In which Rebekah flies solo at the Magic Kingdom

As you may or may not know, we're currently in the middle of two weeks of winter vacation here in Paris. (That, of course, is the reason that everybody got sick. It seems to happen almost without fail.) Naturally, that means that I have to fill a lot of extra time in occupying the kids, and have to do so in a way that is minimally annoying to our neighbors. (I will miss many things when we leave. Having someone living underneath us is definitely not on the list.) One of the things that we had planned to do all along over the break was to spend a day at Disneyland. Unfortunately, Blaise spent Tuesday incapacitated with stomach flu, and so he didn't feel like he could take another full day off this week, though he thought that the idea of having all of us out of the house for an entire day sounded pretty good.

So, Thursday morning I picked up a few things at the grocery store while the kids tidied the house a bit (and did a pretty good job too, I might add); smeared peanut butter and jam on bread; tossed oranges, cookies, pretzels, and water bottles into a backpack; and headed for the train station. We ended up getting to Parc Disneyland a bit later than I had hoped to, but it still didn't seem to be too busy.

Wednesday evening I had asked all three kids which rides they most wanted to do, and (much to my disappointment) all three of them had picked Dumbo the Flying Elephant, which is a ride that goes around in a big circle with you controlling how high up you go with a little lever. I'm not a big fan because (a) I don't like heights, and you're just kind of suspended out there and (b) there's always a massive line. I decided we could ride it though if the line wasn't too long, which it wasn't (lucky me). After Dumbo, we headed to the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups, which we were able to just walk onto because there was no line at all, followed by Alice's Curious Labyrinth. Ezio was quite proud of his ability to lead us through the labyrinth and up to the castle of the queen without getting us lost. Then, since Cherry really wanted to ride Le Carrousel de Lancelot (there's a little carrousel/merry-go-round in our mall, and she's forever asking to ride it, and I always say no on the grounds that we can ride the one at Disney), we went and rode that, again with no line. Unfortunately, by the time I had Cherry boosted onto a horse and buckled up, and Ezio's seatbelt properly tightened, the horse next to Cherry had been taken and so I ended up having to stand next to her instead of riding. Then we headed over to the Sleeping Beauty Castle, which Sapphire has been wanting to go through for a really long time. It's not a ride (I'm not sure she realized that) but you can walk through it and see the story of Sleeping Beauty in stained glass and tapestry.

The other ride that was on everybody's list was the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, so we headed over there next. Unfortunately, once we got there the ride was shut down because of some sort of technical problems. They were sending everybody away and no-one could tell us when it was likely to reopen. Since Cherry was hungry (she didn't eat any breakfast) and the rest of us were beginning to get hungry, we decided that it was a good time to eat some lunch before continuing with our day.

After lunch, we went to It's a Small World, which again had very little line, and then rode the Disneyland Railroad most of the way around the outside of the park to get to Frontierland. (We had intended to ride the Circus Train, but evidently it only runs in the summer, so this was a sort of second choice.) Cherry wanted to know whether everything we saw was real. It wasn't. In Frontierland we started out at Phantom Manor. On the way outside afterwards, we were stopped by a woman who was there with her 8 year old daughter. She wanted to know whether Phantom Manor was scary, because, evidently, she had taken her on the Tower of Terror for her very first ride the day before, and now her daughter was refusing to ride anything because she was terrified. Since it was raining (actually, it rained for pretty much the entire afternoon, which made things a bit less pleasant, but didn't seem to bother anyone terribly much) we headed for the cover of the Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing dock, and waited to ride the riverboat. They had blocked off the top deck of the boat (which would have been wet anyway), so we rode on the middle deck.

After we got off the boat, we went over to the Pirates of the Caribbean, where we encountered our first real line of the day. We had to wait 30 minutes, I suspect partly because it has a nice, warm, inside waiting area and people wanted to get out of the rain, since when we rode it again just before going home (and after the rain had stopped) we (quite literally) walked through the queue and onto a boat with no wait at all. Then, at Cherry's insistence, we stopped for popcorn, which was warm and, much to our surprise, sweet. We ate it all huddled together in the very center of the tent for the Dumbo ride's queue.

Then, we headed back over to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, which was open and running again, though it also had a relatively long line, mostly under cover. The first part of it, however, ran along the edge of the roof, and so we spent our first 10 minutes in line with icy-cold water dripping down the backs of our necks. After some technical problems getting started (some people had to be moved because the shield on their car wouldn't lower) Sapphire and Ezio outscored Cherry and I 46,000 to 39,000.

