The Difference Between...

So, here's something that only happens when you live in a foreign country:

Monday I had a lesson with a highschool senior. This happens in my apt while Estelle (theoretically) is taking a nap.

Having just returned after being away for 3 weeks, the cupboards are bare as you might imagine. Not much to eat and nothing interesting to drink either: No bottled water, no perrier, no juice. I was sick of drinking water so decided to spice things up by taking a lesson from Thomas' cousins whom I had met whilst on vacation. The French love something called "sirop" - you got it: syrup. This product comes in all flavors imaginable. It is packaged in tin canisters or sometimes glass bottles and you pour some into the bottom of a glass and then add water - eureka, instant sugar drink. It's basically the new Koolaid of the 21st century. Just in liquid form. Of course you can make it as sweet or as diluted as you want.

I personally have never been tempted by the stuff, but I had a lack-of-sugar headache and thought I'd better get some energy for my lesson. I knew that we had a bottle of some "sirop" stuff that Thomas had bought once. The flavor was "cassis", which means "currant". So into the glass I poured a inch or more and added ice and water and frankly was quite proud of myself and was feeling TRES french.

The doorbell rings, in walks my student Sophie, and we sit down for our weekly attack of the English language. About 5 minutes later I felt this strange warm sensation, vaguely familiar but relatively unidentifiable. After a few more minutes I realized that feeling I couldn't at first put my finger on was that I felt drunk! I stared at my glass, excused myself into the kitchen under the pretense of getting a kleenex and pulled out that bottle - upon closer inspection of the label, I saw "15%".

Note to self: Creme de Cassis and Sirop de Cassis are not the same thing. One would think that my days of bartending from 11 years ago would have registered, but at a quick glance when you are preparing to squeeze in a lesson and your infant is sleeping and there's nothing in the house, you don't expect that you are making yourself a cocktail at 11:30 am. Bottoms up!

Rap Star

This is what happens when Thomas teaches Estelle how to move like a rapper.


I am including a photo of myself changing a diaper. Proof that I actually do it. About 9 times a day.

A few more photos

A funny moment, about one kilo ago.... p.s. Estelle's not the only one who has put on weight.
The view of Calvinet from our house.
From the field's of the cousin's farm.... the corn is probably as high as an elephant's eye....

Photos from Vacation

Happy Birthday to Thomas! A visit from childhood hockey buddy Francois and his wife Aurelie. We are eating a "tarte tatin" made by yours truly from apples picked from the trees on Thomas' parents' land. Tarte Tatin is like upside down apple pie. I had never made one before and just did it "au pif" (totally on a whim with no idea what you are doing). Everyone said it was good. Birthday Boy said "not enough sugar". p.s. have you seen his teeth? Stay away from the sugar, I say.....
Her highness and the typical reaction to the hat being put on for our daily walks and outings. Less than thrilled.

Outside our crashpad in Calvinet. Estelle is in the carrying scarf that we got as a gift from TaTa (this means "auntie" in French) Yvette, from whom Estelle has her middle name.

Did you know that this is what walnuts look like in their original form? They grow on trees, and walnut oil is made from these thick green pods that the nut grows inside of.

This is me and Thomas' cousin's husband Bruno and his daughter Lalie on their farm near Calvinet. Beautiful. Hundreds of acres. Stunning, absolutely stunning views. How Vermont used to be before Walmart and civil unions made it so darn trendy.

Vacation, All I ever wanted!

The GoGo's had it right: sometimes you just need a vacation!

Reporting from Angers, France: our little family spent 2 weeks in Calvinet, population 450 and native town to Thomas' parents. Sunday Thomas trekked back to Nice to start his new job. Calvinet is in the middle of the Cantal, in the Auvergne - where blue cheese comes from, and naturally, Cantal cheese, for those gourmet cheese lovers in the states). Also on Sunday, Estelle and I came here to Angers in the Loire valley with Guy and Andrée to their home.

