Un bon weekend avec Charlie et Maryann - A lovely weekend with Charlie and Maryann!

Max had great fun this weekend with his big (by one week!) cousin, Charlie Dunnet.  Charlie had decided to take his mum over for a wee holiday as he wanted to check out his wee cousin's Parisian set-up.  It was absolutely brilliant to see the two of them together, now that they are (kind of) interacting.  The parenting books call it 'parallel playing', but it would be more accurately called 'grabbing-whatever-toy-the-other-has-hold-of playing'.

They arrived on Friday evening and once the boys were in bed, we enjoyed a good blether with Maryann.  Max was delighted to waken up to a full house on Saturday morning:

Charlie tells his mum to give Max the gift he brought from Scotland.

Charlie: 'You'll like this, Max - you won't be au fait with the characters here en france, but you'll soon get to know them on your return.'

Max: 'Ah, 'Little Library'?  Nice one, thanks!  I take it that these books are in the original English then?  Jolly good - I find myself getting nauseated at the French literature we have here!'

Charlie: 'Glad you like it - these are from a television series that I like to watch when I get the time!  Take a seat and I'll read you a couple.  I can do all the accents.'

We headed down to the left bank on Saturday morning and the boys napped whilst Maryann and I strolled around Rue Mouffetard and the Latin Quarter before heading to the Luxembourg gardens.  Unfortunately, the gorgeous blue sky turned to rain clouds very rapidly and we had to cut short our trip to the park.  We came home to let the boys have a play indoors before venturing out again to explore the park and canal area beside us.

Charlie and Max take on the shape sorter.

Feeding time!  Maryann was impressed at Max's immense appetite (he's his father's son!) - Charlie would rather be posing for pictures than eating.

Road trip - le deux poussettes on the bus

Splish-splash!  Fun times in the bath!

Sunday morning - after a leisurely breakfast, Max was gutted to be saying au revoir to his pal.

Max explains that he'll be home very soon!  See you then, Charlie boy!  Thanks so much for coming over!

Jouer a cache-cache - Playing hide-and-seek!

Another wee video - this time showing Max trying to hide from Paul in the park beside us.

Le batteur - The drummer!

Yeh-hey!  The video worked!  Here's a little clip of Neil's band in action along the Canal St Martin.

Coin, coin! - Quack, quack!

French ducks apparently say 'coin, coin' and sheep here say 'maa' rather than 'baa'.  That was one of the fascinating topics of discussion at my last French class.  The teacher, together with Israeli Einat and Greek Vasso laughed at our 'cock-a-doodle-doo'.  Apparently, all cockerals in the non-English-speaking world say 'coo-coo-reekoo'!  Fascinating.  We took a trip down to le Parc de Bercy last week, which is close to Paul's university.  Max was a bit too keen to grab one of the ducks:

Steve Irwin lives on - Max struggles to get closer to the ducks!

And he's off!  Note how the ducks are beginning to panic.

Where's the plum sauce for my canard?

Speaking of duck, I'd a lovely meal (with duck!) last week when Kate O'Sullivan was over with her flatmate, Nina and friend Torie.  It was brilliant to catch up with Kate as I hadn't seen her since last June!

Kate, Nina and Torie in the Nord-Sud Restaurant in Montmartre

Torie, Mag and Kate - with snails!

The weather has been pretty poor this week - wet and quite cool for this time of year.  We're fortunate to be very close to the park though, so we can take Max outside when the sun comes out.  There are also fantastic free indoor playcentres here which I go to when it's raining.  They're like creches as they're staffed, but you can't leave; a bit like a council-run parent and toddler group.  I'm hoping that they'll help with Max's transition to nursery when we get back, although I've now found out that there's no space for him until November!

I was gutted to have missed out on Jenna's hen night last night which sounded like a great laugh.  To console myself, I invited some of the neighbours round for a few drinks and a laugh at Eurovision.  Today we went to Sophia's Baptism - Sophia's the daughter of my Australian friend, Olivia.  The Christening was in St Joseph's - the English-speaking church close to the Arc de Triomphe.  We then went back to Olivia and Robert's apartment for champagne and cakes and had a good laugh with her Aussie parents and other friends.  Sophia's a wee cracker - a really happy, chubby baby:

Sophia Matilde Phoebe Doolittle - what a great name!

We arrived home this evening just in time to catch Neil's samba band playing on the canalside at the end of our street.  Again, I've a video which I'll try to upload but here's a pic of them in action - they make a great sound and have loads of energy.  It sounds a bit like the Paul Simon music that Paul loves and really suits the sunny weather.

Neil (far left) and his dancing drumming band.

Bon anniversaire, Max! Happy Birthday, Max!

I'm a year old!  Let's PARTY!

