Fontainebleau

Lest our blog become purely baby-related, I wanted to post some stuff about recent travels we have been on. Except... we haven't travelled since the baby arrived. Well, we've made trips around the Paris metropolitan area (which is a pretty big area), but we haven't really been out for more than a few hours or an afternoon or so. Life with babies is complicated!

But, earlier in July, we took a day trip to Fontainebleau, a town about 50km south of Paris. I had been planning to write about our trip, but I never got round to it! Let's do that now.

Fontainebleau is a popular tourist destination for Parisians, mainly due to the nearby Forêt de Fontainebleau (Fontainebleau forest), but also for the Château de Fontainebleau, regarded as one of France's most magnificent. The forest is pretty big, 280 square kilometres; that's approximately the same size as Edinburgh, Exmoor national park, or the borough of Queens in New York; it's just under 10% the size of Rhode Island. The forest is popular for hiking, cycling, horse riding, and rock climbing.

It took us maybe an hour to get there by train, and then a 10 minute bus ride from the train station to the town centre. Apparently it's a popular site with Chinese tourists, and there were signs in Chinese at the train station explaining how to use the buses. For us, since the trains and bus system are all in the "Paris region" transport system, we were able to use our monthly transport passes to travel. A day trip for free! Doesn't get much better than that.

The chateau de Fontainebleau.

The castle has been successively expanded over the centuries by its different owners, which has lead to a multitude of different architectural styles for the different wings. I'll let you judge whether this has a positive or negative effect on the overall appearance:

A view of part of the castle from a distance.

The château is surrounded by extensive gardens, including a lake. You can visit the inside of the castle (apparently the tour is well-regarded), but the weather was so nice we opted to remain outside and stroll the gardens.

Such tasteful decorations in the castle grounds. (Oui, c'est un chien qui faire un pipi.)

Some people relaxing with a picnic by the lakeside.

Another view of the castle from one of the tree-lined promenades.

We didn't venture out into the forest (there was too much to see at the castle, and Talia, being pregnant, only had so much walking energy for the day). Perhaps we will be able to revisit soon and have another exploration, this time with baby in tow!

Two months of sweetness

Maëlys is two months old today! The first month passed in a haze of exhaustion and amazement and a pervasive what-the-heck-do-I-do-with-this-creature feeling, but the second month is where the love and confidence have started to grow in earnest.

Smiley Maëlys!

At six weeks, she intentionally smiled back at me for the first time, quelling the sneaking suspicion I had that our daughter would resemble a humorless and demanding alien for the rest of her life. Shortly thereafter, she started to become much more cuddly, burrowing her face into my neck and wrapping her arms around me when I held her. She started showing more interest in her stuffed animal toys, as well as holding a person's gaze for much longer. And this morning, she consistently giggled (cutest sound in the world!) when Rory wiggled her bottom and made a motorboat noise. It's episodes like these that make your heart overflow with love for your tiny human. And make the less fun stuff worth it.  

Our latest otter comparison.

You may be wondering what it's like to raise a baby in Paris. I might also write later about my experiences with labor and delivery and our stay at a French hospital if people are interested, but I'll save that for another post. For now, here are some interesting facets of new parenthood in Paris. For the record, I suspect it's actually quite a bit easier to have a baby in France than it is in the US (though I can't say I've tried the US version). Here are some reasons why.

• Mothers stay at the hospital for an average of three days after giving birth. This gives them time to recover and learn how to feed, change, and bathe their baby with the assistance of the nurses. They also have time to make sure the baby is healthy before being sent home. In our case, two days after she was born, Maëlys started to have trouble feeding--she had very low energy and fell asleep before she could get enough food, which was a sign of the start of jaundice. Though not uncommon in newborns and not a terribly serious problem, it still freaked me out and had me bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Instead of being home alone by this time and having no idea what was wrong with our baby, our midwife very quickly diagnosed the problem and the nurses helped Maëlys get better.
• Along the same lines, mothers in France are entitled to a home visit from a midwife a few days after they leave the hospital. My sage-femme (literally "wise woman") came out to our home and spent over an hour with us to check on the baby and me. The follow-up of mother and baby that is built into the French medical system makes problems less likely immediately following a birth.
• There are community medical centers called PMIs (Protection Maternelle et Infantile) which offer medical care for women and children free of charge. PMIs offer the services of pediatricians, midwives, puéricultrices (nursery nurses or childcare workers), and psychologists to anyone, regardless of income. Unlike in the US, where a free medical clinic such as this would most likely only be found in poor inner-city neighborhoods and would have somewhat of a social stigma attached to its use, PMIs are used by families from all walks of life and the quality of service is generally quite high. I have visited three different centers and they all had friendly, welcoming staff and a professional yet kid-centered environment. We will be taking Maëlys to our PMI on Monday for her first vaccinations (which are free, by the way). Oh, and there are three PMIs within a 15 minute walk from our house. I think France has some things figured out.
• Mothers are prescribed la rééducation périnéale following a birth. This is a practice not widely found in the US or UK, but it's essentially physical therapy for a woman's perineum (the muscles that get very stretched and sometimes tear during childbirth). Unlike in most other countries, France actually recognizes that childbirth can lead to lasting medical difficulties for women, particularly problems like urinary incontinence. La rééducation périnéale is typically carried out by a midwife and the goal is to retrain the muscles to prevent problems later in life. I start my first of 7-10 sessions of rééducation this coming week. Although it feels like a very awkward and uncomfortable thing to do, I'd rather not have to wear Depends when I'm older, so I'm willing to give it a try. 
• I mentioned in a previous post that France gives paid maternity and paternity leave (unlike the USA). Women get 16 weeks and men get two weeks. Rory's work was flexible, so he was actually able to spend most of Maëlys' first month at home with us. This time was invaluable for us to grow into our new roles as parents, to explore our changing relationship as a couple, and to love and support each other through the sleep-deprivation, constant cluster feeding, and piercing newborn screams.  
• And finally, another great aspect of living in France is that French people love babies. Especially older French women. So if you live in or visit France and want to practice your French conversational skills, I highly recommend having a baby with you (preferably your own). Parisians who wouldn't deign to look at you before will now ooh and ahh over your baby and will chatter away with you. Also, they are largely very kind and quick to offer help if you need it. 

What a cutie!

