In which Sapphire returns from camp

Not much news actually. Sapphire arrived home safely just before 7:00 this evening, though we had to wait for half an hour or so for the luggage truck to arrive. She had a wonderful time.

There was apparently a lice outbreak at camp while she was there, but she didn't catch them. However, she was lice shampooed (as were all of the campers) and got to have her hair carefully combed out section by section to make sure that she didn't. According to her, she was the one who spotted little white specks moving around in someone's long black hair and notified the counselors.

The cook's made an enormous cake for her birthday with pink and white frosting, and the directrice of the camp gave her a lovely purple ring shaped out of a piece of coated wire.

She got far more mail than anyone else at camp, and the other kids were fascinated by the fact that her letters were in English. (Since I got a grand total of 3 letters, I suspect that she did not send far more mail than anyone else at camp.)

In which Sapphire is at camp

Sapphire left for camp early on the morning of Monday, July 5th. Since that time, I have been huddled in a panicky ball in the corner of my bedroom, hoping that she somehow manages to make it safely home.

OK, that isn't true. So what have we been doing?

Well, the day that Sapphire left, Blaise had to go to a talk in Paris. Once he was done with the talk, he called us and the kids and I took the train into the city and met him in the Marais. We had dinner at l'As du Fallafel, which is perhaps the most famous falafel restaurant in Paris. After dinner, we walked to the Place de Vosges, where Cherry and Ezio played in the sandbox until a couple of teenage degenerates decided that it would be fun to have a sandball fight. Then we headed over to the slides and bouncy toys for a while.

Tuesday, the kids and I went to the playground for a while, and picked blackberries in the woods at the Parc des Epivans. Then we went to the American Library to check out our last complement of books, at least until we return to Paris, because our membership is going to expire on the 25th of July, and it doesn't make sense to pay for a renewal given that we're leaving the country on the 5th of August.

Wednesday we actually didn't do anything, except go to the playground and play soccer outside on the grass.

Thursday the kids and I went to the Parc Floral to play on the playground. We also wanted to go to the butterfly house, but discovered after we got there that it wouldn't be opening until 1:30, so we decided to stay until then. Unfortunately, I didn't bring lunch, since I figured that we'd play until we got hungry and then take the bus back home to eat, so we were reduced to eating ice cream bars from the snack stand when we got hungry around 12:30. The butterflies were very pretty though, and so well worth the wait.

Friday, a few of Cherry's friends came over for a combination farewell and birthday party. Blaise took Ezio into Paris to the Galeries Lafayette, and they spent a couple of hours wandering through the toy department, largely because the major department stores are all air conditioned. I meticulously planned all sorts of games and activities for the party, and then the kids spent the entire two hours playing with PlayDoh and Duplos. It was with great difficulty that I dragged them away so that they could eat their cookies and drink their juice.

Saturday, we (all of us) went into Paris to the Cimetière de Montparnasse, where we searched for famous peoples' graves: Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Henri Poincaré, Baudelaire, Porfirio Díaz, and a few others. Then we wandered around the area by the Tour Montparnasse until we found a reasonable looking (and not too terribly touristy) crêperie, where we had galettes, hard cider, and crêpes for lunch. Afterwards, we headed to the Jardin Atlantique, which is a Parisian park built on top of the Gare Montparnasse. The kids played on the playground until it started to rain, and Blaise and I talked and listened to the announcements floating up from the train station.

Sunday, we went to the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Le Bourget, to the NE of Paris. After a few adventures getting there (the first bus line we tried to take wasn't running, the second didn't actually stop at the RER station but instead stopped a couple of blocks (and a couple of turns) away), we spent close to 5 hours at the museum. I can now say that I've been inside a 747 (and seen a car in its cargo bay), a Dakota military transport, and not one but two Concordes. Unfortunately, none of them were airborne. We also saw lots and lots of planes from WWI and WWII, and some very interesting attempts at flight from the end of the 19th century. Then we tried to go to some really nice bookstores in Paris, but they were closed, so we bought pastries and ate them in the gardens at the Musée du Cluny.

