Archive for the “baby” Category

Lots of parents want to limit the amount of television kids watch, and I get that. Most of it is mindless sexualized or violent imagery that doesnt really need to be exist in an infant’s world.

Some go so far as to ban all screen based media from their children for as long as they can.

Well, we’re not going that far. One of my fave things to do with Zacharie is pop him on my lap and fire keywords into YouTube to see what pops up.

For example, he has a favorite Richard Scarry poster in his bedroom. Pop Richard Scarry into YouTube and look what you get to watch .. the Busytown folks starring in a Beastie Boys romp. Fun for father and son!

Z also LOVES trucks. We take him out on the front porch to watch the street cleaners and garbage men do their thing. But that’s only once a week… so we check out the trucks on YouTube to pass along the time between pick-ups.

Here are two clips that make him smile and laugh and clap.

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Zacharie just discovered he has a tongue. He won’t keep it in his mouth.

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So we’ve been back for a week now, and have had to time to sit back and look at how our overseas adventures with a 10 month old went. Some thought we were crazy packing 2 suitcases, 2 knapsacks, a stroller, a carseat and a baby on a plane, through subways and around western France. Yes, it was a challenge at times, but, you know what? It really wasn’t that bad.

Here’s what we did right, and what we did wrong:

Bring only enough food to cover your plane trip, you can pick up the rest at markets in Paris. Yes, its a little more expensive, but the selection and quality are light years ahead of home.

Get out of the city. Accomodations are cheaper in the smaller towns. Life is more relaxed, and it’s more like staying at a home than in a hotel. We could do laundry, dishes, cook meals and share common areas giving Z much more space to roam than if we were in a 150sq ft bunker somewhere in the 1st Arr.

Once you’re in the campagne, use the rest stops - the cleaning stations at the rest areas are fabulous. The gas stations are usually paired with easy restos to feed you, and the bathrooms are totally tricked out for babies. They have stuffed animals to play with, they have huge sinks, padded change tables, and, as Jen says, were obviously designed by a mother.

Dont be afraid to ask to have food heated. EVERYONE has a microwave and is more than willing to help. Brasseries in the middle of Paris will gladly pour you a $5 coffee and run to the back to heat up some turkey stew for your baby - but be warned, they have some pretty powerful machines over there. Less than 30s is PLENTY to heat up your baby’s snack.

If you’re spending any time in Paris, get ready to do some heavy lifting when you take the metro. There are a few escalators, a lot of stairs and no elevators. To get from the street down to the station, you’ll need to carry your stroller up many flights of stairs and through a few tricky gates. The station attendants are happy to open up big doors to get you into the station, but you’re on your own dealing with the stairs. Bring a collapsable stroller and a Baby Bjorn type of carrier. Keep the baby in the Bjorn through the stations, and use the stroller when you’re up on the streets.

If you can double date - do it. I wish we would have gone with another couple, and for our next big vacation, we will. It would have been nice to have been able to experience some french nightlife, but with his feeding, bath and bedtime starting at 530 … we ended up grabbing plats a emporter, or salads and baguette from the marche and spent all our evenings inside, early.

That said, the self catering became necessary and we saved HUNDREDS by not eating at restos every night. For less than 20 Euros, we could get 2 salads, baguette, cheese, some sliced chorizo, a BOTTLE of wine, some dessert and water. Eat in a bistro and you’re looking at that much for one plat, dessert, entree combo.

Take a cab home to the airport. We took the train into town when we landed.
hauled the stroller, car seat, 2 knapsacks, 2 luggages, purse and baby, up and down stairs, on and off metros and the like. When we got out of town, we took a cab to the train station. When we came home, we looked at each other, counted up all the money we’d saved by being in our room each night at 5, and we bucked up for a cab.

Yes, it was 50 Euros ($80) to get from the 5th to CDG, but it took 1/3 the time and had 5% of the stress. It was the absolute best 50 we spent all trip.

