Days 3/4 without Dada

The latest tooth has finally come through! Maybe now she'll calm down a bit. I wish it wasn't so cold, I could take her out for a bit in the stroller to wear her out. I froze to death yesterday when I went downtown for my pilates class so when I came back and thawed out I decided it would be better to keep Mia indoors. Today I spent 45 mintues getting the two of us into our winter clothes to buy a baguette and check on the car. We walked around the block and then I decided that fresh air was overrated.

As for the car, the snow has now turned to a layer of ice on the front and back windshields. I hope it warms up a bit tomorrow or I won't be able to go to my in-law's house for the Sunday family lunch (poulet roti?). Seeing as how Thomas isn't here to cook for me, it could be my only non-soup meal for these two weeks.

Depressing thought for yesterday: All of our babysitters use the formal vous form with me. As much as I've tried to tell them to use the informal tu form, they refuse. They know that I'm American, so it must be my age that bothers them. Merde!

More teeth

Standing

Snow in Bordeaux

This was downtown last night around 10pm. Snow is one thing I don't miss about Flagstaff!

Day 2 without Dada

I stopped by our friend Nellie's house today to return the scarf that she left at our place after Saturday night's dinner. I ended up staying for tea while our girls played together (or to be more precise, while Mia crawled all over their apartment and Mathilde - 6mo- sat and laughed). Conversational subjects: living with husbands who travel a lot for work, making friends in Bordeaux (Nellie's Spanish) that aren't the typical Bordelais snobs you hear so much about, and the weather. Yes, the weather. Meteo France predicted horrible storms for Bordeaux today - so much rain that we expected Noah to make an apperance. Today was one of the sunniest days we've had in about two weeks. So when MF also predicted snow (again) we laughed (again). Well this time MF got it right: It's been snowing for about an hour and I must have at least an inch of powder on the terrace.

Mia has two more teeth coming in on top. I'm hoping that explains the slight (ha!) increase in her energy level. This kid could crawl the NY city marathon in record time.

Day 1 without Dada

Actually it's more like day 2 for Mia since she hasn't seen him since Sunday night but he did only leave this morning... At any rate, he's currently somewhere over the Atlantic on his way to New York for the first leg of his world tour. I promised to give him Mia updates on a daily basis for the next two weeks.

The big news for this Tuesday in Bordeaux: snow. Just as Nano arrived to watch Mia this afternoon so that I could go to work big flakes started falling on the terrace. Nothing stuck but it is very cold and windy. A little hard to take after 3 weeks of warm temperatures.

And when Nano arrived, what did she get? 2 kisses from Mia! I had been asking all morning for one but all she did was stick her finger out and say, "Ta! Nah!", which was cute but still not a kiss. I did get a pretty good cookie crumb covered cuddle when I came home though.

She's calling for her bath...

19h27: au lit apres un bon bain, un diner de poisson, du riz, des tomates et des capres, un dessert de creme a la vanille ET un biberon de 150ml!

L'abbé Pierre est mort

Abbé Pierre passed away early this morning at the age of 94. He founded the Emmaüs association that helps the poor and homeless and was voted as one of the favorite personalities of the French.

The weekend just flew by

I think we could use another one. I can't believe it's already Sunday evening and tomorrow Thomas goes to work...and Tuesday he heads to the States for another series of tastings.

Yesterday we tested out the new bike seat that I bought last week with a trip to the Capucins market. Mia seemed to enjoy it but I think she was more interested in the buttons on the back of my jeans. She points at everything and says, "Ta-ta"most of the time but is getting better at understanding me. This evening she started with "Nah-nah" but I have no idea of what that could mean yet. Her comprehension improves daily in English but seems to be a bit slower in French. She'll give me a kiss when I ask for one in English (talk about making my heart melt!) but when Thomas asks in French she won't do it... until he says it in English that is...