Monday we had friends of Blaise's over for dinner.

Tuesday, the kids and I went to Fontenay sous Soleil, which is a set up by the city of Fontenay to provide an opportunity for those who aren't leaving over the summer to participate in various summer activities. Ezio and I played badminton. Ezio and Cherry jumped on the trampolines. The kids played in the giant sandboxes (complete with lots of really cool sand toys). We all ran through the sprayers. That evening, we watched the fireworks display from our balcony. Cherry was so excited about watching her first ever fireworks show (that she was actually awake for) that she refused to get up to use the toilet during it. And she was sitting on my lap. Fortunately, we have a washing machine.

Wednesday was rainy, and so we stayed in most of the day. We did watch the Bastille Day parade on television, but that was about the most ambitious thing that we managed.

Thursday evening we went into Paris to go to the bookstore which we had tried (and failed) to go to on Sunday. Ezio and Blaise looked at the bandes dessinées (comic books) and Cherry and I looked at the picture books. Then we all looked at the cookbooks, but we didn't get anything. Next, we walked over to the Église Saint-Gervais Saint-Protais. Unfortunately, they were doing restoration work, and there was a service in progress, so we were unable to do more than stick our heads in the door and look around a little bit. Afterwards, we stopped by a bakery for bread and then had a dinner of bread and plums and water in the courtyard of the Église Saint Medard. Finally, we walked over to the Arene de Lutece and watched the petanque players until it was time to go home.

Friday, we spent a few hours at Fontenay-sous-Soleil. Since we were there later in the day, the Ludotheque station was set up, and the kids spent a long time playing at the water station, and then driving cars on the town mat. We also played some badminton and thought about playing petanque, but there didn't seem to be any marker balls available to start the game with. Once we got home, it was time to set up for dinner, since we had some Notre Dame graduate students coming over to eat with us. Strangely enough, one of them was a Calvin grad, so we played a little bit of Dutch bingo. No matches though.

Saturday we went into the city and went to the Parc de Bercy and then to Bercy Village. Ezio convinced Cherry that the bubbles in the water were caused by the crocodiles that lived there. We walked through Bercy village, which is really just a mall, sadly enough. (Bercy used to be where most wine entered Paris, via barges on the Seine. Alas, it is no longer.)

Sunday was Cherry's birthday (and Sapphire's too, of course, but she wasn't there to celebrate it). We started out by going back to Sadahuru Aoki for macarons, which we ate in the Jardin de Luxembourg. Then we found a little garden with sandboxes and wading pools, where my children had a splashing battle with a little French girl, which resulted in three extremely wet children, though I, fortunately, only had to deal with two of them. We wandered over to the bassin, where children sail little boats, and watched for awhile. I debated renting a boat for the kids to use, but as it seemed as if all one did was put it into the water at one end of the bassin and then fish it out again at the other (repeat until your time is up), that we would probably get just as much enjoyment out of watching other people sailing their boats. Then the kids and I headed over to the playground while Blaise found a shady spot to sit and people watch. Afterwards, we stopped at Pierre Hermé for a very fancy (and very expensive) birthday cake: a gigantic rose, litchi, and strawberry macaron.

Monday we headed to Parc Disneyland with José, a friend of Blaise, and his family. José and his family and Ezio and Blaise started the day at the studios, where Ezio got to, at last, ride the Rock and Roller Coaster (he's finally 120 cm). In the meantime, Cherry and I went to the Magic Kingdom (since she's too short to ride almost everything at the studios) and rode Buzz Lightyear, and the Storybook Boats, and Small World, and the Carrousel, and wandered through the maze. After we all ate lunch together, Blaise and José and José's oldest daughter rode Space Mountain while the rest of us rode the rockets (which I do not like). Then we split up again until dinner, this time by family. After dinner, we went on Autopia and then they stayed for the parade and fireworks, and we headed home.

