C'est ma vie

Adventures in Sleeping through the Night and Talking

Not much going on here besides a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner last weekend with my Anglo friends, so thought I'd post about what the kids are up to these days. I've been spending the past week at the daycare because they have this adaptation period they make the babies to through to get used to being there. The bummer about it is that I can't come home because Louise is there half days from 9-2 then I have to go get her and then go back and get Gab, so no time to come home. I've taken to going to Starbucks and trying to get motivated to study for the PhD exams.

So, Louise is sleeping through the night! After her last bottle between 9 and 10 she is out until I wake her up at 8 the next morning. The bummer, though, is that for the past week she's been having fits of gas after her last bottle and takes a little while to go to sleep. This means that I can't put her in Gab's room straight away. But, tonight, I was able to put them both together and they fell asleep around the same time.

As for Gab, what a fun little guy! He is really in a fabulous stage in his life because he is really trying to soak up every word that he hears. He even surprises us at what he knows. Tonight I heard him saying 'Bear, Bear, Bear, Coin, Coin, Coin' until he finally showed me his bear piggy bank and wanted me to take out some coins for him to put back in. He also says 'yes' so if I ask him a yes or no question, he can really answer yes or no. This morning he wanted to lay back in bed with his pacifier and when Etienne gave him Louise's, he said 'No, pacifier Louise'. My favorite is when he goes through a book and points out all the things he knows words for, that's when we realize that he picks up a lot more than we let on. I give Dora a little bit of credit for some of this. The girl knows how to reach out to 2 year olds. As for the French, well, at the daycare he translates. He'll say the word in English followed by the French or vice versa and with a French person he automatically switches to French.

For the brother/sister interaction, we couldn't ask for anything better. Gab loves his little sister and tonight when she was in her bouncer crying while I was preparing her bottle, Gab went up and gave her a hug and tried to console her. Sometimes at the daycare he says 'Louise' so they take him to see her. I hope this continues!

Père Noel versus Santa Claus

Before going back to work in just one week, I am trying to get a lot things done around the house that I'll only have weekends and nights to do from now on. Since we moved to the other side of Paris farther from work and from the daycare, which is close to where I work, I'll no longer be able to come home in the afternoons after teaching because it will just waste time, so instead I'll just stay in my office until 4 or 5, a decent time to go get the kids, and only be able to do stuff like study for the PhD exams and administrative mail stuff that can be done anywhere.

So, one of my projects today is wrapping Xmas gifts! As I was wrapping the stuff we got in the US for the nieces and nephews, I remembered that I shouldn't make the mistake this time of putting who the gift was from but rather 'Père Noel' or 'Father Christmas' in place of our names. After confirming this with Etienne, he said 'But Gab isn't supposed to see the gifts under the tree until Xmas Day, if he does, then what is Santa supposed to bring, Santa is supposed to put out all the wrapped gifts on Christmas Eve?' Hold on there, back up, this is where I tell him that Père Noel must not translate to the same thing as Santa Claus because in the US, Santa does not bring the wrapped gifts under the tree and you are allowed to put them out even a month in advance and label who it's from. In the US, Santa comes on Christmas Eve while everyone is sleeping, or in our case while we were at church, fills the stockings and leaves that bike you had on the top of your list or the American Girl Doll, or the Playstation or the Dora super bilingual kitchen UNWRAPPED!

So, as you can see, Père Noel and Santa Clause are not the same dudes because they do different things. As far as I am concerned, we may be in France, but in our house, Santa will be making the trip across the Atlantic to do his thing, sorry Père, you just don't meet my requirements for the job, and I like seeing the gifts under the tree a month in advance and I like seeing who the gifts are from.

It just chipped

If you don't see me wearing my wedding ring for awhile it's not because Etienne and I are going through rocky times or because my hands are still swollen from the pregnancy. Today, as I was moving some stuff around in the apartment, the ruby just chipped and now it looks horrible.