Since it was 4:00 at this point, I told the kids that they could each pick one more ride and we would see what we could do. Ezio picked Peter Pan's Flight, which was much cooler than I had remembered it being, despite having to wait for 45 minutes to ride it. Sapphire picked Pirates of the Caribbean, which had no line at all. Cherry wanted to ride It's a Small World again. Then we headed out of the park and to the RER station for an uneventful ride home.

In which we are sick

Saturday afternoon we had the opportunity to go hear Kathryn Lasky read from some of her books at the American Library. To be somewhat more accurate, Sapphire and Ezio had the opportunity to hear her read. Cherry and I did what we always do when there is a big kid event at the library: grab a big stack of picture books, find an out of the way spot (not easy, as the library is pretty well packed, complete with half sized floors to allow them to squeeze more books in), and read, repeating as necessary. After the reading, the kids were allowed to ask questions, and then Mrs Lasky commented that they'd (she was here with her husband) had been having a terrible time finding taxis when they needed one, and had nearly been late to the reading as a result. Sapphire, of course, spoke up and told them that they should just take the train, that it was easy, and you never had to worry about finding them because they just came to the station. So, they asked at the checkout counter, where they were told that there was a bus that went almost directly from the library to their hotel, which, while not a train, was definitely cheaper and easier to find than a taxi.

At this point, you're probably wondering where the "ill" part comes in. Saturday night Cherry went to bed as usual, and Sapphire and Ezio tried to avoid going to bed, also as usual. (Can we watch the Olympics instead of reading in bed? Sure. [Then, after watching the Olympics and being told that it was bedtime.] But you never told us that if we watched the Olympics we wouldn't be able to read in bed. I can't go to sleep without reading in bed.) As a result, I was just trying to put them down when Cherry sat up and yelled, "I need to hoe (throw) up."

Eventually, I ended up sleeping on the couch with her, from which she rose, every 20 minutes, walked to the bathroom, threw up, dabbed at her lips with toilet paper, got a drink of water, and went back to sleep. Around 5:00 she fell asleep for good, and slept until 7:30, which is quite late for her. By noon she seemed to be mostly better, and spent an hour running around outside like a madwoman, and I was (foolishly) congratulating myself on having avoided a worse outcome. Not to mention kicking myself for having cancelled the dinner invitation that we had extended for that evening. Surely it was just something that Cherry, with her predilection for licking train windows and anything else that came her way, had come down with.

Monday morning, Sapphire came out to the living room and announced that her stomach hurt, followed by Ezio who announced the same thing. Soon thereafter I realized that I also was feeling less than stellar, and that I should probably go to the grocery store before I started feeling worse. After all, Cherry seemed to be well on the road to recovery, Blaise was feeling fine, and surely we would want to eat something over the course of the day. Hah. Blaise tried to avoid getting infected while the rest of us made regular visits to our one bathroom. (Which, by the end of the day, smelled so bad that Cherry announced that she was peeing in the shower until I had cleaned the bathroom.)

Blaise left for a series of meetings around 3:30, leaving all of us sickies to our own devices for the evening. I think Cherry ate yogurt and a slice of brioche for dinner, but I'm not exactly sure, as my memory of the evening is somewhat foggy. I know that Sapphire and Ezio were both in bed before 7 (though Sapphire woke up a few more times to throw up) and that Cherry followed of her own accord shortly thereafter. I went to bed as soon as Blaise got home. He evidently decided that he was getting sick and followed me soon after.

Tuesday the kids and I spent the day recovering (I even napped, which I never do, mostly out of a misplaced sense of guilt), and Blaise spent the day being ill. I think at this point (knocking on wood) that the kids and I are over it, and he is mostly over it. Hopefully by tomorrow he will be completely back to normal. In the meantime, I get to try to catch up on all of the things that didn't get done while people were sick.

In which Cherry takes a nap

To begin with, it's important to realize that Cherry doesn't take naps, unless she is sick (or ill, as she would say), and even then getting her to take one is quite an accomplishment. Sleep and Cherry just don't get along very well. Lately though, we've been trying to make her have "rest" time every afternoon in the hopes that it would help to straighten out her atrocious nighttime sleep habits. (Are you done laughing at me yet?) Thus far, it hasn't worked. In fact, if anything, they seem to be getting worse lately.

