That’s a lot of stairs for little toddler legs. That’s a lot of stairs for long mommy legs, but since my buttocks have spread a bit more than I was initially hoping for at the beginning of the pregancy and the dimplage, creases and loss of muscle tone makes me avoid the many mirrors that have popped up in my new house, I am trying to view said 49 stairs as a blessing in working off my extra mini-snickers a day craving rather than an evil.
Yesterday as we folded up the stroller to leave downstairs and I swung the diaper bag, purse and other purchases to one side of my body in order to face the first four steps Queenie looked up at me and sighed the biggest sigh I have heard from her. I couldn’t help but giggle a bit, hold out my hand and encourage her that we can do it. She grabbed hold of the wrought-iron posts that hold of the handrail and started pulling herself up. One positive that has come from our first ten days in our new home is that Queenie has learned to alternate legs going up the stairs. Going up 49 stairs with just her right leg soon became too tiresome!
You may be thinking that this is all and well. Sucks not to have an elevator but when you only have one little person to look out for it is entirely possible to deal with. On the other hand, what is it that I plan to do when Little N comes into this world? Hmmm.
The initial plan is to use the baby wrap. Possibly even buy a brand new one, although I haven’t figured out which one I want of the may that look so cute and wonderful to have. Right now I have one that my cousin made for my nephew who died. It is an old school baby wrap made of non-stretch cotton in a red plaid. I love it, but I wouldn’t mind having another one in case of newborn poo and spit-up episodes that we all know happen! I am actually very excited about the baby wrap option. Since Queenie was born in November I didn’t use it much until spring time and I didn’t have the confidence to use it around my family because they were constantly complaining that I held her too much. Well, they were just constantly complaining. Anyway…
I am hoping the baby wrap thing works. The big concern about that isn’t actually the stairs, as the added kilos in front will help me burn the after pregnancy pounds! (Does ’sweating it out work’? ‘Cause the baby wrap will help with that, too! See? There are only benefits to this!) The biggest concern is then not being able to hold Queenie when she gets tired or falls down or we have stayed out past nap time. …..I’m at a loss. Any suggestions?
Mine is the King. Or a Duke. Or some such royalty.
Pretty weird, huh?
This only happens in Europe. …And it only happened one hundred years ago in all actuality. BUT had I lived in this exact house one hundred years ago the King/Duke would have been my neighbor. At any rate the castle makes for pleasant viewing morning, noon and night. Even though the eye-glass store below and to the right has these neon glasses that glare purple and green lighting into our house at night unless we shut the shutters. I’m betting the King would have done away with that guy ASAP. I mean, if your store is closed, then turn off the darn lights! It makes my living room look tacky!
All in good fun. Here are some other views from our new downtown apartment that we apparently got for a steal and everyone at Principe’s work is jealous of!
It is now 10pm. We have internet, although this morning if you had seen or heard Principe stomping around the living room alternatively throwing and picking through the internet cables you would have thought we would never have it. In fact, he claimed that we were not sent the right stuff in order to set it up. But suddenly, as I came out of our room, I found him sliding on his knees in a victory dance looking for a high five. His dark mood had suddenly turned bright. We had internet.
Five minutes later as he tried to set up the television the same thing happened. There were words yelled that shouldn’t have been yelled in the presence of a toddler and much stomping around. There was even a jab or two at an empty box near by. We didn’t have the right cable, then we had the right cable, then the cable didn’t reach the box then it would reach if we rearranged the living room, so we rearranged the living room but it still didn’t work, etc. I was about ready to pull my hair out with all the circles he was leading me in. And suddenly we had television. Interesting. Do you see where this is leading?
Then there was the armoire from IKEA. The second one. I set up the majority of it and asked Principe to finish putting on the doors while I made lunch. It took almost two hours to put the doors in because he couldn’t get the perfectly matched at the door knobs. And then for some reason he decided to loosen the screws on the first armoire and screwed up the evenness on those doors. That brought on a swearing session that almost rocked the entire house. He even jabbed the screw driver into a box. Twice. He was pissed. Together we got the first armoire back to being perfectly matched but no matter what we did the second one refused to match. There is something wrong with the way that IKEA put the holes into the wood for the door handles because the doors at the top and bottom are a perfect match. Unfortunately, Principe is a perfectionist so the whole thing bothers him so much that he can’t stand to have the second armoire. So it’s for me. No biggy. I don’t care.
