Nissa Bella

This is it. Our last night in Nice. Julie and I have each taken a walk tonight through the old streets, along the sea, and by Place Massena, the main square. Our time here has come and gone. Tomorrow morning we head home.

When Chloe, Emily and I went for breakfast this morning (Julie needed a little extra sleep), the lady at "our bakery" said, "Bonjour Chloe, comment ca va ce matin?" Each time she does this, Chloe smiles and gives a little wave. It's taken nearly the entire time we've been here for the various people working at the "Grumpy Baker," as we've come to call the place, to acknowledge us a regulars. It started last week. Strangely, our butcher started to recognize us as regulars around the same time. In France, relationships between shop owners and customers begin very much as they do at home, but over time they grow and deepen. You see, it's not simply about commerce, it's about artisan pride and customer loyalty. When I return time and again to the same butcher, to the same baker, we're forming a bond, an understanding, a trust. Now the butcher shakes my hand when I come in, tells me about his day, his latest vacation, whatever is on his mind. I'm a regular. And here we thought, with the children and their needs, we weren't really getting to live in the place. As it turns out, it takes three months for that to start to happen, regardless, and it started to happen right under our noses.

Saleya Flower Market

When I think of Nice, I think I will most often relive my walk through the Saleya Flower Market, along the Promenade des Anglais,  and past the Old Port. It was one of my favourite walks, because it shows Nice in all it's beauty and colour.

Today Chloe was trying to adjust to the idea that she's leaving Nice tomorrow. She said to us, "but we'll be coming back to Nice soon, right?" Mommy told her, "honey, I don't know how soon we'll be back. Nice is a long ways away and involves a time change. You can't go for a short time because it's hard on your sleep." Later, when Chloe and Mommy were walking along the Promenade, Chloe said goodbye to the ocean: "Goodbye Ocean. I won't see you for a while, because if I come to visit I won't be able to sleep."

Nice is a noisy, hopping, busy, and crowded city. It's no simple seaside resort. It takes some getting used to. But the longer we've been here, the more it has grown on us for the same reason. This is a place with its own people, its own culture, its own language, for heaven sakes. So on that note, I'll leave off with a section of Nice's anthem, Nissa Bella. We heard it sung by a group of school students to end Carnaval this year. It seems to be known by a good portion of Nice residents, and in its original dialect. For you, dear readers, and for me, I provide a translation:

O my beautiful Nice

Queen of all the flowers

Of your old rooftops

Will I always sing.

Sing of the mountains

The landscape so fine 

Your green countryside

Your golden sunshine 

Always will I sing

Underneath your arbours

Your sea of azure

and your skies pure

And always I'll proclaim

In my refrain,

Viva, viva, Nissa Bella!

Ciao, Nice

Au revoir, la France

Thoughts turn to home

"I don't want to go back to Aylmer," Chloe has told us on numerous occasions. And who can blame her. With the beach, the playgrounds, the marry-go-rounds and the baked goods all at her door step, why would anyone want to leave?

Chloe: Why doesn't Aylmer have a beach?
Mommy: Well, it does honey, just not a beach like this, on the ocean.
Chloe: Why not the ocean?
Daddy: Because although oceans make up two thirds of the world, we don't happen to live near any of them.
Chloe: Oh.... I want to stay in France.

Of course it's not just the allure of France, of Nice, of the ocean that makes Chloe long to stay where she is. She knows that going home means going back to more mundane routines, like work, daycare, the perfectly good park down the street. There's nothing wrong with going home. At some point most of us have to go home, and Chloe seems to get this. But it's still a little sad having to admit that the adventure is almost over, that the merry-go-round is slowing down.

Julie and I have felt very much like Chloe these past few days. A few weeks ago, we were actually looking forward to getting back to regular life. There's a certain comfort in the mundane after all, especially with two young children. But as we've approached our day of departure, we've begun to long for just a few more days, a couple more weeks, to appreciate where we are.