So it's been a great two months. Challenging, testing of patience, and requiring lots of learning, but an amazing experience nonetheless. Figuring out some of the resources available to new parents and understanding the medical system here has made a big difference in our confidence levels, and despite our very imperfect French language skills, people have been helpful and accommodating. Plus, we have this super cute baby who is learning new skills every day and becoming increasingly loving, responsive, and fun to play with. I'm a happy mama. 

A month already

Our daughter Maëlys is one month old today! She is getting increasingly squishy, is starting to make cute noises that sound like “Hi!”, and is smiling more often (though not because of anything we're doing). At times, she looks pretty convincingly like a balding old man, especially when Rory does his ventriloquist act with her. And if she's particularly hungry, when she starts feeding it often sounds like Zoidberg from Futurama. Here are a few noteworthy firsts from this week.

-Maëlys laughed for the first time. It was while our friend, Anna, was playing with her, which hopefully makes up for the fact that she often cries when Anna is around.

-She received her British passport four weeks early, so now we can for certain use those (expensive, non-refundable) plane tickets we bought to go to the US for Thanksgiving. Then we'll head to Scotland for Christmas. She'll be quite the seasoned traveler.


-She learned how to drink breastmilk from a bottle. It took a few tries and lots of ear-splitting screaming before she got the hang of it, but now Rory can help with the feeding occasionally. Yay!

Check out the comparison photo of her at 4 days old with the otter.

-Bottle feeding means that Mama started pumping milk this week. Yes, breast pumping really is just as weird as you might imagine.


-Maëlys and I were the furthest apart that we have ever been. The reason for learning to bottle-feed was that on Tuesday, as one of several music teachers with the American Conservatory of Paris, I presented at a musical instrument exploration day at a Paris international school to encourage kids to play string instruments. I was only gone for four hours but it was enough to make me feel refreshed. It was nice to teach and be with my music colleagues again.


-The three of us ate dinner at a restaurant for the first time. It involved Maëlys' first ride on the Paris metro trains. She also got her first view of Notre Dame as part of the outing, but I doubt she was looking.


All in all, it's been a great first month of parenthood. Our friends and family have been super helpful and we're managing to figure out some rhythms to our new life. Rory has started going back to work now and I'm learning how to be a full-time mom (at least until teaching starts again). It's definitely challenging on a daily basis, but we love this little human that we had the amazingly good fortune to bring into the world, and we can't wait to see what the next month holds.

"Seriously guys, enough with the photo shoot already."

Le bébé est arrivé !

In case you haven't heard, the baby has arrived! Little Maëlys joined us two weeks ago today. She is approximately the same size as a small otter.

She does not appear to swim as well as an otter, though, or enjoy raw clams.

Maëlys and Talia were both healthy and happy after the birth. As is standard in France, they stayed in hospital for 3 nights after the birth. In the UK and USA, usually you leave the hospital within a day or so, and only stay longer if there's a problem. Here, they routinely keep you until the baby has begun to gain weight. Having nurses and midwives around who can answer questions or provide assistance - even in the middle of the night - is a very reassuring way to ease into parenting, especially when we're all learning new skills such as changing nappies, or breastfeeding.

All set to go home!

Once we had been cleared to go home, we loaded her into our little car seat and drove her home in an electric car.

A week ago, she was a week old.

Today, she is two weeks old.

Both my parents and Talia's parents came all the way to Paris to meet their new granddaughter, and to share with us their love, support, and advice. I can't think of a better way to transition into parenthood! They left just a few days ago, leaving us to raise this critter all on our own. Wish us luck!

Preparing for Bébé, Part 3

Welcome to this week's installment of Preparing for Bébé. For those who are keeping track, I am now on Week 39 of pregnancy, and my day-to-day living can be summed up neatly in this picture. I'm pretty sure I've said the words “bladder” and “I need to pee” (or comically in French: j'ai envie de faire pipi) more in the last couple of weeks than in the entire rest of my life. At our last appointment, our midwife described the baby's head as being “très, très bas” (very, very low) in my pelvis, which is great for birth but a tad annoying in the immediate. Nevertheless, I'm feeling upbeat and optimistic, doing lots of walking, and baking double batches of chocolate chip muffins – just in case.

So for our final baby preparation blog post, I thought I would share our experiences with economizing on space in readying our apartment for the baby.

If you live or have lived in a large metropolis like Paris, you may be familiar with the concept of tiny accommodations. I, however, was not. I was used to relatively large houses with a garage, front and back yards, and plenty of personal space. Even when I went off to university and lived in a variety of cheap student apartments, there were always distinctly separate rooms and typically more space than I needed.

Coming to Paris, however, I quickly learned that space is at a premium. We have two friends who recently celebrated their move from one apartment to another one that was five times as big. Yes, they went from a whopping 7 m² (smaller than an average US bedroom) to a spacious 35 m² (75 ft² to 376 ft²). It made me realize what a luxury it is to have lots of room.

Our current apartment is 33 m² (355 ft²) and comprises a combination kitchen – living room – dining room area, plus a bedroom with an en suite bathroom. When I was reading about what furniture we would need for a baby, I kept finding pictures of immaculate nurseries that were bigger than half of our apartment. While this was somewhat disheartening, it also felt like a relief that we would not have to spend hours “designing the perfect nursery” and buy tons of furniture to decorate it with. Instead, we have had a fun time puzzling over how to fit everything into our limited space.

Puzzle #1: The crib

For example, we knew the baby's crib would need to go towards the foot of the bed in our bedroom as there was no other space big enough for it. However, most cribs on the market have dimensions that would have blocked our access to the bathroom, which would be a disaster for me in my current state of walnut-sized bladder. After weeks of searching, we thought we had settled on a smaller foldable crib that would only partially block our toilet access, but then realized it would only work for the first six months of the baby's life before it would be outgrown and we'd need a bigger crib. Back to the drawing board.

Message Classifieds to the rescue! Fortunately, I found a parent advertising a used Bloom Alma Mini crib, a fancy pants solid wood crib that is foldable and sized for “urban living spaces” with “room-to-room mobility during nap time.” Amazingly, the dimensions were perfect to slide into the nook next to our bedroom wardrobe, thus leaving plenty of space to get to the bathroom. It has an adjustable mattress height too, so it can last at least the baby's first 12 months. Hallelujah! Plus, we got it for less than half the original price. 