2 lovely weeks of Indian Summer in the land of agriculture did us all some good. Estelle put on a few pounds and quickly became the "etoile" of Calvinet. We picked apples and pears, as well as chestnuts! We celebrated Thomas' 29th birthday and revisited our childhood with nightly matches of MasterMind and Milles Bornes (that game makes so much more SENSE once you live in France).
This week, myself and the baby are touring the social circuit of Angers and drinking more tea and eating more petit fours while accepting yet MORE gifts for Mademoiselle Estelle.

If I can figure out my father-in-law's computer, I'll post photos. Hard to believe I'll be back in Nice on Sunday. Next stop after that - Vermont: for those interested, Estelle and I get on a plane for Montreal on Oct 27th - Dec 2nd.

Ch-CH-CH-Ch-CH-CH-CHANGES

When I lived in Vermont, I was a student actress.
When I lived in New York, I worked on Broadway in a big hotel.
When I lived in Washington, I assisted a CEO with, well, a lot of stuff in his life.
Since I've lived on the French Riviera, I taught students how to communicate in English.
Now, this is what I do all day. These photos were taken within a 45-second span.

For Cryin' Out Loud

Let's just say I'm almost too ticked off to even write an entry on this blog at the moment.
The gist involves getting Estelle registered for dual-citizenship and getting her an American Passport, and the FRENCH people who work at the American Consulate of Nice (what? huh? shouldn't they be American? Shouldn't we be speaking in ENGLISH when you call, not French?) NOT calling me as they SAID they would to cancel my appt. that has been scheduled for a MONTH, thus involving many machinations on my part, Thomas' part, and Estelle's part (I had already adjusted her nap schedule to accommodate what was to be this afternoon's big appearance of our family at the Consulat).
Well, as I said, I'm too ticked off to go into the details, but after having called to confirm the time, I found out, there is, in fact, no time. See you in a month, they said.
So glad we jumped over backwards to figure out a plan to get Thomas back here to Nice for this appt and the car and the blah blah blah blah blah.
I screamed, in French, got another appt (in one month) and the assurance that I will have her passport for when I need it.
Good to see the efficiency of the Consulat is exactly where it was 18 months ago when I was trying to get married over here.
Sigh.

Like Father, Like ?

So, it's official. Estelle looks like Thomas.
This, according to: the mailman (my new friend - see previous post Care Packages),
the midwife,
the pediatrician (never seen Thomas but says she looks nothing like me, thus....),
my family (from digital photos),
our neighbor who looks himself like Barry Manilow,
all my friends here,
my obstetrician, and, for that matter,
everyone else.

The obstetrician said to me today "Look at it this way, no one can accuse you of cheating with the mailman!" he chuckled away. I fake-smiled him.

Really I could care less, I mean, Thomas is a pretty-boy, so that's F-I-N-E. But I'd like a better defense that what I've come up with so far, which is "yeah, she's got my feet". Pathetic.

Happiness Is....

...realising you can wrap your fingers around a rattle and swing it around to hit yourself in the face.

Malcolm X Rides Again

This is what happens when you try and do a photo shoot with a 7 week old.

In fact, I got some lovely shots for this bday message, but this one makes me burst out laughing every time I see it. Such consternation! Such defiance!

At any rate, Happy 5th birthday to my sweet, inquisitive, blue-eyed, darling nephew born days before the tragedy of 911, center of a shrine on my fridge, and the only 5 year old I know who can operate a power drill with finesse.

Happy Birthday Little Wayne!!!

"One of these days, Alice!"

Contrary to how it looks, my daughter is not pulling back to lay one on me in this photo.

She does, however, have this eerie Jackie Gleason quality about her - ready to pack a punch to the moon.

There's No Place Like Home

This bride and groom live in the area where my mother lives now. I don't know them, but the photo was in the northern Vermont newspaper.

