Two More Weeks

The time is just flying by! And while there have been some crazy moments, there have been lots of great ones too.

One of the best things is that the sun has come out. I feel a bit guilty about enjoying climate-change summer temperatures in April, but it has been so good to finally spend time outside after a long winter of hibernation. After I hurt my back doing too much carrying, I decided to invest in a double buggy, and although I think the woman who sold it to me on Le Bon Coin ripped me off slightly, it already feels like money well spent. With everybody strapped in safely, the baby being rocked to sleep by the movement and the toddler riding high up front with a smile on her face, it has saved my sanity on several occasions and allows me to save the sling for using around the house. (Baby 2 has a bit of colic and likes to sleep as close to me as possible, so she has been spending so much time in the sling that I think her blog nickname will be Kangaroo Baby.)


Just as the weather got warmer, my brother came to visit and we had a lovely day in Paris, mostly just strolling along the sunshine and having lunch in the Marais with Kangaroo Baby asleep in the buggy. We also went for a walk in the forest and (possibly as karmic revenge for feeling good about global warming) I got my first mosquito bite of the year.

Paris in the Spring

 UFM and I have also at last got around to exploring a bit further afield. Where we live is very much the Parisian suburbs, but if you go further out, you find yourself in what feels like proper countryside. Recently we have been exploring Les Yvelines, France's biggest département.One Sunday, we went to the Ferme de Gally, where you can pick your own fruit, vegetables and flowers, buy produce in the shop and visit the educational farm. The only things which were in season for picking were spinach and tulips, and as we didn't particularly want either, we focused on taking SCT to look at all the animals. In typical toddler fashion, she enjoyed looking at the ducks, pigs, goats and chickens for a little while, then became much more interested in playing with the gates, picking daisies and sitting down on every log, rock or wooden bar she set eyes on, but UFM and I felt proud that we had finally taken her somewhere interesting and done something a bit different with our day. (We also entertained ourselves by looking at all the families who looked as though they had decided to visit the farm straight after Sunday Mass - I'm sure there were more girls in pretty dresses than welly boots. But then, as UFM pointed out, proper rural people don't have to visit educational farms!)

Ducklings!

Inspired by our success, the following weekend we went to Dampierre-en-Yvelines, hoping to stroll around the lake and the château gardens. This trip was nearly a failure, as the château turned out to be closed, meaning there was no access from the village to the lake or even the forest beyond that would have been feasible for us, but luckily we saw a sign for the Château de Breteuil and went there instead.The main attraction for us here was a series of animated tableaux telling the stories of Charles Perrault, who turned folk tales into some of the first fairytales. The tableaux are housed in the outbuildings of the château, so you walk around the gardens visiting each one. Most are animated waxworks with sound and lighting, and there are some videos as well. SCT was a little bit too young to understand everything, but she still enjoyed looking and talked about the things she had seen when we got back in the evening. The gardens were also gorgeous in the bright sunshine, and if everyone hadn't been feeling a bit tired by then, we would probably have lingered for longer.

It's a big effort to get everybody organised and out of the house at the weekend (so much so that sometimes we don't decide where we're actually going until everything is packed up and ready) but it feels great to get out and about. Doing fun things with all four of us together makes up for the fraught moments when the house is a mess, everyone is tired and several people are crying at once (and yes, sometimes it has been more than just the two girls ... ). There are a few long weekends coming up and UFM has booked his leave for the summer, so next up is planning some summer holidays!

Parisian Public Transport with a Baby

When we lived in the centre of Paris, I quickly figured out that the easiest way to get around with a baby was to use a sling or baby carrier. Shops are narrow, pavements are busy, and accessing the metro almost always requires you to go up or down some stairs. Any time I took the pram, I felt encumbered and awkward, while with the carrier, I was light of foot and free, with the added bonus of permanent baby cuddles, better baby napping and no screaming fits on public transport.

SCB is bigger now though, and too heavy to carry for long on my front. Our Manduca carrier can also be used on your back, but it's not as good for napping because the baby's head isn't supported, so we now use the buggy more of the time.

It's been quite a learning experience. Our buggy is fairly lightweight, but it's not tiny, as we bought it when SCB was 3 months old and still needed one with a lying down position. (Tiny lie-flat buggies do exist, but they cost a LOT of money. With hindsight, if we were still living in Paris, I would say it would be a worthwhile investment though.) I can carry buggy + baby up a flight of stairs if needed, but together they weigh 16 kilos, so I would rather not! The buggy won't fit through the standard entrances in the metro, and as SCB can't stand by herself yet, I can't really take her out, fold the buggy and get us all through. It is possible to put in on an escalator, but you're not supposed to, and it never feels very safe.

So here is what I've learned about Parisian public transport when you need to bring your wheels:

- 90% of the RER A and B are pushchair and wheelchair accessible, with lifts from street to platform level and wide gates in the stations. You have to know where to find the lifts though - at La Défense, for example, you practically have to walk off the platform and into the tunnel, following a very discreet sign. Also, the lifts are frequently under maintenance, and there is only one at each station.

