My favorite thing this summer

Undoubtedly, my favorite thing in Paris this summer was the Paris Plages - the Paris Beaches. 

Ten years ago the mayor of Paris had the idea to bring a little beach life to Paris.  He shut down a major road that hugs the riverfront and dumped in tons and tons of sand for the Parisannes to feel like they were at a beach.  The event grew and this year over 2,000 tons of sand were dumped on a mile of riverfront to create the "beach." 

It is impossible for me to describe the scale of this thing.  This picture attempts to show you but picture this for over a mile... 

I took the kids to the Paris Plages twice the last weekend.  It usually runs for about a month.  There you are, watching the world go by alongside the peaceful river, and the kids are happily digging in the sand.  The sun was shining and the churchs bells of Notre Dame could be heard in the distance.  Perfection. 

Here was my view across the river one day we were at the beach...  See?  Perfection. 

If the kids got too hot, they had misters everywhere for them to run through, squealing in delight.  Or we could snag a beach umbrella to get some shade.  There were public restrooms, little restaurants selling snacks - everything you could want. 

Disneyland Paris even got involved this year, making a huge sandcastle meant to look like the top of Sleeping Beauty's castle.  They also made a smaller Mickey and Minnie lounging in the sun nearby. 

I only wish I had taken the kids before the last weekend.  We would have definitely gone more often! 

Our Summer

With fall upon us, I am finally cleaning out the photos I took all summer.  I thought everyone might like to see the random things we did this summer. 

We swam with our swim caps...

We saw Harry Potter in 3-D! (well not the kids...)

We worked on our "fine motor skills" aka cutting and holding a pencil correctly. 

We had lots of picnics at the beautiful parks in Paris.

We played trains, lots of trains.  We even learned that our beloved Madelines (sweet little cakes you eat for breakfast here) can be "cargo" for our trains:

We spalshed in the puddles on rainy days. 

And finally, we visited the exotic bird market. 

Whew!  I hope the kids had fun.  I did! 

Ear infections

This was from last week - again I a little behind on my posts: 

Mary Martin starting complaining last night that her ear hurt.  Uh oh.  She felt a little warm. Double uh oh. I got out the thermometer:  temp of 100.9.  Oh hell.

We had family photos planned for the next morning. A hurting, feverish toddler was not good pictures going to make. Forget going to the doctor before the photo shoot. Shoot starts at 9:30. Doctor probably gets in about 11. I loaded Mary Martin up with Tylenol and off we went. She wasn't great but we managed. I am sure there are some perfect shots. I will send the link to the gallery when they are ready.

The doctor thankfully could see us today. MM does in fact have a ear infection in one ear and drainage in her throat. The docteur said her ear tube was completely blocked. I got a prescription for an antibiotic, French Tylenol, and something else for pain with CODINE in it. CODINE for my two year old!?!  Really?  This only reinforces my theory that French children are meant to be seen and not heard. But that is a post for another day.

A word on our docteur:  he looks a little like Doc from Back to the Future, is not very patient with kids ( i.e. the kids can't put their shoes on the couches in his office).  But he came very HIGHLY recommended, has always had an appointment time for me when we needed it, and is willing to give out codine regularly, apparently.  So to the good docteur we go.

Sometimes though we go twice. You see the doctor doesn't have any vaccines in his office.  They are at the pharmacies. We get a prescription for the vaccine from the doctor, take the prescription to the pharmacy, get the vaccine, then go back to the doctor to have it administered. The French are masters at efficiency.

I was a little nervous that it would be a similar situation today. Perhaps that Mary Martin's antibiotic could only be administered by the doctor. We were saved that extra trip at least.  What I was not expecting, however, was that I had to mix MM's antibiotic myself. I got home with all our medicine - thinking can we all just take some of the codine and nap? - to find the antibiotic was in powder form. Oh hell.

So I get out the instructions which are in French of course. Mary Martin is in tears she is so tired and hurting. Once mixed, you administer the antibiotic with a spoon. Oh hell again. A spoon?!?!  Like MM is really going to let me place an entire spoon in her mouth and swallow all of its frothy white mixture I just whipped up.  Um, no.

Plan B:  you know those squirter things you get with children's motrin? I have perhaps a dozen of them. Good thing too. It was the only way to get that funky stuff down MMs throat.

Total time to fill and get antibiotic down MM:  45 minutes. Sheesh. She deserved a nap at that point. Hell I do.

