Celia likes tofu, a lot. And I forgot to mention how she says it though in her post yesterday. So here it is for today. Tofoof. Tofoof tofoof, tofoof (as in toe-foof). I hope she never stops

Today Celia is officially 1 and 3/4ths! She is one little bundle of energy and intensity for life. She wants to be on the move and doing things all the time.

Her newest tricks are putting words together. She is obscenely proud of herself for combining nouns and adjectives, like ‘cold water’. She’s also extremely fond of saying ‘self’, as in she’s going to do it herself. Colors are a new concept that has also just clicked for her. She seems to understand that some words refer to colors, but hasn’t yet learned which word refers to which color, except for blue. Blue is definitely her favorite color and she always wants the blue plate and cups. She picks up more and more words every day I didn’t even know she could say. Josie loves to help her practice saying new words too, and Celia will cooperate with Josie in those exercises while she won’t with me.

Physically Celia will climb almost everything. She’s running all over the place, ignoring me as I call after her. She doesn’t fall down too often anymore and she’s also learned to jump with two feet and loves to take a few jumps off of our bottom stair step every time we go out.

She’s a very self-directed child. I don’t have to give her a lot of direction or suggestions for what to play with, unless she’s decided to get into trouble. If we’re outside she’s usually good, inside she’s reliably testing her limits all over the place. She is starting to get the hang of not hitting when angry, and even took a few tries at biting when angry, but we seem to be getting a bit better with that, or at least redirecting her to hit the couch. Both girls end up shoving a lot, we’re working on it.

She understands most of what I say, and anticipates it, which means I cannot announce that it’s time for a diaper change unless I want to chase her down. I do much better with a stealth attack. She has also learned a bad habit that we all have which is to say ‘one minute’ when someone asks us to do something. She doesn’t have a sense of the length of one minute yet though nor the implied promise of compliance, so she’ll repeat herself after a minute and be ticked that we aren’t obeying her stall tactic.

She loves to play in the water and the sand and dirt. We’ve been at swim lessons all this week and last and she’s been having a blast entertaining herself for my blissful enjoyment of mostly sitting still while Josie is in swim lessons. Backyard play is also a big hit as is the balance bike. She’s starting to sit down on it and glide a little, she’s going to send it flying by the time she’s 2 I swear. She is extremely determined to figure it out and bike like the big kids.

Unlike three months ago, I can now bring her to the library and have her actually look at some books or toys or puzzles, or at least not just throw huge quantities of books on the floor. She also visits the water fountain a minimum of 3 times each visit.

She loves to play with Josie and have her attention. Together they play a lot of dress up and build towers and knock them down. They struggle like siblings, but they’re starting to learn how to work things out as they both work on their calm and direct communication skills. Thankfully Celia still looses interest in toys relatively quickly and is ready to share.

Celia enjoys helping me mix and cook things, but following directions and impulse control are not her strong point yet so I have to watch her closely. In fact this is definitely stage of life for GOYA parenting (Get Off Your Ass), as I have to physically stop her, catch her or redirect her to get things to change.

• Size/weight: 24 month clothes/ 2T, don’t know about the rest
• Favorite foods: breastmilk, sour cream, avocado, cheese, peas
• Favorite toy: lunchbox and filling and spilling with random things
• Favorite book: Sheep in a Jeep
• Favorite activity: Playing in the sand
• Sleeping: bedtime ~7:45; one nap 45 minutes; gets up between 6 and 7 (on the good days, 5am on the bad)
• New skill: putting two words together, jumping with two feet
• Teeth: at least 16 and more coming
• Vocalizations: two words together, commands

I LOVED so many of these pictures, I’m so happy how they turned out. I feel like I’ve learned so much.

On Tuesday we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam. Packing up in Paris was a breeze since we didn’t have many things. One thing I took advantage of and enjoyed greatly in both our apartments was having some beautiful fresh flowers. At home, the cats eat them and vomit, so we don’t have flowers. In Paris I got some lovely yellow ones and some purple tulips in Amsterdam. In Paris I think we actually saw these same flowers in fields as we were landing on the plane, they had huge squares that were really this solid fluorescent yellow!

