Birthdays Far and Wide

A week ago Saturday we attended the usual September birthday bash for Estelle's old daycare pals, Marie, Carlo and Mila. Same place, same people, same kinds of cakes - just kids all one year older. We had a blast, and I got to see a pomegranate tree up close and personal. Very interesting!

Meanwhile, here's our great nanny Cathy holding Léna...
The cake table. Estelle is a year younger than all the rest of these kids. Which explains why she was teary eyed about not getting the first piece of chocolate cake!
Below: Marie, Mila & Carlo. The little pig-tailed girl and Spiderman are not kids we have met before but rather classmates of the other 3. Notice Estelle is just as tall as the other kids.
There were costumes for everyone to try on throughout the party. Below: Marie as a tiger enjoying an old slot-machine game that her late grandmother had brought back from a trip to Vegas. This thing was fascinating to the kids and REALLY ANNOYINGLY LOUD.
Everyone dances the techtonik. It had rained so at this point Estelle is wearing mudboots.
Back at the ranch, time to get busy with the Duplos.
And Léna, much to our delight, starts eating puréed vegetables. Eating = sleeping better = saving my sanity.
She loves the vegetables, but for the moment won't take any fruit compotes whatsoever. Hmmm....
Just a few days later, on Tuesday the 22nd, my beloved turned 32. What he thought was just an impromptu let's-go-out-for-a-burger was really a carefully orchestrated surprise by yours truly. About a dozen guys from the hockey team showed up. I managed to get a photo off my phone:
That's a VT Fish and Wildlife hat from my brother that I had jammed into my purse, along with tape, string, ballons and scissors so as to fashion an appropriate headdress once the surprise was out of the bag (or purse, as it were). I left around 9:00 to go home a relieve Oana, who is expecting herself a little girl in January.
Here's my cake that I was frantically frosting when Thomas arrived, so we just slapped the candles on before I finished and sang him Joyeuse Anniversaire just th same!
He had a fun night out with his buddies.

Meanwhile, backtrack to a few shots from our weekend near Avignon with my old boss Michael from DC. You've seen the amazing mansion before both last yr and the year prior, so I'll just include some shots of other/new stuff:
The pool has these 2 slides with water that runs down them. Estelle thought it was VERY fun. Thomas and I catapulted down the larger slide - that was wicked fun, as we say in VT.
Snacks in the poolhouse, set quite a ways away from the mansion. Below, a star is born:The other side of the poolhouse was like a nurser's paradise. Total privacy, beautiful billowing white all around, a view to the pool and the grounds, calming water running down the slides was like an automatic milk let-down reflex, and the maids bringing me fresh cold bottles of Evian. Don't worry I photoshopped this picture into a blur to eliminate anyone thinking they were seeing anything they shouldn't - even though you couldn't, but this way no one thinks they have to look away...ha ha!One fun thing we did was dinner out in Carpentras nearby. The restaurant owner has gotten to know Michael over the past few years, and we were treated to a 6 course all-truffle menu. These are "summer truffles" so are lighter than the heavier truffles to come later in autumn. 6 courses with mushrooms, essentially. Can you imagine? Topped off with truffle honey apple tart. It was WILD. Thank you Michael! Here's a view of our group (the other couples are Michael's friends who were also at the mansion).

One morning we walked around the village of St. Didier and visited its many fountains.

There is a well-known nougat producer in this village and I couldn't get there - next year!
Our first night the staff served us dinner out on the back terrace.
New addition: the tree house (below you see just one part of it), which has 2 long zip lines along the back line of the property for the daredevils amongst us, will soon have a water-wheel clock complete with water piped up through bamboo. This photo below is Michael up in the tree house turned the wheel/clock and trying to figure out how it will all work. He's actually quite far away and I'm using the zoom....
Here we are with Allan Wynn and his wife Susan. Allan is Michael's lawyer in DC for the past several decades and one of his best friends. I spent many many hours on the phone with him whilst working for Michael.
And here's me with Michael and Richard Becker, Michael's best friend and lawyer. Richard lives in Louisiana but he made regular trips up to DC and I spent more time taking care of these 2 guys back in the day than I care to remember- ha ha. I haven't seen Richard in 9 years. What a delight! I adore him.
We are laughing in that photo because Léna had a VERY smelly diaper and so there were a lot of jokes while Thomas was fiddling with the camera.
What a nice weekend, being taken care of all the time, but best of all to see old friends.

Off the Radar

I'd post photos of last weekend near Avignon if I had more than an ounce of energy, but seeing as I don't, I'll just show photos of WHY I don't have more than an ounce of energy:




Too bad my own hand-eye coordination is so poor right now, maybe I could match my daughter.
Below: a little video of my OTHER daughter, the one who sleeps at night. Here she is, enjoying her 4x4 jeep at our "Fantasy Island"-style weekend with Michael. It's a short, but you can imagine just how sweet it was for her.

Happy Birthday Wayne!

My very special nephew/Godson Wayne is 8 today! Here's a little message for him:


Meanwhile, Estelle has completed Day One and Two of "La Maternelle" = nursery school.
She went from 8:30-4:30 both yesterday and today. She seems totally fine and was happy and babbling when I picked her up each day, talked a blue streak, played independently upon arriving home, and didn't seem overtired.
Here's her getting ready to go Monday morning.
Thomas drops her off on his way to work. I should mention that tomorrow (Wednesday), she stays home. That's the way it works here. No school on Wednesday. A little break in the middle of the week. Hence many many women do not work on Wednesdays. Including MOI.
Today when she got home, Winnie the Pooh had to eat all his vegetables. I think I can imagine what's going on with her in the cafeteria ("la cantine") at school. Incidentally, children cannot bring their own lunch in France. Either you eat what they serve in the cantine or you go home for lunch. Verdict is still out for me on how I feel about this slightly "red" policy.

