Paris! (Part I)

First of all, let's set the mood....

There...isn't that better? That second song is for you, mom. She burst into it whenever someone said "I love Paris!"...which was often. :)

So how was Paris, you ask? Well, let's just say we're putting on our berets, tying on our neck scarves, and planning our trip back as we speak (or as I type I guess). So yes, we had an amazing time in Paris. And here's how it all played out...

Sunday - Monday: Our flight was at 9pm out of Toronto, so we got all packed up and headed out. (Mind you, the night before, Joshua and I were in the after hours medical care center until around 10pm. Josh had to have a nebulizer treatment for wheezing and was diagnosed with an ear infection in his right ear. Not such a good way to start the trip!) Joshua wasn't feeling all that great still and threw up a few times on the way up. Finally at the airport (and in outfit #3 for Josh), we got on our plane and thankfully all seemed to get some sleep.

After a brief stopover in Reykjavik, Iceland (where we almost missed our connection because we had to go through customs), we arrived save and sound in Paris. We picked up our luggage and waited outside for our ride. (Interesting sidenote, we didn't actually go through customs in Paris. Weird, huh? They just let us walk through the doors and out into France. So the only stamp in our passports is one in and out of Iceland. Canada didn't give us stamps when we returned, and France didn't recognize that we had arrived!)

We had a short ride to John & Shelley's apartment, and after climbing the 55 stairs to their apartment, we had a wonderful cup of tea and started to unwind!After a brief rest and a bite of lunch, we headed out for our first walk around Paris. John & Shelley's apartment is in the most amazing location. It is about a half mile from the Eiffel Tower, so we walked by there on a daily basis! I have more pictures of the Eiffel Tower than anyone should really. So anyway, back to our walk. We walked out of their apartment, wandered down the street, turned a corner, and this is what we saw: Ohh, ahhh! Then I heard an all too familar sound, and turned around to find this: Booo! :( So we took off the sweater and continued our walk. We got closer to the tower and I snapped a great photo of my guys in front of our favorite Parisian landmark.We got even closer to the tower, taking pictures all the way. We walked under the tower, took some more pictures and then wandered into a cafe for dinner. When we came out, it was dark and we decided it was time for bed! So we took a few more pictures of the tower and headed home to climb the 55 stairs to our bed.

Tuesday - Tuesday dawned bright and sunny and we decided to do some sightseeing (duh, what else were we going to do?!). After a breakfast of pain au chocolat & fresh baguette, and a hot shower for us all, we headed out. Shelley thought it would be a good idea to take the bus so that we could see things as we were traveling, and it was a wonderful idea indeed! We hopped off the bus at Pont Alexandre III, Shelley's favorite bridge. It's easy to see why, it's magnificant! Our next stop was Notre Dame. But before we got there, we stopped for a crepe! I had been dying to try crepes, and they did not disappoint. I had a lemon and sugar crepe, Ben had rum & sugar (seriously, the rum was crazy strong...Ben loved it), my mom had nutella & Grand Marnier & Shelley had bananas & honey. Are you drooling? Yep, me too. :) After our crepes, we walked the short distance to Notre Dame and simply enjoyed the beauty of it. (Reason #102,938,403 I love my new camera...it takes amazing pictures indoors with the flash turned off!) About half way through our wandering around the church, Joshua decided that he had had enough of stained glass windows and being inside. So we took him out back to a beautiful little park behind the church. The children were playing, the couples were sitting on park benches smooching & we sat down and fed Josh some lunch. It was wonderful. After Joshua was done eating, we wandered around Ile Saint Louis, looking at all the different shops until we were tired. So we headed home, stopping for a few picturesand some cheese along the way. Dinner that night was salad, fresh baguette, and the most delicious cheese ever.

Well, that's all for now. I know, I know...I've only given you the first few days and I'm ending. But it's taken me over a week to get this one up and I'm getting impatient calls from a few of you who will remain anonymous (JODI) so I thought something was better than nothing. I'll keep working on the rest of the days and post them when I'm done. Remember, patience is a virtue. :) What's that you say? You have no patience? You used it all up waiting for this post, darn it all anyway? Oh alright. If you can't wait anymore, you can go HERE and HERE to see all the pictures. But I'm warning you...there are 800 pictures to go through! Good luck.

And We're Back!