Off season travelling is sooooo much easier. March and April are PERFECT months for wandering France, or, I’m guessing, any part of Europe. The rates are cheaper and the service is better. Yes, it was a little chilly at night, and it rained a few days, but have a look at this lunch in Blois. We had the entire.plaza.to.ourselves. Try that in August. Same in Chambord. Not one single person spoiling our pictures of the Chateau - try doing that when the parking lot is full of tour busses in July.

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I’ve made all of Zacharie’s food since we switched him to solids. My dear friend Erin Davis gave us Annabel Karmel’s book as a baby gift and the ease of the recipes was simply inspiring.

Each weekend I boil up potatoes, apples, tomatoes, chives, leeks and more. I grind up chicken, and turkey, and puree away. I make pasta and sauce and oatmeal and freeze it in trays for the week ahead.

It’s a great system.

But I gotta tell you, if we lived in France, I don’t think I would be going through the trouble. I just can’t compete.

The baby food the french babies get to snack on is spectacular.

Carrots, turkey, lamb, salmon, spaghetti, squash, couscous, apricots, apples, pears. Sure, all similar staples to back home, but it’s when you open the food bowls you see the difference.

In Canada, the food looks processed, pureed, and boiled into non-descript fecal matter. In France, you could crack open one of the ready to feed serving bowls and swear you had heated up your own freezer meal for lunch.

Come on, we all lick our fingers when we feed our children, and after sampling the stuff Z got to snack on the past 2 weeks, I was tempted to dig in right alongside him. Pot Au Feu, Turkey Stew, Apples with biscuits and more.

The Bledina baby meals are also broken down more consistently by age with a more gradual and visible texture added to the meals as the babies get older. 4, 6, 8, 12, 15, 18 mos+ all get their own individual meal plan.

Going to France we overstuffed the bag with diapers to use on the trip, coming home, we overstuffed with baby food.

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Jen and I often joke about how “you’re given what you can handle” when it comes to babies. Based on the behaviour of our son, we can’t handle much. He’s a saint, an angel a godsend and any other holy analogy you want to make.

All parents think their kids are perfect - ours is.

Witness the largest outbreak in 4 1/2 hours on a plane yesterday.

His first time flying and he was totally happy to sit in our lap, play with the tv screen and read books. He had a couple of killer naps, some snacks and flirted with the flight attendants and grammas on the plane.

Tomorrow night it’s round 2 - the red eye to Paris. The biggest struggle shouldnt be with Z on the plane, it will be getting our stroller, carseat, 2 knapsacks and 2 suitcases up and down the stairs and through the Paris Metro turnstiles.

Throw in a train change and a 4 block walk to the hotel, and we should be good an exhausted come 10a Monday - but you know we’ll have enough energy come the afternoon to head back out and up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

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It’s flight day.

Easter Weekend with Nana and Gidu in Onterrible, and then 2 weeks en France.

I booked our flights in October and paid extra to secure seats so that we would have the most room possible for Z. This week I double checked our assignments. Out of 4 legs, we only have 1 bulkhead. 3 of the 4 legs are packed full flights.

Samuel L Jackson may have had it with those “mother*** snakes on this mother**** plane!” but he didnt have to deal with a baby.

Z is 10 mos old. He’s just learned to crawl and there is no way in hell he is going to sit still.

We have aisle seats and middle seats, but that 3rd person in our row is going to have fun. So we picked up a Congratulations! You Get to Sit Near Me tshirt to help break the ice with our lucky winner.

We’re lucky he’s so damn cute, maybe they’ll only just kill Jen and I and leave him.

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Jen and I are making our lists and checking them more than a few times before the big trip. We leave this Friday for a weekend with her parents in Toronto before 2 weeks touring around Paris, Normandy, Brittany and the Loire.

We’re pumped. And we’re packing. The plan is to have Jen and I share a bag, with Z having his own and then a knapsack for gadgets and daily diaper needs. Soooo .. who do you think needs more gear for 2 weeks away - Zacharie, or a tech obsessed daddy?

