thanksgiving

36

So on sunny chilly days I like to eat at my favoriate ramen place in the 9th and then go sit afterwards in a reclining lime green cintrafil chair in the Tuleries with Angelina's hot chocolate in hand. 

And this is what I did the day after I turned 36. I catch a glimps of La Defense as the metro leaves the northwest suburbs crossing the seine and dipping back underground into Paris. 

The change at Saint Lazare immediately reminds me of the rush and energy of the city with it's underground artist and numerous diverse passengers in transit. 

As I leave the metro and step into the opera neighborhood I am greeted by the Haussman architecture and make my way to the ramen place. 

Irasshaimase!

The smell of miso and shoyu accompany the burst of warm air as I open the door and walk into the restaurant.  I am seated at the counter giving me full view of the kitchen as they prepare my ramen and gyoza.  I feel the occasional burst of cold air as people make their way in and out of the restaurant but I don't mind as the hot miso broth warms me.

The ten minute walk to Angelina's helps me to digest in preparation for the copious dose of Angelina's hot chocolate I was aboue to receive.  The waitress smiles as she hands me my hot chocolate to go in her prestine white uniform and immpecabble makeup.  I leave the shop, bag heavier with the bottled hot chocolate I had bought to bring home to my husband and daughter. 

The sun was shining full force as I made my way past the tourist and cheap souvenir shops and into the Tuileries.  There I found what I as looking for:  A cintrafil reclining chair, it's lime green finish shining bright in the sun.  I sat down, leaned back and introduced the velvety hot chocolate to my belly, already full from gyoza, ramen, and baby number two.

Moments like this are rare now where I am by myself and left with my thoughts. I was now 36, past mid 30's and a year closer to 40.  I imagined myself 40 looking back at my 30's.  Would I look back and think about care-free days like when I look back now at my 20's?  Or will I be more seasoned and think back at my 30's as the decade of big changes: a wife, an apartment owner, and a mother.

As I finish the hot chocolate the baby kicks either from sharing in the enjoyment of the hot chocolate or protesting at the place it's taking in already cramped space.  Maybe both.  I gather my things, greatful for these kinds of moments but also looking forward to sharing the hot chocolate with my husband and daughter, at home. 

2016

So it's the end of 2015 and I'm sitting outside on a terrrance of a café in Paris.  It's 60 degrees and I'm enjoying a cigarette with a cup of hot coffee.


Simple yet extraordinary given the times.


I hadn't had a cigarette since spring of 2014 when I found out I was pregnant and since my daughter's birth drinking coffee, hot, has become a luxury. 


The trickle of warm coffee down my throat followed by a puff of nicotine afterwards helps me to relax as I consider how sitting outside in a terrance can cost you your life. And 60 degrees outside? 


It's freaking end of December.


Has the world always been this f-ed up or do I simply pay attention more because I'm responsible for another life? 


My parents recently came to Paris.  They're retired now, the house paid off, children married.


They seemed different to me, almost like runners who have crossed the finish line of a marathon: happy to have done it; fatigued from the effort; serene that the hard part is past them. 


I recently saw that 2016 when upside down and backwards looks like joie, the french word for joy.

Here's to hoping. 

pancakes and epicea

comme un lundi

So last Tuesday a co worker asked me, ça va [how's it going]?

To which I replied:  On fait aller [We make it go].

She smiled at my expression.  One she thought outdated so I asked her, what are the kids saying these days?

She considered this and replied, well if it's Monday you could say "Comme un lundi"
[like a Monday].  And Friday you could say "Comme un vendredi" [like a Friday].

I left that Tuesday after work to start my long weekend.  Wednesday was a holiday and I had taken the Thursday and Friday off.

Wednesday I prepared the apartment for my in laws, who would be in Paris on Thursday for an André Rieu concert at the Zenith to celebrate the 80th birthday of my husband's grandmother.

After my in laws left that Friday morning I dropped off my daughter at the day care center and went into Paris with my husband.  We went into the 8th district to eat noodles for lunch.  In search of dessert afterwards we ended up lounging on green fauteuils in the Jardin de Tuileries with Angelina's hot chocolate in hand.  We chatted on and off under the blue skies and warm sunshine. Afterwards I went shopping and bought great boots.

Comme un vendredi.

Until of course we realized when we got home the events that were unfolding in the Paris we were roaming around only hours ago.

I hugged my daughter extra hard that night.

Saturday and Sunday we were glued to the t.v., trying to make sense of everything.  We were quick to realize that we too indulged in behavior that put us at risk.  Thursday we had been at a concert.  Friday we were sitting outside having a drink.  Had the terrorist chosen a different day, a different time, a different target to hit that could very well have been us, and we too, would have lived or died based on chance.

After sheltering myself in the apartment over the weekend, I, like most people, would have to step out of my sanctuary and into a world that had clearly changed.

I stepped out of the apartment that Monday morning, like most other Monday mornings, to take my daughter to day care.  Everything looked the same but felt different.  Normally meaningless deviations from the norm took on potential dark meaning.

People wearing black; did they lose someone close to them?  A woman that sometimes takes the bus the same time as me but not today; did she die?  A man running past me and out of the metro; running away from danger?

The normal greeting of bonjour a joyous proclamation that the person in front of you is ok.  The bisous a reassuring warm contact with the living. And what do you say, when someone asks, ça va?

