Spitfire drives

We love taking this little roadster for spins around Provence. Xavier's been bricolaging it for days. I think he is going to open his own shop at some point.

La Chandeleur

Families all over France are eating crêpes tonight, on the day of the crêpe: La Chandeleur. I had no idea was such a day until Colette came home from school insisting that everyone is having crêpes for dinner. Festivities never cease in this grand land. Luckily we have Mr. Joly here, a local specialist to flip and serve.

Moving to Provence.

We are moving to Aix-en-Provence, France this summer.

The pace of the project is swifter than we expected; we put our house on the market a couple of weeks ago and within about a week it was done. Made it hard to decelerate what we had set in motion.

On our recent trip to Aix, we found a house. The trip was really a house treasure hunt and we walked away feeling like we had won. It took just 3 visits and then we knew it when we caught sight of it. It is a big old bastide (~17th c.) charged with all the charm of Provence.

We are all walking away from a New York City life: stirring in all the best and worst ways – our city streets have a pulse, dynamism and force all their own. The girls don’t know suburbia and they certainly don’t know pastoral life. Their loping is limited to stretches of grass in Central Park, which, in all its splendor, still isn’t sweeping. We are all accustomed to screeching sirens and horns honking just outside our windows. We want to get closer to nature – to wild things and raw sun. I want them to know those things by heart - as a constant, not just in summer patches.

That said, we love New York City. Wet eyes when I think about really leaving. A tribute to come. It is where Xavier and I met 10 years ago, it was where all the girls were born, it is where two of my brothers and our dearest friends live, it is where we bought our amazing house – it has been our place.

When we told her,
Colette said: “We won’t live in New York City anymore?”
I replied: “No, but we love New York and may come back some day.”
Colette: “Will we look different then?... Will our friends be gone?”
I choked back lament.

They are antipodes: New York and Aix-en-Provence. A move this radical requires some serious commitment, strategy and planning. Good thing I look at Xavier and think to myself, there is not one person on earth with whom I would rather partner for a move across an ocean with small children. Xavier is completely undaunted by this sort of thing.

I have been daydreaming for a long time about this move; pining for certain things in Provence. My list is something like:

Green green grass
Sun (over 300 days a year)
My girls in the sun
Marguerite in regular doses
Bicycling on streets without taxis
A swimming pool (lifelong dream)
Our own olives for pressing
Learning to cook à la provençal (or, at all, really)
and
Time - stretched out with my girls and Xavier:
Time to compose photographs
Time to write
Time to play
Time to train a puppy
Time to drop Colette off at school every day
Time to get Colette and Romy started on the piano
Time to teach them to swim
Time to study their little faces long enough to watch them grow before my eyes



I am ready to give up a finance/business lexicon I was never comfortable speaking. (Although I will admit I have ambitions to one day write a play about my experiences). I have felt disconnected from myself – stretched in bad and good ways too – working in that industry. I’ve become more rigorous and less fun (I hope to coax that side of me back out) and I’ve worn a serious expression far too much of the time I spent there (6 years!). Those years helped build structure for things to come – including some components of this move, so I don’t regret them.

Maybe we are pushing our luck with this whole thing - but we are 100%. Provence, here we come.

Our house.

Xavier has a thing for our house. If Colette doesn't know where Papa is, she asks, "Is he brigolage-ing?" Probably so, Colette. He recently finished this bathroom, which is on the 3rd floor, and it was the last bathroom to be done. I love the tiles on the floor and am going to start doing yoga up here - the floor space is big! The truth is, our house is a major project - "evergreen" - as Xavier likes to say - and he is constantly tuning things up, maintaining, improving. Thanks to him and his constancy the house is taking on a life of its own. When we unlock the front door, it envelops us and buffers us, separating our family from the city externally. I've realized with children that having a refuge from a force like New York City is really essential. I have never been a home body. Xavier is much more than I am. Some big fights have circled around the competing priorities of investing money in a house (Xavier) - or investing in travel (me!), but by breathing life into the house, I've learned to roost with the babies and give thanks for our place.

