Isn't It Ironic?

You know how, the day you finally get round to making that hairdressers appointment, your hair suddenly starts to look great?

And the day you finally make it to the doctors, the niggling back pain you've had for the past month mysteriously disappears?

Well, here's a new one.
The day I finally went to the opticians - convinced I'd been squinting and feeling dizzy - I was told my eyesight had actually improved.
The optician told me he's hardly ever seen that happen before. Usually, after pregnancy, a woman's eyesight deteriorates. I've had two pregnancies since the last time my eyes were tested.
"One more pregnancy and you'll have perfect eyesight!" quipped the optician.

Mmm. I'll have to discuss that with FH. I wonder how far he's prepared to go for my eyes??

Boys, Boys, Boys

FH should have seen it coming.
First there was one boy. Then there were two. And one fine day, there was no more room in the bed for poor Daddy...


Cool Big Brother pulls up a chair and teaches his admiring sibling about some of the finer points of life...

Topsy Turvey World

The cough & cold season has begun.
Even though it's still 20° here most days, the usual colds and viruses have begun to make the rounds at crèche.
No surprise, no different from any other year.

Except that, now, we have "swine flu" to contend with.
Not actual swine flu, you understand - oh no, there have been very few actual cases in France - but rather, the potential of swine flu.
This means that, contrary to previous years, when good old common sense prevailed and if a kid had a cough, well, you gave him some cough medicine and sent him off to crèche to play as usual... now, there is a Protocol.
And the Protocol means that, as soon as your kid shows the slightest sign of being ill, a parent must hot-foot it to the crèche, remove their kid from the premises and take him straight to a doctor. The parent must then pay the doctor 22 euros in order to have him sign a note saying that the kid does not have swine flu (though how the doc can possibly know this just by looking at him is not clear...).
And, here's the best part: the kid is not allowed back to crèche until he has the magical doctor's note saying, basically "the kid has a cough".

Now I am a natural worrier. Therefore, I am not against taking precautions against flu epidemics. But come on. Isn't this all a bit too much?
What happened to common sense?
Wouldn't I know if BB was suffering from swine flu, rather than just running around as normal with a slight cough?

The answer, apparently, is no.
So this morning I have to keep him at home, take him (and his 3-month old baby brother) to the doctor (and probably spend an hour or so in the waiting room, full of sick people and germs...) and hand over some money in order to be told that he has a cough.

Sometimes I wonder how we got into this crazy mess...

International Relations

I studied International Relations for two very enjoyable (albeit intimidating: everybody seemed to know five times as much as I did...) semesters at university.
The International Relations I now dabble in are slightly more modest. But they are not without importance.

Last week while walking through the park with my trusty companion LB, I was accosted (I have chosen this word on purpose) by one of the park wardens, who evidently just fancied a chat. When he discovered I was English, his eyes lit up and the chat quickly morphed into a Monologue About My Opinion of England and the English.
I use capitals because this Monologue is no stranger to me. Oh no. In fact, I would estimate that I have heard it, on average, twice a month since I first came to live in France. Twice per month = 24 times per year. I have lived here for just over 9 years.
So that means that, at a rough guess, I have been subjected to said Monologue approximately 216 times.

Needless to say, I know it so well that I can recite it from memory. The order of the points varies, but every single stranger who has served me this monologue, without exception, has included all of the following:

1/ I once went to Portsmouth/Brighton/Bath/Oxford on a school trip. For a whole week. The family I stayed with was actually really nice!
2/ I love London: people are so eccentric! Nobody judges anybody else! So refreshing!
3/ Ah, everybody knows how bad English food is! (wry smile). But I will say this: your fish & chips are fantastic!
4/ I love the atmosphere of English pubs.
5/ Ah, the weather. But you know, when I was there on my school exchange trip, it was sunny all week!
6/ English people are so laid back. Not like Parisians.
7/ You know what I really LOVE about you English? Your sense of humour! Fantastic! Benny Hill... Mr Bean... oh, I love them!

I promise you: I am not making this up. It's actually quite fascinating: young people, older people... the Monologue is always spookily identical.

But you know what, it doesn't bother me at all, even after 9 years, to be Monologued at. The reason is this: 100% of the French people who have served me this Monologue have concluded with the same line: I think the English are great people.
(some, rather shockingly, even add: "So much better than the French").

So forget the old clichés: the English are always welcome over here.

