goodbye stranger

We leave Paris in a week, and it’s making me emotional about the strangest things. I’m not a saver, and yet I fetched out the cancelled bus tickets from the bottom of my purse for the two lines we take most often and stowed them in the pocket of B’s baby book. It was an awful, rainy day on Friday, but it was the last of S’ vacation, and so we went to the Louvre and had lunch among the horrible humid crowds in what is basically an underground mall food court and I still misted up as we walked back to the bus in the driving rain.

“Boy, you really do love Paris, if you love it today,” S said, and he meant it as a compliment. But I think it is the complement of the sublime and the ridiculous that truly gets me about our life here, the constant refraction of my daily life with small children against such an eternally beautiful backdrop, the crowds and the rain notwithstanding. It’s as if the cliché of Paris (which is true) is a defense against the mundane repetitiveness of raising a toddler and a baby – my nostalgia for their babyhood will be shot through with Parisian light (and a healthy helping of soaking rain).

For example: the week before the Louvre, we were out and about on a very specific errand, which was to find and buy a plastic toilet-seat insert that will allow a thinking-seriously-about-potty-training G to sit on the grown-up toilet without falling in. The errand was designed partly to encourage G in his endeavors, partly to distract him from his obsession with putting various objects – coins, small toys – down the corrugated hose that vents our air conditioner to the outside. You can imagine that my house is divided as to whether introducing a new level of chaos is such a good thing, especially just days before we pack up all our worldly possessions and change continents (S’s attitude: continents, continence, what’s the big deal?). Anyhow, it turns out that the toilet-seat insert -- which, after visiting the supermarket baby section and the droguerie (home of all orphaned home supplies, from mop buckets to small appliances), we finally found at the pharmacy -- is called, in French, a “siège reducteur.” Now I, for one, would be delighted to own a device that would reduce the size of my rear merely by sitting on it. And I am also certain that such a device exists in France, and can also be bought at the pharmacy, but it likely is not made of blue plastic and shaped like a hippo (instead, it vibrates and you have to rub a special cream on your fesses before using it). But for G, onward and upward.

As we left the pharmacy, seat in hand, a bunch of dudes who looked like they were in no particular hurry to get anywhere were drinking beer and passing around a small radio that was blaring, improbably, Supertramp. G smiled and waved, they smiled and waved, and we went on home to put the seat in the potty. I meditated a little on the idea that there is a time and a place for everything, and how that is underlined by the formalities of French culture and the beauties of Paris – that it opens up to make a place for us, and the tour buses, and the bums listening to Supertramp, is nothing short of a miracle. And for a moment I began to trust Paris to show me the way to an elegant leave-taking that will maybe impart a little borrowed grace to me as I go.

Then G came running in from the bedroom saying, Mommy, come look where I peed. Sadly, the siège reducteur was dry as a bone. It turns out the air conditioner hose has uses beyond toys and small change. Elegance, not so much, but I’m grateful all the same. Paris, thanks. We’ll miss you more than you know.

old stones

France is as full of monasteries as it is of other old things – some working, some crumbling, and even some belonging to the Carthusian order, the unusual monks about whom I wrote my graduate thesis, in a land long ago and far away. (The Carthusians were also recently brought into the international spotlight through the documentary film “Into Great Silence,” which I haven’t seen yet but opened to long lines in New York and Boston, making me feel retroactively hip). On two previous occasions I’ve been within spitting distance of one of these monasteries but was unable to visit, due to complications of itinerary or under two-year-old. But last week in Loches, where we spent a marvelous holiday imposing on the hospitality of G and M, we discovered quite by accident that there were ruins of a Carthusian monastery only about 25 km away – in fact, our hosts had been to see a set of one-act plays presented there. We had no special plans for the week and decided on a day trip.

The Chartreuse, or Charterhouse, of Liget was founded by Henry Plantagenet as one of the many penances strewn across the UK and France as acts of contrition for the murder of Thomas à Becket (nothing says “I’m sorry” like a nice bouquet of monastery). At its height there were 20 learned, probably aristocratic monks – including Richelieu’s brother – leading a contemplative life in a rather lovely setting deep in the Loire valley. The monastery was almost completely destroyed at the time of the Revolution, and the monks had to escape for their lives through an underground passageway in their sous-sol that went over half a mile through the limestone (and served originally as a connection between the monastery and the servant brothers housed down the road at the Corroirie). After the Revolution, the land – including all the old stones – was bought back from the republic by an aristocratic family that had survived the Terror, who built a manor house on the property and have more or less lived their ever since.

