Parisian Parentals

I jutted into traffic to protect Dancer Friend's new little bundle in his stroller as we crossed the busy Paris streets near Canal Saint Martin. J was born just two months ago and DF was braving a trip into the city alone for the first time.

After a thirty-minute set back due to projectile baby spit up, she had finally found a parking spot, put the stroller back together, texted me that J was screaming, but that she was still going to try and power through.

Courageous is what I call that.

We met on the corner of the quai and quickly assessed that her first suggestion of Ten Belles, the most adorable café on the planet, but also the smallest, would not be suitable for her tank-sized stroller. We'd need a bit more of that precious Parisian café real estate if J was to join us.

Close, but no cigar.

We finally found La Marine, just across the canal, and poked our heads in to analyze the situation. Could we fit a stroller in there? We decided yes, and pushed the baby tank through the miniature aisle between tables, parking J in a corner we deemed "out of the way".  Our tarte tatin and café crème arrived and then J decided to poop.

I looked at DF with big eyes - ummm ...what do you do now? Where do you change him?

Again, we thought about it...if there's no changing table in the closet-sized WC, how rude would it be to change him right there in the restaurant? And more importantly, how smelly? What if we offered everyone hand sanitizer right after? Maybe I could create a distraction? Would they even notice?

DF reminded me that then she would have to do something with the dirty diaper, which is when I suggested she change him outside. But she told me it was probably cruel to change a baby outside in the wintertime.

Ohh riiiigghht. That's why she's the mom.

And so, as all Parisian parents must do, DF had to make a crucial decision: to change, or not to change? 

Thankfully, J was a good little sport, realized he probably shouldn't have decided to poop while out in the city, and stuck it out like a champ for the majority of our coffee time. Parisian parents be warned - La Marine is not the place to take a kid in diapers unless it's warm outside!

Is it just me or is my friend the bravest woman on the planet? She drove a 2 MONTH OLD, BY HERSELF into PARIS, PARKED A CAR in the city on a SATURDAY, put together a TANK stroller, breastfed in public, and had to make a decision that no mother should have to make only two months in. 

She deserves a medal.

Step it up Paris - it's no wonder the families are fleeing to the burbs!

Twinning

In May, my cousin and his wife are going to have not one, but two new babies. TWO BABIES!

That's a lot of babies. A lot. Capital A.

I found out while I was on the way to meet My Very Parisian Friend's new baby...very auspicious me thinks. This is how they broke the news:

What's crazy is that there is no doubt that there are two little beans in there - two babies, just hangin' out, waiting to grow and all that good stuff. We were all in shock- I mean, TWO BABIES. Craziness! How are you gonna? What are you gonna? deep breath, start over. Twins!!

But once the shock wore off, we've been nothing but excited - thinking of names, talking about how they're going to do it, two cribs, two baby bjorns, two of everything...

Our big question was - two girls? two boys? one of each? My mom and sister put together a little baby celebration table while my cousin and cousin inlaw went for their ultrasound to find out the sexes of the babes! How cute is this?

note the various cupcake combinations - they really thought of everything

side note: yes, those are potatoes with ribbons on the cake stand - the babies were the size of potatoes on that particular day haha

Drum roll please - they are both girls! More baby girls! 

Proud momma on Christmas day in the states (I got regular photo updates from the fam)

Which means that my cousin will be the only guy in a family of girls - and that my little cousin- their oldest daughter, will be a big sister for the first time.

She got a card from me when we found out that babies were on the way...I'm the big sister in my family too. It's an important role if I do say so myself ;-)

It's a bummer to be far away - I can't see the bump or go shopping for baby stuff, but those babies can count on some cute Parisienne outfits from their Auntie Cannes Cannes :-)

Another Baby Girl

My Very Parisian Friend (whose identity I did not reveal in my previous post), just gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. This is the year of baby girls I tell you! 

Joséphine was born on October 17th, right before midnight, and I woke up to a text from the proud papa announcing that both maman and bébé were happy and doing well after a seamless birth.

I am so very, very excited for my friend, who didn't have the easiest of pregnancies. She was put on bed-rest early on and was feeling kind of stir crazy in her Parisian apartment. Though she experienced ups and downs throughout the full 9 months, I bet she'd tell you that her little bout de choux was well worth it! 

Hopefully I'll get to visit this new little person and her happy maman tomorrow afternoon...

Joséphine's doudou

Maman à Paris

My copine recently revealed to me that she is expecting a petit bout de chou (a little cabbage!). It's early days, so I try not to grill her about all of the details and offer to go baby clothes shopping on weekends - but somehow, we are vite emballée (quickly obsessed), and are chatting away about motherhood, babies, labor (aie!), financial responsibility and being a maman à Paris - being a mom in Paris.

When she announced the great news to her other friend, who already has a 6-month old, she was surprised to hear that she should already be investigating a spot in a crêche - a daycare center.  Over two citron pressé, (freshly squeezed lemonades), we gawked over the jeune maman's comment - a crêche? already? My friend is not even three months along! 

Our conversation got me thinking about being a maman à Paris - how on earth do women do it?  Voilà the things that are plaguing my thoughts:

1. The physical aspect of being pregnant in a city where everyone either walks, metros or Velibs.  There are stairs galore in Paris - I'm surprised women aren't going into early labor everywhere with the number of stairs they must climb just getting out of the Chatelet metro station.