Message from camp--July 13

Weather: Fair
Dear parents.
Yesterday it rained, but the sun came out.Today, a group went camping and others have gone on the catamaran.We will make key chains and eat ice cream on the beach.Yesterday on the catamaran there was not enough wind to move the boats.It was a nice day, apart from the lack of wind.
We hope you're well.We send big kisses. Until Thursday for more news.

Message from camp--July 12

Weather: Beautiful

Hello, dear parents.
Everything goes well here, unfortunately it is gray and the start of camping has been postponed due to the weather.
Yesterday we had a great game on the theme of children's rights and we have invented great songs on this theme.
Last night we watched the final of World Cup soccer on a giant screen and others watched a movie at the center.
Today we are going to go on the catamarans and do some craft activities are at the center.
Tonight we have a barbecue.
Thinking of you, big kisses to all.

In which Sapphire and Cherry say goodbye to their friends

Both Sapphire and Cherry wanted to have parties for their friends before school got out, both to say goodbye and because they have summer birthdays. Ezio was given the option of a farewell party as well, but he hasn't really made any good friends while we've been here (he had kids to play with at recesses, but he never really hit it off with anyone at school), and so when we gave him the option of doing something fun in Paris with just a parent and no siblings instead, he jumped at the chance.

Since so many French families leave town for much of the summer, we wanted to schedule the parties for the last part of the school year, and, of course, they needed to be on different days. Since the last day of school was July 2nd, that meant June 26th for Sapphire's party, and June 30th (no Wednesday school) for Cherry's. Sapphire really, really, really wanted to make her invitations herself, so she took note cards and decorated them individually for the four girls that she wanted to invite: two from her CLIN class, one from her mathematics class, and one who she's just become close friends with at recess. Then we typed the invitation, printed it out, and she glued the invitations to the backs of her note cards to give to her friends at school. Her two French friends, Samantha and Léa, immediately said that they would come, but her friends from CLIN were less certain. (The CLIN class pulls in kids from a fairly wide area--only about a third of the kids actually live in Fontenay-sous-Bois--and so it is a bit more of a project for some of them to come into town.) Ultimately, neither of the CLIN kids were able to come, but the Samantha and Léa arrived as expected.

Since we were billing this as a farewell celebration rather than a birthday celebration, there was no cake. Instead, Sapphire and I mixed the dough for cutout cookies earlier in the day and let it chill while we all went outside and played games. I learned the French names for hide-and-seek (cache-cache), red light, green light (un, deux, trois, soleil!), charades (mîmes), and tag (chat). (Actually, I already knew the first and the last because we'd played them with French kids before, but the other two were new names to me, and to Sapphire as well.) Then we headed inside, and I rolled out cookie dough with a vinegar bottle and the kids cut out shapes with knives and then sprinkled colored sugar on them with spoons. Then we slipped them in the oven, and once we had baked most of the dough we all had cookies and milk. By that time it was almost time for Samantha and Léa to be picked up, and so Sapphire opened the goodbye presents and then the buzzer sounded and we all said goodbye.

Since Cherry was a lot less pushy about getting invitations out (Sapphire would have sent hers in March if I would have let her), and I am nothing if not a procrastinator, Cherry's invitations didn't go to her classmates (actually, to their mothers, since she was only inviting four kids) until two days before we were having people over. Then, Wednesday morning when we were at the playground, I noticed a funny bubbly looking spot on her forehead. By lunchtime it was twice as big, and she said it really hurt when I touched it, and so I called the pediatrician and asked if I could have it looked at. Of course, the time slot he offered (and I wasn't confident enough in my French to ask for a different one) was smack in the middle of the party time. Since I wasn't sure whether what was going on might be contagious or not, we ended up meeting all of her party guests at the door and telling them that instead of having a party we were going to the doctor. Safia was leaving for vacation the next day, and Katarina ended up not showing up at all, but Colleen and Nathan's mom said that they wouldn't be leaving for vacation, and that they would be able to come sometime the next week, after school was out for the summer. She needed to check her calendar, but we exchanged phone numbers, and a couple of days later she called to confirm that Friday, the 9th, would work for them. I called to tell Katarina's mom.

