I took the little guy to the swimming pool here a couple of days ago. Actually, I should say swimming pools - our local sports center is HUGE and includes 3 pools (50m olympic, 25m, and kiddie pool). We only tried out the kiddie pool, but I am looking forward to getting into the larger pool for some laps, one of these days.
The little one LOVED the community pool in Portland (and who wouldn't? It had a 3 story waterslide!) but it has sadly been 6 months. In toddler time, this basically means we are starting from scratch in terms of comfort-level in the water. We definitely need to get back more regularly.
As with every adventure here, though, things at the pool are a little different. First off, the changing rooms. As I walked in, I noticed that everyone was actually obeying the rule to take your shoes off before going into the locker room. Fair enough. I sat down, took both of our shoes off, and then proceeded to walk into the locker room... through the 4 inch deep, 5 foot wide moat of pool water that separates the locker room from the entry area. These guys aren't kidding about taking off your shoes. I didn't think to look down, so the little one and I had 4 soggy inches of pants apiece. Ah well, chalk it up to inexperience. Then, I enter the locker room and see a dad and his son. Wrong locker room? Nope. Coed! The locker room is coed, but ringed by individual changing cubicles. Which is logical, really, because the pool is coed. Why should the space where you store your clothes be any different? But coming from a country where I have never, ever seen a coed locker room, again, it just takes a little mental readjustment. Oh well. I put the little guy in his swim diaper and trunks, and off we went, through another 4 inch, 5 foot moat of pool water to get out to the pool deck.
Then, into the pool. The little guy was content hanging out on the first step (in 3 inches of water) for the first 15 minutes. After a couple of minutes, the lifeguard approached me and told me she was very sorry, but that only bathing suits could be worn in the pool and that they do not allow boxer shorts. Boxer shorts? It took me a second to realize she was referring to the little guy's swim trunks. Then it dawned on me that every single guy there, from 2 to 99, was wearing a speedo. No exceptions. I explained to the lifeguard that this actually was a bathing suit. She was astounded. "I've never seen one of these before," she said. "What country is it from?"
Since I don't want to have to explain this to every lifeguard at every city pool, I guess we'll be getting the little guy a speedo.
- E
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Doctor's Office
Yesterday, when the littlest man was just a week old, we had a doctor's appointment for his big brother. He has had a raging diaper rash that has not responded to traditional ointments or anti-fungal creams, and so we decided to get a second opinion. It was his first appointment with a new doctor, and one we hoped would become our equivalent of a primary care physician, so we decided that it would be helpful if we all went to meet her. Incidentally, her office is right next to the amazing school that we want to send the boys to. It is only 5km from here, but due to its location in a small town, it involves riding 3 busses to get there. And yesterday, that meant in the rain. So we set off, L only 1 week post partum, carrying an umbrella and with the tiny man snuggled on her chest in an Ergo baby carrier, his big brother in a stroller covered with a raincover, and me in a raincoat. We managed all 3 busses just fine, and found the doctor's office with little trouble.
Then, we entered the waiting room. Waiting rooms are TINY here. They are the size of the bathrooms in many American houses. A half dozen chairs are crammed into the tiny space, and they are usually all taken. There is no receptionist. And the room is usually dead silent. Even the kids are quiet, sitting patiently next to their parents or reading books. Then, we showed up. Our toddler decided to play with the train set that was provided (though given the lack of floor space, it seems like an odd choice for a waiting room). He tried several times to dump the entire basket of train track pieces out onto the ground, and then proceeded to build a track that took up half of the floor. At least he was doing it relatively quietly... but we were relieved when the doctor popped her head out of her office door and welcomed us in.
Doctors offices here hold their work desks as well as an examining table. While we sat at her desk to give her his medical history, I happened to glance over at big brother as he was playing on the floor, and noticed an enormous brown volcano bubbling out the top of his diaper, up his shirt, down his pants, and plopping large chunks onto the floor. Holy poopocalypse, batman! I jumped up and tried to stop the mess, but this worked about as well as when I tried to catch his vomit in my hands two nights ago. Ultimately, we ended up with crap all over my pants, my shirt, the floor, his shirt, his pants, and over most of his body. I apologized profusely as I tried to wipe the poop up off her bamboo floor with my pathetic bum wipes. Being the super prepared parents that we are (ha!), we had packed a change of clothes for the infant, but not for the toddler. The visit ended with the doctor lecturing us for letting our little guy eat too much yogurt ("really, how could you let him eat that much yogurt?", she scolded us), prescribing 80€ of probiotics and two creams to tame his poor diaper rash, and telling us to stop all dairy products for two weeks. For a little guy who LOVES his cheese, and in a country with so many delicious choices, this just sounds cruel, but we are going to try it. We ultimately left the office with him wearing his pants and jacket, but no shirt, and with me smelling like a bag of dirty diapers, and still needing to stop at the pharmacy, the grocery store, AND take three busses to get home. Oh, the joys!
