Badge of Honor

Riel is a carbon copy of me in little boy format. He can be very gentle, funny and gregarious and at the same time kind of barky…oooh who knew our kids would be such accurate mirrors of our own personalities…

He is so sweet now that he has started CP, the French version of Grade one. He sort of wears it like a badge of honor. He is very proud of himself since he has HOMEWORK to do unlike his little sister (underprivileged home-work-less child she is who is just 3) and approaches it all with great seriousness.
He adores his teacher and she tells me he is a dream.

Riel can now go into the school by himself which is a big deal if you are 6 (or his mother watching carefully from the car) and we have just removed the child lock form his side of the car door…you know the stages of independence.

On my return from dropping Lily off in her class I have just discovered that I can catch a glimpse of Riel intently setting up his things at his desk. So I wait to catch his eye to blow him a kiss silently across the room and then I do.

I love the way his eyes light up with a start when he sees me and secretly sends one back.

Helmets and Crowns

So I have to write about our last Sunday, it was sort of like a bear (or rather mother bear and her young) coming out of hibernation….With the two weeks of stress getting over jet lag and back into the rhythm of school, Bruce gone for a week…Lily yelling and then Riel yelling at her and then me yelling….my goodness why are we ALL yelling????

Figuring out all the details for school every morning in which order everyone does what and all the minutae of what makes for a smooth or rocky start to the day…not too mention all the bureaucratic paper work imaginable for school activities, fees to be paid, photos signed, permission slips delivered…. we emerged **ahhhhh** into the sunshine of a weekend day.

Suddenly we all seemed refreshed, rested and ready. At the same time. Miraculous.

Soooo… what to do.

Ok Mom has a great idea….. let’s do papier mache for your Halloween costumes!!!!!!

(enthusiastic yes it is a great idea pitch to kids who have absolutely no idea what in the world I am talking about…)

What am I talking about?? (ever do Papier Mache with a three year old??)

So I get busy



and mix up 8 (please note quantity) cups of sticky warm gloopy paste and strip kids down to skivvies and we all enthusiastically get to work.

A crown for Lily




and a knights helmet for Riel.





Everything was going so well until some one’s elbow connected with the gloop and then you guessed it….

Oh la la.

This and That and the Ostriches

Sooo...not much going on so exciting here, as most of you already know we are still contemplating a move to Germany, still awaiting a final contract. Bruce has been looking at houses in Hannover, even though we both knew this was death... to find one before a final contract has been tendered, haggled etc. You get the idea.

So of course we have found the impossible, a big (old) house near the centre, with a garden and lots of room for all of us, all of our stuff and all of our guests (for seemingly the right $$ still more amazing) but still no contract...urghh! So we can't move forward. Stuck like check mate in a great big game of chess. I knew this was going to happen. So I have been forced once again from my nice comfy ostrich hole back to the edge of my seat. (I was doing so well!!)

**I hate that**

Not only that but we have had some calls to rent the house at home...again forcing me to contemplate the future...It has been so nice over here just us and chocolate croissants and of course the ostriches.

Monica's Spanish Tortilla

Mom’s Group Picnic.

We had tried to arrange it for weeks in the early summer and finally by consensus decided it had to wait until September since no more than two of us could make it on any prospective weekend. Our group is great, it is always nice to see everyone, hear about all the fun things from each family’s summer activities, share a glass of wine and of course lots of jokes. In the end a reunion of sorts.

We got to nibble Corinne's quiche, Jose's yummy pink pie, keep everyones fingers off Susie's sandwiches (just for the kiddies!!) Monicas's Spanish tortilla, Natalie's chick peas and Brice's perfect cafe. Yum yum.

The kids just had a blast... racing around. As the disparate ages and stages seem to change so quickly amongst them new alliances are always seemingly being forged. It has been super watching the bumps grow, babies being born and now toddlers and kids zooming around.

It is really nice to have perspectives from so many different places, hearing of interesting journeys planned, and taken, our next destinations as it seems some of us are nearing the end of our stay. We are French, British, Dutch, Mexican and Canadian. The common denominator our children at the beginning (and our sanity), our common language, a coffee, and now it seems good friends.