Another Xavier project.

We love it! Colette gets down on her hands and knees to smell the "flowers." Impeccable tiling choice for another Harlem townhouse project by Xavier (little bathroom near the kitchen). He sourced the timeworn, charming sink from this crazy place and chose a perfect shade of gray for the walls.



Plus, Moonman found a home here. You should definitely check out all the places he has been lately.



Hard at work, bricolaging. Sacré Xavier.

Happy birthday to you...

Xavier. Happy birthday to you. Xavier wanted to blow out the candle on the cake with his remote controlled helicopter (a great gift from me) and also land it on the cake. That is very Xavier. He did, then flew it overhead again and attempted to fly the thing close enough to lick its skis, so we were all in peril.

Come quick.

"Hurry babe, come quick and help me. I am in the middle of something, can you just keep Colette away for a minute?" I hear from Colette's room. So, I scurry to the room thinking Xavier needs to fix something in the room or do something useful. He is lining up airplanes. That's right. I need to clear Colette off the runway since she is getting in the way of take off.

And then he turns on Run DMC and they have a dance party. Colette bobs up and down in her approval and enthusiasm.

Gold rush.

I put Colette in the sink for a bath and Andrew, my youngest brother, put dry ice in the sink next to her. She thought it was amazing. And it was. Great idea, Drew.

Xavier saw these photos and wanted me to title this post, "Gold rush bath time." Anything a bit American rustic that he has never seen before qualifies as "gold rush" - e.g. bathing a child in a sink, eating without a knife or eating dinner at 6:00pm, using blankets on a bed instead of a duvet, no shutters on windows, soup or stew...the list goes on and on. When exposed to these things, he pronounces, "C'est super gold rush" (emphasis on the French accent on "gold rush").

Masterpiece.

Presenting a triumph by Xavier. A gut renovated bathroom (really gut - check out the last couple of pictures in this series). We are talking floor, walls, ceiling, plumbing (with just a plumber to weigh in one day), tiling, paint stripping (accompanied by many fights about lead paint dangers), electricity, 400-lb cast iron tub-removal and replacing and on and on. This was one heavy bricoleur job. He started out loving it, got pretty fed up at various points, but in the end, clearly triumphed.







The details are what make his work so lovely. I am delighted to have a husband who pays such close attention to things like trimming the tiling with that perfect red stripe...


choosing just the right clock for the bathroom,


restoring the original door knobs and hardware,


getting us a telephone receiver shower part in the tub (love this!),


installing a soap thing-y (yellow thing on the wall - savon jaune rotatif) - the same he had in his French primary schools growing up,


...down to choosing the perfect lights.

Colette adores Mr. Chaplin in the bathroom. She is learning to wave hello and goodbye and Mr. Chaplin is her primary conferree of these baby salutations. She also laughs really hard when she sees him hanging up there. He must seem really amiable.


When the guts were still out:


(Special thanks go to: François et co. for risking their lives to help Xavier bobsled the original cast iron tub down the stairs and out of the house. Also to Hugues for help fracturing the original floor, where flying cement chunks threatened his unprotected eyes. And to Julie for risking her respiratory health stripping paint with a heat gun while I was hiding out 8 months pregnant in Barbados - better for Colette, let's say).

French Food.

One afternoon last weekend I took Colette down to the kitchen for a squished food sampling. Her papa soon tromped down the stairs to find us a little messy with food smattered about. He looked at the clock on the wall and looked at me quizzically, "What are you doing?" I replied that I was letting Colette try out some different things. "At this hour?" (it was 4pm). "Well, technically, it is the hour of the goûter," I countered (trying to fend off an already well-known argument that I did not realize would apply to babies too). "It is not a meal time," he insisted.