Of course it doesn't help that Ottawa isn't anything like Nice. Their similarities start and end with population size. Ottawa is the city that never should have been. When Voltaire mused about a few acres of snow, he may well have been picturing what is now the National Capital Region. How a small lumber town became a city - our capital is, of course, a question more of politics than economics or geography, and it shows.

Oh, I'm not meaning to knock Ottawa too badly. "It's a fine place to raise a family" after all. And besides, home is where you live, not where you would live all things being equal. Actually, in the 6 years we've lived in the Ottawa area, the place has rather grown on me - somewhat unexpectedly. It's a young city (even by Canadian standards) that ebbs and flows with the tides of changing governments. But it's maturing all the time, becoming more dynamic and cosmopolitan. To think, before the Trudeau era of big government, Ottawa was a pretty small place.

We do look forward to going home. The region in which we live is beautiful, even with the long winters, and the community of Aylmer is hard to beat. We love the culture and the people on the Quebec side of the river - our wonderful neighbours, for example, who are looking after our house, and we miss family and friends. We long for the familiar, for a place that we know through and through. We long to get back to our life paths, wherever they may lead. And Chloe wants to get back to her friends, and to playing with others (lately she's taken to trailing kids at the beach like the paparazzi).

Nonetheless, it's always hard to leave the beautiful places in this world. The allure of the exotic meshes with the longing for the familiar, and when we head home it will not be with regret, yet with a heavy sigh.

Child's Play 6 - Chucky goes to France

It started Tuesday night. Both kids were in bed, I was talking on the phone, and Julie was tidying up in the kitchen, when we started to hear moaning. "Is Chloe awake, I asked." I was puzzled, because Chloe usually sleeps soundly, especially during the first part of the night. "I think so," Julie responded. Then, suddenly, we heard banging, as if someone were bumping into the walls. Julie rushed into Chloe's room to find her sitting on the floor, still asleep, on the opposite side of the room. She put her back into bed (she didn't wake up), came out of the room, and said to me, "Sean, I think she was sleep-walking." Oh, well, I thought. We'd heard of this happening. Maybe it would only be the one night. Little did we know, our night's adventures were just beginning.

Around three in the morning, we were awakened to terrified screaming and crying from Chloe's room (o.k., Julie was awakened first - I had ear plugs in).  Julie went in and I soon followed, but Chloe was impossible to console. Eventually, we learned that she'd had a terrible dream, and that she was absolutely terrified of going back to sleep in her room. "I want to sleep in the living room," she kept repeating. "I won't have a bad dream in the living room." We kept explaining to her that she can't sleep in the living room, as there isn't even a bed there, and that it didn't matter what room she slept in when it came to dreams. But she got up, walked out of her room and plopped herself down on the living room floor. I finally managed to coax her into our bed, where she tossed and turned without sleeping the rest of the night (as did we).

When morning came, we reassured her that what she'd had was just a dream and that she'd be fine. She seemed to be in better spirits now that morning had arrived, and we proceeded to start to get breakfast ready like we do every morning when suddenly she broke down in tears again and yelled, "no, not baby. Get rid of baby." She'd obviously seen baby on the table. Julie and I looked at each other, alarmed and curious. "Honey," I said, "was your bad dream about baby." Yes, baby was ripped, baby is broken. I don't want to see baby." "O.k.," I said, "we'll put baby up in our closet for now."

We're not sure what happened with her doll in her dream, but baby's days in our home turned out to be numbered. Chloe wouldn't go anywhere near the closet that held baby, and always wanted the door to the closet kept closed. Then, after seeing baby in the closet by mistake once, she wouldn't even go in our room. This is, of course, the same baby that she's taken everywhere with her for the past 4 months. Eventually, with Chloe's fear so palpable, even I started getting scared of baby. A couple of days after the bad dream, and with Chloe still afraid to go to sleep at night, Julie and I decided it might be better if baby were put out to pasture. But we didn't want Chloe thinking that what had happened in her dream was real, so we brought baby out for Chloe (who immediately started going into hysterics), and carefully showed her that there was nothing wrong with her - that it had just been a dream. "But, we said, "if baby reminds you too much of your bad dream and you want to throw her out, that's o.k." "Throw her out," Chloe cried, "throw her out."