The motley crew.

So to those of you who have been checking and have had no blog joy my apologies.

I will try to post a little more regularly and try to get over my blog fright…kind of like stage fright.
Let me know what you want to hear about. (Is mundane OK??)

So we had a fabulous trip back to France, the gods were all looking the right way (either away from us or towards us not sure….) We had bulkhead seat so the kids could stretch out . I could stand sleepy guard (not sure where they will go on a plane but none the less feel compelled) and we all managed to get a little shut eye….tho I caught Riel peeping a few times at whatever in flight (“in fright” in his case) adult movie was on the big screen.

The kids (I have to hand it to them) really seem to know the drill now and were just as good as gold all round. Our train trip was uneventful even tho there was some Old "Gaseous Grand Dame" in the truest sense of the word who happened to have the 4th of our 4 seat booth (to her obvious delight) giving us the hairy eyeball for most of the trip. Like it is a crime to be a kid. Sheesh.

So we are back in Dijon.
You ever feel like you are moving from one series of piles to another?
For this summer for us it was a rather consistent stream of

**pack** unpack** pack**laundry** pack** unpack** pack**laundry**

and then all over again. I guess I have nothing to complain about.

I must confess I was starting to feel a pull to come back here around the start of school (quelle surprise), as it is hard to leave home and all the nearest and dearest. As you can see by the photo went throught this bizarre uncontrollably tacky desire for Canadiana... even bought some good old red and white roots gear...now to see if I have the guts to wear it.

Sooo..We are now back in the throws of settling into the new routine for the school year. Riel is starting "CP" which is the French equivalent to Grade one and Lily is in “Petite Section” like PRE jk (if you can believe that). For those of you who may not know the school day is staggeringly long, starts at 8:45 and ends at 4:45.Oh my goodness!!! Poor little souls. Riel is so proud of his new “homework” he brings home every night. (See how long that lasts….)

The kids are settling in better than ever before after the jetlag. So either they are figuring it out or we are. (not sure)??

It seems to be a case of anticipating the natural rhythms of the last time zone and not letting them fall asleep when their bodies want them to until the “new” right time in the current zone.
No easy task …like feeding them candy non-stop all the way to my Mom’s on the Canada end while singing songs at the top of our lungs to bribing them with movies to keep them up at this end…

Oh La La.

"A Sailing boy"
Riel with a bit of trepidation departing with his dad, his uncle and his Grandpa for a sail across Lake Ontario. The first night it was very windy and what else blowing out of the wrong direction, so they had to turn around and go the other way than intended. Gladly it meant a nice downwind sail directly across the lake from the Eastern side of Toronto to a small historic village called Niagara on the Lake.

“Children of the Corn”
Riel is back from his sailing trip and we are shucking corn for supper, Bruce text messaged me at 5A.M “Made it” so presumably he is safely back in France. (I just heard my phone go bloop bloop…)
The cottage has a fabulous hammock right on the edge of the bluff overlooking the lake, great for a book or a romp with the kids or…shucking corn.
It has been unseasonably cold and windy so even thought the lake has been glorious in its surf I must confess our visions of sand digging and sunbathing are fading just like our tans from last week. 

"Bubbling with Lily on the front lawn"
It was so great to be able to spend a little quality time with just Lily this week while Riel was with his Dad on the boat. We did some crafts, spent lots of time reading and napping together, swung on the swing and just chatted. It is amazing what a 2 year old has to say. Lily got her own special pedicure as well.
She is always so full of ideas and questions. Such an great age. My Little Lily.

"Thanks Mom"
Oh my goodness I LOVE visiting with my mom, just past those angst ridden 30’s into a really wonderful place where you forgive all those perceived “mistakes” and into a great space where you really appreciate them for the great and amazing women they are.
We had such a fabulous time, every evening just talking and us both doing our own quiet thing while thankfully this kids slept exhausted from the day activities.
My mom is someone I can really be with and really be myself with….what can be better than that??
I admire her, all the amazing things she does, so many talents and skills always learning and always doing and like myself a little more than obsessed. I love to see her with my kids, it makes me realize all the great gifts she has given me by just being herself.