- E
Then, we entered the waiting room. Waiting rooms are TINY here. They are the size of the bathrooms in many American houses. A half dozen chairs are crammed into the tiny space, and they are usually all taken. There is no receptionist. And the room is usually dead silent. Even the kids are quiet, sitting patiently next to their parents or reading books. Then, we showed up. Our toddler decided to play with the train set that was provided (though given the lack of floor space, it seems like an odd choice for a waiting room). He tried several times to dump the entire basket of train track pieces out onto the ground, and then proceeded to build a track that took up half of the floor. At least he was doing it relatively quietly... but we were relieved when the doctor popped her head out of her office door and welcomed us in.
Doctors offices here hold their work desks as well as an examining table. While we sat at her desk to give her his medical history, I happened to glance over at big brother as he was playing on the floor, and noticed an enormous brown volcano bubbling out the top of his diaper, up his shirt, down his pants, and plopping large chunks onto the floor. Holy poopocalypse, batman! I jumped up and tried to stop the mess, but this worked about as well as when I tried to catch his vomit in my hands two nights ago. Ultimately, we ended up with crap all over my pants, my shirt, the floor, his shirt, his pants, and over most of his body. I apologized profusely as I tried to wipe the poop up off her bamboo floor with my pathetic bum wipes. Being the super prepared parents that we are (ha!), we had packed a change of clothes for the infant, but not for the toddler. The visit ended with the doctor lecturing us for letting our little guy eat too much yogurt ("really, how could you let him eat that much yogurt?", she scolded us), prescribing 80€ of probiotics and two creams to tame his poor diaper rash, and telling us to stop all dairy products for two weeks. For a little guy who LOVES his cheese, and in a country with so many delicious choices, this just sounds cruel, but we are going to try it. We ultimately left the office with him wearing his pants and jacket, but no shirt, and with me smelling like a bag of dirty diapers, and still needing to stop at the pharmacy, the grocery store, AND take three busses to get home. Oh, the joys!
- E
Russia?
Sidenote post - I was looking through our blog stats and noticed that after the USA, Canada, and France, most of our pageviews come from Russia. Very cool! So, to our Russian reader(s), hello and thanks for reading! If you don't mind, I would love to hear how you found our blog!
Playgrounds and Parakeets
Blog post double header today - here is the first post of (hopefully) two, provided that the little one (well, actually, now our big one!) stays napping.
On that note: I was refering to our toddler son as the "little one" on the blog, but now he has competition in the form of our littlest man, who is already just over one week old! Ideas for blog pseudonyms for both boys are welcome!
In any case, I have been meaning to post about the playgrounds for a while now and just have not gotten around to it. Playgrounds are everywhere here, though some of them consist only of a single slide or swingset nestled beside an RER stop. We are lucky to have at least 5 playgrounds within walking distance here, set between the apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood was built in the 1970s in response to the massive influx of immigrants to the Paris region, many of them Algerians who settled in France after Algerian independence. The apartment buildings were clearly built hastily to accommodate the swelling population, and they are definitely not the gorgeous Art Deco buildings of Paris. Instead, they are squat concrete rectangles with zero embellishments or personality. The plus, though, is that in the spaces between buildings, small parks have emerged, with greenery and playgrounds in between nearly every apartment complex. These parks are maintained by the city and open to all, and are generally in pretty good condition. While the park below is actually in Paris, it gives you a good idea of the size of playgrounds here (this would be considered large-ish):
What cracks me up about these parks (and the French culture in general) is how incredibly rules-oriented and safety-conscious they are. Posted in every playground is a list of rules (and a long list at that). The playing surface is typically made of shock-absorbent rubber. Even funnier than the rules are the individual plaques that adorn each piece of playground equipment:
Each piece of equipment has a designated age range - both a minimum and a maximum age. And kids are aware of this, too. A couple of weeks ago I was supervising the little one as he (gasp!) played on a structure suitable for kids age 4 and up. A little boy no older than 5 came up to me and, with a worried look on his face, told me that the little guy should not be playing on this piece of equipment, because he could fall and hurt himself. I thanked the little boy and told him that it was ok, that I was there to watch him, and that this is how he would learn what he was comfortable with. Clearly, the little boy had never heard this particular brand of logic, as he just stared at me, puzzled.
