Christmas in October

For those of you that have been following this blog since we arrived in France, you may remember a post about my decision to limit the amount of toys we have.  It all stemmed from seeing the kids very much content with almost no toys at all while we were waiting for our things to arrive from Boston.  When they finally arrived, I decided to only unpack a portion of it and leave the rest packed up in the garage.  My plan was to try out a rotating schedule so the kids get to play with "new" toys and I avoid my house looking like a complete zoo.

Our first rotation - seemingly successful!  Audrey waited anxiously right next to the box for a good 30 minutes while we gathered up the current toys getting ready to pack them up.  What ensued was a pretty adorable scene - both kiddos reaching into a box of old toys with an excitement as if it was Christmas.

It was strangely fitting that outside our window it was snowing!  Yes- snowflakes at the end of October.  Definitely a rarity in Strasbourg at this time of year.  Oh well, I guess it was needed as the perfect backdrop for our Christmas in October...      

A REAL faux pas

So my French isn't horrible...I have to admit.  Considering I spoke absolutely nothing when Jean and I met, I'm pretty impressed with myself for having picked it up without any formal classes.  I am fairly confident that after a couple years here I'll be able to call myself fluent.  That said, I know that I have many mistakes to make along the way (such as the one you are about to read).


Recently Audrey started to get attached to a lovey (a "doudou" in French).  It's a soft little piece of fabric that looks like a zebra.  Although I have never been big on these sorts of things, it helped us with her bedtime routine during a rough transition period when first moved here.

I thought it would be nice to give it a cute little nickname to avoid calling it "that zebra fabric thingy" so I came up with the name "zee-zee" since it is a zebra after all.  Audrey seemed to agree to the naming of it so "zee-zee" it was.  A couple weeks after its naming, Jean walked by her door as I was putting her to bed and I mentioned zee-zee's name.  He must have done a double take because I saw him walking backwards saying "WHAT did you just call that??"  Well it tuns out that zi-zi (same pronunciation as zee-zee) is how parents call a penis when talking to little kids.  It would be the equivalent of a "pee-pee" or a "wee-wee", I suppose.  I've tried to take the name back but it seems to be too late. Fantastic - I can just imagine having guests over and Audrey running around the house frantically looking for her zi-zi.  Sigh...lesson learned I suppose.
 

Toddling around town

When people would ask where in France we'd be moving, we'd tell them Strasbourg.  Most people would give me a pretty blank look so I'd add "northeastern France, near the German border".  Usually that was enough to let people have a general idea of where we'd be living.  Here's a map just in case anyone wanted to know for sure...

Truth be told, we are not actually in Strasbourg.  We are living in a village called La Wantzenau some 20 minutes north of Strasbourg where Jean grew up.  Since arriving, I've had to go into the city a number of times and its amazing how different the scenery changes in those 12km.  Strasbourg is a wonderful city - old buildings, beautiful architecture and an incredible amount of history.  But it's a stark contrast from the somewhat quiet, suburban feel of La Wantzenau.  

I decided to explore the city on perhaps the last warm day of the year, just myself and Audrey - a sort of mom and daughter morning out.  We unfortunately haven't had enough of those since Thomas was born. I think Audrey was most excited about the train ride there so I played that up quite a bit to get her psyched about this little adventure (which worked marvelously!).

I knew I had to intersperse in enough fun things for her to not make this outing a complete disaster.  So after arriving downtown we took a short walk to find a little morning snack.  I don't know a 2 year old who wouldn't behave knowing that a brioche au chocolat was coming their way.  

  

Somehow getting lost in the winding city streets wasn't as appealing to her as it was to me.  We made our way to the cathedral - a Strasbourg landmark and the second most visited cathedral in all of France (Notre Dame of Paris being first).  Jean tells me it's worth noting that at 142 metres (466 feet), it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874. Today, if Wikepedia is correct, it is the sixth-tallest church in the world and the highest still-standing structure built entirely in the Middle Ages.  It has an unmistakable look with its single tower; the second tower was never built. Somehow its unmistakable charm grabbed Audrey's attention and she remained mesmerized as we spent a good 20 minutes inside.

Yeah...that spell sort of wore off as we left the cathedral and she became a normal 2 year old again.  Luckily I was able to entice her a bit with some window shopping.