The whole adventure made me miss (a) the "pink stuff" aka amoxicillian we had as kids that was cold and tasted like bubble gum and (b) my pharmacist dad.  He would have had that stuff mixed in 30 seconds.

Now, where is that codine?

Spot goes to School

Both James and Mary Martin started school last week (okay about a month ago - I am a little behind on my posts!).  James attended four days last week and this week was his first full week of Pre-K.  Mary Martin had a very gradual transisition and today was her first full day, though she is only attending half days from nine until noon. 

I was so excited to send them to school.  James was ready and eager to be engaged again.  His little brain needs exercising!  And he was ready for some friends.  I mean, younger sisters can't comprehend the complexities of the railways of Sodor like other boys. 

I thought Mary Martin was ready for some friends and fun as well.  I knew she needed to be around other kids her age and Jim and I both thought a break for me would do us all some good. 

Well...  Let me tell you about today.

Drop off is at 9 am.  The ride in was typical.  Mary Martin was a little whiny on the bus but all was well.  James was very excited as today was SWIMMING!  His class will swim one day a week and today was the first day.  So James was all smiles as we approached school... 

Until we heard from another mom that the pool is broken.  Wait, what?  It is an indoor pool, how did it break overnight?  Come to learn, a pump was broken and only discovered this morning.  So, no swimming.  Crap. 

It's okay James.  Y'all will still go to gym and you like gym, right? 

No mommy, don't go.  I don't want to stay here and go to gym.  You stay with me, please...

Great. 

I left James in tears.  And believe me, he doesn't cry that often any more, but they are big and round tears complete with a pouty lower lip.  I just had to walk away.  The teachers were helping but I just had to leave, because it was time to take Mary Martin to her classroom.

So Mary Martin has not transisitioned easily.  This is due to three things I think:

1.  I assumed she would transisition easily and left her too soon and for too long.  In the first couple of days, I left quickly and just knew she would recover.  But so did the rest of the parents.  It was a free for all for the first few days with Mary Martin the clear looser.

2.  She hasn't bonded with her teachers.  Mary Martin has two teachers for 16 kids (!).  One speaks English and one speaks French.  They are both fluent, of course, but they try and speak in their native languages so the kids can get used to hearing both languages.  It is a bilingiual school after all.  Mary Martin's English teacher was one of James' teachers last year, so again I assumed, Mary Martin would love Sophie right away.  She "knew" her after all - having seen her with James last year.  No go.  She is nervous, even frightened around Sophie.  Ok, so can the other teacher step in?  She can, but it is not, how shall I put this, "the French way."  The French school system is general can be seen as harsh by American standards.  Let's just say they are much less touchy feeling.  MM's French teacher is very sweet and great with kids.  But I don't believe she will sing Mary Martin into being comfortable.

3.  There are 16 other toddlers also having separation anxiety as well.


The result was that Mary Martin's teachers asked me to just stay with her a few days in the classroom.  To make her more happy with the room and the system, first, and then work on mommy leaving.  I didn't think this was the right approach with Mary Martin but I did what they asked. 

Which meant I was around school all day.  Today, after I left James in tears over the no swimming day, I started to go with Mary Martin's class out to the playground.  And as we started to leave, here comes James' class going to the playground too.  They tried to get me to hide from his class but there was no where to go.  We were all going to the same playground after all.  And why were we all going at the same itme, anyway?!?!  It has one slide, people.   

More tears from James, upon seeing mommy.  But I was tied up with Mary Martin and couldn't go with his class.  His class can make it the block and a half to the playground much faster than Mary Martin.

So I inched along with the toddlers, sliently praying that James would calm down.  I started to debate whether we should just call it a day and take both kids home when I realized something was wrong with James on the playground.  As got closer and closer to the playground, I saw James' two teachers hovering over him...  Then I figured it out.

Nosebleed. 

James was having a nosebleed at the playground.  Which he gets every six months are so.  Great.  Cue Mary Martin getting upset again...  Which she did of course.  New tears as I left her unattended to help James with his nosebleed. 

Awesome. 


Mary Martin has this little book in her classroom called Spot goes to School.  Spot does not want to go to school but throughout the course of his first day there he gradually learns to have fun.  Of course he makes a big mess in the process with the paints at art class.  But he has fun and learns how great school can me.

My crew?  Just a trail of blood and tears. 

Keeping our fingers crosses that things improve. 