Then, much to our surprise, we saw Safia and her mom at the carrousel outside of the Auchan on Thursday afternoon, and so we invited her to come over on Friday as well. Blaise took Ezio to the Galeries Lafayette, where they looked at all of the stuffed animals and Lego and Playmobil and everything else in the toy section, and then went upstairs and looked at all of the sirop and the 5 kg jars of Nutella. Cherry and I sat out on the front step of the building and waited for her friends to show up. Colleen and Nathan showed up (a little bit late) followed by Safia (not Katarina, which didn't surprise me too much) and Aurore (the twins' mom) and I and all the kids headed up to our apartment (Safia's mom left to spend some quality time with Safia's sister). And then Aurore and I talked and the kids played with playdough and duplos for almost 2 hours. It was with great difficulty that I convinced them to go and eat their cookies and drink their juice. And clearly all of the actual activities that I had planned fell by the wayside. Then, after Safia's mom picked her up, we took the other 3 kids outside to the playground for a little bit before dinner.

Message from camp--July 10

Weather: beautiful

Hello, dear parents.
This morning we walked along the beach to go to market and had the opportunity to buy souvenirs.

Other children will continue the activities: sailing, catamaran, and a picnic.
Yesterday maestro came to visit us to lead the party, we had fun.
We give you big kisses.
Until Monday for more news.

Message from camp--July 9

Weather: beautiful

Dear parents,

Yesterday we did new activities: optimiste (I think this is a kind of small sailboat), pastries, water games. Then we started to prepare a show. Today we are going to the pool and then on the catamaran. This evening we'll have a great fureur (not sure what this is--apparently it's a big and kind of crazy party).

Tomorrow for more news.

Also, we received an actual letter today from Sapphire, who writes that she is doing well, and that she won a game where they had to make the counsellors laugh. She's evidently been collecting shells, and sent one to Cherry and Ezio, but, alas, it got crushed in the mail. She thought that it might, but assured us that the pieces would be pretty, even so.

Message from camp--July 8

Weather: Beautiful

Dear parents.

We're fine, we went on the catamaran. It was great. We had fun. It was sunny but the water was cold. We also played on the beach. The counselors are nice. The center is beautiful and it is right next to the beach. We miss you anyway.
Kisses to all.

In which we go on a pilgrimage

At this point, the posts are all out of order with the time in which we did them. I believe that the relevent date here is the 27th of June, but I wouldn't be willing to swear to it.

Several weeks ago, while wandering around Paris, we visited a church that had once served as the home of St. Vincent de Paul. My encounters with him had largely been through the St Vincent de Paul Society, which runs thrift shops for the Catholic church, though that at least gave me more context than I have for most Catholic saints. Blaise, however, decided to do a little bit of research online, and discovered that there is a fairly substantial "cult" (I hesitate to use that word here, but I don't know a better one) around St Vincent de Paul, and that if we wanted to, we could visit the churches that had his bones and his heart.

Accordingly, once Blaise's schedule had cleared up a little bit, we made our plans and set off, choosing to combine our St Vincent de Paul pilgrimage with one for food. First stop, the St Vincent de Paul chapel. It is much more recent than many of the Paris churches popular with tourists, and is very definitely off the tourist track. They also appear to have worked very hard to obtained the stone for the floors, which squeaked loudly every time I took a step, despite the fact that my shoes were bone dry. So I tried to walk as little as possible while still seeing the chapel.

From there we walked to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, which is very much a pilgrimage site. When we arrived, a very well attended service was in progress, so we listened a little bit from the back and looked at what we could see from there. Blaise and I managed a glimpse of the waxen figure containing the heart of St Vincent, but all of the kids were too short to see over the heads of those in front of us. After a stop at the bathrooms (Free! And clean! And I, fortunately, had Kleenex in my pocket), we headed off to find food. (There was actually another church that was on our list, but when we got there we found that, alas, it was only open during the week.).