So, without ceremony or further thought, baby was tossed in the trash yesterday. Chloe was so anxious to see her go, that she kept asking me to take the garbage outside, because she could still see baby in it. I explained that it couldn't be taken out until evening. And her first question this morning? "Is baby gone now. Did the truck take her away."

I'm not one for superstition but I'm happy to see that doll gone too.

Shit my kid says - April

Chloe comes out from her bedroom with a pen hanging from the top of her shirt (as if she has a pocket in her shirt) and a big grin on her face.

Chloe: Mommy, Daddy, guess who I am. I'm Great Grampa Sutton.

****************************************

Daddy (singing a teasing song): Chloe bear's got no hair....

Chloe: Yes I do have hair Daddy, see?

Daddy: Oh sorry.... Chloe bear's got no eyes, Chloe bear's got no eyes, no eyes

Chloe: Yes I do have eyes, Daddy!

Daddy: Alright.. Chloe bear's got no tail, Chloe bear's got no tail, no tail.

Chloe: Yes I do have a.... no, I don't have a tail.

Daddt: Who has a tail, Chloe?:

Chloe: Oliver has a tail.

Daddy: That's right.

Chloe: Not me, not Mommy, and not Emily. Oliver has a tail... and you have a tail Daddy.

Daddy: ahh...., I do?

Chloe: Yeah, when you go pee.

I threw up on Grandpa in the Verdon Canyon

A few weeks ago, we decided to take a day trip to the Verdon Canyon with Grandma Pat and Grandpa Ron. We'd been told that it rivals the Grand Canyon in Arizona, so we thought it was worth the trip despite the logistics headaches. So with a rented station wagon jammed full with 4 adults and two kids in car seats, and me singing the theme song from European vacation, off we went on a 3 hour drive to the Verdon Canyon.

The trip started off relatively well, with only the odd grumble about hungry tummies and squished legs, but slowly Chloe got crankier and crankier. We wound our way through beautiful mountains and valleys and along beautiful cliffs until, finally, we were entering the canyon. By this time, Julie and Pat were not feeling so well, so I was taking the curves as carefully and gently as I could. At the same time, Chloe was complaining constantly in this half moan / half cry that usually means she's really tired and can't cope. We started to put it together that Chloe might be feeling the same car sickness as Mom and Grandma (apparently it runs in the family). We asked Chloe if she felt sick, but got no response. I started to look for a place to pull over, but on a narrow road full of twists and turns, this is not an easy feat.

Suddenly, we heard it, that dreaded noise we all hate to hear, that can only be one thing. Chloe had started to vomit - just a little at first. Ron was sitting beside her and Pat quickly passed him a towel to protect himself and the seat. But when she started to throw up again, instead of getting the towel in front of her, Ron reacted by pulling the towel back with a "oh, oh no" and the rest is the making of great family trip stories.

Vomit was everywhere; all over Chloe, some on Ron, a little on Pat and all over the seats. The stench was foul, and the rest of us had a difficult time keeping our own cookies down. I managed to pull over on a narrow patch of grass and everyone quickly vacated the car.  Julie lowered her head and said, "Lets just go home. We have no change of clothes for Chloe, the car stinks so much we can barely ride in it, and Dad's been thrown up on too." I looked up, imagining our 6 hours of driving being all for naught, and the spirit of Clark Griswald suddenly came to my aid.

"We are not going home now! We're already here. Let's put a coat on Chloe (she was sitting shirtless on the side of the road playing happily with rocks), use the towel to clean everything up as best we can, and drive with the windows down. We came to see the canyon. We're here, so let's have a good time."