So, this morning at 4:23 I hear a little voice: "Mommy? I want to get up now." I tell her that it's too early to get up and go back to sleep. At 4:27 I hear a little voice: "Mommy? I went back to sleep. Now can I get up?" I tell her it's still too early, and to go back to sleep. At 4:29 I hear a little voice: "Mommy? I'm getting up now. I've tried and tried (hmph) and I just can't go back to sleep." I try one more time to put her back to bed, but she pulls out her final weapon. She yells. Since (a) she shares a room with Sapphire and Ezio and (b) we're in an apartment building, we get up. But I don't turn on the light. Oh no. Perhaps if I ignore her she'll fall back to sleep on the sofa. Or, perhaps she'll ask whether it's time to get up every 37 seconds until 5:40 when I'll cave and turn on the light.

Since she went to bed at 7:30, was awake from 10:30 to 11:30 after having a nightmare, and then got up at 4:30, she needs a nap today if she's going to make it through dinner without melting down into a sobbing puddle of Cherry. But I decide I'm going to stealthy about the whole affair; no point in giving her a chance to build resistance. Amazingly enough, she seems happy when I pick her up from school at lunchtime. The first words out of her mouth after I pick her up are "I don't want to take a nap today." So much for stealth.

After lunch (which she's too tired to really eat) I send her to the bathroom and then we go back and read two books, during which time she uses the bathroom twice, goes in search of a Santa she made in school to check whether or not it is bigger than the one in the book, and announces several more times that she isn't taking a nap. I smile sweetly.

Having finished our books, it's time to get down to business. In theory, I've just induced a calm, sleepy state, and she will happily go down for a nap. In practice, she's overtired and hyper-stimulated and screams at me when I try to sing her a lullaby because I've just called her a baby. Eighty minutes later she's shaken the water from her bedtime sippy cup all over her bed, squeezed half a tube of owie bum cream (better known as Desitin) onto her bedspread, been returned to her bed 15 times, removed all her clothing and put it back on, twice, . . .. "Can I be done yet?" "Once you have laid still in bed with your eyes and mouth closed for 5 minutes you can get up." Twenty-three seconds later? She's asleep.

In which we register Sapphire for summer camp

Last spring, while we were investigating life in Fontenay-sous-Bois from afar, we spent some time looking over the children's information on the town website: schools, cafeteria food, before and after school care, and something called séjour, or vacation. The séjour link led to a bunch of information on summer camps, which we didn't examine too carefully, since we already had summer plans and we weren't yet residents and, furthermore, Sapphire didn't actually speak very much French.

Fast forward to 10 days or so ago. We receive (for free) a number of magazines about our town and region. The Fontenay-sous-Bois events magazine comes biweekly. The FSB city magazine comes monthly. (The Val-de-Marne (départemental) and Paris-Sud (regional) magazines come even less frequently.) Blaise was flipping through the FSB city magazine, which had just arrived, and he came across the pages describing this summer's séjour program. He then showed them to Sapphire, who immediately decided that she wanted to go. Unfortunately, there was a catch. The camp that she most wanted to go to required that she have some sort of a swimming certificate, and it wasn't at all clear how to obtain such a certificate, nor what she would be required to do for one.

The first step, then, was to figure out how to get the certificate. Since the program is run through the caisse de écoles (which handles school registration, before and after care, school lunch payments, etc.), that seemed like the natural place to start. So, magazine in hand, I walked up to the town hall for a visit. They all crowded around the magazine, and told me that they had no clue what it was or what I needed to do to get it, but perhaps the people at the swimming pool would know something.

After that, I wasn't very enthusiastic about asking someone else about it, and so I put off and put off asking at the swimming pool. Sapphire and Blaise, however, continued to nag me, and to assure me that if Sapphire didn't get to go to camp because I was a scaredy-cat, then she would be permanently scarred by the experience. (Laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?) So, Friday evening, while dinner was in the oven, Cherry and I made the trek over to the swimming pool and I asked the woman who was working the cash desk (who was, fortunately, the same person who had helped with the Cartes Fontenaysien and very patient with my halting French) what the attestation de natation was and how one could go about obtaining one. She, of course, had no idea. She did, however, have a phone, and so she called into the lifeguards at the swimming pool and asked them what it was, and what we had to do.

The verdict? Sapphire would need to pay admission to the pool, and bring along her identification (passport for her). They would administer the swimming test (to see if she could swim a little bit or not) and if she could, they would give her the relevant paper.

Saturday, after the valentine's party at the library, we all grabbed swimsuits and caps and goggles and headed over to the swimming pool. Sapphire walked straight up to the lifeguard and told him what she needed. After checking that we were, in fact, residents of FSB, he told her to go play in the pool until the second lifeguard got back from her break, and then they would give her the test. Meanwhile, I could put the passport (stowed in a ziploc) in the office for safekeeping.