You just don't get these kinds of weddings over here in France.
Who needs caviar and French champagne at your wedding? You gotta respect that tractor.
My cousin Monique's wedding is today in Glover, VT, hometown of my parents, & adopted hometown of yours truly. My entire French Canadian extended family will be there. Of the living 11 siblings (of a total of 16) in my mom's family, 9 will be there. And their kids. And their kids' kids. And their kids. Head count is hitting 300.
This wedding will take place in the fields of the old farm of my "pépé et mémère", our grandparents who are long gone, and who Monique is too young to have ever even met. Very few of the 70+ first generation grandchildren met our grandmother, a woman who carried 19 pregnancies to term. I don't think my cousin is planning on arriving on a tractor, but there may be haywagons involved to get people here and there.
The irony that I am the only descendant of that family to be back on the turf from which we all descended, speaking the language that was spoken in that farmhouse, does not escape me; moreover that my presence here prevents me from being there with them all to celebrate.

My kingdom for ruby slippers.

Thumbelina

Estelle has, apparently, discovered that her thumb doesn't fall out like a pacificer.
Let's hope this becomes a trend. Until, of course, it screws up her teeth.
You just can't win with this kid thing.

Care Packages

"Old friends, old friends
Sat on the parkbench like bookends"

If you take this old Simon & Garfunkel song, and consider the Atlantic Ocean to be a parkbench, then you can stretch it to a simile to include my life.

For about 3 weeks now, almost every day the buzzer in my apt blasts out it's morning bugle tune around 8:45 to wake me up, if I'm not already awake with Estelle. The force of the buzz is so intense that the receiver of the interphone catapults right off it's base that's bolted onto the wall, and then it hits the floor with a smack, before bouncing up and down on the end of it's cord, like a daredevil bungee jumper. I scramble from wherever I am in the apt to grab the bouncy receiver before it's too late and I miss him.....

"FACTEUR!!!!!!" hollers the voice on the other end over the sounds of street noise and scooters roaring. I try to sound French, and composed, and awake, and I say "OUI. D'accord. Quatrième à gauche." (this means, 4th floor on the left). I push the little button to let him in. After the birth of Estelle, me and our Facteur (the mailman), are almost, I could say, pals. He's seen me open that door in all sorts of dishevelment, barefoot, maternity pyjamas askew, covered in spit up, discreetly, or not so, breastfeeding Estelle...

Today when I said "Oui", he cut me off and said "I know, fourth floor on the left, I'll be right up." This constitutes some kind of milestone for me in my French experience; I have crossed some kind of threshold with the mailman. What, I don't know, but it's been crossed.

Today's box from America had handwriting so familiar to me that I knew it the second I saw it. It reminded me of notes passed in Algebra I and Latin 3 and proud titles on freshly printed photographs from the highschool darkroom. I sighed from the guilt for the phone call I keep saying I will make if I ever have time, or the email I will write when she is napping. I sat down with my tea and kept jiggling Estelle's seat while coincidentally listening to George Winston. 20 years ago my friend Jane and I were on our way to a George Winston concert when I, at the experienced driving age of 16 and 3 months, drove us off the road into a ditch. We were fine, the car wasn't, but we missed that concert.

Now, here is a care package from Jane, this same friend of mine, so old that I have to stop and think to myself how long we have known each other. Lots of people have old childhood friends. I however have 10 siblings, and 23 nieces and nephews, thus reducing somewhat I think my ability to stay in touch with friends as much as I would like. It doesn't matter, because some friends are just there, no matter how often or not you stay in touch. This box was full of such thoughtfulness, of little things so tailored to me, to who I am, who I was 20 years ago, likes and dislikes that only an old friend can truly know. It made me think of an email I got from Jane during the worst of it with Estelle at the beginning which said "When I had my first baby, I wanted to put her on the produce scales in the grocery stores because I was so obsessed with how much weight she was gaining." Even though at the time I was borderline delirious with hormone imbalances and exhaustion, I remember devouring that email, just knowing that someone who has 3 kids and makes it look so easy had the same experience as me.