Back to our trip, lugging all our stuff we went on one bus and then one subway to the Gare du Nord train station. We had some food with us, and picked up some more at the station for Jordi, a little candy for Josie, and Celia fell asleep on my back. Our train was finally listed and we went for the long brisk walk down to our car. It had started to rain but we just tried to dodge it as much as we could. We got settled down and the train left very soon after. I managed to transfer Celia on top of me and she stayed sleeping.

Josie spent a little time looking out the window, lots more playing with the wiki stix I brought, and a good amount of time eating as well. It was so fantastic to see the lovely countryside going by outside.

We arrived in Amsterdam in late afternoon. We went directly to the tourist office and bought seven-day unlimited tram cards and tickets to the Van Gogh museum. We managed to find the right tram and get on it. Traffic in Amsterdam is hectic, but it’s not the cars. It’s the bikes and trams plus the cars, all on their own lane, different traffic lights and different lines. The bike lanes are just a different color from the sidewalk, not separated by anything and so keeping wandering children on the right spot is tough. We took the tram out to our apartment just outside the city-center. But unfortunately trying to get off the tram was trouble. It was rush hour and we did not get to the door in time and so we missed our stop even though we (and others) were yelling to open the door. That’s how they get the trains on time! They close the doors fast and furious. I actually had them close the door on my arm once with Josie on the inside and me on the outside, I did not let go and they thankfully did open the door again.

After walking back one stop to our apartment we found the place and it was great. A bit bigger, and one long room which made it easy for us to see what the kids were up to. One of their favorite things was the bathtub which was huge! We did many baths and they just had fun playing too. The dining room table was large and wooden so we could use our clamp on high chair too.

After we unpacked a little and rearranged the beds as we always do (this time Josie slept in a small mattress on the floor in the room with me and Celia). We wandered around for a restaurant to eat at. We found a middle eastern place with falafel and ordered a few platters to go. The falafel was good, but the french fries were divine! In one of Josie’s favorite books, Knuffle Bunny Free, a little girl takes a trip to Holland and eats french fries on the street. So Josie had been anticipating that for weeks. When she realized our meal had french fries she immediately wanted to go outside to eat them ‘on the street’. She was really upset when we told her that we were eating this meal inside and so Jordi agreed to have one french fry with her outside. They started eating it on the sidewalk and Josie was confused. “We’re not on the street,” she said. She was taking it so literally that she expected to be eating the fries where the cars drive, not the sidewalk.

After all the new stuff and stress of traveling we were pretty tired and went to bed without too much fanfare. The grocery store was nearby and I must have gone, even though at this point I can’t remember exactly when I went the first time. Unlike in Paris, all the food in Amsterdam was labeled only in dutch, whereas in Paris it was in at least three languages, none of them English, but it helped still. Everyone there speaks English though so I just had to be bold and ask random strangers if I was buying the right thing. Many things are obvious, like fruits and vegetables, but not so much for the milk and cheese variations. Turns out they don’t sell all different kinds of cheese (Kaas) in the ‘non-specialty’ case like we have here (mozzarella, mexican mix, etc). They have ‘new’ cheese and ‘old’ cheese depending on how aged it was. Either way it was good! They also had an interesting specialty which is basically chocolate shavings and sprinkles. We saw it pictured on toast and enjoyed it ourselves too. Plus we learned about stroopwaffles which were yummy as well!

Dragged the family out for some sweet evening light. I’m not sure Jordi would agree, but I’m happy with the photos for the meltdowns trade.

We’ve spent this week in the morning, and will spend next week, at the Arlington reservoir. I brought the camera today to get some documentation. Josie’s been taking swimming lessons and has really enjoyed them and learned a lot. She’s considerably more comfortable in the water now, just need to make sure it’s not too comfortable since she can’t actually swim or float yet or anything 🙂 Celia was the most willing model today, Josie’s too busy swimming and playing with her friends.

By Monday morning we had gotten into a good routine and were actually up and out the door at a more normal hour. We first headed over to the Place de la Concorde, the largest public square in Paris. Not tons there, just a fountain and the obelisk. Way to the east was the Louvre, and to the west the Arc de Triomphe way in the distance.