We all played in the swimming pool for 30 minutes or so, until the lifeguard came over to get Sapphire and bring her over to the big pool for her swimming test. Evidently, the lifeguard told Sapphire that she needed to dive into the water and swim 2 lengths of the pool without stopping. Then she told her that she could get out and come back to the little pool to play. I saw her nod to the other guard, and he got busy copying stuff out of Sapphire's passport. Sapphire didn't, and spent the rest of our time at the pool wondering when they would tell her whether or not she had passed.

When we got out of the pool, the lifeguard walked over and handed me Sapphire's passport as well as the swimming certificate, and told Sapphire that she had done a very nice job on her test. He wanted to know whether the kids spoke very much English (yes) and to tell us about the time he had visited San Francisco and the Grand Canyon.

The next step was to fill out the registration form and drop it in the mail. Monday afternoon I filled out the form (3 times because I kept making mistakes!) and made a photocopy of the swimming certificate. Into the envelope they went, and Cherry and I headed off to the post office to mail it. Since we mailed it during the preregistration period, which goes until February 27, I expect that we won't hear anything for a couple of weeks at least. Then, we'll find out whether Sapphire is spending 2.5 weeks at the beach (her first choice), in the mountains (her second choice), or in Fontenay with the rest of us (if the camps are oversubscribed). Meanwhile, I have to get used to the idea of sending Sapphire away for 18 days!

In which Sapphire and Ezio's teacher is ill

Sapphire and Ezio's teacher missed all of last week because he was sick. (At least, we were told that he was sick. Blaise is convinced that he has quit due to the stress of dealing with Nabil all the time.) In any case, he wasn't there last week.

Monday, they were unable to find a substitute, and so the kids in the CLIN class were all farmed out to the other classrooms in the building, two by two. Sapphire and one of the other boys in the class ended up in a 4th grade class, though not in the one that Sapphire goes to for mathematics each day. She still went to the other building for her math class. Ezio and Jonas, who is so new that he probably had absolutely no idea what was going on, spent the day in Ezio's regular 1st grade class. Both of them came out after school very excited about having gotten to spend the entire day in a French school class instead of in CLIN.

Tuesday they were able to find a substitute. On the plus side, that meant that the kids did get to go to the pool for swimming lessons. On the minus side, it meant that instead of spending the day in a French class, they watched a very long movie about dinosaurs, and then the teacher lead a class discussion about it. Unfortunately, only about half of the kids in the class have good enough French to have anything like a discussion about anything, so that didn't go very far.

Wednesday is a no school day here in France.

Thursday we were hoping that their teacher would be back. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. They had a different substitute, who earned praise from Sapphire for being very aggressive about trying to figure out who had taken her markers. (Disappearing school supplies seem to be endemic in their classroom, but they haven't yet figured out who is making the supplies disappear.)

We got a note sent home on Thursday evening, requesting that we keep our kids home from school if at all possible, because they already knew that the teacher would still be sick, and they'd been unable to find a sub. They would again have to handle the kids that were there by farming them out to the other classes. I suggested that perhaps that would be a good thing, but Sapphire pointed out that it wasn't exactly fair to the other teachers, and that it would just make their (the teachers') lives more difficult. Since she was right, and since I could keep Sapphire and Ezio home Friday, I did so. Sapphire and I went shopping together while Ezio played his DS, and Ezio and I spent a hour playing cards while Sapphire read.

In which we go to the pool

Unfortunately, while Sapphire and Ezio had the proper gear for swimming in a French pool since they have been swimming once a week for school since November (tight fitting suit (speedo style for boys) and swim cap), Cherry and I did not. Our first stop, therefore, was the Decathlon. We walked out of the station at Bibliothèque François Mitterand and into big flakes of swirling snow, which Sapphire insisted was a blizzard. Then across the street and up to the swimming stuff. Cherry needed a suit because she had outgrown hers; I needed a suit because my skirted suit didn't meet the rather stringent pool regulations, we both needed caps, and Cherry wanted goggles. Thirty minutes and €30 later, Cherry had a pink swim suit, swim cap, and goggles, and I had a purple suit and pink cap.

Back to the train, and then through the Auchan to do our grocery shopping. (The security people sealed up our Decathlon bag so that we couldn't use it for shoplifting, not that we would have done that anyway.) The swimming pool didn't open until 3:30, so we spent a couple of hours around the house, planning to head over to the pool when it opened.

