Normandy weekend

We drove North Friday afternoon with the intention of stopping in Le Havre at a public pool that Jean built last year.  We arrived eagerly, bathing suits in hand, only to find that it was closed for four days for cleaning.  After driving for 2 1/2 hours with this as our only plan, we were seriously let down.  Bertram ended up getting us all a tour, they wouldn’t let us swim but at least we got to see the building.

We drove on to Fécamp for dinner and then to Yport the next morning for some beach time.  Click here to see my pictures from the weekend…

Rough patch

It has been a rough few weeks.  The adjustment to preschool has shaken every area of our daily routine and things are just now beginning to fall back into place.  Probably from the dozens of runny noses at school, both boys picked up something fierce.  Lucas had a full blown flu with temperatures reaching 106° and Bertram took him to the ER very early last Saturday morning.  It was thankfully a much calmer (and quicker) experience than our last trip to the ER in NYC.  He was gone and back in an hour, it was free, and he didn’t have to wait for a single second to be treated.  Eliot maintained a constant cold throughout but luckily never got whatever Lucas had.  Through it all, I didn’t leave the apartment in four full days.

Aside from the sickness, the adjustment to preschool has turned naps and nighttime into a battleground.  At first it threw me off, I didn’t expect it, I thought maybe they were beginning to be ready to drop their nap altogether, and I also didn’t know how to handle the opposition, maybe they weren’t really tired?  What I have realized over the past week and a half is that they are afraid of separation and that doesn’t stop at preschool, they are also afraid of the moments we separate within the house.  Preschool just brought that out.  Whatever the reason though, I was really beginning to lack patience.  There was so much whining and fatigue here that I was really dragging myself through the days, half able to think clearly.  It has been nearly a month and not a good one and I have loads of patience but I saw it finally wear thin enough not to recognize myself.

And then I broke my pinky toe.  Running for the phone, I slammed it full force into the door frame and went straight down in total agony.  I agonized and cried and eventually hoped that it just hurt more than was really injured because what was I going to do if I couldn’t walk?  I tried to minimize it and walk on it and pretend that it wasn’t the size of my big toe and turning purple, but it was.  I explained it to the boys once I had calmed down a bit, “mommy probably just broke her toe, that’s why she was rolling around on the floor yelping… so please let’s just have a nice quiet afternoon with as few demands as you can muster.”  ”Mama, toe broke.  Mama, mo doot (juice).  Mama cook.  Mama moomies (movies), mama sam (sam means “I want to watch the wiggles”) mama mo cookie….  So many demands flow from their small vocabularies in one day.

The x-ray did in fact show that the toe was broken and the doctor said it would be about 15 days of pain and limping.  lovely.  Thankfully, I think it is actually starting to feel a bit better a little earlier than predicted.  I even wore a shoe today, but I am so tired of limping.

Upon realizing what was going on in the minds of the little boys, I have been able to react to them more appropriately and with more found patience than before.  Things are settling down now and although Eliot still wakes up every night and wants to get into my bed (and wake me up at 5:30am to read stories and make breakfast) I can now respond to him in a way that is productive instead of frustrated.

I never knew that preschool would open up such a can of worms, and for so long.  I expected something, I don’t really know what, but not total chaos.  Last week I would have said that it wasn’t worth it, that I’d have preferred not doing any of this.  But this week, today, I can see things taking shape again and I can see how wonderful it is for them to have the separation from me, and I already knew how wonderful it would be for me.  I came to pick them up from school this morning and they were playing so well and were so engaged and when they saw me they were happy and not desperate at all.  And then they took their nap.

He disappeared for a moment and then…

Ferme Gally de Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole

It was everything we were all dreaming of…

We cleaned and rearranged the house this weekend trying to make it more inviting for the arrival of cold weather.  It is so pleasant now.  There were things that were driving us nuts around every corner.  All the lightbulbs in the house had gradually burned out and since each bulb has a different thread, it has been too overwhelming a job to conquer.  I think we were so tired of living in the dark once the sun set that we finally did it, but it had been weeks.  That started an avalanche of home improvements and we succumbed to buying a vacuum cleaner too.  I don’t know how I thought we’d go on living here for a year without vacuuming the rugs, but it made me so mad to think about spending another few hundred euros on yet another vacuum cleaner.  Moving around countries makes you spend way too much on large appliances and electronics (because of the electrical incompatibilities) and I am so tired of throwing money into those things again and again.  Anyway, the rugs are finally clean and I’d buy the vacuum all over again just to feel the peace it has brought with it.