Flashfoward to the here and now. I just spilled an entire glass on milk on the floor. On the carpeted floor that the landlady reminds us is new every chance she gets. Because of that the very idea that I spilled something on this carpet stresses Principe out. That and the fact that he has to actually get up off the couch and stop watching whatever mindless nonsense he is watching on the tube. He went to get a mop and I went to get towels. When I smirked at his mop idea and waved the towels around he stomped off and told me to do it myself. Which apparently he was serious about because me and my pregnant belly just finished sopping up, then cleaning with water, then sopping up again. I gave him a look that he didn’t like, put the towels in the utility room, picked up the computer and told him I was going to bed when he asked me what I was doing. I’m a bit ticked. And hormonally on the verge of tears. I think he is purposely staying and watching television to not have to deal with his hormonal wife, which is a very good idea because it gives me time to get rid of the hormones and tears in order to be decent to him before we go to bed.
Interesting, I placed the title to this post before the whole spilling of the milk and I was talking about Principe! Now it seems like it is me who is melting down. Perhaps I’m just tired. Queenie still wakes up every single night. She can’t seem to sleep the whole night through. She has no trouble going to bed, even in her big girl bed. She puts herself to sleep even. We don’t lie down with her or anything. After books are read and kisses are given the lights go out and she has to fall asleep on her own. Something we read is quite important to learn. The problem is that she only stays asleep for a maximum of 6 hours and then she wakes up. We quit giving her a bottle midway through the night, but that didn’t help. We tried letting her cry. That didn’t help. Now that she has a bed she comes into our room, climbs into bed and almost immediately falls asleep. But then I have to get up and put her back. If I do so right away she wakes up again an hour later. If I wait an hour she stays until about 7, sometimes 8 in the morning. But it breaks up my sleep and I feel so tired because of it in the morning. That and I am pregnant.
Of course the biggest concern is how to deal with this once Little N comes into the world and I’m up all night feeding her. I need to start praying that she is one of those babies that only wakes up once a night. Please, please, please be one of those babies, Little N!
That being said I need to go to sleep. Just a quick look at my email and I’m off to bed. Before midnight I will be snuggled down, that is my promise to myself!
Finally got the big girl bed set up. Queenie helped by pretending to screw things into the screws that I had already gotten in. I’m not sure what exactly she was pretending but every once and awhile she would pick up her cell phone (old, unconnected), dial and talk in a disciplinary tone saying, “No, no, no. Esta? Oh. BYE!” Perhaps she was letting her father know that her mother also swears and that he shouldn’t let me get away with yelling at him when he starts stringing along his Spanish swear words just because Barcelona makes a goal or his Real Madrid doesn’t. …Perhaps that is a whole different topic.
At any rate a few calluses more on my fingers later the big girl bed is set up. It already has orange and black crayon marked on the mattress since the first thing she did was fling herself on her stomach and start coloring the IKEA instruction booklet, accidentally marking the mattress in the process. Oh, well. She tried to color right on the white plastic that covers the wood which got a swift, “NO!” from her mommy. I do agree with her in that the white is quite glaring and perhaps it would look better with a bit of color, but the last thing that we need is her thinking she can color on whatever she thinks needs a little more decoration.
I just ate three mini mars bars and I think I might throw up, except that I won’t. But I certainly don’t feel the best right now. Why do I do this? It’s like an addiction: I need to eat something sweet after lunch and when I have no baked goods lying around I turn to chocolate. Don’t even ask me why I have mini candy bars around. I shouldn’t I bought them about five months ago and found them again in the move. Just as I’m in the last trimester when you gain the most I find mini candy bars in my boxes.
We went exploring again today for the Rue de Strasbourg market. (Errr. There is a protest marching through our street right now with drums, a megaphone and everything. I knew that the French were all about protests, but seriously? At nap time? Apparently they don’t appreciate siestas like the Spanish do. It’s something about the Social Health, but my French isn’t good enough to understand what their sign says.) The dumb thing is that I allowed Queenie to go on our walk with her beep-beep (tricycle) which has this long handle that allows me to push her since she still doesn’t really understand pedaling, but it is a pain in the buttocks to steer. In all actuality I don’t have any control on the steering, Queenie does. Which seems stupid to me. If the child still needs help being pushed, wouldn’t you think they might need help steering, too? So we go through the streets at a very slow pace so that we don’t run into other people and I can try (breathing in deeply and reminding myself to have some patience) to teach her to look ahead, go straight or turn left or right. We are still trying to figure that all out. But in the end it doesn’t matter because she wanted off the stupid thing only a little over half way to our destination. But she didn’t want to walk either, she wanted Dee-dee and to be held. And she wouldn’t move unless I held her. Great. Another deep breath. Good thing I got a lot of sleep last night. Did I mention that she slept the entire night until 6:45am? Yes, yes, yes!