And my new thing is a Medela electric pump. My sister Mary always raved about hers, and since Léna is slowly starting to work up the time she'll be spending at Cathy's 3x/wk, I thought it might be good to move into the high-tech world and go electric instead of manual. Also, here in we-pay-for-everything-you-might-need France, it is FREE to rent one for as long as you need it. So, I thought, why not?
Result: BOO!!!!! Slow and noisy. Not any faster than my manual Avent one - in fact, slower, and takes up space and makes noise. The only advantage is you don't have to squeeze and unsqueeze but who cares. And the manual one is smaller and goes anywhere more easily.
Think it will be going BACK. So disappointed! Thought I was really going to strike gold.

First Day of School

But before we talk about school, I have yet another daughter who can eat her own toes. Look at the saliva all over the toes in the botton of the photo - proof of what this kid gets up to.


And here's an old photo of Estelle doing the same thing at 5 months and Léna is just 4 months. Hmm, sisters perhaps?Go away Paparazzi!Today at 8:45 a.m., walking along the tram way to school after leaving Léna with Cathy for the first time. VERY excited. Announced to several complete strangers on the street along the way the following: "Moi je vais à l'ècole" = I'm going to school (and) "Moi j'ai mon sac à dos" = I have my backpack on. This was repeated many many times. Old grannies found it adorable. Young professionals lit their cigarettes and smiled out of duty.
In front of the school.
In the "classroom". This is not her desk, she doesn't have one but just where she sat when she walked in momentarily.
It was, I guess, fine. Who really knows since we got the boot after 20 minutes and when we picked them up later all I got was "she was fine". No welcome, no introduction, no "I'm the teacher and my name is.......". no letter in the mail sent home telling parents what to expect, not a single thing with her name on it like a coat hook, nada. The only thing I got handed was a federal flyer about swine flu. Um, thanks. I knew school started today because I walked by the school and saw something stuck up in the display window outside the size of an index card that said "9-12, Friday." So I made all kinds of arrangements for someone to watch Lena at 12 so I could go get Estelle, only to be told at 9:30 this morning that I was to come at 11:30 and get her, pronto. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore. I'm trying to remain open-minded. Or.....something.
Meanwhile, Estelle enjoys reading music and perfecting her skills at amazing flexibility.

Eye-Opener!

In the midst of preparing for Estelle starting nursery school tomorrow, apartment-hunting, getting ready to have Léna go to the nanny's a bit, the Univ. calling me for the courses I'll be teaching, and many other stressors, we have some very nice news: Léna's eye has healed!

Anybody who has met Léna knows that she has had a blocked tear duct since birth, causing her to look like she has a bad infection and an oozing eye 24/7. All of the sudden on Tuesday, it stopped, just like the Doctor said it would. This means the duct opened up. Yeah!
Particularly pleased since everything I had read said if it's not open by 3 months it often stays closed until 10-12 months. So I had mentally signed on for the long haul. I was hesitant to believe it but now after 3 days we know it's over. It feels strange to not be incessantly cleaning her eye - it was such a habit!
Meanwhile, Estelle still wants to wear her "running" outfit every day. Thanks Lillian and Zutano! Léna is wearing BabyGap in these photos, courtesy of Skip and Dayne from SMC.


Yep, she's just that pudgy. And only on breastmilk!


Doesn't Estelle look like she can do no wrong in this last one....

The "Rentree" Tomorrow, plus Today & Yesterday

Tomorrow is the "Rentrée" in France, the ENTIRE country goes back to school tomorrow. Coming from a family of teachers where everybody is in a different district thus inservice and kids all starting on different days, etc, this is incredible to me that the whole ding dang country starts on the same day. Wild. Anyways, it is SO QUIET outside right now you could hear a pin drop. Except for the bar that opened in our building, but that's another matter.

This afternoon Estelle had a playdate with Ines - they haven't seen each other in two and a half months. So naturally they played "nap".
Monday was Thomas' last day off using up some comp time. He relaxed with the girls.
Estelle again playing "nap".
Monday afternoon we went to visit our friends/landlords Xavier and Valerie and their son, my student, Quentin. They gave us fresh zuchinni and tomatoes from their garden and here's what Thomas did with some of them tonight:
Xavier and Valerie's older son and my old student Thomas had just left to go back to his naval academy where he has just been accepted through a competition. His good grade in English is what made the difference and got him in - one of 25 students accepted in the country. I'm not kidding about the English making the difference either.
Anyways, enjoying a dip in their gorgeous pool on the grounds of their villa:
That is the Mediterranean you see in the distance - and our apartment is essentially in that little "dip" in the background.
Soaking the pasty legs.
Here's Quentin, fresh off 2 weeks in Paris touring the music scene (he's a rock-star-in-the-making), showing Estelle how to use a skateboard (with no wheels!).
Estelle thinks it is boring.
Okay, off to bed. With the rest of the country. (so weird).

Over My Morning Tea.....

.....this morning Estelle said:
"Mommy, can you help me do some magnificent paintings? (lots of stress on adjective)
Like a butterfly and a boat. A fish.
I want to do all that. Now."