So off we went to see the canyon. At first, we cringed at every stop sign, as the fumes would once again surround us. But eventually, the puke dried, the smell dissipated, and smiles returned to our faces. After all, we were on a great family adventure. No little bit of car sickness was going to stop us.

The canyon was gorgeous and so was the weather that day. We had a wonderful time. And we'll always remember having to explain to the waiter at the restaurant why Chloe was the only one on the patio wearing a coat zipped to the collar on a warm and sunny day.  Ah, memories...

"We'll meet you at the beach with a picnic"

These were my words to Sean this morning as he left with Chloe for their morning adventure, and I stayed home to put Emily down for her morning nap. We'll meet up for a picnic lunch on the beach (how French!). We've become real beach bums lately, and it's not hard to understand why!

The weather has been amazing here lately. It's been 17 degrees and sunny (but feels much warmer, particularly on the beach). Chloe has even been enjoying putting her feet in the water, filling up her little watering can and splashing in the waves. Yesterday, she even wore her bathing suit. Emily loves watching the waves and the other kids playing on the beach. She even laughs at the pigeons who waddle by! Sean and I, while we need to watch the kids, don't have to provide the constant entertainment that we do in other situations. Everyone is happy, and we can truly relax as a family. Add a picnic, and everyone is even happier! We've realized that parenting is much easier on a beach. A good friend of mine has told me in the past that "there are no vacations when you're a parent, just trips". I think though, that the beach comes the closest to a real vacation as you can possibly get with young children.

I think when I look back on our trip, some of my favourite memories will be of just hanging out on the beach as a family. While we've had a fantastic time visiting new towns and tourist attractions, the most relaxing, fun family time we've had has been the beach time. And let's face it, 3 months of spending every day on the beach would get boring very quickly!

Yesterday at the beach we were preparing Chloe for the fact that we would be leaving this paradise at some point. She said "why do we have to say goodbye to the ocean?" and "why is the ocean not in Aylmer?". I would have to agree that it will be the hardest part for me to say goodbye to as well.

Okay, better get that lunch packed :)

Casting off the shackles

So we've decided. We're doing it. We've been talking about it for months, years, but haven't been very successful. Now we're inspired. We are going to become minimalist parents. Don't know what the family will think. Don't know what everyone else will think, but we're sick of tripping over, picking up, moving, cleaning.... junk! We're slaves to stuff, servants of clutter, making up for our boredom, uneasiness, emptiness, mortality - put whatever label you want on it, with material crap. No more! Henceforth, we will throw off our shackles, face our daemons head on, and cruise across the living room without stepping on toy cars. We will no longer clean the counters before cleaning the counters. We will deal with our mail and dispose of it upon receipt. We will gleefully slide hangers back and forth in closets. Lately, I've been having a recurring dream that our house burned down with everything in it. I was ecstatic. It's time.

And what has provided us with this new inspiration? It is my pleasure to introduce all aspiring minimalists, closet horders, and weary parents to the Minimalist Mom.

I don't know whether we'll ever go as far as this mother in getting rid of stuff we don't need. But we're going to try.  During parental leave, before we came to France, we had already gotten rid of quite a few things. But not enough. Our immediate logic for cleaning up was quite simple: The less stuff we own, the less we need to clean. With two small children, this is incentive enough to live with less. However, as we've managed to clean a room here and there, we've come to realize something else: The more we remove, the more comfortable a room feels. The more room we have to breath and move and claim the space for ourselves.

 For me, the hardest part will be getting rid of books. As a lover of literature, getting rid of a book is hard. I imagine it's like throwing away a stamp collection (if that's your thing). But even books I don't need. We have a library down the street and bookstores galore to sell me virtually anything I want to read. I'll still have a bookcase, but it will be small and it will contain my most important treasures.