Puzzle #2: The changing station

If we could barely fit a crib in our bedroom, imagine trying to fit a typical diaper changing table in there too. We racked our brains to come up with a place for one and spent hours searching for small tables online, but ultimately found nothing. The solution?

The washing machine! We have a front-loading washer squeezed into our bathroom next to the sink, which happens to be at a great height for changing a baby. Just plop a contoured changing mat on top, and voilà! Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. Changing mats basically seem to come in one size, and, you guessed it! the size is bigger than our space would allow. Out of hundreds of varieties, I found only three that would sort of fit on our washing machine and none of them looked like great products. My energy spent, I enlisted Rory to continue the search in the more remote areas of the internet. Having almost given up, he finally stumbled upon a Danish product (BabyDan) on an Irish baby safety website that fit our dimensions to a T. What a relief! It may not be the most spacious baby changing area ever, but it should suffice.

Puzzle #3: Expectations vs reality

How do we fit a rocking chair in here? Where do we keep the stroller so it's not invading the whole living room? If we get a food processor/blender, where can we possibly store it? These are the other kinds of small living space questions we've been grappling with. Before coming to Paris, I now realize I had a lot of expectations about what constitutes a home, especially a home with two tax-paying grown-ups and a baby inside it. Years of subconscious media absorption led me to believe that a rocking chair was an absolutely essential element for nursing mothers. And I would have been fairly scandalized at the idea of storing kitchen appliances in the living room. These are very silly, trivial issues, especially in light of the massive problems facing the world today, but they have shown me how rigid my ideas have become on even some of the most frivolous of topics. Thank god for eye-opening experiences like moving to a new country.

As it turns out, rocking chairs are not mandatory for nursing mothers. They're not even that common in France. We opted to fill that space in our living room instead with a foldable dining table so that we could invite friends and family over for meals (there was previously only dining space for Rory and me). The food processor fits beautifully in our bookcase next to the baby books—why shouldn't it? And the folded stroller has found a home in a corner of the living room.

Sometimes the biggest puzzle in preparing for a baby is simply learning how to let go of your expectations. Most of us have developed beliefs over many years about the right way to do things. In coming to France, I've been reminded over and over that there are many right ways to live, to raise children, to furnish a home, to be successful, to be happy, and that our limited experience as humans can't possibly give us the omniscience to know the single best way to be. So try new things. Turn off that judgy voice in your head when you see something that doesn't conform to your expectations. Because really, we all just have the same goal. In the words of Tim Gunn, we have to “Make it work!”

La fête nationale

Thursday, the 14th of July, was France's fête nationale, usually known in English as "Bastille day". This is France's big national holiday, with a big display of patriotism, similar to America's Fourth of July.

The "blue, white and red" of the French flag, courtesy of the airforce. (The middle stream looks grey, but that's just because this picture was taken looking into the sun.)

Most English-speaking sources that talk about Bastille day mention that it commemorates the storming of the Bastille (14th July, 1789). This event, as it is told, was when the common people of Paris spontaneously rose up, stormed a huge medieval fortress (the Bastille), and freed the political prisoners inside, in a display of their desire for liberty against a tyrannical monarchy.

Some guys on horses.

Imagine my surprise to learn that the fête nationale does not (solely) commemorate the fall of the Bastille, and that the fall of the Bastille had nothing to do with political prisoners! In the late 1780s, France was going through a crisis - plainly, the country was broke, and the systems of government were over-complex and not conducive to economic growth. Cutting a long story short, the common people were upset at having limited representation in the ongoing negotiations to solve the crisis, and for various reasons (some true and some untrue) they believed that the king was going to lead a militaristic crackdown on the people of Paris. So, they stormed a military storehouse to gather weapons, but there was no gunpowder or shot. The closest place that had gunpowder? The Bastille! This then led to an armed standoff between the military governor who was in charge of the Bastille, and the mob of angry Parisians outside of it, who were armed but with no ammunition. Eventually the mob won, and the French revolution sort of snowballed from there.

Shiny helmets and swords.

One year later, on 14 July 1790, the French government held la fête de la federation, to commemorate the events of the fall of the Bastille in a show of national unity and solidarity. This event came during a time of relative calm; a constitutional monarchy was in place, with the king presiding over a (somewhat) democratically elected representative government. Feudalism was abolished, outdated judicial structures reformed, and things looked good. This historical event is also what the modern-day fête nationale celebrates. (Of course, as we know, everything was not fine in 1790, and the revolution would proceed with the overthrow of the royal family, radical dechristianization of the country, the reign of terror, several wars in Europe and the Caribbean, and the establishment of a republic with many freedoms previously thought impossible.)

So, that's what the day celebrates, more or less. The end of the ancien régime and the founding of the modern French state, with its principles of liberté, egalité, fraternité (freedom, equality, brotherhood). Every year along the Champs-Elysées there is a big défilé militaire (military parade).

Crowds assembled along the Champs-Elysées to see the military parade.

We decided to brave the crowds to see the parade. There were many people on foot from many different divisions of the armed forces (including the gendarmes and firefighters!), some on horseback, and a lot of vehicles. Motorbikes, jeeps, tanks, amphibious vehicles, artillery guns, diggers, engineering stations, and even a few drone launchers. Then there were many planes and helicopters that flew overhead. Apparently the president also makes an appearance, although we must have missed him.

A tank rolls down the Champs-Elysées.

In the evening, there was a big concert at the Champs de Mars (in front of the Eiffel Tower), followed by fireworks. We'd had enough of standing in large crowds by this point, and so we decided to watch it streaming online instead. It was quite different from either an American Fourth of July "pops concert" or a British last night of the Proms, two equivalently patriotic music events. You can see the whole concert here, mostly music from French composers but not entirely, finishing, of course, with La Marseilleise, the French national anthem. The fireworks were launched from the Eiffel Tower, which gives a lot of artistic options that you don't have from a ground launch (such as firing sideways). Rather than being bombastic and awesome (the "shock and awe" approach of American fireworks) this firework display was more beautiful and aesthetically appealing. You can view it here.

It was only the following morning that we heard of the terrible attack that had taken place in Nice. Committing mass murder on a day that is dedicated to celebrating freedom, equality, and brotherhood is one of the more repugnant acts I can imagine, but what better way to respond than to reaffirm those values, to stand firm in courage against those who would seek to divide us? The Paris revolutionaries of 1789 would stand for no less.