Here are the lists so far:

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Sometimes Mommy needs a drink.

Yesterday was one of those days. Le Grand Monsieur is fighting a stuffy nose and congestion. Yeah, I gave it to him. It took me 3 days to kick it, hopefully the little guy can get it done quicker.

So Jen tried for an hour to get him down, no luck. Then he played for a bit before keeling over for 40 mins at around the time he should just be waking up. Poor guy. Poor Mommy.

So when I got home Jen had a bottle of Lindeman’s Bin 95 Sauvignon Blanc 2007 freshy ‘corked’ and poured on the counter.

From the website: The generous flavours and contemporary, easy-drinking style combines easily with food and most social occasions to deliver maximum enjoyment from the first glass to the last.

From the label: Lifted tropical flavours, with a crisp, dry finish.

The Sav Blanc hit the spot for Jen. Easy drinking, fruity and crisp. You could have it with a salad, mussels, fish - or on it’s own, after a tough day. Green apple and grass without a lip puckering tartness - that’s the difference between the Aussie and New Zealand Sav Blanc’s - the kiwi ones have a bit more mineral and gooseberry tang to go with them.

One other cool thing about this selection is it has a screw top. It’s all good, they’re cool now. Jen preaches the screw top as the best way to have just a glass and keep the bottle in the fridge door - for the next hard day.

Lindeman’s Bin 95 Sauvignon Blanc is “beyond a bargain,” Jen says, for ONLY $12.95 at your BC Liquor Store. You CANNOT get a local wine of this quality at this pricepoint. As we move into spring break, a long weekend and then summer - stock up and get some on standby.

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Nose drool.

Yes, it is cold season and guess which little bear just caught one from daddy.

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Why wait? Le Grand Monsieur will be 10 months old at the end of March. He’ll also be celebrating his first Easter by looking for chocolate eggs hidden about the City of Light.

Yup, we’re going to France with the child. Here’s the itinerary:

Paris for 2 nights, then a train to Caen where we pick up a rental car and drive to Honfleur. We have 2 nights at the mouth of the Seine before driving to Mont St Michel for a night. Then to the mouth of the Loire and the salt beds of Le Croisic. After a night there, we drive the length of the Loire Valley to St Georges Sur Cher for 4 nights before we drop our car in Tours and train back to Paris.

When Jen and I go to the pool for swimming lessons there’s 3 bags of toys, diapers and clothes between us. Can you imagine 2 weeks overseas? It’s going to be a challenge - but we’re up for it.

The first thing we needed to do was settle on a stroller. Currently we have a Mountain Buggy Urban as our main chariot of choice. It’s FAB for the trails and paths around our neighborhood, but, as we discovered on our trip to Portland in November, it’s HUGE.

It took up the entire trunk of our Pontiac Vibe for that weekend getaway severely limiting the amount of tax free goodness that could be brought home.

Our requirements for the new stroller were: lightweight, collapsing, has a tray, fully reclining, has storage room.

Jen went crazy looking for strollers. Up and down the web, all over Amazon, BabyCenter, everywhere. She hit up Target, Babies R Us and Craigslist. She read reviews, comments, feedback. EVERYTHING.

The contenders included styles from Quinny, MacLaren, Peg Perego and Kolcraft … but the winner is:

The Combi Helio DX - Wasabi (Waaasaaaaahbeeee)

It’s got a cup holder, a snack section, it reclines, and it has a longer bar than the previous edition (meaning you dont kick the wheels and you’re not hunched over when pushing)

They’re hard to find in Canada. We had to buy it online from Amazon.com and have it sent to a friend’s postal box in the US.

So that’s the big thing out of the way. But from reading reviews on Fodors, it sounds like the cobblestones of Europe do nothing for soothing a baby while sightseeing.

I guess that means we’re packing the Baby Bjorn too.

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