In which we have company for dinner

When I had my visite medicale, back at the beginning of March, I
learned that as the holder of a family titre de séjour, I would have
to take various classes on French life and government. At that time,
they scheduled me to take my civic formation class on the 13th of
April, which seemed like it should be fine. After all, Blaise would be
able to pick Cherry up from school and spend the afternoon with her. Then, of course, I asked Blaise and it turned out that he had a big workshop that day, and that the planning of said workshop had consumed many hours and so, naturally, he couldn't take Cherry. What to do?

Perhaps Elinor or Caroline could pick Cherry up from school? No, both of them had prior commitments for that day (and it would have been inconvenient for them anyway). Maybe she could stay at school for the afternoon? Well, she could (I asked), but Cherry doesn't do particularly well with changes to her schedule, and that would only take care of things until 4:30 or so. At that point, she would either have to go to the Centre de Loisirs (afterschool care), which would mean both a change of venue, and a change of caregivers, or I would have to find someone to pick her up and bring her home. I toyed with the idea of asking Blanche's older sister to pick up Cherry when she picked up Alexandra, but ultimately decided against it. Bringing her with seemed unwise, and I really, really didn't want to try to reschedule the class. Finally, I had an idea. There is a graduate student couple from Notre Dame visiting Paris this spring. The husband is working with the same group here that Blaise is, and the wife is doing research in the history of American religion. We had had them over for dinner previously. Perhaps she would be willing to pick Cherry up and take care of her for the afternoon? I sent an email. A couple of days later, I had my answer: Yes!

The next problem was that Cherry didn't really know Laura all that well, and, as we all know, Cherry doesn't do very well with people she doesn't know. I didn't particularly want this to be a stressful experience for everyone, so Cherry would need a chance to get to know Laura a bit better before she had to pick her up from school. (Cherry went with Blaise to get Chris and Laura from the train station a couple of weeks ago, and promptly started sobbing hysterically upon seeing them.) Perhaps they would like to come over for dinner on Sunday? They would. (I think Laura wanted Cherry to be comfortable with her at least as much as I did.)

So, Chris and Laura came for dinner on Sunday, and while Chris played monkey in the middle with Sapphire and Ezio (and Blaise frantically tried to put his talk for Monday together), Cherry and I showed Laura how to get to Cherry's school, and how you go down the fire pole, and where the climbing tree is, and how to get to Sapphire and Ezio's school to pick them up after school. Cherry assured Laura that she could tell her how to get to the big kids' school. Then, we went inside and Sapphire showed Laura the box of craft supplies that she had put together for Cherry, and Cherry showed her the lacing cards and duplos and books.

After that, it was time for dinner: boeuf bourguignon and buttered steamed potatoes with a tossed salad, and brown sugar cookies for dessert. Then Chris and Laura left and Cherry headed for bed (with some help, of course).