So fascinating. Food will always be cultural embroilment between us. I was baffled that a baby of 7 months would be held to a meal schedule. And he was totally flustered by my disregard for a clock and set rhythm for eating. I am of the persuasion that Colette should decide when she is hungry and should be fed whenever that may be. He believes that we set eating patterns for children very early on and one of the biggest reasons that Americans are obese is because they eat indiscriminately between meals.

To be fair, we have moved toward each other on the food conversation. I have readily agreed that Americans snack far too much. I've also looked at French eating culture and admire the type of foods they consume - the fresh produce that is sought out at the market for meals on a daily basis. I admire the way a table is a place to eat and never a desk or the street or the subway. (While Xavier's dad was recently visiting, he had finished eating his hamburger and fries and had a bit of Coke left to drink. Xavier suggested getting up to look in a shop nearby and his dad looked confused and said that he hadn't yet finished his drink. The French are serious about sitting to consume. You do not see people walking the streets of Paris with coffee in their hands).

For Xavier's part, he has agreed that allowing babies and children to use their fingers when eating as a means of exploration and control over their food is a great idea. Many French kids never touch their food except through the metal silverware they eventually handle. Up to that point, someone else spoons the puree into their mouths.

We've also come to agree that a child should decide how much she eats - that the table should not be a war zone and when you as a parent start dictating portions, there will inevitably be push back and bad patterns around eating.

Breastfeeding has been another interesting cultural exchange. As you can imagine, many of our friends on both sides of the Atlantic are having babies. Not one of Xavier's friends in France is breastfeeding her baby longer than three months (most of them not at all). Many of my American friends have chosen to breastfeed for at least 6 or, more often, 12 months. When you ride in a cab these days in New York City, taxi television features a new public health campaign that encourages breastfeeding (and even "locking up formula" in hospitals). At work, there is the designated room for me to pump during the day (a legal requirement in NY).

France is a different place than, say, Norway where 98% of women breastfeed. In France, a recent article in Le Monde sites that only 35% of women are breastfeeding by one month after the birth of a baby (France also has one of the highest rates of women in the workforce in Europe). Xavier (and other of his country-people) couldn't believe that I was going to pump my milk for Colette after returning to work, while for many of my co-workers and other American women, this is commonplace.

These conversations are loaded. Anthropologists all over the place have already made this point, but culture is divulged most noticeably in its smallest beings - and not just those little people innately, but their parents - the way certain things get insisted on and prioritized. It is amusing to co-parent with a strong Frenchman, to hear him bemoan some of my fundamental preferences for Colette, when I feel like they are just so "natural."
(Not fundamental but amusing: the teething biscuits Xavier had never seen before for human babies and have since been labeled as dog biscuits and banned).

Xavier's tricycle.

Xavier is making a wave in NYC with his scooter - it has three wheels. Surprisingly (for a Frenchman), it is an Italian creation. My favorite though is the helmet he chose to go with the tricycle scooter - it is essentially a helicopter helmet (this portion is French). Mirrored visor - spells aggression. Pretty fitting. With just a touch of jest - the red animal-like ears. I'll be honest, I still ride on it all the time with him - overdue or not. People (on the street, in their cars, etc) like to get preachy about that - makes me laugh. I tell them Xavier is a very cautious driver. Are you familiar with Parisian scooter driving techniques?

Be forewarned: if a visit to see little baby is in the cards, you will probably also be treated to a ride on the scooter.

Bon anniversaire, Xavier.

Birthing class.

We were introduced to the birthing center last night in a four hour class at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, where Xavier was delighted to take the floor in a room full of people with comments like, "And I am the definitely the father of the baby," in the introductions phase, as well as, "I am fully looking forward to the 16-hour birthing course, after which I may have a career change, since I will almost be a certified midwife at that point," all the while gesticulating with his gloved hands. (Who knows where he picked up the latex gloves, but they were definitely a nice touch).