Joshua says, "Bonjour, mes amis!" I had a wonderful vacation and mommy is trying to get a post up about my trip to Paris. I charmed the ladies, saw some wonderful sights and enjoyed the beautiful weather. I know you want to hear all about it, but I've decided to only sleep for 20 minutes at a time right now and mommy is having a hard time getting a real post up. But here are a few pictures from my trip to hold you over:

Mommy will post more when she gets more than 20 minutes. Thanks for being patient with her!"

And We're Off!

I have been trying to get a post up before we go but just haven't gotten to it. What with the laundry, making lists, crossing off items on the list, buying items to make our lives easier, returning said items because they won't really make anything easier, making new lists because I can't read through the crossed out parts, and 50 daily trips to buy more crap for the trip...I just haven't had time! I guess as long as we have the baby and the backpack carrier (and the diapers, and the wipes, and the mattress for his travel bed, and the food, and the bottles, and the toys and the books...and if we happen to remember to bring clothes and toothbrushes we're ahead of the game!) we should be fine.

What have I been trying to post, you ask? Well, a few major accomplishments. First, Joshua has started to become interested in putting food in his mouth! Real food. Off his tray! He's been trying to "help" us feed him by grabbing the spoon and trying to get the spoon into his mouth. Usually he just ends up sliding his hand all the way down the spoon and forcing the food off the end, but it's a start. We chunked up a baby nutrigrain bar the other day and look what he did!

Can you see the remnant of it on his chin? It acutally was in his mouth moments before but he hasn't quite got the hang of chewing yet. Again...it's a start!

Josh has also stopped nursing. He just stopped one day. I think my body was just tired of producing (mmmoooooo) so much, so it sort of quit on him. But I'm pretty proud of myself for nursing almost exclusively for a year. Yay for me & the girls! :) Sorry to any guys who read this blog (not that there are any except for Ben and he won't be upset about boob talk). At Joshua's 12 month check up, Dr. K said we could start him on milk. So we tried. It wasn't good. I think he actually tried to see how far he could actually make the puke go when it came back out, in fact. So we went to rice milk. It was better, but still not good and rice milk doesn't really afford him any protein. So we tried goats milk. And the heavens parted and the angels sang and Joshua put on a pound in a week. Thanks be to the goats!

Speaking of goats....look at my little mountain goat!

PT this week (did I tell you that our OT left the Early Intervention program and we now have a PT instead?) was great. Joshua worked SO hard and really impressed his therapist. She brought a therapy ball and Josh loved rolling around on it.
And after he got tired of rolling around, he simply pulled himself into this postion - Pretty impressive, huh? :)

So, one last kiss from Joshua...

..."and we're off, like a hurd of turtles", as my dad used to say. LOL. That makes me laugh every time. :)

We are leaving Sunday from Toronto and will be back on the 28th. I'll talk to you then!

The Creeper

Yesterday, I put Josh down for his nap and he just wouldn't fall asleep. But he wasn't crying or miserable, he was just playing around and babbling to himself. So I let him lay there. An hour later, he starts to cry. It's really more of a frustrated, angry sound so I went to investigate. When I entered his room, I started laugh. I left (and Joshua completely lost it) to get my camera and came back to take some pictures. This is what I had found:My little bug is now a creeping bug. He started off well below the firetruck and managed to creep up to the top corner and wedge his little head in. He was totally stuck. So I moved him back down to where he should be and left him to cry it out. An hour later, I was back to get him up since he never did go to sleep. Oh well. The pictures made my day.

Auntie Kim is a teacher. Teachers do fun stuff. Like hatch ducklings from eggs in their classrooms! We were invited to Auntie Kim & Uncle Mike's new house last weekend to see the ducklings that Kim was caring for over the weekend. Oh they were so cute!!!
Josh wasn't too sure what to make of them at first. But then he decided to get brave and touch the squirmy, fluffy, quacking thing!We are teaching him to be gentle. He knows what the word means and he really does try! He was very good with the ducks and only grabbed one by the head. Hey, I'd consider that a great accomplishment!

Speaking of Auntie Kim & Uncle Mike, they gave Joshua a great gift for his birthday. A piano! Our little composer is busy all day long banging out song after song. His favorite part of playing the piano is watching mommy dance around like a complete moron when the song comes on. It's positive reinforcement for Joshua and it burns calories for mommy. It's a win-win!


And now for Joshua's next trick, he will perform the very difficult two top teeth at once teething manuver! Are you ready? (drumroll please...)Taa daa!!!!!!!

Thanks for coming to the show folks! Come back again soon. :)