Colgate smile

More product placement...He loves any new boxes that come into our home.

We think we have found a sublet on campus for the summer. Hopefully we can have our cats in it and have a parking place--we shall see.

A word of warning to mothers nursing toddlers: beware feeding your kid spicy food and letting him nurse immediately afterward! Your eating spicy food won't hurt him, as people used to think, but his eating it too soon before latching on might hurt you.

Tristram continues to add new words every day. He still struggles with final syllables, though, so he might ask you for "breakst" and then bring you a "booko" to read. I have been kind of sad for ages that he says "daddy" but not "mommy." But now he has chosen a name for me instead of "mommy": He calls me "pretty."

This morning Jonathan had to leave before Tris got up, and when I went to get him out of his crib he looked confused. I told him Daddy went to work, but would be back before lunch, and he got the saddest look and started frantically waving "bye-bye." Apparently it is important now to say goodbye to people (or at least Daddy) when they leave.

Toothpaste commercial?

I think I've pretty much decided that I'd much rather live in Irvine this summer than in DC . DC would be more comfortable in many ways--well, in almost every way--and I'd love to spend time with my parents. Plus, they'd love to spend time with Tristram. But I just don't want to be away from Jonathan for that long, or on solo child care duty for that long, and now that I've read that DC unemployment is as bad as California's and worsening quickly, there seems little to choose between the two job markets. So I'm searching really hard around Irvine/LA now, and it seems clear that once I'm on the ground I can find one of those ridiculous entry-level marketing jobs or hook up with a temp agency till I find a longer-term position. Plus, I have probably a couple of hundred applications out right now, so something might still come back from one of those. But I've really started thinking of job applications as something I do to pass the time rather than because I expect a result.

Now we just need to know something concrete about housing and figure out how to get our car back down from Santa Cruz. Fly to San Jose, take a shuttle, and then make the trek? With a stop in DC to pick up the car seat?

Yesterday we went to the Cite des Sciences. Tristram is much more able to deal with train rides now, as long as we bring lots of snacks to keep him occupied. And it helps if there are groups of teenage girls who flirt with him shamelessly. He's old enough now to understand when we tell him that we're going to take two trains, and when we get off the first remind him that we're getting on another train and then we'll be there, and so forth. Funny how he does better when he knows what to expect!

He didn't throw fits at all yesterday, though he did get a little fussy about an hour after he would normally have gone down for an afternoon nap. He amused himself running around visiting people, and picking up trash, putting it in the trash can, and then clapping and looking at us to clap for him too. Nobody really minded that he wanted to clear their trash for them.

The Cite des Sciences has some great exhibits, which we got to see more of this time since it was much less crowded than when we went with Jessie. They have, now, a "crim'expo" that walks you through a forensic investigation, complete with forensic entomology. Too bad Tris wasn't old enough to let us linger our way through it and play along They also have some really embarrassing translation problems, like "The investigation has just beginning!" and "Welcome at restaurant name." I don't understand why so many places can't get decent translations done; I could translate every bit of text in the museum in a week with not a single error, and they could hire me on the cheap too. But most museums just don't hire native speakers of the target language, because they are foolish and ignorant of good translation practice.

It looks like our patch of rain has ended, and it'll warm up again this week. Hooray! While waiting to play outside again, Tristram has taken up brushing his hair as a new favorite hobby. My big plan once it's warm again is to set him up on the balcony with trays of water and sponges, and empty shampoo bottles he can squeeze to make bubbles underwater. And sticks and rocks, which he loves to put in water. Maybe even fingerpaints, if I can figure out how to ask for them in French and they'll wash off the walls and balcony floor. Hey, whatever keeps him happy.

"'Oh god" happen

Job searching makes me such a basketcase. Yesterday I got two rejections, and discovered on the Smithsonian site that, although their hiring freeze is off, they don't consider me qualified even to take tickets because I don't have experience working a cash register. That's a good way to make a woman feel she's wasted eight years getting a Ph.D. that leaves her unemployable. How does anybody ever start as a grantwriter, for instance, when every single job requires at least five years of specialized experience? Anyway, it's a rough market now, and they can hold out for people who have all that experience and a Ph.D., too, if they want to. I ended up waking Jonathan up to cry on his shoulder about how I will never get a job because I have wasted my twenties becoming overeducated and underskilled and everyone we know will think less of me and Tristram will be ashamed of his mother.

Today, I am feeling much better again. I've applied to pretty much every school (university, community college, vocational school, you name it) with any kind of open teaching slot in English or related fields. And today I spotted another category that might at least keep me in paychecks for a while: admissions. Lots of schools are hiring admissions officers & recruiters; it actually seems to be growing right now. Makes sense, I guess, since if people can't get jobs they are more likely to go back to school & pick up some skills. I've got experience in a college environment, I have the "excellent oral and written communication skills" they say they want, and that's one field where having a doctorate might work to my advantage instead of making me both overqualified and underexperienced. It'd be a nice shiny hire for them to have a Ph.D. doing their recruiting, after all; it'd boost their image considerably. So we'll see. Now to start blanketing SoCal with admissions-office applications.