How do I know this? I got it straight from the mouth of the great-great-grand nephew (or something like that) of the land’s most recent purchaser.

When we arrived at the monastery – which, like many French monuments, is private property open to the public at the discretion and generosity of the owner – there were signs indicating that we should park at the road and then pay a call at the “lower house” to be admitted. Unfortunately, there were a number of lower houses, one of which seemed to be occupied by a party of German painters having lunch, and no clear place to make ourselves known. Just as I started to talk to a couple of curious Germans, two boys about twelve or thirteen years old came up the hill toward us and our stroller and gave us a cheerful wave. They were both wearing tee shirts, shorts and wellies (the latter item of clothing leading me to believe that the level of their enthusiasm in greeting us had much to do with avoiding some kind of chore). "Vous voudriez voire la monastère?” the taller one asked politely. “There are some leaflets at the bottom of the hill,” he continued, “but I can give you a guided tour if you want.” We did, of course, want, and so the six of us set out across the forecourt of the manor towards the ruins of the church and the old monastery walls.

The tour was excellent – heavy on the blood and destruction, but also very correct about the lives and habits of the brothers. I found myself distracted as we walked around, though, not just by the second language and my two-year-old, but also by my growing infatuation with our junior tour guide. Like many other French boys his age that we’ve met, he was incredibly gentle with B and made much of G, in what seemed like a natural inclination. I don’t know if it’s just manners bred in the bone, or the fact that generations of government encouragement of familles nombreuses virtually ensures younger siblings and cousins for just about every French child, but it’s a patience I’ve come to appreciate. I was also impressed by his attention to small details, like the giant chestnut that stood in the place of the original monastery well, or the legend of the naughty monk, who, when caught out skipping vespers in order to drink the last of the monastery wine, crawled inside the oak barrel and was turned to stone (this stone barrel now sits on top of a trickling fountain next to a sign that reads “Eau non potable.” Tant pis.). And he didn’t rush through the details as if they were memorized from index cards – he had a sense of the story, and at the appropriate moments even paused for effect. Most of all, though, I was entranced by the sound of his French, which rolled out in fluid prose that seemed to have bypassed entirely the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and come directly from the court of Louis XVI. There were none of the French equivalents of um, or you know and he didn’t use any slang, which not only made it easier for me to understand but also made me feel like I was in the middle of a movie whose main plot device was to have the adolescent hero possessed by the ghost of his great-great grandfather. It would have to be called something like “Jean-Louis and the Revolution,” or “My Dinner With King Louis.” It was all quite wonderful.

At one point during the tour, G did something especially hair-raising, I forget what, and I scolded him by calling out his full name in three long, drawn-out syllables, in the French pronunciation.

“I’m sorry, what did you say his name was?” our tour guide asked. I told him.

An amazed smile bloomed across his face and he said, “That’s my name, too!”

I said something like, well, I hope he can live up to the honor – and then I took his picture. I plan to use it for future reference as Exhibit A in child-rearing. Even if there was more than a little noblesse oblige involved there, it was still an impressive display – only made more charming by the fact that, as we walked back up the hill to our car, both boys were being screamed at by their older sister (cousin?) for spraying water out of the barrel-fountain.

It was only a minor slippage, considering. Because most twelve year old boys I know, if they’re talking about old stones, they usually mean Keith Richards.


*The photo is of a small window featured in the lower story of each monk’s cell. Their food was passed in through this window every day, so as not to interrupt their study and prayer. Sometimes I would like to have the same thing for G.

bad mommy

It was a fine morning yesterday, and with B ensconced happily making eyes at the babysitter, G and I had a date. I’m trying to make sure that he and I get some individual time together so that our relationship doesn’t devolve into the litany of Don’t (hit your brother, scream so loudly, open the refrigerator door, cause me to be institutionalized before I turn forty). Plus he’s a pretty amusing small person, all told, and it makes me feel like I’m being a better mother.

