Lessons Learned

Bonjour from Paris! We made it to Paris finally. I flew over last night with the kids and my mother-in-law was kind enough to join us. The kids were very glad to have their grandmother "Gee" with them, but not at much as me as we did not have all four seats together. Gee and I played man to man switching out the kids partially through the flight. James did great on the airplane - he was very excited and kept asking questions. Mary Martin was fine until it was time to go to sleep, which she refused to do until about 11:30 pm. Then she and I slept for about an hour before a 30 minute screaming fit, where nothing would comfort her. Other mommies on the plane were even offering me their child's milk bottles to sooth her. And this was all from our two interior seats in a four seat row - that's right - we had to crawl over someone every time we got up no matter which direction we headed. So, all in all, not my favorite flight but we did make it safely. Plus - ALL of our eight checked bags made it. Big surprise for Air France.

Jim was of course overjoyed to see us. The kids were estatic. They have refused to be out of Jim's presence since we got here. We hit morning rush hour traffic coming from the airport and so we were in the car for quite a while. MM finally drifted off to sleep in her daddy's arms. Much better than my arms at 11:30 pm I guess.

Once at the apartment we explored a bit at home and set up some trains. We all crashed for a couple of hours and then went out for lunch. The kids were so cranky we took them to McDonalds. I feel like we are cheating hitting McDonalds on the first day but some normalcy for the kids is good I think.

After McDonalds we hit a grocery store at the Monoprix (like super Target but smaller). It was a grand adventure. Lots of different sections. I wanted to make spaghetti and meatballs, something easy for dinner but we kept hitting different pasta sections. So the grocery seems to be a bit haphazard at least to my eye. But we got some fresh fruit for the kids and chicken nuggets and juice. Everything else can wait. We DID NOT get bananas. I was supposed to weigh them myself in produce but failed to. Lesson learned.

After the grocery run we came home to put our groceries away and then headed to the park near our apartment. Parks are universal. The kids just jumped right in and hit the slides, the sand pit and had a ball. Then we headed home to our gourmet french meal of spaghetti and meatballs and salad. Hey - we are all pooped - I am just proud I cooked anything with 1 hour of sleep and a 2 hour nap. We did stop and get a bageutte - so very, very French. Who loved the baguette the most? James Aubrey!

MM enjoyed it as well but literally was falling alseep at the table while we finished dinner. See her photo about. She is already in bed and I am soon as well. Sorry if I am rambling a bit, need some sleep.....

I wrote this four days ago, hoping to publish it right away. Technical difficulties have kept me from posting until today so here it is, four days late. Will try and get a new post in soon.