I took the babies’ table and put it in the livingroom in front of the window and bought them some new art supplies for their birthday.  They have been really happy with it and have been making lots of colorful scribbles.  Eliot especially loves the markers and he has been decorating himself daily.  I thought that it would be a nice bright space for them to sit in the winter.

This morning I went to the Bastille farmers market and bought flowers to christen the winter cleaning job.  It is now finally livable here again.  This afternoon I think we’re going to take the car and drive right outside of the city, a little past Versailles to a farm where you can pick apples, play in the gardens, and see animals.  Maybe it will feel like going back to Iowa, I hope so because I’ve been nostalgic for the midwest lately.  It must be the time of year.

Coming back

The second day they didn’t realize we had left the room until 5 minutes before we came back, which was 10 minutes after we had left.  It was 5 minutes of terror and it took the mystery out of the word ’school’.  Yesterday we left them for 30 minutes and Eliot recovered about half way through but Lucas never did.  When we came back he was lying limp and sobbing in the arms of one of the women, face swollen and red from 30 minutes of crying, exhausted.  So, I spent much of yesterday talking about school and mommies leaving and coming back.  I set up a little show about some dolls going to school with their mommy and how the mommy left and the dolls played with some toys, and then the mommy came back!  There was lots of emphasis on mommy coming back yesterday.  We also watched an Elmo movie about school several times and this morning again as I was getting ready.  They were good this morning, I tried to keep it all light and joyful and talk about Elmo’s mommy coming back.  When we got to school, I got them playing in the pretend kitchen feeding the plastic baby various plastic foods (Eliot made her a cheese hat) and then I said goodbye, mommy will be back.  Eliot didn’t agree but he stopped crying right after I left the room and Lucas stopped after about 10 minutes.  When I came back, I peeked in the door first and saw them playing quietly and contentedly on their own, they were happy.  There is progress.

Bertram suddenly flew to Abu Dhabi last night to meet some clients for a competition he is going to do in the next few weeks.  It was quick, he called me and said, “Um, weird news, I have to go to Abu Dhabi (and embarrassingly, I thought, Where is that?) tonight at 9.”  He’ll be back Friday morning to spend a big boy birthday weekend with us.

The boys turn 2 tomorrow!!  wow!  I can’t say “it flew by,” and” I can’t believe they’re already 2″ but my little babies are growing up… and honestly, that is fine.  they are magic and I have been with them every minute of it and I haven’t missed a thing.  I’ve been more Mom than I knew was in me to be and they are more fun now than was imaginable last year.  I love my time with them and I have lots of it.

First day of pre-school

Over the next two weeks the boys will gradually integrate into their new pre-school class.  This morning Bertram and I stayed there with them for about 30 minutes as we talked with the teachers and then left all together.  Tomorrow I’ll leave them there for 15 minutes, the next day 30 until we slowly reach the full 3 hours.   It’s a nice system and I think it will ease their transistion, especially since everything will be happening in French and they’re pretty new to the language.  Honestly though, it’s not very stressful for a two year old to adapt to another language.  They are much more concerned about my whereabouts, and the way environments make them feel.  They loved it there this morning, it is a bright, clean open space with caring women around and an array of new and interesting toys.   It is really a beautiful environment for them and they will be very happy there this year.

Cologne

We decided last minute to take the train to Cologne to visit Bertram’s parents for an extended weekend.  On the train ride there, Bertram had something come up on one of his projects that needed immediate attention so he ended up returning to Paris and the boys and I stayed with Isa.  We had a relaxing time, played in the Rhine, went to the Zoo, took a boat ride up the river, and saw Bertram’s sister and her daugther Louisa (whom Lucas fell madly in love with at first sight).   When Bertram returned, we spent another day together there and then came back to Paris.