Thomas brought me a printout of one of my emails on Day 2 at the hospital. "It's from May Tay", he said as he handed it to me. It was, in fact, from my other friend from adolescence, Mette, ("meh tah") who at age 12 went off to "writing camp" with me and we penned our lives and dreams at some camp by an Indian reservation or something. She was a good writer back then, I remember, and now the printed email served me well upon my release from the hospital. She talked about long days of nursing and cooing and other such stuff. She closed with "Anyway, sending you much love and joy on this new journey of losing yourself into the mysterious phenomenon they call MOTHERHOOD."

True that is a new journey, but truer to think fondly of those who have been on the bigger journey with you for a long, long time.

Size to Scale

6 weeks later, it is still hard to believe that I had such a small baby. Today Estelle saw her real pediatrician for the first time. Due to all the hullabaloo with the heat wave and her weight problems, I figured she'd seen enough doctors that we weren't going to worry about her first "check-up" until now. So today was the "official" first appt. She's gained 260 grammes in a week - a little over 9 ounces. She's just reaching 8 pounds total. Still less than I was at birth, and she's 6 weeks old!
If you look at my hand next to her head and torso, you get the idea.
The Doctor, and the nurse, and everyone in the waiting said the same thing "Look at those feet!" "My, what long legs!" "What a little shrimp!" "What a cute little cabbage end!" "Oh, such a nice little flea!"
What's with the nicknames for little babies that conjure up disgusting or less than pleasant images? I don't want to think of my offspring as a crustacean. First of all, I'm allergic. And cabbage makes you pass gas, and fleas, well, who the hell has anything positive to say about fleas? Come on. How about "peanut", or "pumpkin"? You know, things you associate with desserts, rather than itching, antennae, or breaking wind.
Just one more thing to file in my "cultural differences" category....

Close to Home

Imagine my shock when, while lying in bed at 7:30 this morning, propped up with pillows and feeding Estelle, I saw yet another school shooting in America reported on French national TV. I sighed and thought how the worst of America gets reported over here. But I was not prepared when they said where: " a small state called Vermont." An elementary school. I thought I had heard wrong - early morning and my French listening skills playing tricks on me. But I scrutinized the TV screen and there were the distinctive green license plates.
We got up and immediately went on-line. Essex, 10 minutes from where I was born and raised in Jericho. And the twin to the other elementary school in Essex town, where my sister Mary is a 2nd grade teacher.
What else can you say but sad, sad, sad. Thankful no children were hurt, but sad sad sad. I can gripe a lot about France, but you can't just buy guns here like you unfortunately can at home, and I'm sure it makes a difference. Certainly makes a difference to that 56 year old teacher's family.

Bugle Bulbous?

She's a sneaky one. p.s. if anyone ELSE tells me that's my ski jump nose, I'm gonna have to start taking issue. However, it did lead to learning how to say "ski jump nose" in French. It is not, as I embarrassingly discovered, a direct translation of "ski jump nose": It went something like this:

Acquaintance: "That's your nose!" (said in French)
Julie: "Ya think?" (inward roll of the eyes to be told that once again)
Acquaintance: "Of course, look at that"
Julie: "Yes, I suppose it is a bit a nose of the jump of the ski" (the French version I flung out there, for those interested parties, was "nez de saute des skis alpines")
Acquaintance: "What the hell did you just say?"
Julie: (inward cringe) "nothing...."
Acquaintance: "Yep, you've got a trumpet, all right!"

Lesson of the Day: "ski jump nose" in French = "trumpet nose". Needless to say, this is going over a bit lukewarm for moi.

300 grammes, 5 weeks

Today my daughter is 5 weeks old. Wow, to think that 5 weeks ago I was cracking jokes with my husband, watching the Tour de France, oblivious to what awaited us...
Yesterday, Estelle hit the scales with an amazing weight gain of 300 grammes. Means nothing to me until I get home and do the conversion - 10 ounces. This is great news and reason to celebrate!
She now is at 7 1/2 pounds. Still almost a pound less than I was, at birth.
Aside from the fact that she pooped all over me and Thomas yesterday, and in the night peed on me and I had to change her clothes twice at 4 am, we adore her. Phew!