So when we get back, we're going to get started. It won't be easy, and it will take a lot of time and energy. But we're going to purge our house of everything we don't use regularly - hopefully much of it before we start back to work full-time.  Our goal is to gain time, space, comfort and perspectie. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

So the kid likes churches

I'm finding it strange, on a trip like this, to find how few of my expectations have been met, both positive and negative. We had all sorts of assumptions about this trip, some verbalized, most probably not, but very few of them have turned out to be correct. One such assumption was that Chloe, being two, would have no interest whatsoever in museums, churches and architecture. We figured we'd have to drag her to see these things or visit on our own, individually.

Well, I was right about architecture. She might as well be walking around Scarborough for all her interest in her surroundings. I'm not sure she even notices that buildings here are quite different from home. Maybe she will when we go back. But churches and museums, they're another story altogether.

Chloe likes museums and she loves churches. Of course she enjoys these things only as a two/three year old can, in 30 minute blocks. But I can't think of very many other things that can keep Chloe interested for a whole thirty minutes, besides Dora the Explorer.

When we go into a church, as we did again yesterday (I can't pass any of them by anymore. She points each one out and asks to go in), Chloe always asks, "is it o.k. Daddy? Can we go in, or is there a mask going on?" I check and let her know whether indeed there is mass to worry about, and then we proceed inside (as with every other building in town, she has no interest in the exterior).

Once inside, Chloe has questions about everything she sees. "Why is it dark. Who's the man hanging there, why can't I go up there where the man usually speaks? Where's the mask?" While answering each question, I become palpably aware of two things: my own interest in churches when I was younger (and again when I traveled through Europe for the first time), and the amount of stale air and ghosts that fill the churches over here. The history and the richness of the cultural and religious baggage that fills these places is both awe inspiring and stifling. It all utterly fascinates me. Renaissance paintings adorn the walls, paint chips off the roofs and off the frescoes. No one is usually there, except a few tourists and, sometimes, the odd of faithful who looks to be from another time and place. Dishes are left for donations, so that the chipped paint might one day be fixed. So many churches, so few faithful left. These temples stand as lovely but nearly abandoned monuments - hollowed out skeletons of power and influence.

Apparently, it all fascinates Chloe as well, at least on some level. She looks up at the high ceilings and the buttressed arches with her mouth open, just gawking - too young to appreciate the hours, days, weeks and years men toiled to build these shrines. One day, I can't wait to talk to her about Michelangelo's devotion to his maker - the beauty of a man giving everything, his love, his art for what he believes. That type of human devotion, accomplishment holds surprising sway over me, regardless of my own views on God.

Our family is not religious, and Chloe had never set foot in a church until we arrived in Nice. So I'm left baffled when trying to answer her questions about the man hanging on the cross, or why we have to be quiet, respectful. It must all seem so strange and mystical to her - hence her interest, I suppose. I tell her that we try to respect what other people respect, especially when we're in a place that's important to them. I try to explain to her that these churches are places of peace and security for the people who attend them. One day, I'll be able to talk to her of faith and fear and mortality. But I think three is a little young for that. Funny though, I realize I can't begin to have her understand faith until she can understand death - the two are so inextricably linked.

The Mommy Wars - this father's perspective on what drives some mothers to compete, and to hurt

Julie is part of a facebook group hosted by her local baby store in Ottawa. It's one of her favourite stores to shop for baby supplies because it carries items that are more difficult to find elsewhere. By joining the group, Julie figured she'd be kept up-to-date on new products and events in the community. She also hoped to gain a little general support and information from the store's owners and other mothers in the group. What she didn't bargain for was a direct link to some of the useless, self-righteous and audacious chatter that constitutes the Mommy Wars, and she really didn't expect to find that the owner of the store herself is responsible for sparking most of the chatter.

The owner of the store has the habit of posting links to anything and everything that supports her notions of good parenting, regardless of its credibility. In the past, this has frustrated Julie, and she's added comments to the effect that we, as parents, need to refrain from generalized assumptions and judgments when it comes to the "right" way to parent a young child. But she has remained in the conversation, until now.