Now, the above is NOT meant to imply that French parents are all overprotective or that the kids will grow up not knowing how to take calculated risks. There is actually a lot of nice logic to this layout. Parents can allow their kids some freedom on the age-appropriate equipment with little chance of injury. Kids can play independently without their parents hovering over them. This is often the case, as many parents spend their playground time sitting on the park benches that ring the playground, while the kids run around as they please. It is totally different than our playground experiences with toddlers in Portland, where parents were almost always integrally involved as their kids explored the park. I see pros and cons to both extremes, yet it is interesting to note the prevalent attitude in each locale.
If you have read this far, you are probably wondering where the parakeets tie in. There is a link, I promise. When my mother was visiting last month, she came in from playing with the little one and told L that she thought she had seen a lime green parakeet in a tree. It snows here, which is hardly the ideal environment for these birds, so we assumed she had seen something different. A few days later, though, our neighbor asked me if I had seen the parakeets yet. Parakeets? Yes, he told me, there is a whole flock of them that live here, out in the wild. No one knows if they were initially just a couple of released pets or if they came from elsewhere as stowaways, but they were here. And ever since then I have been scouring the parks for them, to no avail. But last week, when I was walking the dogs through the nearest park early in the morning after a mostly sleepless night full of newborn diaper changes, I heard one, then two, then lots of parakeets chattering. I looked up to see a flock of two dozen parakeets, some lime green, some sage green. Two dozen! So they do exist. I will try to take a picture for next time.
Ok, on to post number two. Stay tuned!
- E
On that note: I was refering to our toddler son as the "little one" on the blog, but now he has competition in the form of our littlest man, who is already just over one week old! Ideas for blog pseudonyms for both boys are welcome!
In any case, I have been meaning to post about the playgrounds for a while now and just have not gotten around to it. Playgrounds are everywhere here, though some of them consist only of a single slide or swingset nestled beside an RER stop. We are lucky to have at least 5 playgrounds within walking distance here, set between the apartment buildings in the neighborhood. Our neighborhood was built in the 1970s in response to the massive influx of immigrants to the Paris region, many of them Algerians who settled in France after Algerian independence. The apartment buildings were clearly built hastily to accommodate the swelling population, and they are definitely not the gorgeous Art Deco buildings of Paris. Instead, they are squat concrete rectangles with zero embellishments or personality. The plus, though, is that in the spaces between buildings, small parks have emerged, with greenery and playgrounds in between nearly every apartment complex. These parks are maintained by the city and open to all, and are generally in pretty good condition. While the park below is actually in Paris, it gives you a good idea of the size of playgrounds here (this would be considered large-ish):
What cracks me up about these parks (and the French culture in general) is how incredibly rules-oriented and safety-conscious they are. Posted in every playground is a list of rules (and a long list at that). The playing surface is typically made of shock-absorbent rubber. Even funnier than the rules are the individual plaques that adorn each piece of playground equipment:
Each piece of equipment has a designated age range - both a minimum and a maximum age. And kids are aware of this, too. A couple of weeks ago I was supervising the little one as he (gasp!) played on a structure suitable for kids age 4 and up. A little boy no older than 5 came up to me and, with a worried look on his face, told me that the little guy should not be playing on this piece of equipment, because he could fall and hurt himself. I thanked the little boy and told him that it was ok, that I was there to watch him, and that this is how he would learn what he was comfortable with. Clearly, the little boy had never heard this particular brand of logic, as he just stared at me, puzzled.
Now, the above is NOT meant to imply that French parents are all overprotective or that the kids will grow up not knowing how to take calculated risks. There is actually a lot of nice logic to this layout. Parents can allow their kids some freedom on the age-appropriate equipment with little chance of injury. Kids can play independently without their parents hovering over them. This is often the case, as many parents spend their playground time sitting on the park benches that ring the playground, while the kids run around as they please. It is totally different than our playground experiences with toddlers in Portland, where parents were almost always integrally involved as their kids explored the park. I see pros and cons to both extremes, yet it is interesting to note the prevalent attitude in each locale.