Preparing for Bébé, Part 2

In Part 1 of Preparing for Bébé, I mentioned some of the activities we've undertaken in the final stretch of my pregnancy. And in previous posts, I shared some of my experiences with things like health care and public transportation as a pregnant woman in France. By the way, good news on the transportation front! Once I hit about 8 months, my belly had become sufficiently large that people started regularly giving me their seat on the bus and métro. No more of the "I don't want to offend her by assuming she's pregnant if she's really not" behavior. It's been great! I really appreciate the Parisians' courtesy and generosity in this regard. The one caveat is that when people are engrossed in their phones (as most people are these days), it's much less likely they will notice my protruding tummy and I'll have to stand until a seat opens up. Such is life with technology these days.

Excusez-moi? Heavily pregnant lady would like to sit down. Anyone home?

Anyway, in today's blog, Part 2 of Preparing for Bébé, I'll look at two of the most helpful tools I've found that have allowed us to get ready for the baby. These are specific to living as an ex-pat in Paris, but provide a good contrast to the preparation process in the US or UK.

Message: like a bridge over troubled waters

The first crucial element in our quest to be well-prepared parents has been membership in Message, the large community of English-speaking parents and parents-to-be in Paris and its suburbs. I learned about Message from a blog post back in December when I was feverishly researching how to have a baby in France. Remember that my French language skills were pretty limited back then, so diving into French administrative websites for information on finding doctors, paying for health care, and registering at maternity hospitals was hugely overwhelming. Add on the early pregnancy hormones and anxiety, and I was barely keeping my head above water. When I found Message, I felt I had been saved.

Upon paying my 60 € membership fee, I received a very helpful book called The ABCs of Parenting in Paris, which explained everything from declaring one's pregnancy to government agencies to what types of butter are available in Paris grocery stores. More importantly, I was personally contacted by coordinating members of Message who answered my panicked questions and suggested I explore the online Message forums, where one can find a rabbit hole of members' questions and answers on any subject regarding the ex-pat parent's experience. It was a treasure trove of knowledge. Through these forums, I found an excellent English-speaking obstetrician, learned which hospitals not to go to, and got step-by-step instructions on submitting my pregnancy declaration to the government.

In addition to the online forums, Message offers classes led by trained volunteers on topics like birth preparation, newborn care, and breastfeeding. The classes were super helpful for Rory and me, and not just because they weren't in French (though that was a big part of it!) Another nice perk is that each Message member gets an assigned Breastfeeding Support Person who will help and advise you (for free!) with any questions or problems related to breastfeeding. Furthermore, there are Message play groups, monthly meet-ups, bring-and-buy sales, and seminars, as well as support groups for single parents, adopting parents, and more.

One of the most useful features of Message for us, however, has been its online Classifieds forum. Like Craigslist or France's version, Le Bon Coin, members can freely post their items for sale, apartments for rent, services offered, or items wanted, but you get to avoid the scams and shady characters common to Craigslist and don't have to contact people in French like on Le Bon Coin. Instead, it's just buying from one ex-pat mom or dad to another. The prices are often excellent and you can find gently used high quality (e.g. typically very expensive when new) baby gear. Plus, you get to meet friendly parents around the city who were in your shoes not too long ago and who can give helpful advice. It has been an invaluable service.

Membership in Message has already paid for itself many times over. When having a baby in a foreign country, especially when far away from family, anything that makes you feel less adrift at sea is probably worth doing.

The fact that Paris is a big enough city for a well-organized network like Message to exist, is also part of what makes living here a challenge. This city is expensive. This brings us to the second crucial element of our baby preparation: how to save money on baby stuff in a city where an apartment the size of a closet can sell for 200,000 €.

Saving money: go used and go online

Truth #1: Living in Paris is expensive. Although many ex-pats who move here work for big global corporations and can afford to live in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, we are not those ex-pats. Rory's two-year university contract and my very part-time music teaching keep us afloat and fairly comfortable, but the cost of living is just a smidge higher than we were used to in Ohio.

Truth #2: Having a baby is expensive. Holy catfish, Batman! Baby stuff is NOT cheap! 800 € for a stroller? 600 € for a crib? Well, there goes our month's rent...

With a first baby, there's often this desire to have brand new everything for one's precious bundle of joy. It has to be pristine! It has to be the best! I, too, had these feelings briefly.

But then I remembered that we most likely only have one year left in Paris, and international moving/shipping costs are enormous, so investing in brand new furniture and baby gear doesn't make sense as we may not even take it all with us when we move. That's where the Message Classifieds came in. The vast majority of our large baby-related purchases have come second-hand from Message members. Crib, stroller, swing, playmat, even dining room table and food processor were pre-loved by Message members. Had we bought everything new that we found on Message, it would have cost us in the neighborhood of 2100 €. Instead it cost us 595 €. It required patiently browsing through Classifieds posts every few days and making long trips out to the corners of Paris to pick items up, but the savings were definitely worth it.

Online shopping has been another huge money and time saver for us in Paris. Here's why.

As I was explaining to my incredulous mother the other day, there really aren't any big one-stop-shopping stores in our neck of the woods. Nothing like Target, Costco, or Walmart exists over here. You can find select places like Monoprix—a stand-alone department store that has groceries, clothes, and limited home goods, but the selection isn't very big by American standards and they're on the expensive side. So generally if I need to buy a wide variety of products, I have to go to a wide variety of stores. As I have no car, I have to walk or take the bus or subway to do my shopping. My 9-months-pregnant body can't handle too much of that these days, so that's strike one against traditional shopping.

Fill-your-car shopping trips and the stockpiling of groceries for the month aren't really done here either. In France, every few days you go to the boulangerie to buy bread, the boucherie to buy meat, the fromagerie to buy cheese, and it lasts for a few days or a week. Refrigerators and freezers are small, apartments are small, and we haven't had a pantry or closet since we lived in the US. You don't pick up 12-packs of butter at Costco because you won't have room to store it. Besides, again, I have no car, so I can't buy more than I can carry. I even gave in last month and bought what I call a Granny Shopping Cart, but I still can't bring that much stuff home at one time. Babies apparently need and consume a lot of random stuff, and heaven forbid if you should run out of diapers, or if the batteries for the baby swing die in the middle of the night. Or on a Sunday, when all of the stores here are closed. Going out shopping with a screaming baby every other day is probably not high on most parents' list of things to do, so that's strike two against traditional shopping.