We did it!  We managed to keep Max alive for a year!  We had a wee party in the flat yesterday and had a great time celebrating.  Thanks for all of the birthday messages, cards and gifts.  Here's a few pictures from Max's big day.  My pal Jen made a video of us all singing 'happy birthday' with Paul on the guitar - I'll try and upload it as it's a great keepsake of a lovely day.  We're sorry to have missed Anna's First Communion celebrations but thanks for the photographs - looks like you all had a great day in Greenock.

Nikitas and Theodore are the first to hit the dancefloor

Max quickly joins them to show off his moves with the balloons

Trying to shake off the old man who is cramping his style

Why is everyone singing and looking at me?  Bunch of weirdos

Georgious, Nikitas, Ran, Ofer and Einat

Check out the Mexican decorations!  I'm not going to take them down!

Max already a bit jaded but hanging in there for some of the scoff

Rachel made lovely number one-shaped baby biscuits for the little 'uns.  Max ate most of them.

Violetta, the little Argentian girl from next door, made Max a lovely stained-glass window picture

Violetta and her dad with Paul and Max

After the guests have gone - Max relaxes with his toys and balloons.

Le IP Pique-nique - The IP Picnic

Paul's colleagues on the 'Ideals of Proof' (IP) Project organised a picnic on Saturday at the Parc Floral in Vincennes.  It's a huge park with botanical gardens beside the Chateau Vincennes, to the east of Paris.  It was a great time of year to visit the park - the flowers were stunning and the scents from them were really strong as we strolled through to find a picnic spot.

The fort at the Chateau Vincennes dates back to the 12th century, but is so well preserved it looks like it belongs in Eurodisney! 

The IP picnic people, from left to right: Max, Paul, Mag, Italo (Paula's partner), John, Renaud and Mic.  Paula took this picture.

I'm not a philosopher - get me outta here!  I make a move as the existence of numbers is discussed...  The picnic was really well organised with each person responsible for a different part of the scoff.  I'd made an olive and pepper tart that was thankfully a success and Paula brought gorgeous coppa ham from Italy.

Max was brilliant - he napped for most of the picnic and woke up just in time to scoff the left-overs!

I went to Laura's house this afternoon for our babygroup and got this snap of Max on Luca's cool new motorbike:

Mad Max is one cool rider!

Quelques semaines - A few weeks

Finally!  I'm updating the blog!  I've taken a few wee videos but I'm having trouble uploading them.  In the meantime, here's some snaps of his lordship who continues to grow at a ridiculous pace:

Peek-a-boo!  There's a big pirate ship in the park beside us and Max loves to watch the older kids running around.

Watch me move from window to window!

Yes, I'm still here!

Max - mesmerized at the bowling

We went bowling a few weeks ago with Paul's colleagues (John, Italian Paula and French Renaut) down at the Latin Quarter, off Rue Mouffetard.  It's a strange wee bowling alley with only half a dozen lanes.  It's underground and a bit claustrophobic, but it was a good laugh nonetheless.  It wasn't a great place for Max though - I was worried he'd get his fingers hurt between the balls and I ended up having to wear him in the carrier to keep him safe.  

Desperate times call for a DESPERADO - Paul and John's awful beer of choice at the moment.

I went with my neighbour Einat to see an exhibition at the Foundation for Contemporary Art.  It was by a Brazilian artist called Beatriz Milhazes.  I loved the bright and latin-american colours she uses in her paintings, all of which were very simplistic with 60s swirls.  Here's an example: 

A photograph of it doesn't really work, but you might see what I mean.  This was a huge canvas.

The best part of the last couple of weeks for me was Francesca's arrival!  She came over for a weekend and it was absolutely brilliant to catch up with her.  Paul watched Max for all of Saturday and I'd a baby-free day with Checs.  We headed to the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Grand Palais where we saw most of his famous pop-art portraits.  We then went for lunch to a great wee French place on the left bank.  It was tiny and would've been impossible with a baby - it felt so nice to have a properly relaxing lunch sans bebe!  Paul had John up in the evening so Checs and I had a few drinks here and then went out to the French bars in the Marais.

Rue de Lappe - the happenin' nightspot for hip Parisians

Francesca looking very much like a hip Parisian

Cocktails!  Light up straws!  Crazy!

On the Sunday we went for a stroll up to Montmartre before Checs had to head for her flight back to Edinburgh.  It was lovely to be able to spend so much time with my pal.  Thanks so much for coming over!

Paul then went to Nancy for a few days last week.  He arrived home on Friday and took the rest of the day off as the sun was shining and he was all philosophied-out after the conference.  We had a picnic in the park next to us and Max had a good long nap to build up energy for the slide.   I'll try and get videos up of the wee man in action.

Spotted the sandpit - I now regret ever letting him into that thing!