Outside looking in

I have been meaning to post pictures of our apartment for a while.  I kept waiting for a day when I had cleaned the house, all the toys were put away, the rest of the pictures had been hung on the wall, etc.  Like that is ever going to happen.  So here they are...  We live on Avenue de la Motte Picquet, in the 15th arrondisment.  Arrondisments are the 20 mini-cities within Paris.  Each has its own mayor and postal code.  Our postal code is 75015.  If you live in the 13th arrondisment, your postal code is 75013 and so forth.  The "15" on top of the street sign lets you know what arrondisment you are in. 

Here is our building.  Our door is in between a restaurant and a small jewelry store.  We have not tried the restaurant as it is pricey but have browsed the jewlery.  Though James calls our door "our red door," it is most certainly Mississippi State maroon.  Sorry Dad.  You can see the "59" over the door in the distinctive blue and white tile.  You see this blue and white tile and lettering on all street signs and  number signs here. 

We live on the second floor, though in Paris it is called the first floor with the bottom floor known as the ground floor.  You can see apartments above the restaurant and the jewelry store in the pictures.  Thankfully, we don't face the street.  Way too loud.  After you go through "our red door," you pass through the courtyard to a rear door.  You can just see Jim's blue shirt in the photo about to enter the rear door.  Up one flight of stairs to our apartment.  We have four windows that open onto this courtyard.  Here are Jim and Mary Martin in one of them.   

The entry hall is nothing special but does have a powder room right off of it, then our storage room, and then Mary Martin's room.  Since none of the bedrooms have closets and we have no attic or store room outside, this storage room is a lifesaver.  You can see it packed with stuff.  Mary Martin's room also has a bathroom oddly sticking out into it, as you can see.  But it works and having a second bathroom is really a luxury. 

Another luxury?  A separate laundry room, which divides the kids' rooms.  Having laundry in my apartment is great but having it NOT in my kitchen is espcially great.  This was the only apartment we looked at where the laundry room was not in the kitchen or a bathroom.  And yes, James' room always looks like this - trains EVERYWHERE.   

Then the living room and dining room... 

Our master bedroom and bathroom ...

The office is next and is also known as the dressing room as the wall of closets in the office hold almost all of mine and Jim's clothes.  The office is also how you get to the terrace, through the large window. 

And finally, my kitchen in all its compact - and very blue - glory. 



Enjoy!

Mother of the Year

There are days when I feel like I am truly handling this stay at home mommy thing well.  I make mental checklists of the fun things I will do with the kids this week.  I imagine fun craft projects I can make with the kids.  Crafty but educational, of course.  For example, James needs to work on his "fine motor skills" some before Pre-K in the fall.  Which is fancy speak for he needs to know how to hold scissors and a pencil correctly. 

Let's see - we can visit the Aquarium and then come home and make jellyfish out of construction paper.  We can cut lots and lots of tentacles to practice with the scissors and glue them to jellyfish we draw!

Then I can find a book about Abraham Lincoln and teach James about log cabins.  Then we can cut logs out with construction paper and make log cabins. 

That second one would require a lesson about what the President is and does, but I digress.

AND THEN THERE ARE DAYS LIKE TODAY...

Where the only goal is to get the kids in bed without any major loss of blood...

Where I have done two loads of laundry just because I need more underwear for Mary Martin to pee in (as it is definitely not going in the potty)...

Where the kids eat a hot dog for dinner AND lunch...

Where I STILL didn't get around to cleaning the bathrooms today...

And where I feel completely overwhelmed and useless as a mom. 

Who has had days like this?

London 2011

Last weekend we went to London for four nights.  Jim had to go to London for work and so we decided to tag along and spend a long weekend exploring London.  We had a good time though there were many things we did not get to see.  You just can't drag a four year old and two year old to every major musuem in London.  We skipped all the art musuems and St. Paul's Cathedral, for example.  Here is what we did visit:

The Tower of London

The Tower Bridge (which we walked across)

Westminter Abbey  - the kids were thrilled with this one by the way, lots of dead people AND they had to be quiet.  The only fun thing was the audio guide they gave us looked like a phone so Mary Martin wanted to hold it.  She listened intently to Jeremy Irons describing the architecture and people buried there.  One of the docents finally scolded us that the audio guides cost over 400 pounds so to kindly take it back from her.  That was our cue to leave... 

The London Aquarium and the London Zoo.  We hit the Zoo after a quick stop at Harrod's and then the kids were worn out.  Here they are at the carosel at the zoo and then knocked out in the cab on the way back to the hotel.