When I asked him what he wanted to do with our special time together, he said, “I want to go to the coffee shop.” The current object of his toddler obsession with achieving adulthood is the hot beverage – “want warm coffee/hot tea in my special own cup” is a pretty common refrain chez nous, especially if I happen to be drinking one or the other. (Lest the caffeine police break down my door in the next instant, both “coffee” and “tea” for G are a cup of microwave-warmed milk. For the “tea” I have to dunk my tea bag in the cup for half a second to achieve verisimilitude; it is not necessary to add anything to the “coffee,” for reasons mysterious to me. The “special own cup” is a tiny coffee mug some blessed soul gave us when G was born – it looks like a cross between a diner mug and Oliver Twist’s tin cup. So you get the picture). Since we were going out anyway, it seemed like a good time to up the ante.

Our home being Paris, the city of a thousand charming cafes, and we being ourselves, the ugly Americans in residence, we went to Starbucks. The awful truth is that the four cafes nearest our square are in a race to outbid each other for supercilious snottiness, and while I might enjoy a whiff of that when I’m out on my own in the afternoon, it’s not the best environment for a date with G. And the French people making American-style Italian coffee drinks v-e-r-y slowly in our local Starbucks are unfailingly kind to G and me. Exhibit A: le chocolat chaud.

G and I had made our way to the coffee shop by the usual toddler tacking – like navigating a very small sailboat through an extremely choppy sea. Once we’d made it safely into port (i.e. inside the doors of the shop), I settled G on a green velvet armchair by the window and told him sternly to stay there while I ordered our drink. Naturally he popped up next to me five seconds later, nose barely clearing the service counter. I was in the middle of ordering a moyen chocolat chaud, and the young woman at the register grinned – yes, grinned – past me at the mop of blond hair and said, “C’est pour le petit?” I nodded yes, and immediately she pulled up two paper cups, smaller and smallest, like two-thirds of the three bears, and said, “I can make it in the little one so it’s easier for him to drink.” Before I could even thank her, she said, “And I’ll make sure they don’t get the milk too hot.” Merci beaucoup.

G was practically levitating with joy by the time the drink arrived, waving the green straw (une paille, one of those startling words that is exactly the same descriptive metaphor in both French and English) I had unwrapped and given him, like a tiny epée. The hot chocolate itself was an exquisite example of the genre, topped with an escargot-like ribbon of whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate (I also love the phrase for whipped cream, crème fouetté, which sounds like cream made crazy. But I digress). The pleasure of watching G inhale the hot chocolate through the straw was as intense as it was brief. He sucked it down in two long, professional pulls, leaving a halo of chocolate and milky froth around his mouth. We sat for a few more blissful minutes, enjoying the hit, and then took a little tour of the coffee shop, testing out various tables and chairs for comfort and commenting on the artwork.

And then it was time to go home.

My elder son, as you may have noticed, likes a little drama. When he’s happy, the angels are singing; when he’s sad, the world is black, black, black. (Here is where my own mother can insert something about “chickens,” “home,” and “roost.”). When I said the words, “It’s time to go home,” he emitted a long, low moan, like the creaking of a bellows, and then began to keen “NO H-O-O-M-E! NO H-O-O-O-O-O-O-M-E!” at the top of his lungs, and steadily, as we exited the coffee shop and began to make our way down the street. People actually stopped to watch us – I know that French two year olds have tantrums (sometimes), but apparently they do not involve flinging oneself on the filthiest part of the sidewalk and rolling in discontent. I believe this is called restraint. Flinging and rolling for G, on the other hand, are tantrum standbys, and are one of the many aspects of his behavior/ my parenting that have been cause for observation and commentary by our Parisian neighbors. (Once, walking home from the garderie, a woman of a certain age in spotless white woolen pants watched G thoughtfully for a while as he rolled in mid-rage on an oil slick at the entrance to a parking garage. “You know he’s going to get dirty that way,” is what she told me.) Other popular subjects include the state and appropriate seasonality of my children’s clothing, the safety of my double stroller, and G’s gender. I like to think that we provide some entertainment value.