Thanks Mom.

The Big Four-O



Decorate Daddy...



Star Treatment



We Love Daddy




Cake...




Prezzies

Oh my goodness the torment continues….

I actually had an almost panic attack when Bruce told me that indeed they had tendered an offer…you mean I might actually know where we will be living?

The normal has become not knowing and suddenly I appreciated the freedom that no plan allows…everything is possible, there is no down side- no upside- just one great big possibility.

And now we might actually know??? No way.

Back to the 1000 Islands

We have had Bruce’s family all week… it has been so nice to have people around who really know us and are interested in all the minutiae of our lives. I think they were a bit shocked by the new belligerent Lily as she bellows her way out of the last half of her 2nd year...in like a lamb out like a Lion for her. (I am shocked!!) Why is it that all those normal developmental stages catch you by surprise anyway… She is still her sweet funny self in between all those No’s.
We had a great time, lots of good meals and conversations. It feels so easy for us to be with them. We miss them.

Then a really good friend of mine from my college days dropped y for several days with her little boy…so good to see how the great people in your life really just don’t change…

Blue Belly Button

When asked why her belly button was Blue Lily said matter of factly…Because I colored it!!
So why is that adults are so slow on the uptake anyway??

So finally after a week or 10 days in Canada of “other things” we have finally arrived in the 1000 Islands to relax and unwind. In true Canadian tradition, the cottage is earthy, has a screen door that swings and slams and we have a fabulous view of the lake or in this case the Saint Lawrence river.
We can hear the loons calling at night, and the first night we were here we observed a heron feeding by the little willow tree on an island metres from our dock. This morning I counted 16 adolescent ducks nibbling on river grass near the shoreline.

The first day is always frenetic as the children instinctively explore every inch of our digs as we discover together all the dos and don’ts for anyone under the age of 10. Then we settle into a bit of a routine. I made a huge trip to Dollarama and came home with almost every craft supply they had (I think) so we can do a different craft every day. This morning we made magic wands out of errant tree branches and sprinkled them with “Magic Dust” in preparation for their first solo spells. We have a few days of just ourselves to ourselves before our family and friends arrive. A nice reprieve from the last weeks of activity.

The kids and Bruce are setting a fire ready to light to roast marshmallows before bed and the meet is thawing in the sink for tonight’s barbeque.

A perfect cottage evening…Oh my…where is my glass of wine anyway?
Later….

Never Too Cool to Brush

Title says it ALL!

Ode to the Sling

Ode to the Sling

I have carried both our children for endless hours in a sling fabricated with a plaid fishermans skirt. The sling was becoming ratty the same way a favourite doll might have had its eyes loved off.

It was purchased years ago on crowded ferry dock while leaving Ko Tao on the other side of the world. The long journey taking me there had been one to mark my life in ways almost to profound to record. The sling had been a skirt, a table cloth, a blanket on chilly journeys, a headcover and now it like my life had morphed into a baby carrier. It had been soaked and cleansed of soil to varied to record, imbueing it with a karma befitting a humble peice of cloth which had done so much. Now we carried it everywhere with us, tucked neatly into our backpack in case a tired child might be in need of a lift.

Fast Forward to Spain.
We spied the immense 7th century church on the way by, high and distant on terraced hills, hunkered back to us in silent vigil. The view was spectacular with rolling hills as far as the eye could see, the church in the foreground and an ancient and tumbled down villaged tucked in the middle.

We returned to circle the hill trying to find in vain a road which would lead directly to the place. We finally gave up our search and decided to park the car and hike through the already cut bleached wheatfields. From the top of a domed hill directly beside the church, we gazed in all directions over the barren landscape imagining oursleves ancient warriors awaiting pagan enemies. About halfway down we found an intriguing series of body sized depressions with slightly heaped earth around the edges and lots of scattered stones but no more. The natural vantage point dictated the site of ancient stronghold, yet the ground was barren of clues save the odd bone. The church sat in mute observation seemimgly bemused at our scratchings as we scoured for evidence of a surely magical past.