Paris is alive again, everyone has returned from their vacations, the kids are buzzing in and out of school and all the shops have opened up.  August is a strange time in Paris, you find a sleepy, empty, quiet city.  I love it in September, it is the best month; the weather is cool and beautiful.

Crete

We arrived exhausted.  We had left our apartment that morning at 7:30am and after two flights and an endless 3 1/2 hour drive, we were dragging ourselves into our hotel room at 10pm.  We had rented a car at the airport in Chania and thought it would be about an hour to the beach where we were staying and meeting our friends.   We got a little lost, it was dark, everything was in Greek and for one of our important turns, there was no sign.  The last half hour of the drive was the worst; I was drenched with fear and anxiety driving on the sides of open and unfamiliar one-lane cliffs, nothing but the sea glimmering in the moonlight ahead and the babies in the back.  I kept praying, and sweating, and we eventually made it.  The babies were amazing, they were excellent all day through so many changes.

Everything improved from then on.  We had a pretty solid routine of waking and playing in the sand in the morning light, breakfast then a  nap for three to four hours in heat of the day, then a long lunch with friends and when the sun was calmer, around 6, we played on the beach until dinner at some nearby seaside taverna.  Bedtime for all at around 9:30.  We got so much needed rest being on the babies schedule.  I finally finished an entire book: Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison.  It was a great book,  I couldn’t wait for the next day’s nap time to continue reading it.  We took a few trips to Spili, the nearest town for some milk and snacks but realized that with the roads twisting and turning up and down mountains Lucas’ stomach turned upside down.  It was no fun for him.  We spent most of the first ten days resting and exploring the nearby coast.  It took the babies a lot of time to get used to the beach.  At first they were fascinated, then the water rushed in and softly knocked them down.  That was it, they were done.  For days they kept close to us and after a few minutes on the beach, they started saying “go!”  They wanted to leave and not be near the water.  We let them take their time and slowly but surely they fell in love with it all and started saying “go beach!.”  The last day of the trip, they finally went all the way in and “swam” with daddy.  They learned so much on this trip, their vocabularies exploded and they are speaking new words everyday now.

When we left the beach, we drove to Heraklion, which is Iraklio on the map and looks nothing like either of those in Greek.  Almost always, the names on the map were different than those on the highway signs, both unpronounceable.  I got really good at navigating and even reading Greek to keep us on track.  I wanted to see Knossos and I figured we had come so far, what was one day in Iraklio?  It was worth it, Knossos was amazing, I have always been fascinated with Minoan civilization and it was inspiring to see some of its relics.  The next morning we packed up again and drove to Chania and stayed in the old Venetian harbour.  It was beautiful, the naval museum there was one of the most impressive museums I have ever been to.  There were around 100 of the most detailed, hand-crafted, large scale model ships.  The craftsmanship was marvelous, the ships were breathtaking.  Eliot was not amused and he basically screamed the entire time I dragged him through it.  I couldn’t really figure out why he was so opposed to looking at model ships, he very rarely acts out like he did there.  He had a generally hard time in Chania, he was difficult to please, until we found the beach.  ”Go beach!”  The beaches near Chania were nice but much more crowded and popular than where we had been in the South of the island.  The beaches we had come from were perfect, but I think Lucas and Eliot were just happy to play in the sand and water again.  Bertram is a great role model for them, he is an excellent swimmer and he had so much patience helping them adjust to the water and move through their fears.  They loved watching him swim out from the shore, it made Lucas laugh so hard.

It was a fantastic vacation for all of us and we got to spend so much quality time together.  There are plenty of pictures from trip and I hope you enjoy looking at them.

You can view them as a slide show by clicking in the upper right corner on the Flickr page.  Click here to see the pictures.

Plum Jelly

Bertram’s Neice Theresa came for a visit this week while Bertram was in NY and Calgary.  It has been so wonderful having her here, she is such a delightful girl and the boys adore her.  I have rarely seen someone so natural and comfortable around two toddlers in my life!  Most people get overwhelmed within the first few mintues, but Theresa really understands them and plays with them so well.  It has been a real pleasure having her here!

Theresa also came with some plum jelly from Germany and Eliot loved it.  He had it all over his body after breakfast this morning.  He ended up eating it with two spoons and both of his hands in the jar saying “More, More!”