Anyway, as we neared the end of our long march and approached the doorway to our building, I noticed the homeless woman who lives in our neighborhood coming up behind, and eventually past, us. She’s probably about seventy and clearly not all there – she swathes her whole body, including her head, in rags of various colors and provenance, and she talks to herself in a constant stream. I appreciate that even in our snooty neighborhood, people are generally kind to her. We’ve never had much meaningful interaction, as she is terrified of both the dog and the stroller, but I try at least to be respectful about giving her space. Well, yesterday I had neither dog nor stroller, only a vociferously unhappy toddler – which must have been inexplicably less terrifying, because as I began to haul G unceremoniously over our doorframe, she turned around and began making her back toward us in a way that was clearly purposeful. She did not stop until she got about a foot away from me, and she looked down first at G before fixing me with a baleful glare. And then she said, in very clear French, “Vous n’etes pas une bonne maman.” “You are not a good mother.” And flashed a grin at G and went on her way.

au revoir, les enfants

Today is the last day of garderie, the little nursery school where G has spent the better part of Monday and Wednesday afternoons for the past year. I didn't realize that this was the last week until this past Monday -- there is a slightly Byzantine system of "regular time" versus "holiday time" (is it like ordinary time in the church calendar? I don't know.) that I tried to understand for several months until I just gave up and showed up when I was told. Anyway, most months have a bit of each, so when I paid for July's holiday sessions back in June (there are different accounting systems for each kind of time), I assumed that Madame le directrice would prompt me for the regular payment, just as she does for the kleenex and boxes of dry biscuits and the fact that I really shouldn't be giving the baby his pacifier any longer. But here we were, a week into July, and not a word. So on Monday afternoon, after I had dropped G off with the teachers, I asked if I could pay for the rest of July.

Madame looked confused (not an expression generally viewed on the lady in question) and said, "Mais, ce n'est pas necessaire. You have already paid."

"I know I paid for the holiday time," I said, "but don't I need to pay for the rest of July?"

Again, confusion. "Mais, aprés cette semaine, il n'y a plus. C'est fini. It's finished." She gestured at me with both hands in the air, briskly but not unkindly, as if to wave away my stupidity which was an embarrassment to us both. And she threw me a bone: "But he can come back on Tuesday to say goodbye, if you like."

And that was that.

As much as whatever actually happened at the garderie was and remains a black box to me -- they whisk the children away the minute you arrive and encourage you strongly to vanish, so that they can continue with the black magic, the infant sacrifices, and the nursery rhymes, I suppose -- it has been a constant in G's life and now it is done, the first unstacked block in the structure of the life we've built in the last couple of years. So I'm feeling disproportionately unsettled and not a little sentimental, even near tears a couple of times today.

I've actually had more conversation with G's teachers in the last two weeks than in the entirety of the previous year -- they seemed to like him, they always smiled when I picked him up -- on account of some mild behavior problems involving, unless my translation is completely in error, his lying down on some of the other children when they did not comply with his wishes (or maybe just didn't appeal to him). That is how I found out that up to that point he had been "un des plus cooperatifs." No one seemed to be very worried, they just wanted to let me know. I was a little distressed, of course -- no one wants her child to be a bully, particularly not when they have several times the body mass of their playmates. Still, the last few weeks on the playground haven't revealed much more violence beyond the usual two-year-old capriciousness, and he really does try to share (even if it occasionally takes the form of "you'll bloody well take this car if it's the last thing I do."). And the reports from the last days have been glowing.

I'm not really sure what will happen when I pick him up today. I don't even know the names of all his teachers, and it is hard to say that I will miss the garderie beyond the spare hours it has given me these many afternoons. And yet these are people who know my child, who have not hurt him, who have taught him, among other things, a startling amount of French, a good bit of manners, and how to bend over in a yoga position to have his diaper changed. Valuable life lessons, all. Who knows what great novel may come pouring forth from G when he sits down some afternoon with a dry biscuit and a cup of warm apple juice?

I might cry, I'm sure I'll feel silly, and then I'll take him home, leaving another tiny piece of childhood behind on Avenue Victor Hugo. I think this is what they mean by nostalgie.

manhattan transfer

Many thanks to S’ sister, who, by getting married there, gave us a reason to spend four glorious days in New York. We were a little worried about the Atlantic crossing with the boys – based on past experience – but it was, if not pleasant (when is air travel, ever, these days?) a non-event in both directions.

Outside the events of the wedding, our trip seemed dominated by transportation and architecture. With only four days, there was a lot of getting from place to place, and it was amazing how the landscape – the “built environment,” as they say – kept changing so dramatically within a relatively small footprint. It’s so much more kinetic, so much more dense than Paris. It’s the energy and the density that binds everything together, even as the buildings range from human-scale brownstones to industrial refurbishments to the skyscrapers which seem to belong in New York in a way that is just stage setting almost everywhere else. Maybe it’s the island. We availed ourselves of cabs and car services for our many trips across the boroughs – a slightly guilty luxury for us, and a huge treat for G, who rides in cars so rarely over here in Paris. Everything from the seatbelts to the locks to the automatic windows was endlessly fascinating. We were lucky to wind up with all our fingers and everyone still in the car. The car window was also a great vantage point for viewing all the other cars and trucks and things that go – New York being also, as a two-year-old’s eye will tell you, a paradise for motorized vehicles of all kinds. B just took it all in as usual, importing with him the French philosophy of “rester zen.”