A bit before we were ready to head over though, Blanche asked whether Sapphire could play. I told Sapphire that was fine, but she would only be able to play for half an hour if she wanted to go to the pool. When Blanche's dad asked Sapphire why she could only play for 30 minutes, she told him that we were going swimming. Blanche's little sister overheard, and went to tell Blanche, who of course wanted to go too. Her dad gave permission, but didn't have money, so Blanche decided that she would just go and watch us through the window. Then, we ran into her sister at the mall, who gave her the admission fee, and so we waited while Blanche ran home for her swimming stuff.

When I had gone to get our Cartes Fontenaysien on Tuesday afternoon, the woman who was working at the cash desk had kept our photos and told me that I could pick up the cards the next day. They still weren't ready, so she finished them quickly (pieces of paper that say "Carte Fontenaysien" and have our identifying info on them with stapled on photos) and charged us the discounted rates. Better yet, I discovered that under 4's are free for the swimming pool, though that doesn't seem to be widely advertised.

We headed for the locker rooms, where the locker attendant told me that Ezio was too small to go in the men's side by himself, a refreshing change from the US, where they would have forced him to go to the men's side. We all got our separate changing rooms, even Cherry, who was wearing her suit and cap and goggles already. Our bins of clothing went back to the locker attendant, and we showered and walked through the feet washing puddle (which Cherry thought was the swimming pool and flopped down in) and out to the pool.

There are two pools in the complex. The first is a standard lap pool, though quite a deep one, since it goes from about 5.5 feet to almost 12 feet. The second is called the "petite bassin" and goes from 2.5 feet to 4.5 feet. It's about half the size of the big pool, and is where kids may play. (Older kids can play in the big pool, but under 10's need parental supervision over there, and I wasn't interested in bringing Cherry and Ezio into water that was basically over my head.)

We spent about a hour and a half in the water, and Cherry, who hadn't been swimming since we were camping in Italy, went from very clingy to jumping of the side. She also swallowed so much water that I was amazed that she didn't throw up from the sheer volume of her stomach contents. Sapphire and Ezio played like fish. And Blanche expressed amazement that they (even Ezio!) were able to swim with their faces in the water. (I had thought that maybe they were the best swimmers in their school class because all the kids are immigrants. Perhaps not.)

Afterwards we rinsed off in the showers, and then waited for the locker attendants to come and bring us our baskets. (They're actually these big hanger contraptions: there's a basket for shoes and little stuff at the bottom, which is attached by long poles to an outsized hanger at the top. Grown up (and big kid) clothes go on very nicely. Cherry's stuff pretty much all has to be draped over the pants bar.) While we were waiting, Cherry decided to jump up and down. Probably you can envision what happens when a wet preschooler starts jumping on a wet tile floor. We staunched the flow of blood with a towel, but she had a fat lip for a couple of days.

Once we were dressed, we headed back out to the front, where we handed back our baskets, and then put on our shoes (not allowed on in the locker rooms). Then home, dinner and bed. Evidently we succeeded in wearing Cherry out, since she slept until 6:30 the next morning, which is quite late for her.

In which I obtain our Cartes Fontenaysien

After discovering on Saturday that in order to get Fontenaysien rates at the swimming pool and the ice skating rink we had to have special cards which could only be obtained during the week I set to work. First, I needed to get together the documents necessary for establishing our residency in Fontenay. Photo identification for everyone was easy enough, since we all have passports. I'm not certain what they do about French children, though perhaps French national identity cards are issued at birth? Also easy were identity photos for everyone, since we've needed them a couple of times previously and they come in sheets of 5 photos. (Incidentally, my new strike-it-rich scheme involves convincing everyone that they need to provide identity photos for everything, and then installing the booths, which are ubiquitous here, in malls and shops in the United States.) Potentially more difficult was proving our address, since their preferred proofs were (1) an electric bill (ours is included in our rent, so we don't get the bill) or (2) a current rental payment receipt (ours is direct transferred from our bank to our landlady's, so we don't typically get a receipt). I hoped that our original rental contract would work, but I brought along bank statements, our 1 rental payment receipt, and Blaise's pay stubs, all of which had our address on them. (I also brought our marriage license, and birth certificates for the kids in case they decided to be difficult.)

