Bébé à Paris

Maddy's first trip out of the country was a fairly ambitious trek across the open seas (12 hour flight!) to the European continent. Derrald had an accounting conference in Paris during the month of May and by coincidence Ryan, Stefan and their family were going to be living in Fontainebleau at the same time so we decided to make the most out of this fortuitous situation and spend 3 weeks traveling France and Spain with a little pop-in to see Maddy's cousins. Now, 3 weeks is by no means enough to actually travel France and Spain. Do not think we are this disillusioned. We did the abridged version and with a 5 month old in tow, I think we did pretty well!

We certainly covered some ground. Take a look:

I didn't take any pictures from our flight over. It was actually a bit of an ordeal as it turned out they did NOT have a bassinet for us. Boo for flying with a baby and no bassinet. That's what I say. Boo. Thankfully, there some spare seats on the flight and we got the person sitting next to us in our row of three to move so we were able to put the Madster on her own seat in between us. She is as wriggly as a worm and it took constant vigilance on my part to make sure she didn't plummet off the seat to her death, but we made it! There were some tears, a lot of vomiting, a million diaper changes and not one clean piece of clothing between the three of us by the end, but we made it.

Bonjour Paris!

I'll save you the stories of baby jetlag and skip right to the good stuff. 

Day One. 

The Louvre. (good stuff)

The first Sunday of every month the Louvre opens it's doors to the public for free. We couldn't turn down the opportunity to hit the Louvre (for free!) so, on what was actually a bitterly cold day, we threw our baby in the backpack and headed out for our culture kick.

I wish I had taken a picture of the line of people waiting to get into the Louvre (for free!). It was... long. Very long. Hours of waiting long. Too long to wait with a cold, snotty nosed, runny eyed baby who might melt down at any moment long. We asked a staff member how long we could be expecting to wait (not ready to give up) and the delightful chap took one look at the baby and told us we couldn't wait in this line! It was too cold! We should go over to another entrance and ask the staff to let us in there. Well. That sounded good. We trotted off to the spot he had pointed out to us, politely smiled at the door staff and enquired about another line for people with babies. (How great was it that we had this baby?!) This was the one, and only, time we saw the snootiness French people are sometimes famed for. The conversation went something like this:

Hayley and Derrald say brightly " Bonjour! A staff member over there told us not to wait in the line but to come over here because we have a baby.{show adorable baby here} Is there another entrance for us? Where should we go?"

Young angry girl snarls down her front nose at us "No! You have to wait in line!" 

Her timid partner on the door says "But they have a baby..." 

Young angry girl spits at him " Are they handicapped? No! This entrance is for people with disabilities not people with babies"*

Timid partner stands down.

Hayley and Derrald smile politely and say "Okay, thanks". They walk away.

*the girl was speaking in French so this is a rough translation thanks to my high school French

Now, as we are walking away a wonderful thing happens. An older lady (another staff member) runs after us. She literally had to run us down to stop us from leaving. She called after us and told us not to leave but to come with her. She walks us right back to the entrance we had previously been denied from and told the two front door people to let us in. She then escorted us right into the foyer of the Louvre (for free!) before flitting off to do other good deeds in the name of France (say: Fronce). It was wonderful. We didn't meet the eye of the angry girl who had denied us our fast entry but boy did I feel smug and happy.

Now most people would probably post a picture of the Mona Lisa here or one of the many other famous pieces that reside at the Louvre (for freeeeee!). But we don't roll that way. I assure you we got our glimpse of Leonardo's masterpiece but then we got to the good stuff. Like these beauties :

Which lead to this:

Zzzzzzzzz.....Clearly Maddy is enthralled by it all...

And then we indulged the Dan Brown Da Vinci Code fans in us and took a quick picture with the pyramid:

Don't let Derrald's shorts and t-shirt fool you... it was cold!

This kid had clearly just visited the above statues... or he's a Da Vinci code casualty?

And then it was time to move on. Our next stop was Notre Dame. The beautiful cathedral. 

They have erected a huge bleacher seating area right out the front of it so we pulled up a pew next to some girls who were clearly there on a school/group/choir trip of some kind and they serenaded us with an a cappella rendition of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend". 

Sweet.

Then Maddy had a meltdown and she needed a diaper change. This was another time the French love of babies was demonstrated to us as I joined a massive queue for the ladies bathroom, holding my wailing child and doing my best to look cool. Like I could handle it. One of the ladies exiting the bathroom noticed me and took me out of the line telling me to "Follow me! Come on!" She marched me right up the side of the line, elbowing other ladies out of the way, telling them to make way, I had a baby. She got me to the front, told the bathroom attendant I needed the next stall (because I had a baby) and then went on her merry way. Another French do-gooder. I then proceeded to change Maddy's diaper while precariously balancing her on the top of a toilet seat. I had no choice. There was no baby changing table and these people had been so kind to get me into a stall... where do French people change their babies diapers?

Now, it wouldn't be a real trip to France if you didn't get a protest or strike in somewhere. Luckily for us, the protest on this day was going on outside the Bastille. If I remember correctly this protest had something to do with the Communist party. 

Maddy's first protest rally.

That's the stuff.

On the days that Derrald was working (at his conference) Madeline (or as they say in French "Madeleine" hehehe) and I spent time playing, finding our toes, walking the neighbourhood, looking at flowers and counting the French pharmacies (there's one on every corner).

Looking our Frenchiest.

It's crazy that not so long ago this girl was simply fascinated with finding her toes. I didn't have to worry about her rolling over, crawling, pulling herself up... she was just a little blob on the bed with some pretty neat toes.

Full concentration...

Got 'em!

Springtime in Paris is everything the songs make it out to be. Delightful.

One more story before I sign off on this post. I paid quite a lot of attention to where the Pharmacies were in Paris. Firstly, because they are literally everywhere.

One on every corner.

Secondly, because Maddy seemed to have caught something on the flight on our way over and was dealing with a cold. Her first cold. When I went into one of these Pharmacies to find out if I could get something like Vics to help Maddy sleep the Pharmacist told me "No!" (the French say "No!" a lot...) You don't use Vics on a baby. Not en France. Apparently, en France you use suppositories. She then proceeded to give me a gangload of potions, creams, suckers and suppositories all to help with a simple cold. And here's the thing about being in France, you can't argue with a French person. You just can't. When they tell you that you need these seven things to treat a simple cold, you simply have to ask how much, pull out the largest Euro bill you have (because you didn't understand how much they said it was - high school French people! I can only count to about ten) and hand over your money. The saying is "when in Rome" but we were in France, and the French give their children suppositories to clear a head cold. Well, I bought the lot but never plucked up the courage to give them to Maddy. Maybe she suffered through her cold for longer than she needed to but I didn't have to poke her up the bum. She can thank me later.

Falling asleep in the sling on one of our neighbourhood jaunts.