- The metro is very hit or miss. As well as surprising mini flights of stairs even in stations which have some lifts, there are lines where some stations have wide gates and others don't. Only the line 14, as far as I know, is completely accessible.

- Most (maybe all) buses have a buggy space next to the wheelchair area. This works well as long as there isn't another buggy already occupying the place (which there might well be, as none of them are on the metro!). Also, these spaces aren't big enough for some prams, as I found out to my cost early in my career as a Parisian maman , when I attempted an unplanned bus journey with a Maxi-Cosy car seat attachment.

- The tramway is by far the easiest form of transport to use, as everything is at street level and there's loads of space in the carriages. It's great if you need to go somewhere around the edges of the city.

So, it can all be a bit unpredictable. Every time I go into the city centre now, I think about people in wheelchairs and how on earth they cope. If everything worked the way it was supposed to, you could probably plan a way of getting most places, but I don't know what would happen if you got off the train at a station only to find that the lift was out of order. I believe there is an interphone system that people in wheelchairs can use to ask for help - I really hope it works! (There is more information about public transport for wheelchair users here.)

On the plus side, in my experience, people are really nice about offering to help you. The other week I was at Nation and all the lifts AND the escalators were closed, but a nice man waited at every flight of stairs between street level and the RER platform to give me a hand.

Life Update

Apart from all the flat-buying drama, life has been quiet around here recently. My Facebook feed is full of other people's holiday photos from across Europe, from Bulgaria to Iceland, and I've been trying hard not to become frustrated at still being in Paris while my friends are off having adventures. This mostly involves Super-Cool Baby and me going off for our own adventures, usually discovering new parks. Having walked the Promenade Plantée, strolled in the Bois de Vincennes, toured the Lac Daumesnil and picnicked in the Parc Montsouris, I scanned Google maps for evidence of other accessible green spaces and picked out the Parc Kellermann in the 13th. It's not a very big park, but it has a high part and a lower part with a waterfall in between, and I always thing a bit of geographical relief makes things a bit more interesting. (In fact, when you're there with a buggy it can almost as adventurous as hiking in Bulgaria or sailing in Iceland. Honestly ...)

When not strolling around parks, I've been spending a lot of time of the sofa surfing the web one-handed, which has consequently got me thinking about the value of the internet and how different life might be without it. I wrote a little while ago about how while there are things about looking after a new baby which are hard, we have yet to find anything surprisingly hard. A big part of this is that so far we've been very lucky to have a baby who eats well, sleeps well and is generally healthy, for which we are massively grateful, but I think it's also down to what our expectations of parenting were beforehand. When I change my clothes and the baby's for the second or third time in the day after a series of milk- or nappy-related incidents, I know that this is par for the course.  If we spend several hours pacing up and down the flat holding her in the latest (and inevitably awkward) anti-colic position, we know that others have been there too. And when I leave her to cry for a few extra minutes because I want to finish getting something done, I know that this is not being a bad mother, but a normal, realistic one.

I think that this is largely down to the internet. In real life, people will tell you that having kids is hard and especially that you'll never sleep again, but they don't often go into the details of how and why. On the internet, I feel that people talk more honestly about their experiences, their mistakes, and particularly their guilt, and it's also a great source of advice and suggestions, available at all hours of the day, including the wee small ones. It's very similar, in fact, to the way expat/immigrant/living abroad blogs can be a helpful source of information about the reality behind the dream while at the same time keeping us inspired by reminding us of what makes it all worthwhile.

So, to finish with, here are a few recommendations for those who might be interested of sites to surf one handed as you balance your baby in the Tiger in the Tree position and gently jiggle your knee at just the right frequency to keep those colicky screams at bay:

La Leche League , Kellymom and Breastfeeding Support all have far more detail about breastfeeding than you're likely to pick up at the maternity hospital.

The Infant Sleep Source has information about what is normal in terms of baby sleep and research on sleep-training methods.

This page has great tips for soothing a crying baby.

Mumsnet has loads of information and a discussion forum about all aspects of parenting. Most sections of the forum are full of good advice, but if you're just looking for entertainment, try the Am I Being Unreasonable? section to reassure yourself of how normal your really are.

Selfish Mother and The Motherload both combine useful information with healthy realism and a strong dose of humour.

Another Week Gone By

One thing they say about babies which is definitely true is that they make time go both fast and slowly at the same time. I was talking the other day about something which happened towards the end of my pregnancy and I couldn't believe that only a few weeks before we had yet to meet our little bundle of joy, yet there are times (mainly when I'm waiting for her to go to sleep) where I actually watch the clock because one minute feels like at least five or ten.

My parents came to visit last week, and while their main mission was obviously to spend time with their granddaughter, we tried to get out and about a bit more than I usually manage, including taking advantage of having extra pairs of hands to carry the buggy up and down the steps on the metro. We made it all the way to the Ile Saint Louis and sat on a bench in the sun eating ice cream from Berthillon. (Tip: there is always a huge queue at the actual shop in summer, but there is a little kiosk nearby where Mr Berthillon's sister sells the same ice cream.)