An afternoon at the park

But not the JP! That was too bourg for us today. We decided to go to one of the downtown parks with our mommy friend Emmanuelle and her daugher Nina. There was a very different clientel, full of moms and kids from the populaire class. But it was great fun to not be with the Bordelaises and their Cyrillus-dressed kids who hog the swings. Emmanuelle and I did what we always do: talk about our husbands (he says she spends too much, Thomas says I'm too frugal, etc etc) and let the girls make faces at each other. Nina usually steals one of Mia's biscuits but then later shares her pain to make up for it. There is generally someone who gets pinched. It's usually Mia but she's good at defending herself with ninja hair-pulling. That's generally when we put them in their strollers and head home.

French elections

Can I vote here? No, because I'm not French and I'm not motivated enough to go through the long and complicated nationality process. But I'm still interested in the outcome of the elections. The candidates are just getting started and everyone has their blog or website in order to be in touch with the people. Thomas will most likely vote for Nicolas as he's becoming more and more conservative with age. (You can also see our mayor Jupe speaking in favor of his party's candidate.) Thomas' dad will most likely vote for Segolene. You can imagine that we've had some interesting family dinners lately.

You can follow it all through a partnership between Google and France2 who have set up a special election search engine.

She drove me nuts all day today

I think she must be teething again, or is coming down with another cold, because she's just become insane. She's decided that sleeping is for all those other babies who can't crawl yet or aren't standing beside the table trying to reach their Great Grandmother's candy dish. Thomas took care of her yesterday afternoon for a few hours while I went downtown to check out the Winter Sales (yes, 70% off!). He looked just about wiped when I came home and is probably glad to be away on business this week - just to get a good rest, really.

Some of the highlights: she did get the candy dish but I was just behind her and my Super Mom reflexes were ready, she amused herself for about 20 minutes crawling through the bookcase in my office, around and around and around....And she figured out how to give kisses. She gave me about 4 or 5 of them before I put her down for bed. It makes all of the exhaustion worth it!

Play time

Mia has taken to bonking heads with people for fun - not hard enough to hurt them of course. What's really funny is that she does it with herself in the bathroom mirror and just cracks up laughing. And I do mean the full side-splitting laughs where she can barely breath. I should get her milk checked.

An exhausting weekend

Actually it was a quiet weekend but I'm just exhausted from, I think, 2006. I actually took a longer nap than Mia this afternoon.

The good news: Mia has 4 teeth now; the two front teeth on the top and bottom. She enjoys trying to test them out on our fingers and has discovered the joy of crunchy cookies. The bad news: her top two are what they call in France, les dents du bonheur, which means we'll spend a fortune on braces. This doesn't seem to bother the Duroux family (as if she didn't resemble her father enough, she also has his teeth) but I'm afraid to think my daughter's trick at school will be to whistle through her front teeth.

In other more important news: the social movement Don Quixote’s Children has installed its tents here in one of the chic neighborhoods in downtown Bordeaux. The NYTimes had an interesting article about their movement. Politicans have now reacted (it's an election year in France) by proposing a law that would make it possible for citizens to sue the the Federal government if they are unable to find decent and reasonable priced housing, as in Scotland. So you see, France is much like the USA in the sense that her politicans think only of election day promises and not what is in the best interest for the nation.

Getting organized for 2007

It's a rainy day so Mia and I are staying in this afternoon. I'm looking at the year ahead and am glad that this afternoon is so calm because it looks like the rest of 2007 will be far from restful. Mia is crawling around and doing her best to distract me by organizing things herself. Right now she's (for the 2nd time) moving a chair in order to access the outlet I thought I so ingeniously hid from her prying hands. Before that she was "helping" me by empting the office trash can and rearranging my bookshelf. Luckily she took a 3 hour nap today. That me the time to renew my passport for our upcoming trip to Carmel and call Nounou to arrange day-care for the next month so I can go to work while Thomas is away on another 3 week world tour. Which reminds me, I also have to arrange our next vacation...