If you have read this far, you are probably wondering where the parakeets tie in. There is a link, I promise. When my mother was visiting last month, she came in from playing with the little one and told L that she thought she had seen a lime green parakeet in a tree. It snows here, which is hardly the ideal environment for these birds, so we assumed she had seen something different. A few days later, though, our neighbor asked me if I had seen the parakeets yet. Parakeets? Yes, he told me, there is a whole flock of them that live here, out in the wild. No one knows if they were initially just a couple of released pets or if they came from elsewhere as stowaways, but they were here. And ever since then I have been scouring the parks for them, to no avail. But last week, when I was walking the dogs through the nearest park early in the morning after a mostly sleepless night full of newborn diaper changes, I heard one, then two, then lots of parakeets chattering. I looked up to see a flock of two dozen parakeets, some lime green, some sage green. Two dozen! So they do exist. I will try to take a picture for next time.
Ok, on to post number two. Stay tuned!
- E
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Birth Certificate
I told you all I would let L write up the birth story of our new little man (who was born in the apartment!), but since she hasn't gotten to it yet I wanted to at least post a quick note about his birth certificate. Before that, though, here is a little visual of how the animals spent their time while L was in labor:
Anyway, on to the birth certificate. In France, births are declared at the mayor's office (mairie) and must be declared, by law, within 3 business days of the birth. In most cases, the declaration is started by the hospital in which you give birth, and you show up and essentially confirm the details. However, in the case of a homebirth, this means we bring a handwritten note from our midwife to the mayor's office, which is then used to create the official registration of the baby's birth. By law, the midwife has to record the mother's maiden name on the birth certificate (in addition to her married name, if applicable). The rules here state that if a married woman gives birth, the baby's last name will be that of her husband, regardless of whether she has taken his name. If a single woman gives birth (even if in a relationship with the father), the baby's last name will be her maiden name, (or, as it is referred to here, your young girl's name or nom de jeune fille).
Since we are married (again, thanks Canada!) but it is not recognized here, and since L legally changed her last name to mine (but again, that is not recognized here), we were really not sure how this would play out for us. Our midwife had warned me that I would likely not be able to get his birth registered under our shared last name, which would cause major headaches for identity papers and for travelling. Since I was the one going to the mayor's office to register the birth, I arrived already amped up and ready for a fight. To my incredible surprise, the clerk happily recorded our shared last name on his official papers, no questions asked. Again, it seems like the law of the country is not necessarily the law of the cities!
What is even more awesome about this is that when I am in public with our newest son, no one will question our (legal) relationship, even though in France we have no legal relationship. He and I share the same last name; it will therefore be assumed that I am his mother and that I can make decisions for him. In a country where second-parent adoption is illegal, and where I (officially) cannot be his mother, the common name literally makes all the difference.
- E
Anyway, on to the birth certificate. In France, births are declared at the mayor's office (mairie) and must be declared, by law, within 3 business days of the birth. In most cases, the declaration is started by the hospital in which you give birth, and you show up and essentially confirm the details. However, in the case of a homebirth, this means we bring a handwritten note from our midwife to the mayor's office, which is then used to create the official registration of the baby's birth. By law, the midwife has to record the mother's maiden name on the birth certificate (in addition to her married name, if applicable). The rules here state that if a married woman gives birth, the baby's last name will be that of her husband, regardless of whether she has taken his name. If a single woman gives birth (even if in a relationship with the father), the baby's last name will be her maiden name, (or, as it is referred to here, your young girl's name or nom de jeune fille).
Since we are married (again, thanks Canada!) but it is not recognized here, and since L legally changed her last name to mine (but again, that is not recognized here), we were really not sure how this would play out for us. Our midwife had warned me that I would likely not be able to get his birth registered under our shared last name, which would cause major headaches for identity papers and for travelling. Since I was the one going to the mayor's office to register the birth, I arrived already amped up and ready for a fight. To my incredible surprise, the clerk happily recorded our shared last name on his official papers, no questions asked. Again, it seems like the law of the country is not necessarily the law of the cities!
What is even more awesome about this is that when I am in public with our newest son, no one will question our (legal) relationship, even though in France we have no legal relationship. He and I share the same last name; it will therefore be assumed that I am his mother and that I can make decisions for him. In a country where second-parent adoption is illegal, and where I (officially) cannot be his mother, the common name literally makes all the difference.
- E
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Two moms, TWO BOYS, to France!
Just a quick note tonight to tell you all that we are now a family of four! Our littlest man was born yesterday at home. The whole family is doing great, though you can imagine we are just a little sleep deprived. More posts to come soon - I will let L tell the story of his birth, and I will tell the story of his birth certificate. But for now, sleep. Be back soon!
- E
- E
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