France July 08

We are in our last week of our time in france.

You were a bit of a nightmare on the plane over. the flight left early, around 2 pm, and you only slept or an hour in 9 hours to munich. you kept kicking the seat in front of us. the man sitting there was getting upset, but he was also being stupid about it. he reclined his seat all the way back so that hen you kicked you would kick his arm instead of his seat.

Then when we got to Munich we realized we had run out of diapers. so we got them at the airport. We got the largest size they sell, and they aren't big enough for you. Babies must be smaller here. So you have been wearing a lot of pull ups, which are strangely too large.

we drove from barcelona to limoges right after the flight. we were so tired there were times we did not think we'd be able to do it without stopping at a hotel. a few red bulls and we were doing fine. and we slept and drove in shifts. you slept most of the car ride and when you were awake you didn't mind being in the car for a long time.

which reminds me of the allergy medications i am taking over here. all of the sudden i got allergic - we all id- to some kind of plant or pollen. we went to the pharmacy and got a drug and it was supposed to be non-drowsy. i was sooo drowsy after taking it. then after a day of taking it i realized there are caplets for the night and caplets for he day and i was taking all the day ones first and all the day ones are still in the box. whoops! but now the stuff works great, better than any american drug i have tried.

the first night in france you slept through the night. the second night you were up from midnight till 4 thank my lucky stars we brought the ratatouile dvd for you to watch on the laptop. that saved me. tom was kicked out of bed because you wanted to sleep with me.

you met your great, great aunt who is 100 years older than you. she is going to be 103 in the start of next year. there is a 100 years between the two of you.

denise thinks you are cute, of course, and you were really good at her house. you loved her big bathtub, and she had borrowed toys and a highchair and a pack and play for you to use and for use to take on the rest of out trip to pompadour. she bought you a little sweater to wear this winter. and good thing she did because you had to wear it at pompadour. it was COLD there for the first week! i got you a green and blue stripped zip up hoodie and it is very cute! there were some jeans i should have gotten for you too, but i didn't, darn it!

When we arrived at pompadour it was covered in cobwebs, but in really good shape. Sam came with us and pitched a tent in the front yard, and howard and rebecca met us there too. you really liked sam, who you called "SA" and you liked howard as well. one day it was raining lightly and you and SA and howard and Dada, we playing soccer in the front yard, and you're not too interested in it. so howard started doing somersaults on the ground and you kept imitating him. you loved it! howard also showed you a mirror in the bedroom that you can see yourself 4 times in, and you thought that was just amazing that there were suddenly 4 other kids in the room. not sure if you know that is your reflection 4 times over again or not.

we went to rocamadour, and you wanted to run down the hill that zig zags down the cliff/hill to the 12 stations of the cross. Dada, was fraking out about this. I thought it was fine as long as I held your hand. When we got down to the chapel you walked into the cuhirch and babbled and there was a huge echo. i said "shhhh"! and then you walked around the church saying "shhh" and putting one finger over your mouth. people thought that was very funny. and then there was always the occasional person who was annoyed there was a little runt in the church. i guess they don't think toddlers are god's people to. whatever!

you are DELIGHTED with the cottage. you love it that the front door is always open and you an go outside or inside whenever you feel like it. you play toy cars on a piece of cement that exteds from the garage. Dada and SA like that because they said they would play toy cars there too when they were little kids.

you like the food here a lot! i am feeding you mostly tinned foods, but they have good canned foods here. like cassoulet, and rataoutile. you love it all. you as for more. we are letting you sit at a big boy chair at the table and you are doing really well with it. you are hanging onto your BABA habit with your dear life. i try giving you a sippy cup and you will have none of it.

one day we decided at 10 am that we were going to drive to the atlantic to see Dune de Plya. A 3 hour drive there, and then 3 hours back all in one day and we left at 10? crazy. There are 2 ways to get up the dune. One way is to walk up the sand, and th other is to walk up the stairs. Dada had to go back the the car to get something he forgot just before we went up the stairs. You noticed everyone else was going up the stairs and you had to follow. so we went up. you went 75% of the way on your own. it must be 10 flights of stairs. You loved it. sam climbed the sand way and was so knackered when he got to the top he could barely breathe.