Then the pièce de résistance!  A merry-go-round that I had been telling her about all morning.  Somehow it the sight of it shook her out of that getting-tired-of-walking mood.  Yes, it was the perfect way to end the mom and me morning (well at least for her, for me it was the nap that ensued when we arrived home!).

  

One final picture before we headed back on the train...

Although I enjoyed the morning in Strasbourg, it was nice to leave the hustle and bustle of the big city and head back to the burbs.  We'll be back for sure though if Audrey has her way, it'll be a train ride/brioche au chocolat/merry-go-ride event without all that boring in between stuff.   

A table!

So how did I do?  There was some good, some bad and some ugly!  Overall, I'll claim that the food went over well.  No serious hiccups except we had no bread for the soup and the cheese.  Turns out, we skipped over the cheese anyway because the chunks of salmon were... well  very large!  Now for the "ugly" part.. It is now obvious to me that toddlers and long French lunches (4 hours total!) should not mix.  2.5 year old Audrey had a serious meltdown and skipped pretty much the whole meal - oh yeah.  Thomas on the other hand was quite the trooper.  The little "gourmand" sat in his chair for close to an hour gulping down morsels of salmon, lentils, carrots, cantaloupe and some spice bread.  Hmmm, no wonder why he slept for over two hours afterwards.

So I want to say "Mission accomplished".  Lunch seemed to be a success.  I still have a lot to learn about entertaining but hopefully that will come with time.  There is both a science and an art to it but its a challenge I look forward to taking on again.  We have about a dozen of Jean's friends (and their children) coming over for dinner on Saturday for an american menu.  It'll start with mint juleps and end with chocolate chip cookies along with some homemade mac 'n cheese and fried chicken somewhere in the middle.  Hopefully mini finger sandwiches of PB & J and BLT's as appetizers won't scare people off (although they may wonder why all our sandwiches have acronyms!).

Back to yesterdays lunch - I realized as we sat down to eat that I forgot to snap a picture of the food for the blog.  Luckily, that's was exactly when Audrey had her meltdown so all eyes were on her as I whipped out my iPhone to take a shot.  Horrible, I know but a blogger's gotta do what a blogger's gotta do.      

Stepping up to the plate

It's been exactly 2 months since we left our home in Boston and crossed the Atlantic.  Just today we emptied the very last box.  We've come a long way from living out of the 6 suitcases we brought with us.  Although things are now somewhat comfortable in our new house it isn't really guest ready.  None of the artwork that we brought has been hung and there were a whole bunch of "we'll get to it later" sort of things.  Later has turned into now - well Wednesday to be more precise.

Why Wednesday? It's my mother in law's birthday and I have offered to host a small lunch at our place.  Although it's not a huge gathering, it's definitely a time to really pull it together.  I thought that offering to host would really force us to finish some those final touches to get the place really looking nice.  After a while, you get sort of comfortable with the stack of books sitting in the corner that need to be put away or moving the growing pile of toys in the living room back into the playroom.  Besides, I am looking forward to have those finishing touches done because it'll feel a little more like home.  So bring on the guests!

It will be Jean's mother along with her brother and his wife (so Jean's aunt and uncle).  No, not a huge crowd but there still is a little pressure. Not only is it impressing the mother in law but its also impressing extended family, in front of the mother in law.  That raises the stakes just a bit.  Wait - did I mention that I offered to cook everything too?   Yup, that's right.  So now the house needs to be in order and a full menu cooked.  In France entertaining is taken seriously.  You don't just throw something together.  This "lunch" will likely be a 3 to 4 hour event.  And trust me, these are ladies that can cook.  I have been to multiple dinners that they have thrown with 7+ courses, fine china and impeccable place settings (with like a million forks and spoons all over the place!)  While I'm not planning (or expected) to do anything like that, I need to give this my best effort.

So, on the menu we have:

Sweet potato and butternut squash soup

Brolied salmon on a bed of Puy lentils

Braised leeks in a mustard sauce

Orange glazed carrots with shallots

Lemon scented linguini

That's not including the appetizers though I was thinking of melon wrapped in prosciutto and maybe some marinated olives.  And Jean can take care of the wines - sooooo not ready to take that one on.  When Jean's aunt asked what she could bring, I proposed she take care of the dessert.  No need to completely kill myself, right?

Fingers crossed that everything turns out all right AND the kids behave.  Pics and more updates to follow... 

Wish us luck!