Tristram is doing great. He talks more every day. Today he brought me a book and said, "Read it!" So I did. He is also getting more independent, and more interested in playing with other kids, every day. Now he thinks the playground is no fun when there are not other kids there.

Yesterday, Jonathan was playing with him on the floor and suddenly starting yelling, "Ow! Ow!" I asked, "What happened?" and he yelled, "Oh god! Ow!" (Turns out his hip had suddenly cramped up.) Tristram turned to me very solemnly and said, "'Oh god' happen."

Bonhomme de Neige

This was when Lisa was visiting. Now, replace that bonhomme with fritillarias, daphne, and violets.

Our plans for going back are ratcheting up. I'm still looking for a job, and still hedging bets with a bicoastal search. At the moment, I'm frantically looking for a job within driving distance of Irvine, since I'd really prefer to be with Jonathan this summer. I think we need to pick a location by the end of the month, though, so if I have no real prospects, or hints of prospects, by then, I will go ahead and plan on DC for sure. I can always fly from DC to LA as another leg of the trip if something turns up late. Jonathan is pursuing all housing leads; we've got a possible hit on a small one-bedroom in Long Beach, near Bluff Park and the ocean. It would be cramped, but cheap enough for us to live in and still eat on his income alone without going into debt! Unless, that is, I want health insurance. Meanwhile, we have given three months' notice on the apartment here, and are looking for buyers for our appliances (mainly the sewing machine and European-plugged IPod dock).

This last Sunday was farm weekend. It was madness. It was sheep-shearing time, which apparently is extremely popular. We didn't make it till they were all shorn due to naptime, but it was so crowded you could hardly get up close to see the animals. We were both dismayed at how many childless adults were there, and how inconsiderate they were being of the children. Four grown adults, for example, ranged themselves out to take up the entire length of the fence by the baby goats, and just stood there and chatted for at least a quarter of an hour. Even the people with kids couldn't figure out that the appropriate thing to do was for one parent to take the kid up to the fence and the other to stay out of the way. We only stayed half an hour. In the end, though, I'd say it was a success; with a lot of tenacity he did get to pet a rabbit and two goats.

He is finally starting to play by himself for short periods, and as a result I've gotten more reading done in the last week than in the whole preceding month. Yesterday was a rough day, though--it's turned cold and rainy again, and he is quite put out at not being put out to play. He's taken to climbing into his stroller and yelling, "Out! Out!"

We've also pulled the high chair back out. We ditched it at about 10 months when he would do nothing in it but shriek and tear at his hair. Now he's old enough that he likes sitting at the table like a grown-up, and he really likes trying to eat with a spoon on his own. I think he's up to a lifetime total of three independent bites now. Anyway, we asked him if he wanted his own chair, and he said yes, so it's back. He does spend a lot of time dropping pieces of food on the floor and then triumphantly saying, "Dropped it!"

Catacombs Valentine

Add to the list of things that are blooming anemones, the first tulips, and the whole plum/cherry genus.

It's amazing how much easier child care is when you can take them outside. I think a lot of my frustration this winter had more to do with having a one-year-old cooped up in a two-bedroom apartment for days on end than anything else. I hope wherever we move to next has nearby parks & playgrounds, too!

We've been going to the park at least once a day, and Tris is quite the little explorer. He's starting to get the hang of approaching other kids, at least as far as realizing that it's better to approach slowly than to run up and jump on their toys. French kids, or at least Parisian kids, in general are pretty good about understanding that babies act like babies, which is a boon for us. I think it's because urban density is so much higher here, and so few people have yards of their own for their kids to play in, that just about all playtime is in public space and they have to get used to all ages of kids milling about from the get-go.

For that matter, playgrounds as an institution are much more of a shared space here. Now that it's nice out, you see people every day who don't have kids but have gone to the playground for lunch to eat in the sun and watch kids play. Partly that's because the French just like kids more (maybe because the birth rate is lower--the highest in Europe, at 1.9), so watching kids play is a "bonheur," whereas in the U.S. other people's kids are much more often seen as a nuisance to be avoided or ignored. Partly it's because parks & playgrounds are seen as shared spaces for the whole community, whereas in the U.S. it would be creepy and suspicious to just go sit in a playground and watch other people's children. But I like it, because you do see a lot more kids playing independently outside like Americans lament that they can't do anymore. There's more of an expectation that the whole community will help watch over them.