Hence, online shopping.

After weeks of research on Amazon, bebe-au-naturel.com, lilinappy.fr, and dozens of other websites, after slowly reading and translating French product reviews and comparing prices in France, the US, and the UK, we ended up buying more than 300 € worth of baby-related stuff online (think wipes, baby laundry detergent, waterproof mattress pad, nasal aspirator, cloth diapering accessories, etc.) and had it shipped to our door (or to a nearby location for pick-up). It did mean dealing with unintelligible delivery-guy phone calls in French, but was otherwise an easy and straightforward way to ensure we got highly recommended products at cheaper prices. And I didn't have to kill my back and feet running around to dozens of stores throughout Paris to do it. I call that a win.

That's all for Part 2 of Preparing for Bébé. In our final installment, I'll show you how we are turning our little 33 sq. m (355 sq. ft) apartment into a baby-ready home without feeling like we're on an episode of Hoarders.

Have a splendid week, everyone!

Preparing for Bébé, Part 1

We're in the home stretch! Now at week 36, my ninth month of pregnancy has finally begun. I either have five more weeks to go (if counting by the French 41-week system) or four more (if using the British and American 40-week system). I'm feeling healthy, growing steadily, and sleeping well, despite the three to four night-time trips to the bathroom. We are excited to meet the strong, increasingly coordinated wiggler who likes to dance and practice karate in my tummy.

9 months pregnant! Oh, and there's some art too. Just Monet's famous Water Lilies.

Our calendar is pretty empty from here on out and we're mostly just trying to ensure that we have all the necessary goods for life with a newborn. We have toured the maternity wing of our hospital, attended birthing and breastfeeding classes, practiced “hypnobirthing” strategies, attended pre-natal pilates, devoured books, watched videos, read Amazon product reviews in French, and done everything else that anxiously eager future parents can do to prepare for life with progeny. Dare I say, I think we're as ready as we can be on the how-to-have-a-baby front.

But we've also been trying to get in some of the activities that will be difficult, if not impossible, once baby arrives. Now that we live in a slightly more comfortable apartment, we have been keen on having friends over. The day the Brexit results were announced, for example, many of our friends and ourselves included felt the need for some cheering up. So we hosted a games night at our place with a few of our British, Irish, American, and French friends. There was a lot of laughing, snacking, and discussing the state of the world, and for a few hours, it was nice to just enjoy a slightly raucous time with friends.

As we've mentioned in previous posts, the first Sunday of each month grants free access to many museums in Paris, and as last Sunday was the first one in July, we made the most of what will almost certainly be our last easy, spontaneous visit to museums. We got up early (to beat the lines) and headed to the Musée de l'Orangerie, a relatively small art museum next to the Seine that's at the other end of the Tuileries gardens from the Louvre. The Orangerie is famous for its two oval rooms dedicated to Monet's Water Lilies. It also has a nice assortment of paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Picasso, and other French artists, in addition to an educational exhibit on the life and work of influential early 20th century poet, playwright, and art critic, Guillaume Apollinaire.

Following our visit to L'Orangerie, we made our way to the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, a museum about hunting, nature, and humans' changing relationship with animals. It has an eclectic collection of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, comics, and taxidermy, including a weird room full of trophy animals and old hunting rifles. It was an illuminating and thought-provoking museum, though I'm glad I didn't have to pay to get in.

A two-story fiberglass giraffe at the Museum of Hunting and Nature

So that's a little of what we've been up to in the final weeks before the baby arrives. In Part 2 of Preparing for Bébé, I'll talk about some of the Paris-specific ways we've managed to find the information and equipment we need for the arrival of our little one. Stay tuned.

La fête de la musique

The 21st of June was la fête de la musique, which is also called "Make Music Day". All day (although especially in the evening), people of Paris come out onto the streets and play music, listen to music, and dance. There are organized events (for free), with professional musicians playing their most well-known pieces, and there are spontaneous expressions, with groups of plucky amateurs testing out their latest improvisation. It's quite something.

June the 21st is also around the time of the summer solstice, the longest day. This year, the sun rose at 5:47am and set at 9:58pm, giving us 16 hours and 10 minutes of daytime. This long day is ideal for an evening of wandering the streets and enjoying music late into the night!

If you're reading this in the USA, a 16-hour day probably seems pretty long. Only in the northernmost edges of the continental US do you get days even approaching 16 hours. On the other hand, if you're reading this in Scotland, you're probably wondering what the big deal is - Paris's longest day was more than an hour shorter than Glasgow's longest day, and the Shetland islands enjoy nearly 19 hours on the same day. Most of Scotland won't see days as short as 16 hours until early August. And if you're reading this from somewhere else, then hello! Nice of you to join us.

So, as I mentioned, there were many many musical events happening all over the city, some publicized, some not. There was a tremendous diversity of music on offer - from smooth jazz to punk rock to electro-swing. We decided to go to a little concert which was being held in the courtyard of the Mémorial de la Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Museum). It featured an eclectic classical string group with two violins, one viola, two cellos, a bass, and a harp! Also performing was a teenaged a cappella choir who sung vocal versions of pop songs. They took turns performing throughout the evening.

Our view of the string performers.

I'll leave a full critique of the music to Talia, but I certainly enjoyed it and it was clear that the performers were all really enjoying themselves. It is really special that there's a whole day set aside for people to just enjoy music. And looking at the publicized events, there was a real diversity on offer. If you wanted to go and see the Orchestre de Paris play a Mahler symphony, you could do that; if you wanted to go to a rave, there was that; if you wanted to enjoy some traditional Portuguese fishing songs, then you could even do that. And of course, just around the corner there is an old crooner singing the Beatle's Come Together in a thick French accent. What a way to celebrate the summer solstice!

Bike helmets

As we mentioned in our last post, I was in the Netherlands recently. I enjoy visiting the Netherlands, and one of the reasons is that I get to marvel at the bicycle infrastructure there, where towns are organized on the understanding that cycling is the most popular mode of transport, with cars an afterthought.

And so in my brief time there, I saw hundreds of people cycling. Old people, young people, children, teenagers. Cycling to work, cycling home, cycling to the supermarket, cycling for fun. Cycling fast, cycling slow, cycling on tandems, cycling alone. Yet in all this diversity of cyclitude, one thing was constant:

No-one was wearing a helmet.