Having exhausted our curiosity (and water supply) we waited for Bruce to hike back to retreive the car. Lily had peed her pants so was sitting bottom airing in the shade. I had put our backpack containing the sling under her tender little self to protect her from the pavement. When he arrived we loaded the car up with kids, hot and tired and ready for the air conditioning. Lily's rinsed pants hung tucked into the top of the closed window to air dry in the wind, flapping like a lost crow.

We did not discover that we had forgotten the back pack until the next day when we went to retireve something or other for our next adventure.

It was, we decided, worth it to make the trip back to try to retrieve the sling but when we arrived we discovered that the backpack was gone. Where did it go? Taken we assumed by some traveller like ourselves intrigued by the old church in the middle of nowhere and feeling the need for an unclaimed backpack. Feeling wistful and foolishly sentimental we headed back hoping the sling would continue to find a place of value in someones life, but also knowing that like the church's secrets the answer would never be yielded to us.

Fish Upstream

Onward East towards Rioja and further south. We began the climb up and over the Pico's D'Europa, passing 4 km under the mountains by tunnel (...talk about waiting for the light...). After crossing the green peaks we discovered a completely arid and wind worn mountain desert on the other side which gradually made way to miles upon miles of undulating just shorn wheat fields, sun bleached and dry.
Now we understood why the Spanish have siesta from 12-5, and dine at 10 P.M in the cooling evening.

We spent a day in Burgos and visited its most famous and impressive cathedral there (all the godliness should be soaking in soon no?) as well as had a walk around the old centre. We chilled our hot feet in (what we assumed were) the Pilgrim foot baths along the "Rambla", a long shaded pedestrian collonade while we keeping a wary eye out for the Fountain Police.

A pilgrimage trail (Camino Santiago de Compostella) winds from the East to West culminating in the historic religious centre of Santiago. Its route slices off the northern most third of the countrywith its many paths. As we wound our way eastward, fish upstream, we saw many pilgrims walking silently, each determined in the heat to make the passage. Hats,backpacks and walking sticks, most with shiny brown foreheads, some with brows knit in concentration and all with eyes focused far in the distance along the trail.

Costa Verde

Verdant and cool, high atop a cliff and deeply cut with gorges, Costa Verde, the green belt of cool on the northern coast of Spain and is supposed to be the least like Spain.
We visited little fishing villages to eat tapas and Calamari with cider and a few of the beaches to do the sand thing, wound in and out of the deep lush green cuts and tried to decipher the signage. We combed the beaches and gasped as we traversed wiggly cliffed mountain roads. The children were everywhere and a little curious about our mute kids who felt too shy to say anything more in Spanish then Ola.

Rolling stones...

Bruce has decided it is time for Rioja, hmmm kinda like this new wine hobby of his.
Will try to go south to Castile to visit some castles on the way over, hopefully while staying out of the heat. I guess we are sort of used to castles at home (in France) as think the kids area bit puzzled about the fact that we have not seen any. I mean any.

The French do seem to have a love affair with anything old whilst the Spanish seem to rebuild it or ignore it if what we have seen is any indication. We have seen lots of wistful, elegant and grand old dames of abandoned villas in little towns overlooking the sea....Riel shouts "fixer upper!!!" and Bruce and I both wish.

I am sitting outside the camping reception on an old slab of stone skimming wifi from the closed office, (too cool) on my computer without a plug in and mostly in the dark and to the sound of a neighbourhood barking dog. Isn't technology amazing? I was able to pick up email and also check the news the same way. I have read about the heat waves in France and am glad we are still here as it has been overcast and cool and green.

Onward.

Monster Beetles and Creature from the Black Lagoon

It was a hot day in Northern Spain and we decided to go look for some prehistoric cave paintings close to where we are stating. Both locations were closed off with bg gates and had scheduled visiting times for anyone over the age of 7. Needless to say Lily found something more interesting to look at.......as usual. A GIANT BEETLE!! About 10cm long!! In the beetle world size must matter as he did not look like someone you would want to mess with.