Tristram is saying new words every day now. Mostly he likes words that end in "t" (although he says "cack" for "cat"), but he's got some two-syllable words in there now: turtle, baby, water, apple, and orange. I'm not sure that last really counts, since he says "orch." He also has started making telegraphic sentences, like "I don't" or "I want" or "go out." He tells us most days which park he wants to go to by making a sign for the animal most likely to be seen there. Yesterday he requested dogs, and we'd been planning to go to the Foret de la Malmaison anyway, so we figured that worked out nicely. He got to eat lunch by the pond, and play with some dogs, and watch some ducks and coots. Now that he can do more, we've scaled back our activities quite a bit--we took the bus to the forest, walked to the pond, let him out and ate while slowly roaming halfway around the pond. Then we had to put him back in the stroller and go catch our bus home. We considered that quite a successful outing. In a certain mood it's frustrating, but for the most part it's very liberating to let go of all expectations to make it a certain distance or do a certain number of things. If he finds a tree stump he wants to explore for a long time, well, fine.

Here's our new problem, though: He loves the seal GrandRobyn and GrandDan gave him a little too much. That is to say, he won't willingly let go of it for bathtime, and we don't think the stuffed animal he's about to take to bed should get a good soaking. How do we pry it out of his hands to bathe him without him screaming desperately through a fast-as-possible bath? He used to love bathtime.

The Empire of Death

We went to the Picasso Museum this weekend. Tristram's favorite was a sculpture of a goat. Mine was Matisse's Marguerite, which is there because it was part of Picasso's collection. The museum is a good overview of his different media and periods, but of course doesn't have any of his most famous works. My favorite Picasso there was a very small piece in a side case, a cut-out hand with female profiles worked in. I'm apparently alone in that opinion, as I can't find a picture or even a description online.

The museum in the old Hotel Sale (with an accent that this program won't put in--the salty hotel, not the dirty hotel), which has been renovated with an in situ work by Daniel Buren. With the new installation, it's joined the great Parisian tradition of buildings that are more impressive than what's inside them. My one complaint is that, in the low postmodern tradition of laziness and bad taste, he's left the scaffolding up and written some BS about how it's "an integral part of the piece." But the piece itself is nice, if they ever get around to taking away its uglifying support--it's basically two huge mirrored triangles, one silver and one black, put together to form a rectangle that extends through the building. Inside, they've used the mirrors to create some really complicated frames for doorways and antechambers, and as a bonus the mirrors are really good for keeping toddlers amused while you look at the art. There's also a very nice garden out back where we ate lunch and let Tristram run around, though it follows the other great Parisian tradition of fencing off the grass in parks. He's not so into grass right now, though; the new obsession is steps. He loves to practice steps holding just one of our hands.

We've also been taking him to the playgrounds around here a lot, and he's starting to try to figure out how to play with other kids. This is where I feel most at a loss as a parent. I have a much harder time understanding kids' French--adult women are the easiest, then most men, then kids, then men with that midlife peasant mumble that just sounds like one extended "uuurrrhhhh,,,." Of course, I probably wouldn't be able to help him make friends even if there were no language barrier; he'll just have to tough it out while he learns. But I also feel like I don't have a good grasp of playground etiquette. How much do I let him get in other kids' ways? Do I let him pick up their toys unless they say no? Do I intervene if they take his beloved seal (which he loves so much he cries at bathtime now because he can't take his stuffed seal in the tub)?

Fortunately, so far he's reacted well when other kids have grabbed his seal. He's even offered it once or twice as an ultimate gesture of friendship, though its recipients didn't quite understand its value. He is good-natured, so that'll count for a lot in the whole making friends endeavor. Meanwhile I'll gradually figure out the playground parenting rules--I've already had to take him out of the playground once or twice for refusing to take turns on play equipment. He'll get it.

Shopping for Babies

It's been a good week. He's through that awful teething patch he was in, and he's pleasant to be around once more. Sleeping better, too! And playing pretend. He likes to pretend to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a bear, and a cat, ideally while being chased by someone pretending to be the same thing. He also likes to be a bear who shouts, "Boom!" A boom-bear, I suppose.

This week he splashed in a mud puddle for the first time. I started to go to get him out, but then I thought, well, you don't have kids to keep things clean, and what kind of miserable childhood will he have if he can't even play in a puddle on a warm spring day? The nicest thing about having it be spring again is that we can get him out to run around just about every day,

We are into the second phase of spring, even. The first crocuses are just about done, and now we have daffodils and hyacinths, and a flower I can't identify that doesn't look like a bulb but must be. Tulip leaves are up all over, though I don't see flowers or even buds showing yet.