The London Eye - which was fun for all of us. 

 
We also enjoyed some fish and chips.  And some pub food - hearty meals all around that you just can't find in Paris.  We compared London to Paris, over and over again - it was hard not to.  Paris certainly is more beautiful - the buildings are breathtaking and the Paris parks are so much better than the London parks.  London's skyline has modern next to centuries old buildings and I don't think they always marry well.  But, Jim reminded me, half of Paris was not bombed out during WWII like London was.  So I guess we can be glad for the Nazi occupation of Paris in some wierd way...  We also found the subway system easier to navigate in Paris than in London.  Besides it has more stops in Paris.  Though the people in London were certainly nicer than our Parisianne counterparts. 

Here we are having fish and chips:

What else did we do?  Mostly tried to keep the kids entertained.  James took to climbing on random things to keep himself busy...

We also hit the toy area at Harrods and spent an afternoon on a hop on hop off bus tour.  We visited Hamley's toy store - seven floors of toys!!  Mary Martin got her very first Barbie - an Ariel from Little Mermaid and James got, well, a train.  Mom and Dad also stocked up on trains for future birthdays!! 

Finally on our last morning there we hit jackpot at the Science Museum.  This was the kids favorite thing.  They had trains (old and new models) and a under 6 age area downstairs with a water play area and a huge lego area.  We played down with the water and legos for at least an hour.  Here is James explaining to me how he had made the water all go one way by putting up the plastic cards that slid in the table. 

And here is James with "Puffing Billy" the very first locomotive ever built...  And yes he knew what it was from his Train sticker book. 

All in all we had a great time...  I am not sure we will visit a large city for our next vacation where there are tons of musuems to see.  Perhaps a beach where the kids can entertain themselves for a while!?!  Does Disney cruise in Europe??

Fun with Meme - you can leave your hat on

So we managed to do a few fun things while Meme was here...  First Meme and I ventured out to the Orsay Museum with Mary Martin in tow.  This is my favorite musuem in Paris, at least so far.  It has all the works of Monet, Picassio, Manet, Degas - all the Impressionists.  It is located in an old railway station so it is filled with lots of natural light.  The works progress logically and it doesn't feel like you are wandering around and around with no end in sight like the Louvre.  I was a little disappointed that they had rearranged the works some - I thought it did not flow as well.  And there used to be an entire room of Degas ballerinas so that you could practically see them dancing...  We had a great time, nonetheless.  MM was a trooper.  Keeping her occupied with food at the Orsay helped.  After the Orsay we went around the corner to a bistro and had a very French lunch.  Meme had the cheese plate and wine - a perfect day!!  Here we are at lunch... 

The next day we took the kids to Montmontre.  This is the famous hilly area outside the main center of Paris where the Moulin Rouge is located and also Sacre Cour.  Great views of the city from up there.  Here is Sacre Cour. 

There is also a funicular (sort of a tram) to ride you up the hill to Sacre Cour and a carousel.  We thought this would be a great outing for the kids.  It was just very, very hot and crowded.  Climbing those hilly streets with cranky kids got old fast.  Haggen Daz revived them for the trip home however. 

We did manage to do one outstanding thing with the kids and that was take them to the Paris Aquarium.  Though not at great as the Atlanta Aquarium, this one was pretty darn close and the kids had a ball.  Plus - inside =air conditioning.  Bonus!  Here are some shots from that: 





What else did we do?  Sampled some yummy wine, ate lots of fresh fruit and veggies.  And even found time to enjoy some desserts.  These are from out on our terrace. 

And then there was this...

Truly the highlight of Meme's time in Paris - a strip show on the Metro.  I previously have mentioned the random entertainment you get on the Metro.  Usually it is a musician of some sort, a violin, an accordian.  They play for a couple of stops then pass around their change purse for coins.  Once we had a puppet show to Wooly Bully which was just odd.  And every now and then we get a random guy shouting a manifesto of some kind - just ranting about something.  Maybe political, maybe just too much wine, who knows? 

But while Meme was here these two twentysomething guys gave us a strip show.  Now I didn't see much of it, my back was to them.  They put on the music from The Full Monty and played the song from the movie at the end when the guys truly go "full monty."  Jim and I were actually debating whether that would happen.  Alas, no, they only got down to their swim trunks - like James has, tight "boy shorts" type swim trunks.  I gotta give the guys a hand for their daring and creative style.  They had matching suits, which snapped off down theleg (of course), matching purple ties and socks.   