Dutch people cycling near the Nijmegen train station without any helmets. The nutters!

How shocking you find this will probably depend to a large part on where you're from. Of course, the Dutch find it quite normal. In Paris, helmets are not common, but maybe 10% of cyclists wear them (myself included). At the opposite extreme, there are places like Sydney, and a number of American cities, it is illegal not to wear a helmet.

Surely, then, the gentle Australians are much safer on the roads, with their mandatory helmet, than the harried Parisian (or Amsterdammer) who braves the busy city streets sans un casque (with no helmet)?

As it turns out, places that have mandatory helmet laws tend to have more bicycle accidents than places with no such laws.

Still, perhaps that's why they have the laws? As you can see in the picture above, in the Netherlands there are huge dedicated cycle lanes, separated from motor traffic. Perhaps the Sydney traffic is just so terrible - and the bike infrastructure so meagre - that biking is inherently super-dangerous and the helmet law is actually protecting people. Without the helmet law, the cycling accidents would be even more severe.

The counter-argument to this took me a while to understand, but it's the common refrain when you ask Dutch people (and many others) about why mandatory helmet laws are a bad idea. It begins with the principle that cycling is good. Cycling, as exercise, is good for your health. (If you're in an accident, it can be very bad for your health, and we'll address that later.) Cycling is also good for the public at large - if someone chooses to cycle, generally they're choosing not to drive. So each cyclist on the road means one fewer car on the road - this alleviates traffic. It's also good for the environment - one fewer car on the road means less air pollution.

So, from the point of view of maximizing the social good, cycling should be encouraged, and we should make bike-friendly policies. This includes bike lanes, subsidies for bike purchases or rentals, and more bike parking spots.

From this perspective, mandatory helmet laws discourage cycling, as it puts up a barrier to cycling. Forgot your helmet at home? Oh, you can't cycle. Don't have a helmet for a visiting friend? Oh, you can't cycle. This problem is especially amplified for bike-share systems like the one in Paris I have blogged about before. In Paris, you can just hop on a bike and nip down to the post office or wherever without a care in the world. In Sydney, you need to bring a helmet with you. (This may be part of why the Sydney bike share system is relatively unsuccessful.) Such a law also puts a burden on families, who need to buy new helmets every so often for their growing children.

I read a report from a Dutch advisory body (I would link to it, but I've forgotten where I saw it, and it's in Dutch...) which concluded that yes, there are some injuries that could have been avoided by wearing a helmet, but that the overall public health benefits of people cycling outweighed those injuries. Exercising is good and accompanied by a small risk, but the net outcome was a positive one for society in general. An extreme analogy would be that going to school is risky, because you could get hit by a bus and die, but the benefits of going to school and being educated outweigh the risk of dying by bus. The cold Dutch calculus concluded that helmet laws are unnecessary.

There are other problems with mandatory helmet laws. There is concern about how effective they actually are. I would wager that maybe 5-10% of the helmets I've seen worn in Paris were actually being worn incorrectly - not tight enough, pushed too far back on the head, and so on. A helmet only protects part of your head, not your jaw, or your torso, or many other vital body parts.

And then there's the psychology. There is evidence to suggest that wearing a helmet makes people feel safe, which is a problem because that encourages them to do more risky behaviour. Not just the cyclists - there have even been suggestions that motorists drive much more closely to cyclists wearing helmets than to those without. I know that I feel "naked" when I cycle without my helmet, and I wonder if that means that I take more risks when I am helmeted than when I am not - thereby increasing my chance of an accident. That's not what helmets are supposed to do!

Finally, I've heard philosophical arguments against helmet laws. Such laws put the onus of safety and protection on the cyclist, rather than on the system as a whole. Rather than asking cyclists to "be safe", why don't we work to make the environment safe? As I mentioned the biking infrastructure in the Netherlands is very advanced and helpful for safe cycling, quite unlike many US cities. (Still, a helmet law is cheaper and easier to enact than sweeping infrastructure changes...)

So what do I do? I wear a helmet when I cycle. I want to protect my brain, above all, since that's quite a useful organ for a professional researcher to have fully intact. Hopefully the helmet would protect me in case I have an accident; or perhaps it encourages risky behaviour from me and motorists around me? I'm not sure. Still, I don't think that a law mandating helmet use is a particularly useful piece of the puzzle in encouraging cycling. I'm glad to have the choice, and to be able to forget my helmet from time to time.

Visitors, Trips, Birthing Classes, and Immigration Woes

We are rather falling behind in our writing of blog posts. Sorry, dear readers! As the end of my pregnancy draws nearer, it seems there are a plethora of tasks as well as hours of research begging to be done. But we will do our best to keep up with the updates. Here are some of the things we've been busy with recently.

First of all, last weekend we had a lovely quick visit with Micah, another dear friend from Columbus. Micah happens to be the younger brother of Soraya, who we saw in London in April. Just four more people to go and we will have been visited by their whole family! Micah, who is studying history at Ohio State University, was part of a school tour of European historical sites. He visited Ireland, England, France, Poland, and Germany, and we were lucky to get to take him out to dinner before he left Paris. We sampled the delicious, if not-so-French, cuisine of Loulou's Friendly Diner (excellent burgers and gluten free buns too!), walked around the Saint Germain des Prés area of Paris (the Middle Ages Museum is cool--it features a Roman-era bathhouse), and walked up to the Panthéon, the huge domed secular mausoleum where notable French citizens are buried. Then naturally we found a fancy chocolaterie, Maison Georges Larnicol, where we oohed and ahhed and Micah bought some treats to take back with him. It's always wonderful to see friends from our old home!

Micah came to visit!

We also spent about 16 hours that same weekend taking a childbirthing and newborn care class that was put on by and for the English-speaking members of Message, a group for anglophone parents in Paris. I will write a post soon with more information about Message, as it's been a lifesaver for us in navigating pregnancy in France. But for now, I'll say that the birthing class was excellent! It was attended by five couples from American, English, Scottish, French, and German backgrounds, and was taught by a lovely and knowledgable English lady who received training from the UK's National Childbirth Trust. It was a great opportunity to meet others in the same boat as us, trying to navigate the confusing waters of grossesse en France. We learned a lot, shared our experiences, hopes, and fears, and made some friends and supporters in the process.

