Wednesday

Chad and Sarah left at 7:30 this morning for Chad's book promotion in Canterbury so I am in charge of Milo now. He whined for about two minutes this morning when he discovered that Mommy and Daddy were gone, but then I reminded him of the helicopter ride and our agenda for the day and he was pretty excited. I gave him a choice of things for breakfast and he told me that he wanted "French" bread, not the other healthy whole wheat bread that I bought for him! I only brought along two pair of pants and one pair of pajamas, so I decided to wash them (you need to remember this, like my last laundry story). We spent over an hour working on one of the sticker books that I got him, his attention span is better than mine! I made him learn all the French words on each page before going on to the next one. He loved it. We headed for the helicopter at 10:45, it's next to the St. Paul metro stop. It was closed! So I told him that we would come back here after we... then I listed all the other things that we were going to do first and he's been perfect ever since. So we took the metro to Chatelet, then changed to the Porte d'Orleans line and got out at Mouton Duvernet. All this could have been very difficult for me as I was carrying a stroller, a two year-old and my backpack up and down steps (there were no elevators to be found) but people so so wonderful. I remember when Chad was going to school in NY and I was reading up on preparing for going there and reading about how rude New Yorkers were and it absolutely wasn't true, people were so great there, well, same here, everywhere people wanted to help me. From the metro it took us about 15 minutes to walk to Agathe's apartment (For those of you who don't know Agathe, we met her about 24 years ago, she and Chad were 7 and they were in the same 1st grade class in a suburb of Strasbourg, we have traveled to Switzerland and Greece together and she spent several weeks at our home in GR the summer she turned 14.) Their apartment was really nice and Milo was thrilled to be there. He checked out Jules' potty chair but was not impressed (it was red) so he decided that he would prefer to do his business in his pull-up. He saw the bidet in the bathroom and asked me what it was and I told him that it was a little sink. The boys played very nicely together. Jules had a bit of a struggle sharing (he's 3) but otherwise it was great. Milo was so thrilled to have a whole room full of cars and trucks and riding toys. Their apartment looks out onto a street with no cars and tall trees, so it's very serene. I told Agathe ahead of time to make the lunch very simple, but oh no, it was magnificent. Milo ate more at lunch today than he has since he's been here. I asked him what he was hoping that Agathe would make and he told me pasta, green beans and strawberries. Well, she had all those things plus salmon (Milo even ate that) and whipping cream for the strawberries, I think maybe that was his first whipping cream because he wanted more and more strawberries (always insisting on the cream part) until they were all gone. Before the strawberries, Agathe served bread and cheese, he had 4 chunks of bread and 4 slices of the cheese, it was a goat cheese called Soignon Sainte Maure. I'll have to look for it. He was quite messy after lunch so he told me he wanted to wash his hands and got down and made a mad dash for the bathroom. I tried to keep up with him to help him and wondered where the stool was for him to reach the sink. Meanwhile he was standing at the bidet washing his hands, then I realized that when I told him it was a "little sink", he figured that it was a kids' sink. Oh dear. I told Agathe and she said that's what they use it for, a sink for the boys. She said when they first moved in there they considered taking out the bidet, but it was so perfect for her little boys that they'll keep it, at least for now. How cool. After lunch I told Milo that it was time for a nap (yah right, like he was going to take a nap in this toy wonderland with two fun boys) and he said "OK". I let him choose his bed and a stuffed animal and he snuggled right in and slept for an hour! Agathe is totally appalled by his perfect behavior. She doesn't want her father to find out how perfect he is because he complains about her kids! We'll have dinner with them again on sunday night with her parents, maybe he'll act like a 2 yearold then. Her boys watched movies in their parents' room while we waited for Milo to wake up. I insisted that he was not always perfect and warned her that he'll cry when I wake him up. So I woke him up and he said: "I thought I was in my house, this room looks just like my room and the bed is like my bed too" Then he rushed off to wash his hands in the cute little boy sink and was ready to go, still Mr. Perfect. We took the bus to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I brought along the Madeline book to show him the picture in the book. It's a beautiful park, the Senate meets in the old palace built in 1615 for Marie de Medicis.

Lucien pushing Milo

So one of my dreams has been to go to the Guignol Puppet show and now I had Agathe to take me there along with 3 darling little boys. It was very expensive, we got there 30 minutes early and got good seats and waited and waited, it started 10 minutes late. It was the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The first four rows are reserved for little children only and what a riot. The kids interact with the puppets and they scream at them to watch out. It was everything I dreamed of, Milo loved the rabbits, squirrels, Little Red Ridinghood and all the other characters, BUT, when the wolf came out Milo kept repeating: "I don't want to, I don't want to". Since I haven't really spent a lot of time with Milo alone, I didn't want to risk traumatizing him, so I finally gave in and left. I left Agathe there with her two boys and another 35 minutes of the show. Oh dear, I hope it went well for her. Her boys are darling and get along so well, they seem to really love each other. It was a beautiful day. Milo repeated over and over, "I was afraid of the wolf." "He was just pretend, but I was afraid of him." He told me that he liked all the other characters. But he also said that he really wanted to go on the helicopter ride. So we strolled through the park, how gorgeous. Tons of PDA (public display of affection), a bit much for an old high school teacher, but then this is France, land of love! We watched kids sailing boats, people sunning, reading, it was beautiful. I decided to walk home instead of taking the metro and what a treat: cool narrow streets like out of the romantic old movies.

Milo in front of the Pantheon

I know, it was all there when I was here in my twenties, but I didn't appreciate it as much then, or maybe Paris has just cleaned it up and it looks better now. I think a little of both. We bought a crepe with nutella and I thought we could share it but Milo loved it and ate every last bit. We walked around the Notre Dame again, I asked if Milo remembered it and he said that it's "Notre Dame, like pteranodon, gramma", OK, I guess he gets it, I don't know.

Milo after his nutella crepe

We walked on some narrow sides streets that were so cool, then entered into the gate at the back of the church and I sat on a bench while he ran around a little. There was some blue sky and he was having a great old time, so I spent too much time there, then he told me it was raining, so he stayed under the tree with me for protection, we would stay there until it stopped.

Just before the deluge, all is good.

It never stopped. It rained harder and harder, and harder than I ever remember. I ran from one cafe to the next, thinking it would let up. Milo just laughed and laughed through the whole thing. He's somewhat protected under the stroller but I've never been so drenched, then it turned into hail. I don't believe it. My only other pants are sitting in the wash machine. I told him that we would go to the helicopter when the rain stopped, but now I have no more clothes, wait, I packed running shorts, so I put Milo in the bath, made dinner, started laundry (I was mostly nude for all this, Milo asked me what I was going to wear to cover my penis) and I've been sitting here in the apartment in my running clothes writing this. We have an iron, so maybe tomorrow I can iron the moisture out of my pants. The Madeline book is soaked.
Well, I've rambled on and on and am too tired to reread it, I'll fix it tomorrow, it's 12:50 and I've got to get my grandma sitting sleep. Bonne Nuit!