Thursday, May 14

Milo clutching his favorite bread

I'm almost the luckiest grandma in the world. I guess the luckiest ones have their grandchildren living near them. When Soren and Petra were 2 and 4 John and I took them to Disney World. All around us we saw other people our age with their grandchildren and most of those children were so obnoxious. I felt so proud. Milo is the same. Everywhere we go we see other kids screaming and Milo says to me: "I'm not crying Grandma." He's right, he hasn't cried once, he always has obeyed me, he's interested in everything, he's too perfect. This is weird but so wonderful.

So it looks like the rest of our trip is nothing but rain, rain, rain. After last night I'm kind of rained out, so no great adventures today. We spent a long time in the apartment this morning working on the sticker books. We're both learning lots of new French words. I also bought him a connect the dots book before coming and we have spent time on that each day too. We left the apartment at 11:45 to go out to lunch. I read about an Israeli place (remember we're in the Jewish quarter) on Rue des Rosiers just a few blocks from here. It's known for their falafels. It was 17 euros for "la vegetarienne", so I decided that it was probably a huge platter for that much money, so we would share it. We sat in the first row looking out into the street and Milo was such a pleasure commenting away on all the passers-by. He talks non-stop. We gossip about everyone. It turned out to be the worst middle eastern food I've ever had. The falafel was the only good thing about it, but there were only 4 little balls of it and we fought over them. The whole dish was about the size of a small appetizer at home. No wonder French people are so skinny. How can anyone afford to go out?

Israeli Restaurant, Chez Hannah, Milo and I are in the picture on the left

Well, the way I got him out the door this morning was with promises of the ride on the helicopter. We walked, no stroller, so it took us forever. He may be perfect, but he is SO slow! He has to climb up every stoop and post and bench and whatever comes along and comment on everything that he sees, so it probably took us 45 minutes to go what I could have covered in 10 minutes. So we finally arrived at our carousel at Place St-Paul and it was closed AGAIN! It was covered in plastic so we pulled it apart a little and Milo stuck his head inside to dream at his helicopter. He didn't whine, didn't complain, just commented. Then it started to rain again so on our route home I turned into a little toy store. Most stores here are so little that you feel like you're in someone's home. It was just us and the owner, a woman of my age. Right at the entrance was a Brio train set, all set up. It was so cool and Milo was so enthralled, he could have spent easily an hour there. He took on a voice for the train and went round and round and round. Oh dear, what do I do? I searched and searched for something to buy. It was quite a challenge, I finally landed on a BMW. When I felt that it was no longer appropriate for us to stay, I told Milo we had to go, "no, I want to stay here", I thought, "oh, oh, my first temper tantrum with Milo." Although he was not happy about leaving, he was fine, he continues to amaze me. I handed him his new BMW and he loved it. He had to run it on all the walls, posts, fences, everywhere. He's easily amused. It took us forever to return. We stopped at the grocery store because we were low on everything. We love the frozen ratatouille in this store, so I bought more of it plus more large flat noodles. Milo preferred the spaghetti noodles and wasn't too happy with my choice. He kept insisting that his choice was better and tried to convince me. He reminded me of Chad on the debate team. He doesn't ask for much, so why not, I got his noodles. I also found the Soignon St. Maure cheese that he loved at Agathe's. I was loaded down with a heavy backpack and two heavy bags and a dawdling 2-year old. The walk home was a challenge. We worked on our books some more and then Milo took an hour and a half nap. He's great to spend time but a relief to have asleep. I read Hemingway's Moveable Feast before coming here. It describes his life in Paris in the early 20's with his first wife and their baby "Mr. Bumpy". When they wanted to go out, they put the baby in the crib with the cat and felt that the cat was a great babysitter. Times have sure changed, or at least I hope that they have. Yesterday I fell in love with the Latin quarter so armed with my walking tour book and the stroller, I decided to explore it better. In front of the Hotel de Ville is a carousel, it wasn't functioning but the woman was in there, reading a book. She seemed annoyed to have to look up from it, but then turned on the music and took my 2 euros 50 and Milo chose his white horse. He was SO happy. It wasn't the helicopter, but he was happy. The music attracted all the other kids around so we waited a long time for 5 more kids. As we went around we could see Notre Dame

Notre Dame in the distance

and the Centre Pompidou, and of course the Hotel de Ville. Can you believe the city hall? It looks like a castle.

Milo in front of l'Hotel de Ville (city hall)

We then crossed the Seine and went past Notre Dame again. Everytime that he sees Notre Dame (since it rhymes with pteranodon) he sings his dinosaur song. We got to the spot in the Latin Quarter where the walking tour begins, Milo began repeating: "I want to go to a restaurant." I kept telling him that we would go eventually, but I finally gave up, to a two-year-old there is no "eventually", everything is now. It's a very touristy area and we have a choice of everything, even Mexican. Milo said he wanted spaghetti, so I searched for an Italian place. We found a perfect one with a whole meal for 13 euros per person. Milo had tomato and cucumber salad, spaghetti and fruit for dessert. I had vegetable soup, salmon and the fruit plate. Milo devoured the tomatoes and cucumbers, I ate his lettuce, then he dipped his bread in the vinaigrette sauce. He picked out all of the mushrooms from his spaghetti and ate more whole tomatoes and some of my salmon, in addition to tons of noodles. The fruit plate had strawberries, apples and pears and was covered in a red couli. Milo ate all of his and then my strawberries. He sang the dinosaur song at the top of his voice. Fortunately were seated at the front, near the street. I included this picture even though it's out of focus.

Le Vieux Paris, Italian Restaurant in the Latin Quarter

On the way home we stopped in front of the Notre Dame for a picture of Milo standing in a flaque d'eau (puddle). This is his new big word for the week, since we have so many of them.

Milo standing in a flaque d'eau (French for puddle), he has learned that word well

We came home to more sticker book work, then Mommy and Daddy came home from London! Grandma is free!