Searching for a secret entrance to the prehistoric caves, Bruce had little luck. I thought they would have installed a back door into a cave like that but all I found was a big pile of rocks and a nice cove filled with seagulls.

We had lunch at the `Lourdes of Spain`, a place where a highly outnumbered Petoya defeated the Moors a long time ago. In this area of Spain, Asturia, the people are very proud because they are the only region in the country that has never fallen into the control of another power.

Tomorrow, we are off further west in search of less tourists and more beaches.....we will keep you posted!

We made it!!!

Ola... it is nice to be here...but what an oddysey of a voyage, seems close (especially to Canadians who measure distance by time not kms) but it's not.

We travelled across France due West since we decided (unwisely) to leave on the beginning of the European vacation period but by all regional roads, seems like a quaint idea...no? I think we saw every old stone barn and sunflower from Dijon to The Spanish border.

We travelled through Beujolais, sort of neat, beautiful chateaus and vineyards, bathed in sun ( but call me a snob I like Burgundy better) it was very hot with our car thermo reading 37 in places...phew!!

Finally we made it to the west coast- visions of deserted beaches simply waiting for us and only us in our Caravan danced in our heads...hmmm.
We managed to have a great morning at the ocean bodysurfing and kite flying beside the immmense sand dunes that line the coast and then continued on..

Onward and southward, across the Spanish border and west along the sea.
Past crumbling seaside villages colouful with immense banks of sky blue and rose hydrangeas, now we are in the Picos D'Europa a mountain range just south of the northern most coast of Spain. It is gorgeous, cool and green.
The kids had a great afternoon swimming in the pool, and are now sleeping as we pour over our guide books and maps to figure out what to do tomorrow.

Funbag

Almost ready to go to Spain.

Phew!!

Just spent the last 4 hours repacking risotto and granola into little baggies and grouping those baggies into bigger baggies...

Ok... so am I the only person who does this?

We have the "beverage bag", the "breakfast bag", and the all too important "Goody Bag" (in a strategic location (and seemingly deserving of capitals)).


We have a Pandora's box of medication's for every possible ill - real or imagined and a plethora of bandages, swabs and ointments...

We have clothing to suit every possible temperature or climate, alone or worn in several disparate combinations (fashion to the wind)...grouped by kid, colour and size...

Every possible sanitary, disinfecting, rehydrating or bug repelling solution available in wash, wipe or spray format (travel size...),

Bathing suits, wet suits and a brand new leopard skin regulation conforming teeny tiny set of swimming trunks for the "Big Guy"

Almost everything checked off the "before we go" list-

sunscreen CHECK...

hats CHECK...

maps CHECK

funbag CHECK

GO!!

Zidane Mundane??

Has world cup soccer fever pitched and peaked over yonder or is it only here? We have soccer ball flower pots (I was amazed to see at out local grocery), flags of every shape and size, children are shouting "Allez les Bleus" the nick name of the French team (though Bruce calls then "les Vieux...") .

Last week when the French won there were celebrations (very loud ones I might add til wee hours) and an impending feeling of sporting invincibility(contrary to the normal ethos of general grumpiness) partout. Even Riel was caught up in it, sitting prominantly on top of his play house bellowing "Allez les Bleus" and "Vive le France" to our empty courtyard like the best of them (and undoubtedly all the other little boys at his school). Which nationality is this little red headed kid of mine again anyway...??

A photo of Place Michelle about a block from our house, eve of the big match, the sounds of the cheers were heard in every corner of the town, indeed I suspect of France.

Big brother come to mind?

And then the game if any one was lucky enought to catch it....can't anyone else on the French team play soccer (or Foot pronounced "fooot"- little do they know this is an English word...as the french call it) except for Zidane?? Oh my goodness give the ball to someone else!!!

Ooh la la, didon!!

NEWS FLASH - THE BIG READER - July 7th, 2006 ...........the day that Riel read his first book from start to finish all alone!! 'The Big Bug Dug'.....not 'War and Peace' but a huge accomplishment quand meme! He looks forward to the next book and is proud that he may now be able to read to others instead of being read to by others.