Somehow we ended up again in Place du Wilson and the carousel was working. Her excitement was too much for me to resist so I paid the 2Euro (!) for her to have a ride. I had to get one too to keep her in place and honestly thought I was going to fall over from the dizziness. I was watching the Plaza run circles around me instead of looking ahead into the carousel, which was probably the problem. But of course I didn’t get that until almost the end of the ride, just when I thought I couldn’t handle another loop around. After we got down (very little whining from Queenie, much to my surprise) I gathered up my courage and asked the kind woman in charge how to get to the Rue de Strasbourg, to the market. She advised me to take the metro because it was too far to walk with la petite fille (little girl). Metro B, she told me, the stop is Jean D’Arc. Metro B is right next to our house, so, in my own logic, I decided not to go but to leave it for another day in order to go from our house directly there. Well? Who wants to figure out the metro with a little girl who wants to be held in one hand and an empty tricycle in the other? So we went to the Marche Victor Hugo, which our friend claims has the best prices, and bought just a few things. And guess what? On the way back, looking at the prices at the market that is right in front of my house, the market that our friend claims is the most expensive, I saw that I could have paid less or the same for all the things I bought half a kilometer away! I’m still going to check out the market at Rue de Strasbourg because it is the actual farmers who go there to sell, but if there isn’t much of a difference I am going to stick to the market in front of my house. Obviously!
Tonight our big job is to get a cell phone. A: so that we can talk to each other without paying out the whazoo on our Spanish cell phone and B: so that I can call the Mothers and Toddlers group that is listed in our welcome package. Maybe we can even find a playgroup for next week.
Right now it’s time for a nap. This moving stuff is exhausting. And we still have to unpack our clothes. Well, we first have to put together the armoires and then unpack our clothes. Sounds like fun, right?
The internet doesn’t work. Apparently it takes about 3 weeks to get a connection in France and we jus ask to set it up about a week ago, which means we have another two weeks without. Without internet, without a phone line and without television. The television is something I can live without, although it would help to listen to some French to better my pronunciation, but whatever. It is the internet that I can’t seem to live without. Principe was also going a little stir crazy this last weekend without internet, but he has access to it today and the rest of the days through work, so now it is just me who is going a bit keyboard crazy. By the way, did you know that keyboards in France are different from an American keyboard? Like so different that the letter A is where the Q is and you have to hit SHIFT in order to get a period at the end of your sentence? Super strange. Good thing I don’t plan on going to work here. It would take me a month just to learn to type again. They do it for their letters with accents on them and I’m sure it’s just as easy once you get the hang of it, but it would be a pain! Principe forgot to tell them explicitly that he wanted a normal keyboard, but is hoping that the lady in HR figured he would anyway. Here’s to hoping.
Today we are taking it easy. At the moment Queenie is napping and I just finished putting together the two chairs and the small “bookshelf” for the kitchen. Against pregnancy advice I lifted it and placed it where it is supposed to go, placed the microwave on top and then stood there for about twenty minutes trying to figure out what to put on the shelves. Spices, no. They need to not be where Queenie can reach them. Plus, there are too many. I don’t want to use it as storage for cans and stuff either since that is pretty gitano (white trash. Oh, boy. I’m probably going to get blasted for not being PC enough since Gitano also means gypsy, which is a clan of people who live in Europe who are originally from Romania, but have now lived generations in either Spain, Italy or France. Thing is, they have their own way of living and it isn’t very cleanly, so Spaniards also use the word to mean white trash. I’ll still probably get blasted.). I want my kitchen to be pretty, even though it is old and I can barely reach the cabinets. In the end I placed the vinegars and olive oil on the top shelve, Queenie’s plates and bowls and cups on the second and cereal on the last. Not sure if it will stay like that, but it is how it is for right now.