Comme un lundi.

sucker baby

So when my sister came to visit her niece she remarked that she was a sucker baby.

I wasn't familiar with this term so she explained that it was the baby that was so good it suckers you into having another one only the next one turns out to be a nightmare.

Never heard of it, I thought, but ok.  I was a new mom and maybe this was mom termology.  I had also been out of the country for almost 8 years so it was very possible this was new slang and I wasn't up to date (like a whip is a car?).

It was a handy term and I used it whenever people asked me how things were going with my daughter.  I even taught to to French people.

Then I got called out.

Friend:  Wait, what did you say?
Me:  She's a sucker baby.
Friend:  [blank look]
Me:  You know, when a baby is so good she suckers you into having another one...
Friend:  Is that a French thing?
Me:  No...
Friend:  Ok, I'm going to have to stop you right there.  That's not a thing.
Me:  Sure it is.
Friend: No it's not.
Me:  Yes, it is!
Friend:  [takes a survey from people all around us.  Nobody has heard of it]
Me: It's a thing!  My sister used it.

To settle it we asked the all knowing one.  Google.  No hits.

I had to conceed.  So I called my sister over to 'splain herself.  She called over her husband from whom she heard this term to 'splain himself.  Maybe I made it up he admitted.

So now I have no way to describe my baby.  The term is so useful I may just keep on using it.  Just wait, it'll be a thing.  

got milk?

So before I had my daughter and people asked me if I was going to breastfeed I naturally said yes, because it's only beneficial and mostly because I couldn't see a reason why not to.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

First there's the milk coming in.  The way it's stated it sounds like the milk knocks on your door and then it comes in for a nice cup of coffee.  The way it actually feels is that the milk knocks on your door, you open and realize the milk is huge and won't fit in the living room let alone  the door but it's too late and it forces it's way in anyways.

Then you have to keep your milk supply up by nursing regularly.  Except your baby maybe has other ideas, ideas you agree with like sleeping through the night.

Yes, in the beginning my daughter slept through the night but I had to wake her up to nurse, otherwise I was at risk of not producing enough milk or losing it all together.

Ever wake up a sleeping baby? When you put a baby to sleep you're the hero.  When you wake up a sleeping baby, you're the asshole.

Then there's the actual act of nursing.  The recommended rhythm at first is to nurse every 2 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night and to nurse each breast for 10 minutes.  The clock starts at the beginng of each session so theoretically you have 1 hour and 40 minutes free time in between.

Theoretically.  What actually happens is usually this (for me at least).

8:00:  Start
8:10:  Finally get baby properly positioned and latched.  Commence sucking.
8:15:  Baby falls asleep.  Stroke baby's check to wake her up as to not remove latch.
8:20:  Doesn't work so remove latch and play with baby to wake her up
8:25:  Finally get baby properly positioned and latched.  Commence sucking.
8:30:  Time to change breast only baby has fallen asleep again.  Change diaper to wake baby up.
8:40:  Baby poos in between diaper change so much that she's swimming in it. Have to change everything
8:55:  Finally get baby properly positioned and latched on other breast.  Commence sucking.
9:00:  Baby uncomfortable.  Starts to cry.  Comfort baby.
9:05:  Try a different position but unable to latch properly.  Baby gets fustrated. Cries.  Hysterical.
9:00:  Give up.

Of course it's not always like that but I would say if you have an hour and fifteen minutes between feedings you're lucky.

And that is your life.  Your 24 hour days cut up into rhythm slices of 2 hours.  I remember whenever I had finished one feeding, in my head the clock would start ticking in which I had to get something done before the next feeding, like in an episiode of 24. Tick, tock Tick, tock Tick, tock...

And that's actually when feeding your baby beastmilk is easy.  Enter going back to work.

See, when you think about it feeding a baby breastmilk is simple.  Milk goes from breast to baby via the nipple to the mouth.  Of course this means mother and baby need to be in the same place at the same time.

When this isn't the case things get complicated.  Very complicated.

First you have to extract the milk from the breast by a means other than the baby's mouth.  A breast pump.

To simulate a baby's sucking, you have a machine with a motor, tubes, suctions, valves, and containers.

Once the milk is extracted you have to keep it cold or frozen up until the moment the baby drinks the milk.

So in order to give breastmilk to your baby at a distance instead of 3 things (breast, nipple, baby's mouth) you now need at least 15:

Breast pump + accessories, milk containers, cooler bags, ice, refrigerator/freezer, milk freezer bags, baby bottles + accessories.

AND you have to clean everything all the time because milk and bacteria go together like peanut butter and jelly.

If I have one recommendation for a mother who wants to continue breastfeeding when she goes back to work I would say this.  BUY THE SAME BRAND FOR EVERYTHING.  If you're going to use a medela breast pump buy medela baby bottles and nipples because the cute discrete bag to keep the milk cold when you're carrying it around is designed only for one type of bottle shape.  Don't be like me, who's baby is already used to avent nipples so it's avent bottles it is except my pump is medela with it's own bottles to extract the milk so in order to be able to carry around all types of bottles need to feed her baby she has to use a cooler bag filled ice making her look like a paramedic transferring organs.

Most French women go straight to formula.

I don't blame them one bit.