I had wondered what it would be like to be back in the States after being gone for so long, but New York, a city I love, made for a soft landing. I’d been warned that things might seem diminished, tacky, or just bizarre, that I would be aware of how much we still owe to Europe in the way we make cities and how much doesn’t translate well in the crossing. But it was all just wonderful. New York, if anything, looked better than the last time I was there – the weather, the people and the place were all pulling out the stops in terms of charm. People smiled and greeted us regularly on the street, even as they all seemed sort of good-naturedly busy in a way I realize I have missed. Europe does so much so beautifully, but it doesn’t bustle. New York’s noise and brusque friendliness were a bright counterpoint to Paris’ peaceful reserve, and the new seemed less to clash with the old than just to be pleasantly different.

The wedding itself was in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which by all right should seem like a big, faux-Gothic pile, but instead, with its sped-up, jumbled history, owns the several city blocks it occupies as if it has always been there (it has certainly always been under construction). So when my beautiful sister-in-law stepped out from behind the construction screen covering up the better part of the central nave – as if she had been playing a game of hide and seek and just stopped in to get married – with the noise of the glorious cathedral organ erupting behind her, it didn’t seem at all like an imitation of European architecture or religion, but more like a magnificent re-imagining. Like New York just shrugged and said, “This is the way we do it here.”

(Or maybe it’s just that everyone’s vision is getting blurred. Only the week before we had been in a 17th century French church for the baptism of an American baby by an African priest. Everything in French, and no one was speaking their mother tongue). I cried at the wedding, of course, and had to wipe my eyes on a diaper, which was the only thing available.

The reception was in the fabulous, peeling Elizabethan hall next door, where we danced the night away and took turns holding all the babies. We saw so many of our family and friends we could hardly process it – a whirlwind. It left us wanting more. So that part of it, at least, it makes it a little easier knowing, as we do now, that our time in Paris is rapidly coming to an end and we’ll be going home soon, for good (well, for awhile). I haven’t wanted to write about it yet – I’m not quite ready to finish things up here, but who really wants to hear my sorrows after two very full years of getting to live in Paris? It seems unsporting to be sad.

Anyway. At the end of the wedding reception, the bride and groom, who had doubled back to pick up a forgotten bag, were accidentally left behind by the car service and without a way back to the hotel. So my sister-in-law stepped into the street in her wedding dress and hailed a cab. The startled cab driver said, “Is this for real?” and when they said yes, he gave them a ride for free. My sister-in-law gave him her bouquet. The whole time we’ve lived in Paris, I’ve felt like that cab driver. But it won’t be so bad to be back.

the dinner party

S has had a week of late days at the office, rough for him but coming to a thankful end soon. Last night he got in about 10:30, and just as he sat down on the couch and eased off his shoes the dog started to do a desperate little dance.

“I’ll take her,” I said. If I’m awake enough, I like to take Lucy on her last walk – it’s a little time alone in the world after the kids are asleep. I fetched up the leash and little plastic carry-bag (I take my responsibility seriously as a citoyenne propre), and hooked her up to go.

S half-rose up from the sofa. “Take a longer walk, if you’re up for it, and go all the way to Champs-Elysées. Then you can tell me if I was hallucinating on my way home. There’s something strange going on up there.”

It was a gorgeous, cool, clear night after a day of storms, with a brisk breeze blowing away the last of the rain clouds. Lucy and I hustled up the avenue, past all the buildings lit up exactly like the houses in those familiar Magritte paintings (it turns out those are the only ones that aren’t surreal – the light just looks like that in early summer). As per usual, the street was empty until we got about a block from the Arc de Triomphe, where little clumps of people start to trickle down and around.