Then I went in search of the proper office for the cards. All I knew was that it was somewhere in the Salvador Allende sports complex, which is huge. It includes a couple of gyms, martial arts studios, the ice rink, and swimming pool, and tons of office space. Most of the office space, so far as I can tell, is on the upper floor, where it is accessed from the parking lot on top of the Auchan, so I picked a door and went in. There was a group of people standing around and chatting in the first office, so I told them what I was looking for, and they told me that I needed to go to the cash desk for the swimming pool and ice rink, down the stairs to the right of the offices. Back outside and down the steps (I wonder if the complex dates from the late 1960s, since virtually everything has separate entrances, and even the stairs are all outside. It would be very difficult for protesters to shut down the building effectively.) and over to the entrance to the swimming pool and ice rink.

I knew as soon as I got there that the cash desk was closed, but there was a security guard, and I thought that perhaps I had misunderstood where exactly I needed to go, since of course the conversation had been carried out entirely in French. I had been under the impression that the cards were obtainable during regular business hours, and 11 a.m. was definitely regular business hours. So, I asked the security guy, who told me that the cash desk was definitely the right place, but I would have to come back when it was open, which was when either the pool or the ice rink or both were open to the public, either over lunch or when school was out for the day. (Talk about the antithesis of normal business hours. I suppose that makes sense though, since the ice rink and pool are in more or less constant use by school groups during the day. Swimming and ice skating are both part of the school curriculum.)

So, later that day, after I had picked the kids up from school and dropped them off at home and started dinner I headed back over to the ice rink/pool with my folders full of information and headed for the cash desk. The woman who was working there asked for identification (the passports) and whether I had photos for everyone (I did). She glanced over our rental contract and then asked me to write everybody's name and birthdate on the back of their photo. I could return when the pool and ice rink were open the next day to pick up the cards, and we would be eligible for the cheaper rates (about 15% off at the pool, 30% off at the ice rink).

In which we go to the Louvre and climb the Arc de Triomphe

Sunday was the first Sunday in February, which meant that many of the big Paris museums were free. Thus far, we have mostly gone to smaller museums on first Sundays, because the crowds at the big museums can be out of control, despite the fact that they don't really advertise the fact that they are free. However, it seemed a bit silly to spend a year (actually, 13 months) in Paris, and not actually go to the Louvre or the Orsay or Versailles.

We arrived at the Louvre around 10, and were surprised to see that there was virtually no line for clearing security. They x-rayed my backpack, we all walked through a metal detector (which was not very sensitive, since the set of keys in my pocket didn't set it off) and into the Louvre. First, we headed for the children's bookstore at the Louvre, because we were hoping to find a book which would allow the kids (at any rate, the older kids) to get more out of the museum. Blaise had done some looking online, but we wanted to actually have a chance to flip through the books before we went ahead and bought any. We ended up picking Discover the Louvre Together, after having some discussion about whether we should buy it in the original French or in the English translation.

Then we headed into the museum proper, accompanied by Cherry, whose feelings were hurt because we hadn't gotten a book for her so that she would be able to get more out of the Louvre. Unfortunately, there aren't really any such books. Evidently 3 year olds aren't expected to benefit from their trip to the Louvre. I checked our backpack at the baggage check after shoving my coat and Cherry's coat inside. (Baggage and coat check are separate, and I didn't feel like waiting in two lines.) Then we headed upstairs to the Italian art. Problem: the artwork is hung at eye level for an adult, which is, of course, over the head level for a preschooler. In order for Cherry to be able to see what was going on, and for us to be able to talk about the art, she would need to be carried. Blaise took care of the big kids (who can now identify paintings of St. Sebastian without difficulty--just look for the arrows) and I took Cherry. Mostly we looked at and talked about Mary and Baby Jesus paintings (since that was about 60% of the content of the gallery and Cherry likes babies). We found all the animals hidden in the picture, and all the angels (and cupids, though not in the same pictures). We identified all of the paintings in which Baby Jesus was getting mama milk. (We also saw the Mona Lisa and the Wedding at Cana. Cherry was not impressed. No babies.)

Once we had finished with the Italian gallery, we headed for the Egyptian gallery, which, unfortunately, was completely devoid of babies, with or without wings. Cherry identified some animals for me, and then proceeded to whine and squirm. Neither the mummy cases nor the massive urns held any interest for her. Once we reached the end of the Egyptian gallery, Blaise and the kids staked out a table on the mezzanine while I headed down to a (very busy) bag check to pick up our backpack and lunch.