Coup d'Etat

They hatched the plot sometime on Tuesday evening.
Despite the obvious language obstacles (the elder one spoke a unique kind of franglais, and the younger one communicated only in baby gurgles...), they managed to fine-tune all the stages of the plan.
Night fell.
The adults fell into bed, sleepy and unsuspecting.
The plan swung into action.

Around four-thirty a.m., the younger one began to thrash around in his Moses basket, causing it to rock and sway like a boat on stormy waters.
The parents awoke with a start.
They listened out for the sound of hungry tears, but none were forthcoming. The Baby simply cackled and kicked, enjoying himself immensely.
Maman peered down into the basket, perplexed.
The Baby grinned up at her, his eyes shining with mischief and satisfaction: he had successfully pulled off part one of his mission.

He continued to gurgle and laugh and kick for some time. The Parents lay awake, listening to him play in confused silence. Sleep crept away from them.
Until, at last, the party ended and the Baby finally gave in to slumber.
They closed their eyes gratefully.
Two minutes later, a piercing shout erupted from the next room.
The Boy was awake.

Maman stumbled out of bed and padded across the cold floor to the Boy's room. As she bent to switch on the light, she banged her tired, achey head against the corner of the dresser. A surprisingly naughty word sprang forth from her lips: the Boy stared up at her in surprise and disdain.
To the weary question "what's wrong?", the Boy merely shrugged and flopped back down under his warm covers.
Maman sighed, switched off the light and trudged back to bed.

Sleep eluded her. Her head throbbed in the dark.
Then, just as she felt she may be drifting off... another squeal erupted from next door.
The plan had reached its grand dénouement.
Maman fumbled in the dark for the alarm clock: 7:05 gleamed the nasty, fluorescent numbers.
She dragged herself out of bed for the last time, clambouring over the grouchy, horizontal, husband-shaped mass that lay heavily beside her.

The Boy had cunningly contrived to hide his dummy in the furthest corner of his bedroom. He looked on with undisguised triumph as Maman slid, snake-like, under his bed and strained to retrieve it.
Maman collapsed, allowing herself 30 seconds slumber right there, face down under the bed, the dummy clutched in her right hand.
She contemplated defeat.
Then she remembered the courage of her ancestors: Never Surrender!

But she had forgotten the most cunning post scriptum to this plan of attack.
As the first rays of daylight trickled through the shutters, and the first specks of rain tap-tapped against the windows, she remembered... it was Wednesday.
Worn out and weary, she was to be abandoned alone with both her opponents for nine hours.

That's when she finally gave up all resistance, poured herself a coffee, and gave in to the inevitable.
The Boy and the Baby had won control.
All hell broke loose.

Out in the Cold

In the nine years I have lived in France, I have never really gone out of my way to meet other Brits. In fact, at the moment, the only British friend I have in Toulouse is my boss. And I guess that doesn't really count, you know, since he's a 60 year-old man and... well, my boss.

So yesterday at the indoor shopping centre, when I found myself trailing a group of three English women plus three prams... and feeling rather wistful, this was a big first.
Why did I suddenly want to be friends with these three random people? Why did I - an almost perfectly integrated semi-French girl - feel kind of left out as I saw them laughing and chatting together?

I suppose, of course, that the answer is loneliness.
Loneliness is not something we readily admit to, and it pains me a little to verbalise it now, but I think that most mums on maternity leave wander onto this territory at some point.
The thing is: wonderful as it is to gurgle and smile and blow raspberries at your beautiful 3 month-old baby all day... there comes a point when you guiltily crave a bit of adult conversation.
I think I may have reached this point.
The funny things is, I didn't realise it until I saw those three women hanging out together yesterday with their babies.

And the worst thing is: I didn't have the courage to ask if I could join them. No, I settled for being a weirdo stalker, trailing behind them for a few minutes, in the irrational hope that they might sense my presence, deduce that I was English, and call me over to join them.
They didn't, of course.
I came home annoyed with myself. What stopped me approaching them? An old fear of maybe not fitting in?
I feel like I'm thirteen all over again... watching other friendship groups form from afar, and wondering which one I could belong to, if any.

But in the meantime, things aren't so bad. I have my LB, and he's pretty good fun. And two of my closest friends just had babies last week, within two days of each other.
So there's a good chance I'll find a new group to hang out with soon enough.

BB is Mobile!

And lucky for us, he seems to have inherited his parents' love of bike-riding.

We went riding on Friday... riding on Saturday... riding on Sunday.

BB would have slept in his helmet if we'd let him.