The weather has been so weird this spring and summer that it took us until last Sunday to have our first picnic in the park of the year, but now that the sun has come out (sort of - it rained today) we've got another two lined up for the 14 juillet long weekend.

One unfortunate development is that our super cool baby has been suffering from colic and instead of being chilled out 24 hours a day now has a couple of hours in the evening where she screams and screams and screams. I think this has something to do with the way my milk comes out when I'm feeding her, so I've been spending a fair bit of time online googling solutions (the science of lactation is an amazing thing) and the rest of the time wondering if it's better to just accept that babies cry (two hours a day is apparently very normal) and just keep giving her cuddles to help her through it.

Nonetheless, we still feel very lucky to have a healthy baby who otherwise eats well and sleeps enough for us both to get a reasonable amount of shut-eye (and for me to have time to scour the internet for colic remedies...), so as a way of showing my gratitude to the universe, I decided I wanted to donate milk to the Lactarium de l'Ile de France. The lactarium collects milk from donors and gives it to premature and ill babies who for one reason or another cannot have their own mothers' milk. After I sent an email asking for information, a very nice lady phoned me back and explained the whole procedure. We were about to arrange to have the equipment and paperwork delivered to my flat when she asked me if I was English, as she thought she recognised my accent. Sadly, she wasn't just making small talk: as with blood donation, people who were in the UK when mad cow disease was a problem are not allowed to donate milk in France, as there is a very tiny risk of spreading Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. I was really disappointed, as it seemed like such a great thing to do. I guess I'll just have to hope that some non-UK breastfeeding mother in Paris with enough milk, time and inclination will stumble across this and be in a position to take inspiration from my post!

That's More Like It!

The sun has finally come out over the past two days and we seem to have jumped from winter to summer in the space of about 24 hours. Today I made the most of feeling quite energetic to wash the windows and clean the fridge (which sounds like classic "nesting" behaviour, but I don't think there was any hormonal impulse there; they were just really dirty and certainly won't get washed after the baby is born!) then took myself out for a walk around the Lac Daumesnil in the Bois de Vincennes.

This part of the park is home to tons of bird life (natural and less natural - I'm pretty sure the peacocks wouldn't be there without human intervention) and pretty much every species seemed to have a cluster of babies trailing in its wake:

Another good thing was that I had another midwife appointment at the beginning of the week and she told me that I am not supposed to be hungry all the time. Admittedly the solution was to eat even more natural yoghurt (when this baby comes out, I am never touching the stuff again) but she also said fruit was ok as long as my blood sugar results were reasonable, so I bought some nice strawberries and peaches and have been feeling much less grumpy!

A Strange Sunday in Paris

Watching the news at the moment, you might have the impression that France has been hit by the apocalypse. After the burning cars, clouds of tear gas and empty petrol stations of the previous few weeks, we now have endless footage of reporters sent out in waders to stand on the high streets of the villages of the Seine-et-Marne waist deep in water and of homeowners returning in tears to evaluate the damage the floods have wreaked.

So it's been strange to supposedly be living in the middle of all of it and to have life going on exactly as normal. Admittedly, more of my reality than usual has been filtered through the TV screen to the safety of the couch, but I have been out and about every day, and Understanding Frenchman, who crosses the city on public transport to get to work has had no problems either. My German friend came to visit last week and managed to fly in from Berlin, travel to and from the airport twice, visit friends in the north of the Ile-de-France and take a train to Aix-en-Provence and back without encountering any more trouble than having to stand on a crowded RER B train from Charles de Gaulle once. Obviously the flooding is devastating for those who are actually involved, and I certainly don't want to belittle that, but the impression given by the media that the whole country is just one big disaster area is a bit of an exaggeration.

Nevertheless, we were tempted out this afternoon to have a look at the state of the world. We started at the Champs-Elysées, which was closed to traffic, so you could stroll comfortably down the middle of the road and there was plenty of space for what would otherwise have been all the crowds. I took advantage of the situation to take a straight-on photo of the Arc-de-Triomphe, which can normally only be done by risking your life standing on the very edge of a traffic island as the cars whizz past. (Unfortunately my camera isn't working as well as it should, so pictures are even greyer and hazier than the current weather actually is.)

After that we walked down towards the Seine to admire la crue. As you can see from the marker, the water isn't anywhere near the famous 1910 level, when MPs apparently used boats to get in and out of the Assemblée Nationale, but it was still an impressive sight. The bridges and banks were lined with people like us watching and taking photos, but the atmosphere was strangely subdued, as if everyone had been silenced by the majestic force of nature. There was less traffic than usual, and on the water, the only boats were the pompiers going up and down, leaving the mighty brown river largely in peace to flow along its broadened course under a sombre grey sky.

For one last strange experience, we walked in front of the Louvre, where the artist JR has made the famous pyramid disappear into thin air:

Then it was back home on the metro to watch more footage of the French apocalypse on the evening news.