I was reassured by the center itself. We hadn't seen it before this point, but it is just a portion of the 11th floor with small birthing rooms (each containing a big tub to labor in, birthing balls, etc. and no medical equipment - you can control lights and the whole floor is very quiet and peaceful. There are a maximum of three women laboring at the same time in the birthing center, each in her own room). For any emergency issues, the Labor and Delivery floor is one floor above, but this is mid-wife and nurse territory. Some other reassuring aspects: they actually encourage you to eat and drink as you labor - which is totally forbidden if you are on floor 12. Hard to believe that they only allow laboring women to suck on ice chips in the Labor and Delivery Unit due to liability concerns (with anesthesia and other interventions). It is the equivalent of asking someone to run a marathon and not allowing them to stop for water along the way. The birthing center also openly advocates that women not give birth on their backs and for them to move around freely during labor. The birthing center agrees with the philosophy that the baby should stay with you after birth - immediately - skin-to-skin contact, early breastfeeding, etc. They don't whisk it away for tests or weighing or anything. Their transfer rate to the 12th floor for cesarean sections is 5% - which indicates that they view a cesarean as I prefer to see it: an emergency-only option (not a "you are not progressing fast enough for our hospital time table" option).

All in all, it was a good session, with Xavier to keep us entertained and the center to be as I had hoped for. I am reasonable and I am not a hippie. That is one reason why the more I learn about birth, the more amazed (and baffled) I am at how few medicalized aspects of it (that often have very little research or sound medical basis) are challenged and are routinely accepted without question. Many doctors have never witnessed a fully natural birth! I am pleased to have found a place where these pretty obvious questions are addressed and an alternative is offered.

Xavier.

Work on Monday was plain awful. 13 hours of sheer, unceasing intensity - with a short deep breathing session (could have involved tears) in the privacy of the copy room. Helicopters gone wrong, translations needed all over my desk, Broadway tickets amiss, incorrect lists of guests for events, invoices needing immediate approval, 87 unread emails - that sort of mixture. When my rather fervid boss questioned (an irrelevant) something in a demeaning way and I felt my pregnant belly contract in response, I think he saw a look of panic on my face and backed off. The next morning he told me it was impressive that I had survived the workload the day before.

That is the context for what blissfully came Monday night. When I walked in the door at 8:45pm, Xavier was there to fold me into his arms and coo and murmur softly. He never does that (murmurs softly). Then he drew a bath, scattered bath salts, brought in a speaker to play Rachmaninoff, lit a candle and served me dinner in the bathtub on a perfectly arranged tray. I had never eaten dinner in a bathtub. He took my phone and hid it. After one hour I was back on planet earth, where you don't need to hold your breath in between tasks due to stress. Dream husband.

Château hunting.

Xavier and I went château hunting today. It is much easier than it sounds when your starting position is somewhere in the Loire Valley in France. There are châteaux hidden all over the place. Down this road, we saw some telltale signs:


The first dead give away. The sign read: "Château" (You know, CHau is short for château in French road sign speak).


Traps. Do not enter. Private Property. (Note to self: never put up a sign that says, "traps" to keep people out. It was a direct invitation. Who would not want to know what sort of traps the owners of this modern day château had devised to keep people out? "We have to go," I said and Xavier pulled over to park the car.)


Through the trees, we spied it and it was a big one. Xavier corrected me when I whispered this - almost spitting on him with excitement, saying, "It is actually a relatively small one." Killjoy. Cynic. Frenchman.


So we took this path. The most apparent trap was spiderwebs - everywhere, with large arachnids. Then, my feet started to itch in my sandals and I was convinced they had implanted the trail with poison ivy. (I'm less convinced now).


We made it through those traps and then there was the château, in front of us. We continued furtively, thinking from that point it would be smooth sailing, but alas, first we had to make it over the spikes in the ground. (This was a real trap - for the tires of cars who tried to venture onto the property). Nice.


I expected a concealed pitfall at some point with some sort of wild animal at the bottom, but we never fell into it.






Surprisingly, Xavier was more intimidated by the traps than I thought he would be. I was almost climbing on the château itself while Xavier stood there with a furrowed brow, a bit distressed about our situation. He encouraged us to get going.