you met some of your distant cousins, who all stay up so late. three year old up until 11pm! thre were a few nights you stayed up that late with them, and had a blast. we vistied Rafael one day for dinner and they live next to a farm that Rafael's grandparets run. We saw cows, chickens, calves and rabbits. Tom comented on how he never thought he would have the "city kid" that hasn't been on a farm, but there we were. you liked the animals a lot, mainly because the other 2 boys got so excited about the animals it meant you had to get exited too.

you want coffee when we have coffee in the morning. you like the taste. i got you some hot cocoa thinking you could drink that, but you won't go for it.

the one thing you did go for was sugar cubes. we had a sugar cube jar filled with brightly colored sugar cubes in wrappers and you open them and eat them. disgusting!

i also used haribo and lollipops as secret weapons when you would get cranky when we would walk around a village and you were getting fed up wth adult sightseeing. i would give you soem treats and i wouldn't hear from you in your stoller for another hour or so. it owrked like a chram.

one day dada and i went out for the day and left you with michelle, danise and isa and heil we were out you said bird in french when a bird flew up and sat on the fence. we didn;'t even try to teach you that word. you just noticed us saying it and picked it up. you also say "allo" when you see someone answer a phone or when you answer the phone like a french person, so cute!

you also took ot getting the baguette from the kitchen table wans walking around with the entire baguette, taking bites out of it. this is funny because it is almost the same height as you. also funny because i have had the same thought myself, wouldn't it just be nice to hold that hole baguette and eat all of it, but i ever acted on it!

every time tom went to the grocery store he bought you a toy car. every time he went to the bakery on his own, he took you with and also bought you a toy car. now- that might sound like he spoils you, but really he is spoiling himself. he likes the cars a little more than you do.

one day we went to curemont, one of the most beautiful villages of france and we stpped for an ice cream in a cafe. whenever you saw a sign for ice cream, you would beg for one. you could NOT concentrae on your ice cream here though, because there were "moosch", i don't know how to spell it in french- but flies- that were flying around and you could not let them land on our table without swatting them away. since then, you are vigilant about making sure flies are not around if you are.

one day we took you to a waterfall and we played in the stream. you could have throw stones in the water for hours.

we were at another village with howard and rebecca and we found a stream to play in. you wore your crocs the whole trip and they are so great to get wet anytime. an old man was sitting there watching you throw rocks in the stream and sromp in the stream. he loved watching you.

on michelle's birthday you learned how to pout, you stick your bottom lip out when things are a little not perfect. ow you do it all the time. not sure why you had to learn that trick on michelle's birthday.

you also loved sitting in our rental car in the front seat and turning on and off the radio, climbing around all the seats, turning the hazards on and off. you're a rscal.

we let you eat jam with a spoon, straight from the jar. once again, one of those things i have thought about doing, but never acted on.

on to the end of the trip- we drove to the south of france and you were very good for the 7 hour car ride. when we go to the hotel we went to swim in the pool, which you loved. i would run and then jump into the deep end of the pool while dad was holding you and you would squeal with delight. then we went in to go and eat in the hotel restaurat. you sat in a high chair and didn't want to eat honydew melon, which i thought was strange. then you wanted me to hold you. i was holding you about a minute when you threw up all over me. i took you up to the room. dada said the smeel cleared out the restaurant. poor hotel.

you hada fever all night, and he nxt day we drove to barcelona. spent the day in the hotel letting you get omre rest so we could come home the following day.

you did not sleep a wink on the 9 hour flight from munich to canada. i could not believe it. you were incredibly hyper the whole flight. it was insane. when we got to canada we had a 3 hour layover with a 2 hour delay and you threw a fit. i can understand, you were so tired, but you just would not sleep. finally you did,. when we got home you were very happy to see your stuffed animals in your bed.