Last week, Rory was finally able to make his re-scheduled trip to the Netherlands. He had been invited to give a presentation at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen back in March, but with the Brussels terrorist attacks happening the day he was meant to leave, his train was cancelled. This time he made it to the Netherlands without incident and enjoyed presenting his research to a group of linguists. Afterwards, he spent a few hours wandering around Amsterdam, being impressed by the half-moon-shaped belts of canals and the huge number of bicycles on the streets.

Canals of Amsterdam

On a less exciting note, I had my long-awaited convocation at the police prefecture for my carte de séjour (my French residence permit). I'd waited for this since my last appointment in January, and at this appointment I should have, in theory, been given the green light to actually receive the real permit in about a month or so. However, we moved to a new flat in a département (an administrative district in France; bigger than a county but smaller than a state) outside of Paris in the intervening months. Since cartes de séjour are handled by each département separately, the best they could do for us was to renew my récépissé for a month (a receipt which allows me to live in France for a couple of months at a time), and tell me to make an appointment at the prefecture in my new département. I suspect the process (ongoing for the last 7 months) will have to be started again almost from scratch at the new place, so I'm not overjoyed about this development. C'est la vie française. 

More soon to come! Have a great week, everyone!

Pregnant in Paris, Part 2

28 weeks along with our new poussette

A lot has changed since I last wrote about my experiences of being pregnant in Paris. For one thing, I was considerably smaller back then. Now our beginning-of-third-trimester baby is packing on the pounds and so am I. Despite what feels like a hugely noticeable change in my body, I still get comments from people to the effect of, "You're barely showing!" Keep in mind, dear friends, that whether you say, "You're huge!" or "You're so tiny!" to a pregnant woman, it's probably the opposite of what she wants to hear. You've been warned.

I've heard from others moms in Paris that France is the place to be if you're pregnant. There are special check-out lanes for you at supermarkets, you can cut to the front of the line in many situations, people are supposed to give you their seat on the bus or subway, and you're just generally treated like a rock star. Plus, once you actually have the baby, French men in particular seem to have been trained to help mothers with strollers whenever needed, such as carrying the stroller down the stairs to the metro station. There is apparently a lot of kindness and consideration here for those who are gestating.

But I haven't really experienced it yet. Not much, anyway. The one time I was offered a seat on the metro was when Rory was very obviously rubbing my protruding tummy. I've seen it happen to other pregnant women though, so maybe the perks will start coming when I've gained a few more inches in girth. And as for the special lanes in stores, or people letting you go first, well, those special lanes are usually clogged with normal-appearing people, and no one has yet offered to let me skip a queue. But we shall see.

The healthcare puzzle

In my last pregnancy post I mentioned the French health care system, or what little we understood of it at the time. I think I have a better handle on it now, though figuring out the sécurité sociale (how one is reimbursed by the government for healthcare expenses) and what to do in case of grossesse (pregnancy) has been more challenging than I anticipated. It's rather like being told to put together a jigsaw puzzle for which you have been given only half of the pieces and no final picture to aim for. You have to find the remaining pieces by yourself with no instruction on where to look. Oh, and by the way, it's a 5000-piece Impressionist painting jigsaw puzzle. Bonne chance!

Briefly, the hunt to acquire a social security number for myself has gone something like this.
-Learn that I can be attached to Rory's social security number. Rejoice!
-Learn that I can't be attached to Rory's social security number. Despair!
-Call an English helpline and be told to fill out a form, put together a dossier, then go to a CPAM office to ask for a social security number.
-Get to the CPAM office and be told to mail them the dossier instead and wait two months for a response.
-Proceed to wait, hearing nothing, while still paying for monthly doctor's and medical lab visits out-of-pocket.

The plot thickens...
Meanwhile, around February, I registered for auto-entrepreneur status (translation: self-employment) for the teaching work I've been doing. I received complex documents in French regarding paying taxes on my business earnings, but no concrete steps on how to do so or on how to obtain healthcare coverage with this status. Suddenly! I received a letter saying I had been registered with the RSI, the social security/healthcare coverage organization for auto-entrepreneurs. The what?? I had no idea this even existed. And voilà! Just like that they gave me a social security number! Had I not become an auto-entrepreneur, I suspect I would still be waiting for my number and going back and forth with the CPAM office.

Now that I'm finally in the social security system, one might think it would be straightforward from here on out. Alas, this is France.

So shortly after this revelation happened, I spent three weeks in the US and we moved to a new apartment just outside Paris. Thus, I received no more letters or instructions and couldn't access any online systems to update my address. With varying success, I tried to contact the various organizations in charge of my health care and tax status and ask for information, and I've now managed to update my address with all but one. I recently learned who to inform about my pregnancy and who I should contact about healthcare cost reimbursement, which was really my goal in the first place. So I feel cautiously optimistic that things are finally looking up.

Ever so slowly I am finding these hidden puzzle pieces and the picture is starting to take shape. Now all we have to do in the next three months is buy most of our baby gear, prepare for giving birth, learn how to take care of a baby, figure out taxes, start getting reimbursed for healthcare, receive my French residence permit, and find all of the remaining thousand or so puzzle pieces that constitute our life in France. NBD.  

Le printemps est arrivé

Spring is finally here! The weather has turned around, and after a few driech weeks of grey rain, it's sunny and warm. It's about 20C (68F) today, and this weekend it's supposed to get up to 25C (77F). That's summer weather as far as I'm concerned!

A view of the Seine from the Pont de Bercy. In the distance you can see the Pont Charles-de-Gaulle, beyond that the Viaduc d'Austerlitz (with a métro train on it), and behind that you can just make out the piers (the parts that descend into the water). of the Pont d'Austerlitz. There's a Wikipedia article on Paris bridges if you want to know more.

Nice weather means that the Parisians want to go out to enjoy it. Things get pretty busy!

The crowds at the Jardin de Luxembourg. In the distance is the Église Saint-Sulpice.

Last Sunday was May Day, which is a national holiday in France, although it was a Sunday so people were off work anyway. Talia and I decided to take a trip to the Parc de Sceaux. This is a large garden in the suburb of Sceaux (pronounced "so"), formerly the grounds of a stately home (and historically a castle). It's about 30 minutes by commuter train from the centre of Paris. The park was busy, but nowhere near as busy as anywhere in Paris!

There's a huge "canal" through the centre of the park.