Our first food stop was at a little pastry shop, Patisserie Sadaharu Aoki (some of it is actually in Japanese), which has some of the best macarons in Paris. We each picked one: violet for Cherry and me, raspberry pistachio for Blaise and Sapphire, coffee for Ezio. Then we walked with them to the Jardin de Luxembourg where we found a bench in the shade and nibbled away at them until they were all gone. Ezio and Cherry ran races around the benches until Cherry fell and starte crying, and then we headed for the next stop on our pilgrimage.

We stopped at two more very famous pastry shops (Pierre Hermé Paris and Patisserie Gérard Mulot), and went in and gazed rapturously at the exquisite (and very expensive) things in the glass cases. And paged through the very beautiful recipe book they had for sale. And left without spending a cent. That, of course, was because we were saving the rest of our money for a trip to Grom, which is a tually an Italian gelato chain with a shop in Paris. Ironically, we had been there when we visited Turin last summer, where it is considered to be about the best gelato in town. In Paris, it ranks second to Berthillion, where one pays a small fortune for tiny scoops of very good ice cream. Once we had our cones (or cup, in Cherry's case), we settled down to enjoy them at one of the little tables in front of the shop.

A map of our day can be found here.

In which we go to the dentist

Last May (that is, May 2009) we dutifully went to the dentist before leaving for France. The dentist observed that Sapphire had the beginning of a small cavity in one of her baby molars, but assured me that it would fall out long before it became a problem, and that it really wasn't worth bothering to fill it. So, we didn't, and we just kind of kept an eye on it and hoped that it would get loose and fall out.

Fast forward to this June, when Sapphire announced that her tooth hurt when she chewed, and when observation indicated that the tooth was not even the tiniest bit loose. I looked in the phone book and found a dentist office nearby, called to make an appointment, and scheduled one for the following evening.

The next evening, Tuesday, Sapphire and I headed over to the dentist's office. She took one look at Sapphire's tooth, agreed that something needed to be done, and gave us a prescription for the radiology lab so that we could have x-rays taken of Sapphire's mouth. She needed to decide whether it was better to fill the cavity or just to pull out the tooth.

Wednesday morning, Sapphire and I headed over to the radiology lab, hoping they would be able to take us right away, but prepared to schedule an appointment if necessary. As a fortunate consequence of getting there when it opened, they were able to take her yet that morning, and so after we had sat in the waiting room for a little while, they called Sapphire back and she got to bite on a little white mouthpiece while the x-ray camera moved around her head. (Did I mention that they seem to be big into panoramic x-rays around here?). Then we waited for them to develop the film, and walked out with the x-rays of Sapphire's teeth. (They seem to let everyone be responsible for their own x-rays here. I currently have, in my closet, chest x-rays for both Blaise and I, the results of my abdominal ultrasound, and Sapphire's dental x-rays. And that's from only one year.)

Then, Thursday afternoon, we were playing on the playground by our apartment, and Ezio was (not very wisely) swinging on the gate, which flew open and smacked Cherry in the mouth. Once we had staunched the bleeding, it was clear that none of her teeth had been loosened, but a big piece of her gum had been sliced off. Back to the dentist, this time with Cherry, to be told that the gum was fine (she hadn't sliced off enough of the gum to affect the roots of the teeth), but that she had three small cavities in need of filling.

