The South of France

We spent the last ten days of August in Collioure, a small town on the Mediterranean about twenty-five kilometers from the Spanish border. Ochre and salmon buildings walled in the old town's pedestrian streets. A stone promenade traced the shoreline, including five small beaches, a medieval chateau, a former lighthouse turned clock tower and its adjacent church.

Our hotel, half a block and across a street to the old town, had a delightful inner garden and courtyard where we ate breakfast under a magnificent magnolia tree. Then we'd head to one of the beaches on either side of the clock tower.

Sam is obsessed with bell towers. Of the half-dozen parks we regularly frequent in Paris, he prefers the ones near churches so he can hear "the guy ring the big bell." He and Pat tell stories about what the guy does when he's not ringing the bell. If it's morning, maybe he's getting a coffee, or a croissant. If it's the afternoon, maybe he's off getting a chocolate cookie or an ice cream cone. If it's happy hour, he's having a pastis, no maybe about it.

So, to sit on a beach all morning with a bell tower so close you could touch it (that is, if you were willing to swim to it), was a dream vacation for the kid. Except for the minor detail that he was afraid of the water. He wouldn't play at the water's edge, or jump over the dribbles of waves, or stand in the clear turquoise sea to look at his toes among the rocks. He would only leave land if Pat carried him, careful not to let any body part touch water.

I had talked up the vacation to Sam by telling him the beach would be like a giant sandbox, only one where he's allowed to play with water. (In Paris, I forbid him to fill his bucket at the fountain--you try cleaning that mess out of the stroller.) But Collioure's beaches, are mostly rock, so we couldn't even build sand castles. (Pat did try burying Sam in the rocks a few times, but when you're a twenty-pound skeleton, too many rocks apparently inhibit breathing.) On our third day, Pat observed that, basically, we could've taken a train ride to a gravel parking lot and it would have all been the same to Sam.

By the middle of the week, Pat was swinging and dipping Sam into the water, though he never did stand on his own. After observing other beach-goers, the two even brought some leftover baguette to feed the fish (much to my inner-environmentalist's horror, though admittedly, I delighted in Sam's enthrallment). Oddly, Sam wasn't the least bit concerned by the schools that completely encircled them, flapping out of the water. Once, he even fed a fish right out of his hand.

Finn wasn't much better. He didn't like sitting at the edge with the waves running over him. (To be fair, the water was a bit chilly.) He did tolerate and even seemed to enjoy being held in the water more than Sam. But most of the time he was content to play with the shovel, drop rocks into the bucket, or take the little dump truck when Sam wasn't looking.

We brought our own snorkeling gear, and Pat and I took turns on little jaunts skirting the clock tower wall. We saw lots of fish, and once I thought I saw a small octopus tucked under some rocks.

We'd usually bring a picnic lunch to the beach. Twice a week there was a market in the town's main square with wonderful local produce (apricots and tomatoes, oh my!), cheeses, cured meats and saucissons, olives, honeys and so on. After lunch we'd shepherd the boys back to the hotel for a quick shower and their afternoon nap, and then a second beach outing (with ice cream snack, of course), before cleaning up, again, and heading to a restaurant, preferably with outdoor seating. We ate lots of moules frites, fresh grilled fish, tapas, paella, and local rosé wine. Most restaurants didn't open for dinner until 7:30, usually the boys' bedtime. Much to our amazement, we were able to push their schedule and occasionally even go for moonlight walks. (This was one of the few times the boys have ever been awake and outside late enough to see the moon--it was a very big deal.)

Twice we took the train to neighboring towns with sandy beaches, for a change of scenery. Sam, of course, didn't understand why there was no clock tower, resulting in a minor tantrum at one beach. At the other, we grossly underestimated the distance from the train station to the beach (an otherwise gorgeous expanse) and spent most of the excursion traipsing through uninteresting and hot suburbia.

One afternoon we took le petit train, a white motorized touring "train," around Collioure, over the vineyard-covered hills to the neighboring port town and back again. The train left from the street across from our hotel's entryway, and Sam was always keen to check if it was there and if it's yellow light was flashing.

Despite the fatigue of the boys' schedules, we had an enjoyable, delicious vacation. Any gloom we may have felt about returning to Paris, to work, to starting preschool, was tempered by our impending departure for Corsica on September 19th--the last of our grand vacations during our year abroad.