And some really beautiful water features.

Us! I'm struggling to keep my eyes open in the sun. See the beautifully-tended gardens behind us!

The old country mansion at the centre of the park has a museum inside, but being a Sunday (and a public holiday), it was of course closed. No matter, as it was absolutely delightful being outside and strolling around in the sun with a gentle breeze blowing. I hope you're enjoying the weather wherever you're reading this from.

A trip to London

Last week we went to London to see Soraya, a dear Baha'i friend from Columbus. She was just on her way out of the UK after studying in Oxford for a term. It's easy to forget how close London and Paris are - it's just 2 and a half hours by train from city centre to city centre. London is closer to Paris than it is to Glasgow, and Paris is closer to London than it is to Marseille!

So, it wasn't difficult to hop up to England to see Soraya. We had planned to visit the New Southgate cemetery, which is where Shoghi Effendi (the leader of the Baha'i Faith from 1921 to 1957) is buried. It's a little far from central London so I think Soraya appreciated us being able to help her with directions and navigating the tube.

A view of the resting place of Shoghi Effendi. The tulips were blooming!

After paying our respects at the cemetery, we toured around central London a little. This included a trip to Oxford Road, where we looked in shops for baby things, and Soraya practically fainted at the cost of pushchairs. ("How does anyone afford to have children?") We also got to explore the famous department store Selfridge's, which we were disappointed to discover does not actually sell fridges.

Talia outside of Selfridge's

At the risk of making an obvious statement,London is different from Paris.

Yes, I've become that person who visits somewhere and then spends the whole time comparing it to wherever they live. ("Ugh, these baguettes aren't as good as in Paris.") This can be obnoxious if the place you're visiting is a little village or in a radically different culture, but in the case of London, it feels appropriate to compare it to Paris. (Both are global cities consistently ranked in the top 5 for participation in the worldwide economy.)

So, some observations that I made, in no particular order:

• London is cleaner. Not just the streets, which have less litter and, uh, organic detritus, but even just the trains and buses seem to be less grimey.
• The London underground (locally known as the tube, although I kept calling it the métro), especially the older lines, has small tunnels, claustrophobic trains, and feels much more like a series of old mineshafts. By comparison, most of the Paris underground feels like a set of train stations that just happen to be underground.
• The architecture in London is less varied than that of Paris. I'm not sure to what extent this is due to London neighbourhoods being levelled during the blitz in WWII...
• London also feels much much bigger than Paris, and the transport system is much more confusing, although these feelings might just be due to Paris being familiar to me and London unfamiliar.
• Also, people speak English in London, and French in Paris, but I overheard a surprising amount of French in London. Apparently somewhere between 70,000 and 300,000 French people live in London, giving rise to the claim that London is France's sixth largest city.

I'm curious to know if others share my perspectives (even if you've only visited one of these places). Let me know in the comments! Part of the fun of travelling is seeing how things are different or the same from places you are used to. I'm not sure what I am "used to" now (having lived in three different countries), but comparing things can still bring fresh insights.

Party in the USA

Our last post was a month ago. How time flies when you're travelling internationally, moving to a new town, and entertaining guests! Today I'll just catch you up on some of our activities in the past month.

Amazing warm spring weather in Oregon

You may recall from my last post that I would soon be leaving France for a three-week stay in the US to visit my family in Oregon. This was my first time being back in America since we left eight months ago, and my first time seeing my family in nearly a year. Prior to this trip, I had finally been feeling more settled into Paris life and my conversational French was definitely improving. I was getting used to living in Europe. So I wasn't exactly desperate to leave France and the dismal political and social news coming out of America every day didn't help matters either.

So how was it going back home, you ask?

It was marvellous.

It may be trite to say so, but absence really does make the heart grow fonder. After so long in Paris, here are some of the things I appreciated most about America (and specifically Oregon):

My nephew's 2nd birthday party with a farm-themed cake

• Strangers smiling at me and making eye contact. And occasionally even complimenting me!
• Not having to prepare my sentences and figure out verb conjugations before speaking.
• Knowing where to go in grocery stores and what I can find in them.
• An abundance of gluten-free and dairy-free options at stores and restaurants. Vegan cheese! Vegan ice cream!
• Finding inexpensive and comfortable maternity clothes.
• Smoke-free air!
• Seeing mountains and trees and nature everywhere I go.
• Being able to see more than three stars at night.
• Catching up with friends and family.
• Hugs from people I love (rather than a semi-awkward kiss on both cheeks in the Parisian style).
• Best of all: being a real part of my family again. Playing with my nieces and nephews. Getting parenting advice from my siblings. Watching Downton Abbey with my parents. Actually being there.

Homemade eclairs for the baby shower

Baby shower gifts!

On top of all that, I got to walk along the beach, attend my nephew's second birthday party, eat lots of gluten-free chocolate cake and eclairs, get a massage and a pedicure, and generally soak up all the fun and relaxation I possibly could in three short weeks. One of the sweetest things was having a baby shower put on by my mom and sisters-in-law and receiving blessings, wisdom, and gifts from dear friends. I brought home an extra giant suitcase filled with all sorts of treasures and necessities for our little one.


I'm filled with gratitude for the incredible time I had back home. It was refreshing and reinvigorating, and I came back to Paris with a full heart.

Cello duets and interpretive dancing with my nieces   

Meanwhile, in Paris, Rory was hard at work on getting us moved into a new apartment. In a stroke of exceptional timing, his mum and sister came to visit him during this time and were able to help haul our belongings to the new place. Thanks, Fiona and Zoë!

The apartment is just outside of Paris in a suburb called Montreuil (“mon-troy”), and is a small, albeit tastefully decorated one-bedroom furnished flat. It's more comfortable than our old place: ground floor—not fifth, quiet neighborhood, only two other tenants in the building, and it's 200 euros cheaper each month. Our landlady, who owns the building and lives upstairs, is so kind and helpful that she even bought us a memory foam mattress topper when she learned I was pregnant, just so I would dormir bien. We're still settling in and working on building our nest for when the baby arrives this summer.

The kitchen in our new apartment. Still small, but no neon walls!

Whew! I think we're caught up now on the Turnbull goings-on. Tomorrow we're catching an early train to London to spend the day with a lovely friend of ours from Columbus, so we'll have more posts coming your way soon.







In conclusion, here's another picture of my niece. It'll make you smile.