On Friday, he was still a little unsure. Little fingers gripped the back of my jacket anxiously.
But by Sunday, I was pedalling along furiously to the supportive chant: Allez, maman!

Wild Wednesday

Ah, kids.
It's an emotional rollercoaster alright. Marital ups and downs are nothing compared to the obstacle course of emotions our feisty offspring subject us to.

Let's take a typical Wednesday, for example.
One minute I'm trying to simultaneously feed the baby, prepare a cheese sandwich and engage (enthusiastically) in a game of one-on-one football with BB. It crosses my mind that I spent a grand total of six years in higher education learning about very noble yet obscure things... and in fact maybe I would have been better advised just to learn how to do three physical tasks at once. Or, better still, clown school (they probably teach you useful stuff like balancing).

The next minute, BB is hysterical because it's time to leave the park and go home. He has become one of those horrible, red-faced, mean, snotty kids that I - in my pre-parenting naivety - used to frown upon (and steer well clear of).
I feel almost capable of tying him to the park gate and strapping a "Take him if you want him" sign around his neck.

But, somewhere in the dregs of my maternal instinct, I find the kindness required to scoop him up and carry him to the car: a move that forces me to manoeuver baby's pram one-handed through a series of non-pram-friendly obstacles like gates and wheelie bins.

Then, just a few minutes later, I'm driving along in an anger-fuelled silence when I happen to glance in the rearview mirror. There they are: my two little guys, sleeping like angels.
My heart melts. How I love them.

Later that afternoon, BB screams at me and stamps his feet because he wants to sit on the table. This is a game he learned with Nana (no judgement ;-)
Only, I'm not free to hoist him onto the table, because my hands are - yet again - tied. LB is - yet again - hungry.
I try to reason with the red-faced stamper, remembering the current theory that "kids always respond well if you explain why they can't do something, rather than just shouting".
Huh. After 30 seconds patient explanation, drowned out by BB's furious sobbing, I abandon modern child rearing methods in favour of more traditional ones: "Go to your room! NOW!"

But later still, just before bedtime, BB, snug and sweet-smelling in his pyjamas, spontaneously points to his old cot - the one that was his for two years and until only four nights ago - and says "That's baby's bed".
Without any explanation, jealousy or tantrums, he has simply understood that soon, his little brother will sleep in his old cot, right next to him in their shared bedroom.

My heart melts again. How I love them.

Power Struggle

In the course of my various anthropological field trips (= outings to shops and cafés with LB...), I have been struck by something quite unpleasant: the way that people tend to abuse the little bit of power they have, whatever the context.

The most poignant example I witnessed was at the Flunch - a sort of canteen-style café. A round-faced guy who appeared to preside over the vegetable counter was trotting around like a little sergent and barking out orders at his "staff" (three obedient women).
At one point, he started making fun of one of the women, treating her as though she was stupid because she hadn't managed to light the grill properly (as you can see, I was a diligent anthropologist: no detail escaped me).
My blood boiling, it took a huge effort not to stride over and tell him exactly how I rated his pseudo managerial skills...

So, as I see more and more of this kind of thing - and the way that those further "down" the scale accept it, probably because they need the work and jobs are scarce - I think that, one day, I would like to be totally free of the professional power hierarchy.
No boss, no employees: just me, my computer, my ideas... and no-one to answer to but myself.

What We've Been Up To

Nana came to visit...

And, thanks to her unrivalled DIY skills... the big boy bed finally got built.

And then, even more amazingly, the big boy in question even agreed to sleep in it. After only one night's hesitation...

But of course, he didn't make it through the night without falling out once: the toddler's rite of passage.

And as for LB, well, he just continued to eat and get cuter and cuter...

Such is life.

As Old As You Feel?

Though I have been known to worry about a variety of things, I have never really worried about getting older. The physical part of getting older, I mean. Okay, to be more specific: wrinkles.
I suppose because I still feel so young, I just assume I still look young too.
So, when I ventured into a rather chic perfume shop last Saturday, to treat myself to a good quality face cream, it came as something of a shock to be told I have... wrinkles.

No, no, I'm being unfair. The pert, pre-pubescent French salesgirl who steered me swiftly away from the "young skin" aisle and into a more appropriate part of the shop never once pronounced the word "wrinkles". I guess that non-pronunciation of the word "wrinkles" is the first thing one learns on a sales course. No, she kindly suggested I purchase a cream that would help smooth out my "rides d'expression"*.
"Rides d'expression" is - I learned - the euphemism trotted out to 31-year-old sleep-deprived mothers by pert pre-pubescent French salesgirls.