Funny Things that Have Happened to Us along the Way

Finn crawled for the first time in Athens.

Also in Athens, while we were checking out of our fancy schmancy hotel, Sam ran across the lobby to a nude sculpture near the entrance, pointed and shouted, "Wiener! Wiener!" as he jumped up and down.

Wiener, and its derivative weenie, are his two favorite words.

Finn took his first steps in the Jardin d'Anne Franck and the Parc de la Villette in Paris.

At a park in the 18th, another mother once asked me if I had an extra tissue to spare. I responded that I only had a salted (salé) tissue instead of a dirty (sale) one.

All of our windows are French-door style, so that they open wide but have no screens.

A pigeon once flew into our living room window with such force it made us jump out of our seats. (We saw it fly away, a bit unsteadily.)

One early Sunday morning after we had just arrived, while looking out the same window, I saw a prostitute solicit a client by pulling up her skirt. Until then I wasn't sure if she was a transvestite or not (there are several in the neighborhood), but she was indeed a woman.

A few months later, while the boys napped, Pat noticed a bird by, again, the same window, and then he realized it was inside. He went over to open the window wider but unintentionally scared it. It took off toward the (unfortunately) closed windows across the room that lead onto our terrace. It slammed into the glass and then dropped to the floor. Pat thought it might wake up, so he scooped it up with a spatula and flung it over the side of the balcony. It landed on some netting that shields a terrace a couple floors down and is sadly still there.

One of our favorite walks is along the Canal St. Martin. The first time we strolled there this year, we came upon a number of tables set up by various environmental organizations. The French love their organizations and manifestations. In the park across the street, there were yellow plastic number signs like the kind police use at a crime scene to mark potential evidence. We wondered if it was some odd demonstration by the organizations, but no, there was a body under a tarp. It was a real investigation.

Last spring, while completing the paperwork for Sam to enter the halte-garderie, I think I wrote that he was very attached to his lawn (pelouse) bears instead of his stuffed (peluche) bears.

Whenever we would pass an ad for EuroDisney (and there were many posters around all summer), Sam would excitedly shout, "Mickey Mouse!" I have no idea where he learned who MM is, since we don't own anything Disney. Nonetheless, I decided his enthusiasm was a good excuse to visit the park, especially since two-and-a-half year olds are known for their love of 45-minute lines. The first thing we did, after waiting to buy our entry tickets, was get in line to see Mickey. Sam can be very shy, and I thought for sure he would cling to us when our turn came. Instead, he ran out with wide-open arms and gave Mickey the biggest hug I've ever seen him bestow on anyone. He even smiled for the pictures. It was the most expensive hug ever, and worth every penny.

The next day he still bubbled with excitement, pronouncing giddily, "I hugged Mickey Mouse!"

And then, "Mickey Mouse has a wiener!"

Lost Time (or, mid-year update a little late)

We're now past the midway point in our year abroad. Our sense of time has been fittingly warped. The first six months have whipped by in a blink, and yet it feels like ages since we inhabited our real home. I have to concentrate to remember all the belongings left behind.

[Sidebar: this touches on our continuing debate over what we really need to live, what superfluous objects we can purge upon our return. What didn't fall victim to my pregnant nesting instinct last summer may well get tossed out next winter. We are on a mission to simplify! (save the shoes and handbags, of course.)]

The boys, sadly, are not impervious to time. A tee-shirt we bought for Sam in Thailand in February now fits better on Finn. Sam's legs seem so long to me. He scrambles up jungle gyms that were too intimidating in the early spring, and he's started climbing in and out of his crib. His face just looks different, more like a little boy and less like a baby.

His speech advanced rapidly in the spring but now seems to be stalling as he becomes more immersed in French. He's picked up a few expressions, such as ça va pas (that's no good), ça suffit (that's enough, used mostly when Finn is crying), and faux pas (stated when he has both index fingers up his nose). Sometimes when I have no idea what he's saying, I assume it's something he learned at daycare.

This was his last week at the halte-garderie before it closes for summer vacation. In the fall, at la rentrée, he will start nursery school. While I have no doubt he will benefit from the new environment, I was a little sad for him to say good-bye to the teachers to whom he has become so attached over the last months.

.....

I wrote the above over a month ago but never got around to posting it. Summer got in the way, with a long weekend in Toulouse, lots of outings and picnics, Finn's birthday, and potty training. In a few days we leave for Collioure, a small beach town near the Spanish border, and when we come back it will be September--just four months left.