After lunch (and a trip back to the bag check, and yet another trip to the toilet with Cherry (if you need directions to the bathrooms in the Louvre, just ask me)) we headed up the other side of the Louvre to Napoleon's apartments. Of course, the first words out of Cherry's mouth were, "I need to pee." I managed to prevail on Blaise to take her to the men's room by observing that the line to the women's room was out the door and halfway down the corridor, while the men's room had virtually no line. (Five minutes later I sent Ezio in to join them.) Cherry came out jabbering about how she had gotten to use a girl's potty even though she was in the boy's bathroom. Evidently that was quite the surprise for her. She was less enamored by the chandeliers and fancy furniture of Napoleon's suite, though she did think that the dining room table which sat 44 people was worth commenting on.

By the time we'd made our way through to the end, all of us (even Blaise) had reached saturation, so I took Sapphire and Cherry to the bathroom and Blaise picked up our bag, and we headed for the train station. A few minutes later, we got off at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile and headed for the Arc de Triomphe, which is free on only winter first Sundays. (Because who in their right mind would want to climb it then.) Once we had picked up our free tickets, we got in line to climb the 284 steps to the top. (Actually, I'm not sure whether it's 284 steps to the top, or 284 steps to the first floor. There appears to be some discrepancy depending on where you look.) We spent 20 minutes or so looking at the city of Paris from on high. Cherry tried to make the telescopes work (they needed money) because they were silver and gold and shiny. Then we headed back down the stairs (on the other side of the Arc) and back home.

In which we run around

Often I run into Blanche (not literally of course) when I'm picking Cherry up from school. Like many French school children, she walks home to her apartment for lunch instead of staying to eat at the cantine. (French public school kids don't pack lunches. Either they eat the school lunch, or they go home.) Frequently she wants to get some sort of confirmation of when Sapphire will be able to play with her. (Unfortunately, "can play" isn't necessarily the same as "wants to play," which I have no control over, and sometimes I feel rather stuck in the middle. So does Sapphire.) In any case, on Thursday she wanted to know whether or not we could go to the ice skating rink on Saturday, and I agreed that would be fine.

Saturday morning though, we needed to go to the library, since everyone had read all of their books. After a desperate search to find the last Asterix book (under the couch cushions) we were off to the train station. Sapphire carried her own books on the grounds that if she carried them then she should be allowed to check out as many books as she wanted. I told her that was fine, but that she needed to check out at least one book with more substance than The Babysitters' Club books.

At the library, we returned our old books (all 27 of them) and picked out new books. Ezio picked 5 Boxcar Children books. Cherry carefully selected books from the C-D bin. (I found out later that her selection criterion was purple.) And Sapphire hunted down the Children's Librarian and told her that her mean mom had said she wasn't allowed to check out any Babysitters' Club books because they weren't substantive enough. She ended up checking out A Wrinkle in Time, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a couple of historical fiction books, a biography of Michelle Obama, and a new book that I'd never heard of but which the librarian strongly recommended. (I'll just note that I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince her to read the first 3 books for months. Evidently the librarian is a more reliable source of book recommendations than I.)

After lunch, the kids and I dressed for skating, and I grabbed cash for admissions and skate rentals. I also grabbed the receipt for my Carte de Séjour because it had our address on it and admissions and rentals are significantly cheaper for residents of Fontenay than for non residents. Once we finally reached the front of the line, I discovered two things.

1) Blanche hadn't brought any money, and so I would have to pay for her admission and skate rental.

2) In order to get the Fontenay admission rates, I needed to bring photo ID and proof of address and identification sized photos and a couple of other things to the office of the Sports Complex (not open on weekends) and they would make special cards for everyone that would entitle us to the discounted admission rates. So I had to pay full price for 4 children and 1 adult.

We made our way inside and got skates. Once I had laced and tied the skates of all 4 kids, and laced and tied my own skates, we were ready to make our way out onto the ice. (Are you getting the impression that this is all a bit of a production? Because it is.) Sapphire and Ezio headed out onto the ice with Blanche. Cherry held my hand, and we skated very slowly, and with many falls, around the rink 1.5 times. Then, Cherry announced that she was done skating, and ready to go home. Problem: I couldn't leave without the big kids, who were still skating, and I'd paid a small fortune in admissions for everyone. If all of the kids had wanted to leave, I would have left and chalked it up to a learning experience and refused to repeat it.

So Cherry and I sat on the steps and watched the other skaters. After 5 minutes she decided that she wanted her skates off. We could always put them back on if she changed her mind. After another 5 minutes she decided that her feet were cold. Could she put my mittens on them? We did. (In case you were wondering why I didn't just put her skates back on, I wore mine the entire time, and my feet were like blocks of ice by the end. I suspect the mittens were substantially more effective.) A few minutes later Ezio came over and told me that he wanted to leave. And I told him that he was welcome to stop skating and sit with me until 4:30, or Sapphire and Blanche wanted to leave, but that if he was only going to want to skate for 20 minutes or so I probably wouldn't be bringing him next time. He was, of course, more than welcome to sit for a while so that his legs could rest.