For those of you who don't know the story behind the wedding ring, or should I say engagement ring, here it is. When Etienne told his mom that we were getting married, she quickly set up a time to sit down with me and give me a selection of family jewels from which to choose to make a ring. This was just something she did for her two sons- she wanted them to have something from the family and then they would take care of whatever setting their future wife wanted. She had more or less bought a ruby in Sri Lanka for Etienne's future wife and a sapphire in Cambodia for his brother's. I, however, was a little greedy and decided that the ruby would look awfully pretty with 4 diamonds, or two on either side in a white gold setting. The ring turned out absolutely gorgeous and very original. The jeweler did, however, say that there was a slight flaw in the ruby that you could barely see. Well, apparently that flaw was more than just looks because as I was doing some housework tonight, I noticed that the ruby was severely chipped and must have weakened over the years so that it chipped along the fault line. I am really sad, I love that ring. So, in a panic I called Etienne's mom. Basically the ruby is worth like 2000 euros here in the West, money we don't have floating around right now. I am going to look in Dubai in January and another option is to get the ruby re-cut. We'll see, but for now that beautiful ring has been put back in its box so that what's left of the ruby will remain there.

What we're missing

One of the things that Etienne and I got a kick out of going back home was looking at house ads seeing what we could afford in the US compared to what we can't afford here. It's crazy that we could buy 4000 (400 m2) sq feet in Houston and that we can probably never afford to buy again in Paris. We can't even afford to buy the tiny, 500 sq foot apartment at the price we sold it for 2 years ago! This brought up several questions, what are we doing here? Well, we do like it here and all of our friends are in Paris. Secondly, who, in their right mind can afford to bring up a family in this city, unless you are a millionaire or inherited a lot, and I mean a lot of money from a dead grandfather, uncle, cousin, or what not. One of the things I liked about Paris when I've come here in the past and when I moved here 5 years ago is the diversity of the city, but now you have to be rich even to live in the bad parts. What is this city coming to? Pretty soon all of the 'middle class' will be pushed out and the only people left will be the rich snobs like in New York.

A Trip, in Images

There's no better way to describe our trip than to share pics with you. Below you'll find the first half of our trip. More pics to come in the next week...

The fabulous thing about the whole trip, besides the negative points of not always being welcome everywhere and spending way too much money on completely useless things, was rekindling bonds with old friends and spending time with those who really enjoy life and seeing how they live. We want you to come to Paris, friends!!!!

As I've said before, it's not always easy traveling with a 2 year old and even though Etienne and I are used to Gab's going from one thing to the next, it can be unsettling for us when we go somewhere because we don't know what the limits are and if Gab will always be accepted. For those of you who made us feel comfortable and who reached out to Gab so that we knew right away that we could be comfortable, THANK YOU, you know who you are, and that made the difference of our whole trip.

Now, we are back home, and I start work in a week and a half, it's hard to believe. Louise is starting to go to the daycare a couple hours a day to get used to it and I am mentally getting ready to go back. Before the trip, I wasn't ready, but now I am ready, even though it is going to be difficult for me to separate from this sweet little girl. One thing about this whole trip was that it really materlialized the fact that we are a family now, and I came back feeling closer to my husband and two kids. I also think it helped Gab being with us and his little sister and realizing that we are a family. That guy is also impressing us left and right with new words each day, in both French and English. I am scared for when he starts talking!

Okay, enough rambling. More to come later...

PS You'll have to click on November on the left sidebar to view all of the pics or go to Flickr.

Uncle Tony

Uncle Tony, originally uploaded by afoos.

Shopping Trip Number One of many: Sam's

Shopping Trip Number One of many: Sam's, originally uploaded by afoos.

On the list? Beef Jerky, Starbucks coffee (that we got stopped at Customs for on our way back into France because they thought it was drugs!), Pam cooking spray, and microwave popcorn.

A future pianist right in the middle of Sam's

A future pianist right in the middle of Sam's, originally uploaded by afoos.

Tulsa Zoo

Tulsa Zoo, originally uploaded by afoos.

The Epitome of our Trip: Useless Shopping

The Epitome of our Trip: Useless Shopping, originally uploaded by afoos.