Last week, she opened a message from the owner of her favourite baby store that read: "This article explains how crying-it-out leads to sleep in infants -- it's not because it 'teaches' them to sleep!" The article, entitled, Why I no longer believe babies should cry themselves to sleep is, at best, uninformed drivel and at worst a set of arrogant assumptions that, when read by new mothers, can greatly heighten anxiety and make their decisions more difficult. I'll let you read it for yourself, but it essentially argues, with no reference to supporting evidence, that "the implicit message an infant receives from having her cries ignored is that the world -- as represented by her caregivers -- is indifferent to her feelings." He also writes that when parents allow their children to cry themselves to sleep, "the short-term goal of the exhausted parents has been achieved, but at the price of harming the child's long-term emotional vulnerability."

I won't pretend for a moment that Julie and I don't have a vested interest in and a particular sensitivity to this topic. We were left with no choice with Chloe but to let her cry herself to sleep. She had wicked colic, and it was the only way to allow her and us to sleep and regain our sanity. Before sleep training, the girl looked like a wasted heroin addict (think Trainspotting). After sleep training, her mood improved dramatically and she started to smile regularly. She was happier because we had managed to get her some sleep. As for co-sleeping? great if it's working for you. It didn't for us.  One thing I'm confident of with both girls (and as a nail-biting, nervous father, believe me I looked for it), is that they very rarely cried because they felt abandoned or they needed us in any real sense. A mother and father get to know their child's cries the longer they know their child, and although there were a few times we wish we had gone in sooner because we detected distress in a cry, most nights our children only cried in frustration at trying to fall asleep or out of frustration at being told they had to go back to sleep.  When I go in at night to tell Emily she must go back to sleep, she protests in anger. She knows what I'm asking, and she'd rather not. Yet every morning, Emily wakes up smiling and cooing. She is the happiest baby on the block.

Do I have any concrete evidence to back up my sense that my kids don't feel abandoned when I let them cry? No, of course not. But fact isn't apparently what counts in these battles. They are battles of "you think, I think.' And, let's face it, they are really battles of who thinks who's a better mother.

The editors at the Globe and Mail must have been enamored with the 'MD' following the author's name at the end of the article. Otherwise, I can't fathom why a respectable newspaper would publish such rubbish. As the good doctor has demonstrated, a man of science need not feel compelled to back his assumptions with evidence before sharing them with the world. Other doctors who, for example, argued that schizophrenia is the result of "refrigerator mothers" also come to mind.

I won't dwell on this article, as it's not the point of my entry. People may write whatever they choose, and newspapers will continue to publish all sorts of silliness. But the danger this type of speculation poses can be very real when it is passed to new and sometimes vulnerable moms as something akin to gospel. Julie opened the article, not just to stick her tongue in a sore tooth (which is unfortunately an all too human temptation), but to see if there was some new research that might make us take pause when it comes to our approach to sleep. What she got instead was a link to baseless opinion, cloaked in supposed medical expertise. And the babyshop owner / mother who shared it? What was her motive? I can only guess some sort of self-gratifying vindication of her own mothering approach.

For our own mental health and confidence as parents, we've done everything we can to steer clear of the so called Mommy Wars. Our friends don't judge, at least not publicly (I suppose we all chastise ourselves for judging privately). We've made it pretty clear to all of our family that we methodically research most of the big decisions we make and that we're not really that open to advice - and they've been wonderful in respecting that. In short, we've done everything we can to minimize the doubt we feel as parents on a daily basis. Right or wrong, decisions must be made each and every day, and swaying this way and that on the winds of a plethora of advice doesn't make the decisions easier.

So why is it that some mothers feel the need to share their unsolicited opinions on parenting so openly and vehemently? (I've been harangued myself on the street and in parks by mothers too willing to tell me what I'm doing wrong). Really, parenting is as sensitive a topic as politics or religion, except that we don't talk about politics and religion in polite conversation.  I propose, and I invite comment on this, that mothers who tell other mothers how to parent do so out of a deep insecurity about their own parenting abilities - a sort of, see, I'm doing it right because you're doing it wrong. I suspect I'm not the first person to suggest this, but I'd like to suggest it, strongly, as a father, to mothers out there because I feel that it has led to a very unfortunate and detrimental environment for many mothers.