Our big, fat trip to the States Part II

On our second week in the States, we were in Memphis for about five nights, Nashville for two nights, and Atlanta for a couple more.

In Memphis, Gee was conveniently "sick" so played with us every day.  We visited Shelby Farms where they have set up this amazing playground with giant slides and climbing structures for the kids:

We visited the zoo to see big animals and Mike's (Grandaddy's) office to see big machines:



And we visited Mud Island where the kids waded and walked in the minitature Mississippi River.  James thought you were literally supposed to walk the entire thing, including the parts of the "river" that had bridges over it.  Here you can see him coming out from under one of the concrete bridges.  We also rented a paddle boat and paddled the kids around. 

We also visited the pool complex at the Jewish Community Center.  This was truly a "complex" with two huge water slides, a toddler pool with a smaller water slide and all sorts of fun water features, a kiddie pool with its own slide, a lazy river, and a spalsh pad.  Whew!  This was the kids' favorite thing.  James has asked me three times if we can go back there.  I never could get a good shot of him going down the slide.  He was up and out of the water too fast, rushing to slide again! 

Finally, in Nashville we hit the local county fair.  We rode rides with our cousins - and sometimes by ourselves (!).  I missed that because I was the only adult without a weak stomach, apparently, so I had to be Jackson's wing man.  He was finally tall enough to ride all the rides and he wanted to ride ALL THE RIDES.  Here are just a few shots from the fair. 

We had a blast!  Thanks everyone for cooking and babysitting and letting us enjoy being home! 

Our big, fat trip to the States

In case you didn't know, my husband was essentially gone all summer.  He was is New York, then Houston, then New York, Houston, London, New York, Houston, Geneva, New York...  You get the idea.  At first it wasn't so bad when it was only three or four nights a week.  Then it became five nights a week out of town.  Jim was so wiped out from these trips that he basically would crash when he came home.  I would wash all his clothes and repack him up for another week out of town.  I don't know how people who travel for work all the time do it...  So exhausting...

Add to the fun of no husband, no friends...  See most everyone leaves Paris for the summer.  This may not make sense if you have never experienced the throngs of tourists that flock to Paris for the summer.  Most Parisians just leave.  French companies routinely give five to six weeks of vacation and French employees use IT ALL.  They go to their summer homes.  Or to relatives overseas.  Most of the kids in James' class fell into this category - they were gone.  As were the two girlfriends I had made here in Paris. 


So it was just me and kiddos all of July.  We had fun, at least, I think we did.  We visited the parks twice a day and tried to see different things in the city at least twice a week.  The aquarium provided a place to go when it rained...  But mostly it was me and kiddos entertaining each other.  When Jim got word in late July that he would be needed in the States for about three weeks straight - it was time to go with him.  Instead of Jim flying home to Paris for the weekend to simply rest and do laundry, he could fly to Atlanta and see us.  Plus he could still get his laundry done.

This meant a 9 hour flight by myself with the kiddos.  What was I thinking!?!? 

They actually did great.  I did break out the Benadryl - just a little - to help them get a nap at least.  Two hour naps and the portable DVD player were all I needed. 

We visited three states and six cities in 18 days.  It was a whirlwind.  The first few days were sort of a blur as we adjusted to a new time zone and tried to shake the jet lag.  My first order of business was to get mexican and margaritas!!!  After two margaritas that first night I crashed when the kids did at 8 pm.  Jim was able to join us on two legs of our trip.  At the very beginning at Aunt Kelly's house, and at the end in Memphis and Nashville.  Then he made the flight back to Paris with me and the kids. 

I call it my "big, fat trip" because I ate my way through every state and city we visited.  The scale proved it upon our return.  However, most of it is now gone and we are back to our fresh food here in France. 

Here are some highlights from our trip.  There were lots of hugs and time with grandparents: 

After a couple of nights at Aunt Kelly's in Atlanta, we were in Gulfport, where we painted and splashed...  And cooked seafood.  I ate shrimp at every meal I think... 

At Uncle Matt's in Jackson, we visited the the new Children's Museum which was awesome and swam some more. 

In Jackson, we ate some more.  All of my family was gracious enough to let me pick where we wanted to eat since I had been missing out on the foods I loved.  Let's just say the McAlister's in Grenada will never been the same.  That was our meeting point to meet Jim's parents and head to Memphis.  Pictures of Memphis and Nashville to follow...   



More Tour de France 2011 pics

Just for you Uncle Matt!!