Visitors

Not just a French comedy, les visiteurs have descended on Paris! Springtime brings tulips, erratic weather, and tour groups clogging the sidewalks and bakeries.

We've had our share of guests as well, both good and bad. Last month, Pat traveled to San Francisco to a conference and then to Boston to check on his lab and our apartment. (Both are still there, whew.) While he was away, my mom and stepdad came to stay. It was Newell's first time to Paris, and my mom had only been once before with my dad almost forty years ago. I had a mission to imbue them with, if not the same love I have for this city, at least a healthy respect.

I sketched out a list of "must see's" and a secondary list of "if there's time." Given my and my mother's shared inability to get out of the house at a decent hour, we accomplished a surprising amount. Most days comprised marathon walks: for example, across the river to the Luxembourg Gardens, then a walk through the sixth and seventh arrondissements via Les Invalides to the Eiffel Tower, and then home along the river. Or, up through the ninth arrondissement to the Moulin Rouge in the 18th and then a zig zag up Montmartre to Sacre Coeur, the funicular down and back home (note to self: next time take the funicular up and push the 70 pound stroller-kid combination down the hill).

After Pat came back, we all went for a ride on the Bateaux Mouches, because I needed Pat's help handling the kids on the metro ride there. We kept Sam busy with snacks, raising and lowering the folding seats, and convincing him to yell under every bridge as if he were listening for his echo in a tunnel. (We devised this game in Singapore when walking under bridges along the river; it's called "Tunnel Voice." See video on Phanfare.)

Most of our walks turned into tours of my previous life in Paris, and even more so a tour of my early romance with Pat. (There's where we met, there's the restau where we almost broke up, and the metro station where we made up...)

By the end of their stay, my parents were comfortable enough to venture out on their own and even seemed to enjoy the Parisian rhythm.

Two weeks later, Pat left town again, this time for a conference in Bordeaux, just as my father arrived with his new girlfriend, A., who had also never been to Paris before.

Since my father is a veteran tourist in Paris--indeed, I owe my fascination with this city to him--I didn't have to worry about suggested itineraries. They developed a comfortable routine of coming over in the mornings to play with the boys (and nap on the couch) and then going sightseeing.

We all walked to the Luxembourg Gardens one day so they could watch the boys play (and nap on a bench--my dad, that is. A. always stayed wide awake). After Pat got back, we were able to get a babysitter and visit my dad's favorite brasserie in the 5th.

Let me take this opportunity to pronounce publicly that we LOVED A. We found her to be down-to-earth, thoughtful, and genuine, and we look forward to getting to know her better in the future (and to sampling some of her renowned baking).

Ten days after their departure, Pat's sister and niece came to stay with us. The girls hit the ground running. We picnicked with them in the Lux. Gardens, and we attempted to accompany them to the top of the Eiffel Tower. But the wait was too long for Sam, who melted down on the second level and compelled us to excuse ourselves.

As always with Pat's siblings, we had a great time hanging out, and the boys loved playing with their big cousin.

Our less-welcome visitors have been the microscopic variety--germs! Since Sam started attending his halte-garderie he's brought home a couple of colds, and I've gotten the worst of it. The first round occurred right before my mom's visit, a cold that, for me, dragged out into a sinus infection until my dad's visit.

This was also Finn's first real cold. He weathered it well, notwithstanding his brother's harassment. Since babies can't blow their noses, we use the standard hospital-issued aspirator--the bulb--preceded by a few drops of saline solution to clear out the nasal passages. Most babies hate this, with good reason since it sounds like you're sucking out their brains, and Finn is no exception. He squirmed, twisted, and contorted as soon as the drops hit his face. Once the bulb was inserted, he'd turn deep read and SCREAM.

This delighted Sam.

No matter what he was doing, if he heard the baby cry, Sam dropped everything and came running. He'd stick his face into Finn's (or at least, as close as we'd let him get) so that he could carefully examine the procedure. A mere glimpse of the bulb in the bathroom would prompt him to chant, "Bulb the baby! Bulb the baby! Bulb the baby!"

The next round of viruses hit at the end of my dad's visit. Pat and I came down with stomach bugs, though, again, I got the worst of it. Indeed, it wiped me out for a week. Pat had to miss a day of work to watch the boys for me, and I requested extra days at the h-g for Sam while I fumbled through the rest of the week.