As a father on leave now for most of a year, I can tell you that there is no job I have ever done or entertained doing that is as much work as parenting. It is exhausting, mind-numbing and totally disheartening - at times.  I have no idea how a mother can look after a toddler and a new baby, for instance, all day, 5 days a week. I'm not sure I could do it for long and I hate to admit that. This week, Julie's been laid up with a bad foot and I've had the care of both children, plus do the cleanup and cooking all week. It coincides with a challenging stage for Chloe, and I've snapped at her several times these past few days. I feel awful about it. I've wanted to ask Chloe, "could you please just let me breathe - just mentally breathe. My head hurts so much honey." I regain my energy, my equilibrium by being alone, and there is no way to be alone with a toddler and a baby.

I appeal to all mothers to stop competing. Stop saying to yourself, "oh Jenny has a 12 week old baby who sleeps through the whole night, what's wrong with mine, what's wrong with me?" Tell Jenny what a rough time you're having. She may share with you how last week her baby was up all night for no reason, or how she constantly has an ear infection. Or maybe Jenny's kid is just that good. Other kids aren't, I'm sure. And if you have a habit of sharing all of your ideas and opinions on parenting with anyone polite enough to listen, in the future try to refrain from blessing others with your pearls of wisdom unless you're asked. Don't spout off with cocky confidence what's good for a child and what isn't when you've pulled it out of your you-know-what. Stop, pause, ask yourself, are you really helping your fellow mothers or simply trying to confirm, publicly, your own worth as a mother.

Sure, I know, this is all easy for a father to say. Fathering doesn't have the years of baggage mothering comes with. I hear that, and I'm only stating what I see. Mothers have a tough job, and they need to start working together to talk about how difficult a job it is and what anxieties it provokes. Some mothers have a difficult time sharing their obstacles and their setbacks out of a fear of how others will see them as mothers. But they need to start sharing their fears and their failures, to laugh and cry at the tough times together and to rejoice together in their triumphs. No child is easy to raise, and we need to be able to count on the support of others to succeed.

How can two months be over already????

It's Julie again....

How can time pass so quickly? When we first arrived in Nice, 3 months seemed like an eternity. And the first few weeks did pass fairly slowly. We were getting used to being in a new place. But now, all of a sudden, we have two months behind us and only one month left.

Chloe will be three on Monday, and Emily (my baby!!) will be 7 months on Sunday. Chloe is turning into such a little girl. When we visited the oceanic museum in Monaco the other day, she was interested in learning all about pollution and how it affects animals. She was able to tell me about how the "dirty stuff" is called "pollution" and it hurts the animals. She is quite the little preschooler now. Emily has started solid food and is loving it. We were not able to start her on the typical cereals like at home (unless we wanted to give her chocolate or honey-flavoured as they do here!!!) so we dove right into avocado and banana, chicken, pears (her fav) and apple. I had a momment of sadness today when I changed her diaper and it was no longer the typical "breastmilk" poop (you mommies and daddies of infants will know what I am talking about).

When we get home, I will start looking into going back to work on a part-time basis. We will look into putting the girls into daycare again. Sean will go back to work the end of May. Slowly, the amazing family leave we've had and our adventures together will come to an end.

I am so grateful that we've had this time to spend together as a family. We have all benefitted from it. I've been able to be a happy, fairly well-rested mommy, Sean's relationship with both girls has really flourished, Chloe's gotten oodles of attention from both parents to help her adjust to having a younger sibling, and Emily has gotten to know both parents well early-on. And we all basically escaped winter!! We really are very lucky.

Anyways, we still have one month left in our little paradise. It's going to be quite an adjustment getting back to real life, but we'll try not to think about that for now :) We'll try to enjoy every last momment while we are here and have this amazing time to spend together (even the sleepless nights and endless preschooler questions!!!).