was starting to think it would be really funny if she was still toothless on her first birthday. We would talk about it for years. I was going to start calling her My Little Gummy Bear. Oh well.

5 years old

2010-02-11T14:15:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was the big day- Ella turned 5 and we had a Super Party, Super Hero Style to celebrate.

I got off the plane on Monday afternoon and went straight to work. After a super hero cape delivery fraught with complications and triumphs over daunting obstacles*, the party had big things to live up to, so I couldn't half-ass it. In the end, it worked out well that Georgia had a bit of a crisis (to put it mildly) on Monday night between 1 am and 3 am because this corresponded exactly with my jetlag. I got up and made a very thorough To Do list . I even organized the party games so that Tuesday, I was able to power through and get everything done just the way I had hoped. The room looked gorgeous with all the bunting that I had sewed up. There was even mini-bunting around the cake stand, too cute! The photo backdrop was fun and I have loads of great photos of the kids. The project (making 'zigzaguilleurs/ray guns) ended up being a hit, even though I had to practically force the kids to sit down at the table. I did forget to set up the kids music playlist on my ipod, which was a bit of a pain and more tragically, I forgot to chill a bottle of champagne so it was evian and orange juice for the mommies, boo-hoo! Seriously, though, I could have used a drink at about 4 pm... I was completely burned out at the end of the day, but nothing that a few pink cupcakes couldn't cure.

If only I had some time to lay around and bask in the glow of a job well done. No chance. I have to organize the house today for our visitors next week, which means hauling BOXES of shit down to our cave. Honestly, I am embarrassed to see how thoroughly disorganized the house is. B is going into hysterics over it all, which is not helping things. Atleast I have 80% of our ski things organized so that I don't have to worry about packing. B also decided, since we are taking the car to the ski station, that it would be better if we were to leave Friday night rather than Saturday morning, which knocks about 5 hours off my already tight schedule. Maybe if I put on one of the superhero capes, it'll give me the super powers I need to get everything done?

Okay, I can tell that I'm starting to procrastinate here at the computer.

*After 4 emails to confirm that the package of capes that I had ordered for the party would arrive at my mom's house before I had to leave for the airport, I was furious to find out that nothing had been delivered on Friday while I was at the funeral. I waited to see if anything came in the Saturday morning post and then I sent an extremely angry email to the company. A few hours later, I noticed that they had responded. They assured me that the package had been sent, but as no one was home to sign for the package, it was taken back to the post office! Sure enough- the postman had left a note in the post box but no one had checked the mail. I grabbed the notice and ran to the post office in town, even though it was 4 in the afternoon- hours after closing- because my aunt (a former postal worker) told me that there still might be someone there who would be nice and help me. There was. I banged on the back door, poured out my sad story, and the guy found the package and gave it to me!! The capes were great and well worth all the trouble. AND they fit in my suitcase :-), a minor miracle in and of itself. Although it makes me sound like a complete dope, as I drove back to the house with the package on the seat next to me, I had tears in my eyes thinking how incredibly nice it was of that man to help me even though he really didn't have to make the effort. And also thinking, in contrast, how a French postal would likely respond to the same request by calling the cops and having me hauled off.

Back home

2010-02-07T16:00:00.001+01:00

Its been a really good visit. My bag is already packed and sitting next to the door, but I have a few minutes so I
was going through the photos that my brother had taken this weekend and I found these. I wasn't with him, but he drove through the little town where we grew up and took some photos of our old house. Its so tiny that I can't imagine how my parents managed to fit 5 children in that place- no wonder we were always being forced outside for playtime. I can just see my window on the basement level, its a bit hidden behind the trees (that have been planted since we left). At night, laying in bed, I could hear the white noise of the traffic speeding by on the interstate that passed by our town, on the other side of the golf course. Thats probably the reason why I've always slept so well in cheap motels when we stop while on vacation. That high humming whiz of 18-wheelers flying down the road reminds me of childhood.

He also took a photo of my best friend's house, located just around the block, where I spent a good 25% of my days. My best friend moved away when I was 12 and through the wonder of Facebook, I now am able to see her boys growing up. Her son is only 4 months younger than Ella- the same age difference as me and Amy. Its sad to think that if it wasn't for the terrible habit of modern life to scatter people to the four corners of the globe, our kids might be growing up just around the block from each other and playing spies, while climbing through the bushes.

Ross also took a shot of the little Catholic school where we all went for elementary school. When I first started, there were 4 nuns living in the apartment at the end of the building- Sisters Ruth (who scared the living daylights out of me when I tried to give her one of my birthday treats when I turned 6. In all fairness, all she did was ask me how old I was, but it was in front of an entire class of GREAT BIG ENORMOUS 6TH GRADERS!!!) , Methodius (the nice one who made bookmarks from old christmas cards and ran the library), Cornelius (who taught penmenship like an old marine drill sargent , which is the reason why I was able to work as a professional calligrapher for a few years in college) , and Rita (the pretty young one, although I suspect
even she was in her forties, so you can guess how ancient the other 3 were...) I loved that school. There were teeny tiny little classes of about 6 kids and they were all from farm families of about 14, so poor as can be. We didn't have much in the way of material but I can't imagine getting better teaching. We had to go to church nearly every day, which means that ever since then, I've felt fine about skipping Sunday Mass, figuring I banked up enough to last me til retirement. The highlight of the year was when each class got to do cake and cookie sales. Of course, to offset the fact that we would be spending the afternoon gorging on sweets, Eileen the cook, would force us to eat split pea soup for lunch. Her homemade bread and applesauce did nothing to help it go down. And I almost forgot- the 5th and 6th graders took turners cleaning the kitchen after lunch. In the spring when it was nice out, this was sheer torture. But in the winter, when the teachers would push us all outside in the freezing cold just so that they could have 10 minutes of quiet, it was actually a treat. We would sometimes sneak an extra cookie or box of chocolate milk (although god help you if Father Fliss caught you at it) and drag it out as long as possible to avoid having to take recess. Of course, now a days, they would never be allowed to let children near one of those giant dishwashing machines. It was great fun though. Opening up the door and having a big cloud of steam rush up in your face. Standing on the stool and using the giant sprayer to hose off the trays before racking them up. Standing at the counter to collect trays and letting your buddies get away with stuffing their lunch in their empty milk cartons.

The last photo he took was of main street. Its so sad to see it now, with every single building shuttered except for the bar and the post office. When I was little, Ray's 5 and Dime was still open and it was heaven on earth. A real old-fashioned shop, with a soda counter and glass jars of hard candy, big wooden bins full of little plastic toys. Comic books. A little white-haired lady behind the counter, who would ring up your purchases on a old cash register that had the numbers flip up and would ding, when she pulled down the big handle. I loved that place. There was a cinema, where I went with Amy O to see my first movie, Annie. I cried so hard that my mom had to take me out to the lobby so that I could pull myself together. And of course, Jackie's, on the corner where I bought my first underage beer. Ahh, memories.