So the next week we made three trips to the dentist. The first one, on Monday, was for Sapphire. The dentist looked at the x-ray, decided that the tooth wasn't going to come out anytime soon, cleaned it out, put in a temporary filling, and scheduled us to come back on Friday after school. Friday afternoon I went over with Cherry so that she could have her 3 cavities filled, an exercise that took perhaps a half hour and was done completely without drugs of any kind. Cherry didn't even flinch, although she was a bit suspicious of the blue light that the dentist used to set the fillings in her teeth. Then, two hours later, I went back with Sapphire, who also had 3 cavities filled--the big one that had been hurting her, and two smaller ones, all, fortunately, in baby teeth--again without any anesthetic. So now both of my daughters have French dental work, and Ezio is up next. According to the school dentist, he has two teeth in need of filling. Also according to the school dentist, we should be receiving a coupon to pay for his treatment, so I'll wait until it arrives to schedule his appointment. (I would have waited for Sapphire were it not for the fact that she left for camp on Monday.)

Message from camp--July 7

Weather: Beautiful

Hello, dear parents.

Here it is a little chilly, but the sun is out. Yesterday was very good, some of us went on the catamarans, and the others went to the beach. We have swum and played games. On the catamaran, we had to pull a rope to move forward. This morning, we are going to have pastries, wake our muscles, and play games. This afternoon, we will reverse the groups for the catamarans and the beach and this evening we will play games in groups. We hope you are having fun. We are having a lot of fun.

More news tomorrow. Big kisses to all.

In which there is an update on Sapphire

We haven't actually heard anything from Sapphire yet, but the camp director is posting brief updates most days. They are, of course, in French, so I'll try to paraphrase in English for those who are interested.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Weather: Beautiful

We have arrived at the centre de vacances in L'Auguillon-sur-Mer. The trip went well, and we have settled into our rooms with our friends and are going to have a snack. Afterwords, we will take a brief tour of the property and visit the area. This evening, after a shower and a good meal, we'll learn a little about each other before we go to bed.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Weather: Beautiful

We are well settled at the camp in l'Aiguillon-sur-Mer. After our first night at the edge of the sea, we woke up to a beautiful blue sky and sunshine. We have already begun our activities for the trip, today we begin the catamaran in small groups. The camp is beautiful, and we are next to the sea.

I promise my mother that we haven't been sitting home while Sapphire has been at camp, but much activity does not leave much time for blogging. (Neither does having kids home from school for the summer.)

In which Rebekah explains her absence . . .

. . . in order that she might keep the peace with her Mothers and assure them that she has neither fallen from the Eiffel Tower nor drowned in the Seine.

My excuses, in no particular order

1) I've been really, really busy doing things that you don't really want to read about. No, really. I don't think that anyone can make being on hold with the electric company sound interesting. And you don't want to read about unloading the dishwasher or hanging up laundry or that sort of thing either.

2) The kids have been going to bed really late, because it's only really getting dark at 10:20 or so, and so their schedules are all out of whack. Unfortunately, I'm pretty much ready to crash by then too.

3) I have about a million lines of tax forms that I'm supposed to be filling in. I haven't done any of them yet either. (See, I'm an equal opportunity procrastinator!)

4) The World Cup has been on.

5) It is imperative that I read as many George Simenon mysteries as possible before we leave Paris, so that when I walk around I can look at street signs and think, "Oh, they found a body here" or "This is where the victim's girlfriend lived." It's much harder to do that in Manhattan.

6) Blaise's been super busy (although that's getting better) and so we haven't been doing very many of the sorts of things that I find myself getting really excited about writing about.

7) It's hard to start writing again once I've been away from it for several days.

So, really, I don't have any very good excuses, other than procrastination and general busyness. (And may I add that it's currently very, very hot. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything except that I think my brain may be melting.)

In any case, if you would like the short version of what's been going on for the last few weeks it goes something like this:

Deal with bureaucracy--end of school stuff--camp stuff--more bureaucracy--dentist--end of school stuff--dentist--party--dentist--party--camp stuff--doctor--end of school stuff--bureaucracy. . .

I'll try to fill in some more of the details over the next days (just as soon as I finish dealing with the rest of the dentist stuff [Sapphire and Cherry are both getting filling tomorrow, and evidently Ezio needs them as well] and the end of school stuff [last day tomorrow] and the camp stuff [Sapphire leaves Monday morning] . . .).