A fabulous cap to Meme's week in Paris.

Our hats (and only our hats) off to Meme for coming to stay.  She let Jim and I have a date night, helped with doctor's visits, was a master organizer, great giver of baths, and efficient seamstress.  All the curtains got hemmed and MM now has custom bedding, thank you very much.  Thanks Meme.  The tears were real when you left.  But the wine will be chilled when you return.  We love you.  

THE MOVE

Our furniture arrived on a Friday.  It was supposed to arrive on Wednesday, then got pushed back to Thursday and finally Friday.  After the first delay of a day, I got nervous but adapted.  After the second delay, I pitched a fit to get to the bottom of the delay.  Turns out it was one document needed from the States!?!? 

WHAT!?!?  I assumed that any delay or inefficiency would be from the French - not our side of the pond.  This was unacceptable.  I have learned I can't make the French think differently or yell at them in English to make things happen.  But a hang up with paperwork at an American company - I can fix that.  I got on the phone in France, found out where the hang up was, and waited for 8 am local time in the US.  Then I got on the phone to America.  Half an hour later the problem was solved. 

I still don't understand why it took a phone call from me to fix this, but whatever.  Seriously I expect such service from the French but not the Americans...  Sheesh. 

So our apartment is on the second floor, only one flight up.  Instead of going up our stairs or our elevator (which is tiny - we can't even get all four of us in it at once), the furniture and boxes went through a window.  With a lift outside in the courtyard to raise it up to the window.  Four guys on the ground to unload the container and load the lift.  Two inside to unload the lift into the apartment.  It was all inside in about 3 hours.  Then the unpacking fun began...

The movers worked with us a bit on Friday to unpack some boxes.  But after getting the beds set up and unpacking a little in the kitchen, they split.  To return on Monday and take away all the empty boxes and packing material.  This was key as we have limited garbage pick up.  I mean we can take out all the garbage we want, but we can't leave 40 boxes outside to be picked up.  So the pressure was on to empty as many boxes as possible before Monday morning when the movers came back.   

Jim did manage to make the unpacking a game with the kids, especially in the kitchen.  See the video and photos: 

I tried desperately to finish to at least finish the kitchen before Meme arrived on Sunday morning but had no such luck.  She helped me finish it in a flash though and the kitchen is funcitioning really well. 

After the kitchen, Meme and I first tackled the kid's rooms and ended up storing four boxes of toys.  To rotate out in the fall or the next rainy day.  Then we tackled what next!?!?  I can't recall - it was a kind of blurry few days.  But by Thursday at noon all but one or two boxes were unpacked.  Our massive wall of storage closets was FULL, FULL and organized as only Meme could get it.  Here are more pictures from the moving process: 

And finally the WALL of empty boxes awaiting the movers on Monday morning to take away.  We were so glad to have those out of here finally. 

Rodin Museum

Our furniture arrived about 10 days ago and so did Meme!!  We only suffered one broken glass - AMAZING.  Meme and I have been furiously unpacking and decorating.  I mean, we had to get the curtains and Mary Martin's bedding done, right?  So I haven't posted.  But now that the apartment is taking shape I will send pictures soon. 

In the meantime, one quick update and some pictures from one musuem visit...

Update on the swimming - it went great!  Turns out the boys can wear "boy shorts" - they don't have to be actual speedos.  Think boxer briefs.  So that is what we got for James.  He helped me pick them out and I told them it was just like wearing his underwear.  He also had no problem with the swim cap.  We got cool red and blue swim trunks and a red cap.  I didn't get a picture of James in his swim trunks but did get this one in his cap...

His teacher said he was "very stressed, very stressed" at first.  Eventually, though, he warmed up and joined he classmates in the water. She said he had a great time once he got in the water.  Lately a little peer pressure is much more effective than any pep talk from mom and dad.  I think James will really come to love the pool days in the fall... 

One of our first weekends here we visited the Rodin Museum.  Rodin did "The Thinker."  See below...

We didn't actually go in the musuem but just wandered around the garden outside the musuem. There are several of Rodin's works outside in the garden, including The Thinker. Plus just visiting the garden is free and there are two large sandboxes in the back of the garden.   Perfect adventure for taking the kiddos.   We brought the sand toys and dug for a while.   Then had lunch at the little cafe on the grounds.   A wonderful afternoon in Paris... The best part was the flowers. The kids loved loved running around and looking at all the flowers.  There were as big as your head and simply breathtaking.   The flowers here take your breath away almost daily.