Friends with Dhows

Estelle had a visit from her other little circle of friends with English-speaking mommies. Mai's mother is from Ghana but also lived many years in America, and Mael's parents are French but lived in the USA 2 years. Mael and his mother left yesterday to fly to Dubai and join his father, who is preparing to sail back a traditional antique dhow, which is some kind of boat. This is some big project they are doing, with major sponsors from all over. Kind of National Geographic-esqe. Yours truly will be doing some translation for their website.
More importantly, look at all the fun they had together!



Today Estelle decided to wear Thomas' clothes.

And here's a video of Estelle eating on Thanksgiving Day, thankful for her yogurt!

Videos Up and Running!

This video is from Friday afternoon, when Maxence and Estelle enjoyed each other's company all day long.
They are doing something slightly reminiscient of "Ring Around the Rosie". It's called "Dansons la Capucine".
The words are:
"Dansons la Capucine,
Il n'y pas du pain chez nous.
Il y en a chez la voisine,
Mais ce n'est pas pour nous.
Piou!"

This means:
"Let's dance the Capucine,
There's no bread at our house.
The neighbor lady has some.
But it's not for us!
Fall down!"
Of course we all agree Thomas is the funniest participant.

Maxence and Estelle Ride Again

Yesterday we got to spend the whole day - from 9 a.m. to midnight, with Maxence, visting from Paris. She talks and talks and talks and talks. Real words. I think she knows more French than I do. Amazing. And who is no longer wearing her cast!


There's a great video but have just read that, in fact, Blogger is having video upload problems. At least I know it's not me.
Thomas finished a one-year project in Monaco yesterday. Now he will go back to his company's headquarters before probably getting shipped off somewhere else to a different client.
In celebration, last night we opened a bottle of 1998 Dom Perignon, given to us as a gift by "uncles" Craig and Doug.
Dang, that's some champagne!

Voltaire

A quick update with a few photos to show what I'm doing when I'm not working....i.e. photographing Estelle in all her glory.
She has mastered (sort of) climbing in and out of her grandparent's (or great grandparent's?) Voltaire. This was very exciting to her, as you can see.




Next, Papa designed a new look for her, "Clothes Pin Boogie". This was befuddling to her.



A few quiet moments share with the Voltaire and Papa's weekly cultural and music magazine.


And lastly, last night she tried like the dickens to make a run for it with Thomas' hockey bag. Not happenning.

Just the Average

A few candid photos:
At Rest.

At play.

I have been trying to post a few short "documentaries" on Her Highness which never made it to general circulation. But having all sorts of trouble trying to post videos this morning - so the public will just have to wait!
I myself am drowning in translation work so may not get this rectified soon.
Thanks everyone for the book ideas!!!!!!!!!

Read Any Good Books Lately?

Probably I am the last person on the face of the earth to have read Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner". I guess that's what happens when you a) have a baby combined with b) living in a foreign country.
Anyways, I just read it this wkend in less than 48 hours with interruptions for my daughter, my husband, my in-laws, my students, eating and sleeping (though not much of that).
So it got me thinking how to use my blog for my own benefit..... if you are reading this, then I ask you to post a comment (you can remain anonymous, use your name, use some code name, just pick your poison) telling me a great book you think I should read that you've read relatively recently.
I'm going on vacation in a few weeks and I want some good books with me, but for me to get a hold of them in English, I'll need to start looking now.
So please, readers, take a minute, even if you have NEVER commented on my blog before, and give me a lead on a good book! You might even get some titles for yourself from others.
How about title, author, genre or fiction or non, and one thing or sentence about what made an impression on you or why you are recommending it.
I accept all kinds of books - they do NOT all have to be in the "heavy emotional memoir" category like the Kite Runner!
Thanks for playing!

The Signing Baby

Helen Keller ain't got nothin' on my girl.
I was not a believer when I started teaching Estelle sign language for babies at 8 months, as she just stared blankly at me. But after a many many weeks, she starting mimicking the signs for "milk" and "eat" and "more". I felt some encouragement.
Now, at 15 1/2 months, the girl can produce at least 20 different signs, and recognizes and understands many more. She's a signin' fool. The other day whilst changing her diaper Estelle was staring off at the door to her room which was exceptionally closed to keep out the noise of Thomas and his parents. Her door is usually only closed at night, and it is dark of course. All of the sudden she started signing for "rabbit", and I thought "what the heck is she doing, there's no rabbit over there, just the blank wall near the entrance to her room". I glanced over and had to let out a gasp, as there, on the back of her door, was a cut-out of a rabbit I had put there just after her birth, totally having forgotten it as her door is never shut while we are in her room in the daytime. She smiled at me and kept signing away for rabbit.
"GENIUS!" I cried out to no one in particular.
Here is a little video of her signing on command, which is also amazing because she knows what it means when I say "What's the sign for...." Unfortunately for you viewers they may all look a little jumbled or the same on this video, but in fact they are quite distinct and clear for the most part! If I can't make a living teaching or translating, Thomas and I are going to take Estelle on the road and get people to pay a euro (that's like 400 US dollars right about now) to watch her sign on command.
Of course just after I stopped shooting this video, she starting hollering "Au Revoir!" at the camera. Too funny.

All Saint's Day

Thursday was November 1st and thus "Toussaint", the French All Saint's Day holiday. Halloween is of course linked to Toussaint (but not many people in America know about that). At any rate, here in France, everything is closed, and most of the country was happy to "faire le pont" (make the bridge) for the long weekend by taking Friday off too.
We have been happy to have Thomas' parents with us since Wednesday afternoon, here to visit and to take care of Estelle & send us away for an overnight with friends and a day-long spa treatment on Friday.
Friday morning, with lists left everywhere for my mother-in-law, and one last long hug for Estelle whom I have never been seperated from overnight, off we went at 9 am with our overnight bag packed.
Oh, but the cruel joker somewhere who wants to constantly deprive my husband and I of anything resembling a romantic getaway (reference the honeymoon that never hapenned due to chikunguyna in the Indian Ocean - most everyone in my life knows that tragic tale, or The 4-day trip to Corsic cancelled, etc) struck again. We never left our street that day until 6:30 pm that night. Car trouble, turned out to just be a dead battery, and, of course, the day after Toussaint on a "faire le pont" weekend, try finding a garage that is open. Finally Thomas got a battery and all was well, the the spa-day was a bust, but thankfully as it was already paid for we get a credit for another time.
And that night we still went and stayed at our "other" home here, chez Craig and Doug's villa. Where we drank champagne, I played piano on the baby grand by the fireplace for an hour, and we slept without keeping an eye on a monitor. Saturday morning I read a book for an hour over my tea, and Thomas and I spent the day together, alone, tooling around the shops. We felt like we had used a Get Out of Jail Free Card. And yet we were home by 5 pm, patiently waiting to see our daughter again, after being gone only 24 hours.
How will we ever go to Marakesh for a week? Heavens.
Moving on, today we had a play date with Elliott, our half-Dutch half-French friend who knows sign language like Estelle does.
Here are some photos from the park this morning with Elliott, followed by a video of Estelle learning to use a spoon tonight at dinner!