Bon. Once I had got over the mini-shock of discovering I have rides d'expression requiring urgent treatment, it then transpired that such treatment came in the form of a teeny tiny yellow tube costing 69 euros. Tricky situation. Clever sales strategy. Frantic calculations flitted around inside my (old) head. The treatment seemed ridiculously expensive. But could I afford to let the damage continue? Did I simply have to accept that life gets more expensive as one gets older??

Luckily, pert salesgirl sensed my distress (probably, yet another wrinkle was forming on my forehead right there on the spot) and rushed to my rescue with a "more affordable" cream. This one cost a mere 35 euros and promised to give me a glowing complexion.
I clutched it gratefully. 35 euros was still more than I had naively expected to pay, but to protest would have been churlish.
"Does this one smooth out rides d'expression, too?" I asked hopefully.
Alas, no, she replied. But, because my complexion would be glowing, it would take the attention away from my wrinkles.
That sounded OK to me.

So, glowing complexion it is. It seems one cannot hope to have both a glowing complexion AND fewer wrinkles after the age of 30.
Well, technically, you can, of course... but it'll cost you.

Oh dear. There are so many more things to worry about as one gets older. Frown.



* This term in itself is a revealing indication of the differences between the British and French characters. What we would call "laughter lines" in English become "rides d'expression" in French. This would suggest that, while the British assume you get wrinkles as a result of many years spent laughing and joking in awkward social situations... the French assume they are the consequence of years and years of intense conversations...

Out of Season

Maybe the most precious pleasures are the unexpected ones...
Like swimming in the Mediterranean in October, under a glorious blue sky.

Summer is stubborn this year. Autumn can wait.

Seven Years and One Day Ago

Three worry-free single girls prepared to let go of one of their kind...

Seven Years Ago

Twice, we've experienced the worst. Twice, we've experienced the best.
Once, we were poorer. Now, we feel a bit richer.
Six months of (morning) sickness. Lots of good health.
Lots of happiness, too.

Lost in the City Without a Map

Parenting is not so much a learning curve as a drive through a big, unfamiliar city, full of intersections and U-turns.

And speaking of U-turns: we made a major one two mornings ago.
I have always very firmly believed that kids should not sleep in their parents' bed. No, no, never. I thought, for some vague but no doubt highly convincing reason, that this practise was a Bad Thing that would lead to... er, I don't know what exactly. Dependence, mixing of roles, divorce, that kind of thing.


Well, that's all fine, but then one fine day, it's 6 am, you've notched up a grand total of four hours sleep for various reasons (none of them very glamorous or nudge-nudge-wink-winky, I hasten to add...), and frankly, you'd pretty much sell your own mother (sorry Mum) for an extra hour in bed.
So, when such a day arrives, you forget your firmly held belief and coax - nay, beg - your grumpy, snuffly BB to snuggle up under the covers between you and your FH.

You don't have to be a genius, or Miriam Stoppard, to work out that it's probably not a good thing for a kid to get a taste for sleeping in the parental bed.
But you do it anyway. With the sinking feeling of failure in your weary bones.


But PS, as it turned out, his 10 minutes in bed with Maman & Papa do not seem to have brought about the apocalypse I feared. He didn't even seem to enjoy it very much. And clamboured out to freedom as soon as possible.
In fact, I got the distinct impression he only put up with it for the first ten minutes so as not to hurt our feelings.

I wonder how many of my other "firmly held child-rearing beliefs" are waiting to be overturned?
And more importantly, will we find our way out of this tangled city before we run out of petrol???

LB Update

LB is now 2 months old.
At his check-up yesterday, he weighed in at 5.8 kilos, meaning he's gained a whopping 1.5 kg in just one month. The doc looked a little dismayed, until it turned out he (LB, not doc) has also got 5 centimetres longer. Phew: he's tall, not fat.

He now sleeps through about every other night. And even if he does wake at 4 am, it's just a case of swigging down a quick bottle, and back to sleep.

On a more subjective note, then, he's still very much in the running for the "Sweetest Baby Ever" contest.
In fact, he's so sunny-natured, patient and gentle that I'm starting to wonder how we managed to produce him. Maybe there was some mix-up at the clinic?
Even if that were true, there's no way we're letting him go now.

I have lots of vaguely interesting thoughts about the differences in the way we bring up first-born and second-born kids, but I'll save those for another, more intellectual-sounding post.
As you may have gathered, this post is rather more of the sentimental, maternal variety ;-)