2. The sad reality that most of the parental income will go towards rent in order to have an apartment large enough for a family (with neighbors who probably want to strangle you after 3am crying episodes...or convince the syndic (building manager) to reinforce the thin Parisian apartment walls). In addition to rent, will be the crêche.  Now, in France, families are charged for the crêche on a sliding scale, depending on their income. Families with a higher income pay more, and those with a lower income pay less.  I'm pretty certain that I will be smack dab in the middle - paying the regular, full price. And so will my copine. That my friends, is CHER (expensive). I'm pretty certain that it is nowhere near the cost of daycare in the US, but salaries in France are nowhere near salaries in the US - so voilà. 

3. Getting a spot in said crêche.  While speaking with my colleagues with children there were two cases of crêche: 1 maman had a 4 year-old and a 1.5 year old baby, the other maman had a 9 year-old and a 5 year-old.  Maman 1, at one point, had TWO children in the crêche and was therefore paying a bundle each month - that is, when she finally found a spot for each of her children.  She lived a galère for awhile there, but it finally FINALLY worked out.   Maman 2 had her oldest in the crêche and somehow the stars aligned so that when the older child graduated to school, her youngest took her old spot.  Much less stressful. But you can't always time these things, can you?  No, you cannot.

4. One area where the French have gotten it right is when you are in the hospital.  Women are cared for here in a way that they never could be in the US (unless that had the Daddy Warbucks of insurance plans).  My friend who recently gave birth right next door in the 12th arrondissement, spent 4 days in the hospital after a very healthy, vaginal birth.  She was able to rest, learn how to breastfeed and heal.  While a long hospital visit doesn't sound ideal (it's so nice to be chez soi), I'll bet that women come home in a much better state to begin doing things without the help of the medical staff.  They are surveyed in case there's a problem, and they have professionals on-hand for all of the thousands of questions that must come up as a new mom. In addition to caring for women during the accouchement, is the care they receive AFTER the birth.  Women attend sessions for the réeducation périnéale, meaning less chance of complications later in life. 

5. Beyond the physicality of actually carrying a baby to term in a big city like Paris, is the reality of getting around with a stroller once the baby is born.  How do women do it?! Remember Anabelle Tess' blog post about the bus in Paris?  I probably would have flipped out and cried. The other option is the metro - a gazillion stairs to walk down and then up - and all you can do is A. hope your child and your stroller are not that heavy or B. hope that a good samaritan will stop their rush down the stairs and offer to help you (not easy during 9am rush hour...). I'm always so impressed by these women and I offer to help as often as possible, but I have to say, after one stroller-metro adventure, I'm not sure I would be that motivated to leave my own quartier. I'm not even going to mention the fact that not all apartments buildings have elevators...

Perhaps these things seem less stressful when you actually have a beautiful new baby to enjoy and love, or perhaps you just give in to the reality of it, embrace the situation, and pretend like metro stairs carrying a stroller are a great way to lose all that baby weight.  I tried to reassure my copine (and my future self), but let's face it, being a maman in Paris is hard work n'est pas? 

photo credit

4 Baby Girls

There's a baby boom in the land of FCC - in under two months, my friends from around the globe have given birth to FOUR baby girls.

1. 100% American couple from California gave birth to Lily in December.

2. 50% French, 50% American couple from New York gave birth to Mathilde on the same day.

3. 50% French, 50% English couple from Caen just gave birth to Joanna on February 3rd.

4. 100% French couple from Paris are due in two weeks with a yet-to-be-named baby girl.

Lily, Mathilde, Joanna and soon-to-be-born Baby Girl - crazy non?

Copain and I did some massive baby shopping at BHV on Saturday so that we could shower gifts on the new mamans and papas, which was of course followed by massive baby gift wrapping:

Our Frenchie friends (who live right down the the street!) also got some babysitting gift certificates :-)

It's so bizarre when your friends become parents !  It will be interesting to see how each little girl grows up with their various nationalities and homes in different parts of the world. Will the Americans know how to pronounce Mathilde? Will Joanna grow up speaking English too? It's fascinating don't you think?!

Here's to the four new healthy, happy baby girls that are now a part of our world...Félicitations mes amis!

Cannes Cannes' Creations - Rock A Bye Baby

Behold! The completed baby blanket that I started all the way back in November!  Funny story about this baby blanket...I was so busy before leaving for vacation that I decided that I would just work really hard on it during the 12 hour flight. This became even more necessary when my Copine called to tell me that she was going to be induced on Friday morning. I was flying out on Saturday and the blanket wasn't even half-finished! Yes, I would work on it during the flight and I'd be almost done by the time our Airbus landed at LAX. What I didn't think about was the fact that a crochet needle could be used as a weapon on a plane. You know, because they are so much pointier than pens...

Blog-cation

I just got back from Christmas vacation chez The Parental Units in sunny southern California.  My little getaway with Copain turned into an untintentional Blog-cation as well because A. My parents' computer is from the dark ages and B. I was having lots of family time and eating time and visiting friends time... and it seemed a shame to obsess about the blog during those precious moments at home. As a result, I feel completely out of the blog loop and have slowly but surely been catching up on my favorite peeps out there (those ones you see in the sidebar  :-) ). 

I have lots of updates that I'll fill you in on asap (it's almost the weekend which means lots of time for blogging!).  To give you a taste until I can really get typing... my Copine gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and I was able to finish the blanket I started for her before leaving (pic on the way!). I even got to visit them in the hospital with Copain, which was very special since I never get to be home for big events now that I live on the other side of the world. Later during my vacation, I learned that another good friend (whose husband is a Frenchie!) also gave birth to a baby girl on the exact same day at the same hour - but in a different time zone. C'est fou non?!  Two new sweet babies brought into the world...félicitations mes amies!

I'll see you this weekend my friends...photos and xmas cards and American wonderfulness coming your way!