By the end of this trip even Celia knew to holler for a coin to throw in every fountain we saw. Celia isn’t in most of these pictures because she’s hanging out on my back and fell asleep. After the plaza, we headed over into the Tuileries to the Orangerie museum. We had bought a joint ticket with the Orsay museum.

In the Orangerie museum are Monet’s water lillies. Some of his last works in a giant scale hung in rooms specifically designed to hold them and surround you with his art in several pieces. The waterlilies are painted at different times of day and wrap around two oval rooms. Then there was more impressionist art downstairs as well. We moved quickly as we knew Celia would be waking up and she has almost no tolerance for these museums. Luckily it was pretty small and we got to see most of it in the hour we were there.

Outside of the museum we had a snack and played with one of Rodin’s sculptures called “The Kiss”.

Rodin has his sculptures all over town as he could make multiple copies of them from the same mold.

We finished our snack and decided we’d better head out to find some lunch as these things tend to take time. We walked back through the Tuileries to the east and north of them to try to find a cafe or takeout shop for lunch. We seemed to find a fairly pricy touristy area with a lot of non-food shops, and then a more business area. We continued to amble on our way to try to find something, eventually found a bakery but the line was horridly long, and only got shorter when people ahead of us jumped out of line. On our previous trip to Europe Jordi and I were horrid about wandering the streets trying to find a great place to eat, we knew with the kids we wouldn’t have this kind of leisurely time afforded to us so we were all about meeting the bare minimum needs. Thankfully we found a small grocery store and picked up a few items for a picnic. I also stopped by a super-expensive chocolate shop and picked up some yummy things that I did not share with my children. Jordi got some chocolate covered peanut type thing too.

We then wandered back to the Tuileries and sat down for lunch amongst the business folk on the many chairs and picniced in the glorious sunshine. By that point we had walked almost the entire length of the garden and were just a small bit away from the Louvre. While we had no intentions of going inside, we wanted to show Josie the palace and the glass pyramid entryway that she had pictured in her book. Oh yes we had bought her a ‘where’s waldo’ type book of locations in Paris, except it wasn’t Waldo it was some other guy, and his dog, and a balloon and such to find. It was great way to give her something to do while waiting and bring home some of sights we saw.

At the Louvre we played in the garden a bit, looked at the big horse statues before we headed back to hop on a bus to bring us back to the Eiffel tower.

We were headed for a river boat cruise on the Siene as the girls needed a low key afternoon activity. The boat was loaded with student groups but there were plenty of seats and the girls enjoyed listening to and playing with the speakers with the tour information on it.

The glass topped ship made it almost greenhouse-like inside and kept us a little warm but we got to go around and see the sights from the river. I liked the stories and information but it didn’t wow us too much, we’d be around so much on foot already and some of the sights were very hard to see from down below in the river. I imagine it would be a very neat thing to do at night with the lights on the bridges. After the ride we got some ice cream, walked under the tower one more time, and headed for home to pack up for our trip to Amsterdam and eat the leftovers in the fridge.

After the morning set of pictures, we headed out for Luxembourg garden. I had seen video and photos of the Luxenbourg garden in french class in high school from a set of videos called “French In Action.” Can’t say they looked much the same or different as the videos were in such small sections of the park and we didn’t explore the whole thing either. Anyone else subjected to those stories?

We started off at our biggest attraction which was the sail boats. For 2 euros you can rent a wooden toy sailboat for 30 minutes to float around in the fountain. A few grown-ups brought their own serious remote control ones, but mostly it’s these wooden boats, getting caught in the wind and being pushed away from the side by children running and then shoving with sticks.

Jordi has the stick in the above picture. Every time the boat gets near the wall you give it a shove with the rubber tipped end. Then the wind takes it around the fountain. That means of course that you’re running around trying to get to the thing and guess where it will go. In half an hour we probably only pushed on it about six times as it got stuck circling the middle where there’s a little house for ducks for a while. One other time another kid pushed on our boat, which left Josie livid. It was a great use of 2 euro and half an hour though.