Shortly before 4:00 they announced (evidently, I was listening to Cherry whine) that it was somebody's birthday, and they switched from ordinary white lights to multicolored spotlights that switched on and off in sequence. That was enough to convince Ezio to go back onto the ice, and all three big kids ended up skating until close to 4:30 when Ezio came off saying he was tired, Sapphire told me she was getting blisters, and I dragged Blanche off the ice. After reversing the putting skates on operation (though Blanche, at least, could get her own off) and putting shoes on, we headed back home. (And then I headed back to the grocery store to get food for dinner and something to fix for Sunday since the grocery store would be closed.)

In which we go to the Cité de la Musique

Last Saturday we had a pretty busy day, and so we weren't sure whether or not we would end up doing something on Sunday. Blaise had some things that he wanted to get done, I was tired, and Cherry was pretty well worn out as well. Sapphire thought that maybe she would like to play with Blanche. Ezio seemed pretty happy to play Yoshi's Island. Besides, we weren't sure quite what to do. The forecast was for cool enough (and wet enough) so that a trip to a park didn't sound all that appealing. On the other hand, it was Sunday, and Blaise had pretty much worked through the previous weekend because he needed to give a talk on Monday (at 9:00, so I had to bring all 3 kids to school. Those are the days I most wish that Sapphire and Ezio weren't in CLIN).

After breakfast, Sapphire and Ezio and Cherry went off to play in the bedroom, and Blaise and I tried to plan out our day. If we were to do something, what would it be? A park was probably out, and Blaise was definitely not interested in the Cité des Sciences. We talked briefly about visiting the Louvre, but we're still waffling about whether or not to get annual memberships for the grown ups (kids are free), and so we didn't want to pay admission and then decide to buy the memberships. Besides, we'd really like to pick up some books for the kids to help them get more out of the museum, and we haven't had a chance to do that. (Read: haven't bothered to do that yet.)

Perhaps, Blaise suggested, I would like to go to the Cité de la Musique? Well, I would, especially now that I'd looked at his museum guide from his visit there with his brother back in December. They had gone to see the special exhibition on Miles Davis, and so he had only peripherally seen the rest of the museum. It was 8€ for each of us. Were the kids free? Some investigation: they were, and they would still get the audio guide. (There are a number of museums that include an audio guide with the admission fee. Generally speaking, you only get one if you pay a fee though, and so while children [and teens] may be free, they also don't get a guide. We generally end up passing on them because nobody else wants to listen to the kids argue about who gets to use the guide in a particular room, and if everyone listens in each room then it takes forever.)

We got to the museum around 11, and bought our tickets. At the entrance to the exhibits we turned over our tickets and were given audio guides with headsets for the grown ups and big kids, and an extra headset to plug into mine (or Blaise's) for Cherry (who of course was butt hurt that she didn't get her own). Some of the things we saw:

1) Lutes. Lots of lutes. For some reason I had always envisioned lutes as looking like unusually pretty ukuleles. Instead, they are monster instruments with a couple of dozen strings and two separate necks. I fail to see how any person possessing fewer than 4 arms could even begin to play one.

2) Hurdy gurdies, which also looked nothing like I had anticipated, but rather like a combination of a violin (strings), piano (keys), and antique car (crank) all in a package the size of a small microwave. I suspect that you turn the crank while depressing the keys to make the music. At any rate, I can see how one would play one with only the standard set of 2 arms.

3) The octobass, one of only 2 in existence. To play it, one had to stand on a stool and use one's hand to press down on levers, which in turn caused massive metal fingers to stop the strings. You could also use pedals which you depressed with your feet for this purpose. You bowed with the other hand.

I should note that we also saw many instruments (and listened to them on our audio guides) that were more familiar (or at any rate less bizarre). There were a plethora of harpsichords, viols of various sizes, cornets, harps, recorders, etc. There were also lots of violins, including some by Stradivari and Guarneri (and probably other famous makers as well. Cherry had kind of lost it by the time we reached the 19th century). There was also a substantial collection of instruments of the world, but by the time we reached it the two younger kids had reached such a high state of "through with this museum" that all I got from it was a fleeting impression of red and gold.

Afterwards, we let the kids run around in the grass for a while until we (the grown ups) got cold, and then loaded everyone up and headed for home.