That same week, Sam and Finn caught their second batch of Parisian rhinoviruses. Luckily for Finn, Sam had it worse, and so the bulb did not make an appearance.

The day I finally felt up to eating some real food, I came down with the cold and was again wiped out for a few days. We're all better now, but Pat is complaining of a sore throat...sigh. And so it goes.

We will soon be visitors, ourselves. This week we travel to Greece for ten days.

Ketchup

We've been in Paris for two months, which means we've been away for four and our year abroad is already a third over. Settling in has been completely different here compared to Singapore. We have little drive to do the typical sightseeing, having been there and done that, and thanks to French bureaucracy, we've been overwhelmed with logistics and appointments. It's been busy, to say the least; so let's catch up.

First, the hair-pulling logistics. As I previously wrote, we returned from our Thai vacation to learn that our apartment was no longer available. We spent every evening for ten days calling rental agencies, inquiring about apartments, and once we found something promising, jumping through all the hoops required to secure it (documents demonstrating we could afford the apartment; documents demonstrating how we would arrange the payments; documents justifying our existence in France and in the world in general; and then carefully reading, translating and negotiating three contracts). 

The human resources office at Institut Curie, the same office which had arranged the now unavailable apartment, assured us they would aid us in all logistics and cover all upfront payments such as deposits, agency fees, first month's rent, and so on. Friday night before our departure, the last business day, the rental agency still had not received any payment and threatened to not let us into the apartment upon our arrival 8am Monday morning. More frantic phone calls ensued, and even as we sit here tonight, not only is it unclear to us how the fees were paid (a placeholder check was issued, and then presumably a real check, with the sums eventually being deducted from Pat's paycheck), we are still parsing paperwork concerning exemption and reimbursement programs for these fees.

Our second day in Paris, we walked across the river (oh look, there's Notre Dame) for a 9am meeting to open a bank account. Everything in France requires a meeting, and sometimes a meeting to determine if a meeting is necessary.

Afterward, I took the boys up the street to the Luxembourg Gardens while Pat went to Curie to meet with HR. My stomach dropped when I saw his ashen face as he rushed to meet us, a half hour past the agreed time. It turns out, in order to secure our cartes de séjour (residency cards), we would need notarized translations of our birth certificates. But our birth certificates are in a safe deposit box in Boston to which only we have access, and our visas were scheduled to expire the end of March, before we could reasonably obtain our cartes de séjour. (Fortunately, I have good legal connections in my birth town--thanks, Dad, and Pat could order a copy of his online.)

The HR woman--the same woman who handled the original apartment arrangement--insisted she had informed us of all necessary documents. After scouring his email, Pat showed her the correspondence trail, to which she curtly replied, Oh, I guess I never did tell you; I hope this won't be too much of an inconvenience for you.

Oh, but that is not all, said the Cat in the Hat. Oh no, that is not all.

A week before our visas would expire, Pat received an email (4:30 on a Friday afternoon no less) that we would also need our marriage license officially translated and notarized and could we get it to HR by end-of-day Monday.

Throughout the month Pat had continued to ask if there were any other documents, anything else at all that we would need to do in order to secure our residency cards. The HR office had assured him that we had everything and in fact, the boys didn't need residency cards at all.

The same week as the marriage license revelation, they mentioned, oh by the way, if we intended to travel outside of France with the kids, the boys would need a short-stay travel visa, requiring another half a dozen documents, including the boys' birth certificates officially translated and notarized (at 50 euros per document), too. But, we can't apply for this visa until we've secured our cartes de séjour.

To compensate for her incompetence, the HR woman has served Pat with unparalleled acrimony, making a run-of-the-mill Parisienne's attitude seem sweet as daisies.

Pat now knows the préfecture, where one goes to file the application and obtain the documents, inside and out. We have a temporary récépissé that allows the French to save face when issuing the cartes de séjour to expired-visa holders and keeps us from being deported, and Pat has an additional document that allowed him to reenter the country after his recent trip to a conference in the U.S. (which, of course, HR woman told him he wouldn't need and then at the last minute said oh, yeah, you do).

While Pat danced the dossier tango, I spent the first few weeks researching programs for Sam. First I visited the mairie (town hall) of our arrondissement to find out what type of day care programs exist and what the differences are between them (crèche, crèche familiale, crèche associative, halte-garderie, and so on). 

