The Eiffel Tower

I've discovered, since moving here, that I have a moderate fear of heights. This is exacerbated by climbing them with a baby on my back, since the extra weight puts me off balance, and then he wiggles. He loves it though; he was chirping with delight at the wind on the Eiffel Tower yesterday. For me, the vertigo is heightened by the apparent flimsiness of the stairs, which are made of very thin metal indeed. You can feel a very strong vibration from every step anyone takes up and down the stairs, and every landing has little holes in it. This gives one a strange feeling, which is only mildly relieved by constant mental recitation of the facts that 1) you wouldn't want it to be too heavy to support its own weight, 2) it has to be able to flex in the wind and vibrate in order to be sturdy and not just break, and 3) no one has ever fallen through the Eiffel Tower stairs.

I will go up farther when either Jonathan's back is not hurting and we can trade off baby-schlepping at the first platform, or we have a stroller and get there before the lines get long so we can take the elevator.

Mister was a charmer again. He was so cute he nearly caused an accident on the stairs down, when some skater-punks got so caught up in making faces and noises to make him laugh that one of them nearly got knocked down by a girl who ran up the stairs right into his knees. The way kids run up the Eiffel Tower is a little alarming, partly because they smack into so many people and partly because it just makes you feel old in comparison. But what are their parents going to do about it? It's not like they can catch them!

Then on the train back he was being so cute that Russian strangers started taking his picture, and he played peekaboo with a couple of Italian tourists all the way to our change of trains. The Eiffel Tower and its surrounding public transportation is, it seems, the polyglot heart of Paris. We heard more English in our first 10 minutes there than we have in the entire rest of our time in France.

Tristram said another word last night: Duck. And he said Dog again this morning. I think there is a theme developing, which may give us some hints as to his interests.