When we got around the circle to the Champs-Elysées, it was just as S had described it – hundreds of people, dressed entirely in white, were sitting down to dinner at makeshift camp tables and folding chairs. The tables were fully set with white linens, china, crystal, candles and flowers, and yet it was all clearly a bring-your-own occasion – every table had different china, crystal, and flowers, and behind at least one chair at every table was stowed a rolling grocery cart that had recently held all the provisions. Everywhere you looked there were people toasting and laughing and the sound of clinking silver on china. Other than the monochromatic dress code, it appeared to be an aggressively ordinary crowd – French people of all ages, but mostly the middle, who looked as if they would be equally at home hosting a tasteful soirée before the symphony.

I found a quiet spot and stood with Lucy to watch, along with the other passersby. Lots of snapping of pictures and video, some appreciative honking from the street, but very few people seemed to be approaching the crowd – it was their party, after all, and we were just along for the ride. A few minutes before eleven, a tall, slim gentleman with salt and pepper hair, wearing a white guayabera, made his way through the set of tables nearest us, saying, “A vingt-trois heures, n’oubliez pas d’allumer les feus.” So of course at that point, we had to stay to see.

Things went on as they were for a few more minutes, and then suddenly, as the clock struck eleven, the people at every table started lighting holiday sparklers tip to tip, until the entire Champs-Elysées was sparkling from the Arc De Triomphe all the way down to the Place de la Concorde. It was a wildly beautiful moment that took the whole event from something you were simply pleased to have walked past to something permanently imprinted on your brain. I think I actually applauded. The diners stood up and waved their sparklers in the air, shouting at their friends across the street and hooting back at the passing cars, until the last of the fire went out.

I didn’t want to wait around to see things start to disassemble, so I turned Lucy toward home, only to catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, just visible over the rooftops. It was sparkling, too.

I don’t really want to know what they were doing out there, though I’m sure within the next couple of days someone will explain it to me, and then I’ll have another piece of my Parisian cultural lexicon in place. I like that for now there aren’t any extra words or layers of meaning, just the memory of all those fizzing lights, lifting all the petty grievances of the day away on the night air in a few minutes of pure delight.

scenes from the life

G is sitting on his bed in his pajamas, holding the National Geographic Explorer snowmobile in one hand and the matchbox pizza delivery van in the other, banging them gently together with a look of total absorption.

“They are fighting, mommy,” he says solemnly, mid-bang.

“Oh, no,” I say, in my best learning-opportunity voice. “How sad for them. Let’s think about what they might say to each other if they, um, used their words.”

I take on the persona of the snowmobile. “Please don’t hit me, pizza delivery van,” I say. “It makes me so sad. I just want to be your friend.”

“I’m sorry, snowmobile.” (I say, as the pizza delivery van). “I was feeling angry, but I don’t want to hurt you. Let’s be friends.”

“See, honey,” I say, brightly. “They are talking it out.”

He smiles at me fondly, benevolently, as if to forgive the special kind of drugs I must be taking at the moment.

“That’s very nice, mommy,” he says. “But now they are fighting again.”

Whack. I’m clearly going to have to work on my tone.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with Mme. Marron after another tough day wrangling G away from the garderie. Lying on the floor, I believe, was involved, along with a refusal to put on a jacket. Sandrine, his teacher, knelt down beside him and in a firm, even voice, said, “G, you must get up now and put on your jacket immediately. Maman is very tired and it is very naughty not to help her.” And lo, immediatement, he got up, the jacket was on, and we were out the door.

“Why does this never work for me?” I wondered.

“Well,” said Mme. Marron, “it’s because he senses that deep down you don’t really care whether he puts the jacket on or not.”

And I don’t, really. I like to believe that my parenting philosophy is invested in general principles, but that’s only true if I admit that principle number one is “How does this affect my peace of my mind and the probability that I will either a) drink an entire cup of tea while it is still warm, or b) have access to ten minutes of uninterrupted reading today?” If a or b look available over the course of a given afternoon, I’m likely not to be too pressed. G is already much too aware of this highly personal ratio to mommy’s displeasure (heaven forbid he had been whacking me with one of the toy cars). Whenever it looks like things are going south for him in the trouble department, his first question is “Are you happy, mommy?” And then he brings me a magazine. So I guess it’s all working out in its own way.

We’ll just have to put B in charge of the teakettle.*




*note: for those of you who maintain any interest in the saga of the coffeepot, last week I walked into Darty on a whim and they actually had the verseuse for my coffeepot in stock. I was able to locate, purchase, and walk out with my new coffee carafe in under fifteen minutes and for less than twenty euros. We’ll see how long the feeling of triumph lasts.