Yesterday at the next-door park we saw a good, old-fashioned duckfight. There's a mated pair that lives on that pond, and Tristram often watches them for a long time. Yesterday, two other drakes showed up to see if they get in on some of that hot hen action. They were sort of paired up against the resident drake, but they couldn't really cooperate very well. There was a lot of chasing, and splashing, and rearing up and flapping. There was also a lot of jumping on top of the female and holding her underwater--having seen ducks mating now, I have to say I am very glad I am not a female duck. Fortunately, having three trying to pile on at once meant they were all distracted, and she dove, came up far away, and sensibly flew off. Two of the drakes got into a big fight then, spinning around in a tight circle and beating each other with their wings. I think I am glad I am not a male duck either.

All of this was very entertaining to Tristram, though he seemed more puzzled than pleased by it. He was also very entertained by the teenagers making out next to the pond--he kept running up and shouting "Ha HAH!," which the girl found adorable and the boy found embarrassing.

The public displays of affection are one of the things I will miss most about France. It was a little strange at first, but now it just fills me with delight to see happy couples enjoying themselves all over the place. And you can bet on finding at least one couple making out in any given park on any given day. Since no one minds, it's not rude, and now it just seems very sweet to me. I have refrained from taking pictures to post for your enjoyment, though, as that would probably be taken amiss by both you and them.

The Mistletoe-est Tree

Yes, that's right--all of that is mistletoe. Not a leaf of its own on that tree yet.

Tristram has a new word: hot. He thinks that is what grown-up food is called, so when he gets hungry he comes up to us making his sign for "more" and saying, "Hot! Hot!" It took us a while to figure that one out; at first we though maybe he was telling us to turn the heat up. We realized that it's because when we give him bites of our dinners, we always say, "It's hot" to warn him. Subject, linking verb, subject complement. He, however, is too young to appreciate the difference between a predicate adjective and a predicate noun, so he thinks "hot" is the name of the food. Now he is very careful to specify, when telling us he is hungry, that he wants real food and not baby food. His favorite "hot" at the moment is avocado smeared on bread.

He has lots of new abilities. He picks up about a sign a day now, and I can't imagine how frustrating life would be for him without them. He is talking to us all the time with his signs. Sometimes he just starts listing animals that he would like to see, like when we are on a walk and he points out a "bird." Then, likely as not he asks to see a "dog." Then he says "cat," because sometimes we see those, and then "horse," because we might head over to the Poney Club, and then he wonders if perhaps we might see "hippopotamus" or "cow," and on it goes.

He can put his blocks together now! The ones that GrandBob and GrandToni gave him for Sparkly Day. They're like supersized legos for baby hands. Two weeks ago he was so close that they just made him scream with rage because he couldn't QUITE do it. We tried again a couple of days ago, and now he has it down cold. Also, he likes to dance, especially to Velvet Underground.

What he does not like to do is nap. He is clearly starting to cut himself down to one nap a day, which does not bode well for my ability to get anything at all done. It does bode well for our ability to go out and do fun things.

Springtime!

Sunday was free day at the Louvre. Tristram was an angel when we went last week with Dan and Robyn; it was a dramatic mark of how much more mature he is now than when we last went in January. He was good for a couple of hours, having fun finding animals in the pictures and flirting with people walking around. Sunday he was not as good; he'd refused to eat breakfast and then missed his morning nap, so it was what Jonathan likes to call "a lightning strike into the heart of the Louvre."

We did the high points that you really must do: the Nike of Samothrace (aka Winged Victory), the Mona Lisa, and the grand gallery. All very impressive, and of course moreso in person. The great hall of the Louvre is actually more impressive in its architecture than in most of the paintings hung there--one can only look at so many BJs and BDJs and the standard set of biblical stories and Greek myths before it all blurs. Besides, of course, the Mona Lisa and the Nike, my favorite painting by far was John Marten's Pandemonium. My favorite when we went with Dan and Robyn was Champaigne's dead Jesus--it's such a striking contrast to all the BDJs. It seems ridiculous that they used to keep it behind a curtain so as not to upset people--I mean, if you are Christian, isn't Jesus's death kind of the whole point? Is it supposed to be a secret? Anyway, that was all the more impressive to me in that I have a general policy against paying attention to religious art with its dreary similitude.

The weather has turned so nice, and I am enjoying the flowers (crocus, snowdrops, hellebores, the earliest flowering shrubs and irises, and the daffodils that are still in the buds) so much that we have been taking Tristram out every day. It's a big relief, both for him and for us, to let him run in the park and get tired instead of trying to keep him amused indoors. Today he was enthralled with watching ducks swim and fish eat, and he (sort of) learned about not touching rosebushes. That is to say, we explained it many times and finally let him touch one to see for himself. Then he wanted to touch every single rosebush in the spirit of experimentation shared only by toddlers and 18th-19th century physicists & chemists, and he kept saying "Owww" in his best E.T. voice. I don't know if he learned anything about thorns, but he got a good long walk out of it. He astounds us with how far he can walk once you turn him loose. And with how much he loves to go down slides.

Hopefully blogger.com will get their picture-posting dealy working again soon. I have quite a backlog of pictures.