Nap Time

How could I ever doubt the power of the nap? If my daughter deserves one, so do I! I've never been a napper. Many men in my past (and for that matter, my present - read, my husband) have been nappers. They would twist my arm to nap. But, when you're a bonified Type A, anal retentive borderline OCD, you don't nap. You just can't turn off the switches long enough. Criminy, it's hard enough for me to sleep at night, much less during the day. I need white noise, eye masks, ear plugs, many pillows, absolute quiet, no music, no birds, no one breathing anywhere on me, and definitely no skin touching.
My friend Roberto is the only person I know under the age of 40 who is worse off than me but not (officially) medicated - i.e. Tylenol PM doesn't count as "medication". He's like the Rainbow JohnBoy Walton of our century, so no surprise that as a gifted writer he can't sleep. I've got another amazing writer friend who also suffers like us, but he's got access to the meds, so he doesn't count either. Then there's me - sometimes I realize I have to make lists before I sleep, so in the night when I wake up (notice the "when" and not the "if"), I can perhaps fall back into slumber knowing I have my list awaiting me in the morning and that I won't forget anything. In short, napping was always out of the question unless there was exhaustion involved, or jetlag.
Enter motherhood. In the first month of my daughter's life, I experienced a reversion to my youth. The ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere, immediately, even just for 5 minutes. Ah, sleep. The bliss of the ignorant. So this is what everyone is raving about, I thought.
When I was pregnant, I drank fresh milk every night out of a chilled martini glass, in an effort to treat myself to something special, and still pretend nothing was different. Now, post pregnancy, when Estelle naps in the afternoon, so do I. It's not about treating myself, it's about survival. And sanity. Don't get me wrong, I still need the white noise, mask, earplugs, and it doesn't hurt to have a pencil and paper handy, but I can slide right into that dreamland as quickly as anybody now. The only downside is that I now have this freakish 6th sense, even with the earplugs, to sit right up if I hear even the slightest squawk from my daughter who is one foot away. Unlike my husband, who needs to be hit with a pillow even if she is screaming (which she never is anymore).
Point being, now when I sing "Frère Jacques", the answer to "Dormez-vous?" is "Moi aussi."

All Kinds of Weather

Who recognizes this song from the old Bing Crosby film "White Christmas"? Rosemary Clooney sang it.

"Sisters, sisters
there were never such devoted sisters.
Never had to have a chaperone, no sir
I'm here to keep my eye on her!"

"Caring, sharing
every little thing that we are wearing
when a certain gentleman arrives from Rome
she wore the dress and I stayed home!"

"All kinds of weather
we stick together
the same in the rain or sun
two different faces
but in tight places
we think and we act as one... uh-huh!"

Apparently in 1976, at the bi-centennial celebration of America's independence, there was a talent show in a nearby town to where I grew up in Jericho, Vermont. It was a big event. My 5 sisters and I (I had just turned 6 years old) performed this song up on the stage. I have an ever-so-slight memory of that night. We all wore big straw hats with different colored grograin ribbons. I remember nothing else, except my father had a microphone in his hand - perhaps he was the MC of the whole event.

Last week one of my sisters, Lisa spent a lot of time and money to fly to France from America. For 7 days she bought groceries, cooked meals, made me lunch, did laundry, mopped floors, vacuumed, cleaned my bathroom, took out my trash, organized baby clothes, ordered me to take a nap each and every afternoon, took me out to dinner, made me tea, took me out for walks on the port, bought my favorite cereal, put together a fruit salad with blueberries and cherries and raspberries, and, last but not least, took care of Estelle with me round the clock. She calmed me down, showed me that my daughter can smile, She showed me tricks how to make my daughter fall asleep, how not to lose my mind in the middle of the night, and how to fall in love with my child. If my mother was younger, it's what she would have done for me, but my mom isn't young, and my sister just stepped up to the plate and came across the ocean and saved my life. And her husband tagged along and ran errands, took photos, cut up vegetables, was a great companion and made us laugh.

Today they went back, and I had my first day alone with Estelle since she was born a month ago. My apartment is full of baby, but empty of sister