I spent days calling down the list of programs the mairie had given me to find out which ones had space available, and then, of course, I had to attend the requisite meetings (four) to enroll Sam in one of the municipal halte-garderies. A halte-garderie is a part-time daycare program originally intended to aid stay-at-home parents. They are open four hours in the morning and again in the afternoon, closing for lunch in between. Because full-time daycare (crèche) spots are so difficult to obtain, more and more working parents use the halte-garderie. In fact, Sam's h-g only had afternoon slots, which has complicated his nap schedule somewhat.

No matter. Sam loves it. He goes three afternoons per week, and everyday he asks for more school. I have a folder full of drawings he's accumulated over the last four weeks, and he always comes home in a great mood. I don't know how much French he's able to understand yet. More, he is familiar with the routine, and he enjoys the activities. He used to get mad when I would try to say things in French to him ("No French!"), but he doesn't complain so much and he even repeats a few words. He knows, bon jour, au revoir, and vélo (bike--we bought him a tricycle when we first got here); he's recently started to say l'homme vert (green man) when the cross-walk light changes.

Sam will stay at the h-g until they close for summer vacation the end of July. In September, he is enrolled to begin l'école maternelle (preschool) in September. It is also municipal, and so completely free, unless he stays the full day and eats in the canteen, in which case we have to pay for lunch. (When I toured the school, the little round tables were set like a dining room, complete with baskets of sliced baguettes.) School is open four days per week, and he can come home at either 11:30 or at 4.

All of this seems wonderfully too good to be true, so here's the catch. He has to be potty-trained in order to enter school. No diapers allowed. The kid has absolutely no interest in his potty, and I don't believe in forcing the issue; when he's ready, he'll use it. When I raised this concern to the director of the school or discussed it with his teachers at the h-g, I got the same blasé response: "Oh, don't worry. When you go away for summer vacation (because everybody goes away, clearly), just let him run around without his diaper and he'll catch on." Easy for them to say. No one has answered the question if he's still in diapers, what do I do?

So, if you see a naked kid crapping on the beaches of the Mediterranean this summer, it might be Sam.

And after all the headaches, we are settled, much like anywhere else. We've spent most of our weekends exploring different parks. Playgrounds we must have once repeatedly passed by without ever noticing are now fixtures in our routine. Indeed, there are about half a dozen in walking distance, more than we have near us in Boston. 

The apartment fiasco has worked out in our favor. We have a much larger, more comfortable apartment in a neighborhood we prefer.  We can see the Centre Pompidou from our living room; there are many food stores and other shops nearby that make life on this side of the river more convenient. We're even testing out a few babysitters so we can enjoy all the restaurants.

The boys are doing great. As I mentioned, Sam loves "school" and the playgrounds. Finn is very chatty, he's getting close to crawling, and his first tooth finally just broke through (not that that's kept him from insisting on three solid meals a day).

My apologies for not updating the blog sooner. Shortly after getting our Internet set up (which took a good ten days), we happened upon a website that lets us watch our favorite American shows for free. So when I should be writing or uploading photos, in truth, I've been watching TV. 

He's a Heck of a Fellow

In case you missed the full-page ad on A11 in yesterday's New York Times, Pat has been named a Guggenheim Fellow.  This is a huge honor--they award less than 200 out of thousands of applications--and I couldn't be prouder of my very hard-working and clearly brilliant husband. We celebrated earlier this week with a decadent five-course dinner and a bottle of Pauilliac.

See the formal announcement here:

http://tiny.cc/Sgy7q

See the complete list of fellows here:

http://tiny.cc/7cctm

See the MIT press release here:

http://tiny.cc/iIEYl

Look What I Can Do, Mommy!

I was in the kitchen today preparing lunch, and I heard some grunts coming from the living room. Okay, I thought, better check diapers before we sit down to eat. 

A few minutes later I heard behind me: "Mommy." I turned around to see Sam completely naked, holding his shirt in his hand.

I rushed into the living room. His socks were on the floor, his pants and poopy diaper were on the couch. Finn was playing happily on the rug. (For better or worse, he thinks everything his big brother does is brilliant and hilarious.)

While I've heard this happens to most moms at some point, I've nonetheless decided to start drinking during the day.