Celia pretty much just played with the rocks on the ground and tried to throw them into the pond which we were not supposed to do.

After the sailboats we headed up deeper into the park to find the infamous ‘best playground in Paris’. First we found the swings. We hadn’t found any other swings here in Paris. They were 2 euro for a whopping 5 minutes on the swing. We were on vacation so we went for it, and so did a lot of other french parents that we saw. They were two seater swings each in their own tiny fenced in area, metal with metal rods hanging down so they went back and forth precisely in those fences. Josie liked it but Celia refused to try.

After the swing we went on to find the playground which was also for a fee, about 5 euro for the family I think which wasn’t too bad. It had a huge sand pit, zip line, climbing structures and rocking elements. Still no swings. But the structures were huge and they were challenging. Josie actually slipped on one of the rope bridges and scared herself for a while, but she eventually made it back on and slid down a 15 ft slide. They had really tried to make the structure good for older kids, not masterable by a 4 year old. The other cool thing they had is a basic kind of circular zip line. Josie was brave enough to jump on it and did a great job hanging on all the way around. It was a great example of the bigger kids helping the smaller ones too getting the lines around the circuit and back up to the launch area.

Celia spent more of her time in the sand box and was eventually persuaded to do a little climbing. They had toilets available which was helpful as public toilets are few and far between in Paris and they even had a kid sized one. After the playground it was time for our daily trip around the carousel. The one in this park though does not have a floor and the animals do not go up and down. It was old! They had one cart that they tied Celia into so she could ride and not fall off since we couldn’t stand next to her or ride with her and that worked out ok. For the experienced kids, i.e. not Josie who refused, they had a game that each kid was given a short sword like thing and the man running the machine held up a device that held rings that could be pulled out. So as the child went around, they were to aim their sword at a ring and yank it off and see how many they could collect. It was a nice touch and some of the kids were really good at it.

After the merry-go-round we headed over to the park cafe for lunch. We had made up cards that said we were ovo-lacto-vegetarians, but with more explaining words and tried to give it to these people to ask what we could have. They sent us around to the restaurant, clearly having not read it. Eventually we got some cheese sandwiches and french fries (meal of champions of course). During lunch Josie had seen the pony rides going by and wanted to go on one. Celia was really exhausted and losing it at this point so I walked along with her in the stroller behind Josie on the pony ride. This was probably one of the biggest smile-producing events for Josie on the trip. She’s always looking around and thinking about three things and sometimes has a hard time staying in the moment (perhaps like her mother?) but she greatly enjoyed the ponies and managed to finagle two rides out of us on the biggest and smallest ponies.

After the pony rides we walked around to explore the park some more, admire the square trees and the lovely pathways. We found where they play boule, a game like bocce. I particularly liked their neat picking up the ball magnetic devices on cords to prevent them from having to bend down and pick up the balls.

Jordi and Josie had some ice cream-like-stuff, a crepe for me, and we headed back home for some more Italian takeout dinner relaxing at home.

Sunday was mother’s day, at least in the US. I looked it up before we went and the french have their own day which isn’t the same as ours. But to us it was mothers day. I got a little time to sleep in, and the girls gave me a very nice card that they had made. I also requested time to take pictures, because that’s what I like to do! I got some cooperation, especially from Josie.

I learned how people love to take pictures of people on beds with big white blankets. Great natural reflector of light, people are comfortable and can move around a lot.

Boy some day I cannot wait to have a gigantic bed and get a big white cover for it, to only be used for photoshoots, because we have cats that puke on the beds regularly.

And then we headed out for some family time doing family things. We were in Paris, I was with our little family, what a great mother’s day present. To be continued…

Yesterday our family got a bike trailer! Nothing fancy, but it seems to be doing the job. The girls enjoyed a brisk ride over to Spy pond playground, pulled by Jordi. We played and then we came back home, and in this picture, even though you can’t see it well, Celia is asleep. We’re looking forward to some more family adventures on bike, or at least giving me a way to get around town a bit better when Jordi takes the car for work.