This morning we went exploring and ended up getting lost for a moment. The downtown is actually pretty small in comparison to what I believed at first. Within less than fifteen minutes Queenie and I were at Place du Wilson where we stayed in the hotel while visiting here. And that is walking at a toddler’s pace. I could be there in five minutes flat, easily. Unfortunately for Queenie the neighs (horse, or in this case, the carousel) was closed, so I bought her a small pizza instead at the market. I waved my hangs a lot and said s’il vous plait (please) and merci (thank you) more than I probably should have, but it got us the pizza. Then we walked around the market to look at prices. Food is definitely more expensive here than in Spain. My inlaws told me that, but I didn’t want to believe them. Now I have to believe them. Meat seems to be outrageously expensive. To the point that I’m not sure we will ever be eating beef in this house. Ever. I went to see what chicken was priced at but was frightened away by realizing I was looking at the chopped off head of a hen, of many hens, actually. Eyes still intact and all. After realizing what they were I suddenly noticed all the mountains of livers and guts and not yet cleaned whole chicken carcasses. I grabbed Queenie’s hand and led us outside to the fresh air where we were again surrounded by wine shops and bakeries with chocolate croissants. What in the world do these people eat? And how in the world do they cook it? What do you do with the head of a hen? I’m going to have to buy my meat at the grocery store where it has been cut into squares and triangles that make you forget where it actually came from. I’m not against cooking a whole chicken. I have done it quite few times. And I’m not against meat markets, but what in the world do they do with the head? And why don’t they clean out the chickens? Even the pieces that looked like they could be chicken breast still had the heart or small other small organ still stuffed inside, like they had just whacked off pieces of the chicken without taking anything apart. Am I grossing you out? Well, I was grossed out, too. In Spain we have large pieces of animal for sale to be chopped how you want or not chopped or whatever, but they don’t sell heads with eyes still in them, and everything has already been cleaned out. As it should be. Seriously. Gross
Today was another eventful day. We rushed over to IKEA as soon as we could to fix the whole You-only-gave-us-half-a-bed-and-forgot-several-things-on-our-list fiasco. We ended up leaving with the car bursting because they wanted to charge us another 59Euro to add more weight to the truck and we weren’t about to pay that again. Poor Queenie was stuffed in between a rolled mattress, a potted tree and plastic trash cans. But I worked out. After unloading the car Principe went for some eggs and bananas, we ate a hurried lunch and ran out again to find our OB.
After waiting for more than an hour in the waiting room (Queenie was really so good while we waited. She has been an angel lately. Wonder when the bubble is going to burst…?) we finally met our new OB. German. Who quote’s a Michael Moore movie to tell me that the American health care system needs reform. He also thinks the French system needs reform. Thankfully after just those two remarks we moved off of politics and onto baby.
He was really very nice and made us feel really comfortable about the change. After prescribing a few blood tests (you have to go to a laboratoire medicaile d’analysis (medical analysis laboratory) with this prescription to get blood work done) and new vitamins (which cost 27 Euro for 3 months!) he did a quick ultrasound to see what Little N was up to. Apparently she has been up to quite a bit lately. That huge discomfort I felt a few weeks back was probably her turning into the breech position! She is breech right now and has only one month to change. The doc isn’t worried because she has enough room to move back, but I want her to do it sooner rather than later as the discomfort I felt a few weeks ago was nothing, I’m sure, to what I will feel when she does it as a bigger baby!
And she is certainly a girl. No mistaking now. She tried to hide her little vagina with her toes, but we could clearly see her little labia. Girls, girls, girls. After all my dreams that she was going to surprise us by having a little penis when born. Not that I’m upset. Another girl is fine with me. Get more use out of those dresses!
The clinic is super nice, very modern, very clean, very spacious and very close to home. I’m excited about going there to give birth. In 2007 and 2008 they were voted the best place to give birth in Spain. And their c-section rate is only 15%. I have the personal number to my doctor’s office and if he isn’t going to be there around the date I’m supposed to give birth he has a substitute replace him and allows me to come meet him. If he is there he personally delivers all of his patients’ babies.
He is very straightforward about everything and asked me three times if I had questions! Wow! I feel very comfortable talking to him and not at all intimidated to next time talk about birthing options and what my birth plan is. I think he is open to many things and isn’t about to give me attitude about anything, which is perfect. I am very happy about the whole thing. He never complained once that we had Queenie with us or looked at us funny when we had questions. This half private/half public thing is good, I think. Having the competition between the doctors is a good thing. It makes them work harder on their customer service!
All moves require a person to look deep into their DIY abilities, although some more than others. Principe and I are those type who need to look quite deep. Principe more than me, although he is much better than he was when I first met him. I’m pretty sure his words eight years ago when he saw an electric drill were, “What is that?”
I should give him more credit than that, but really, European guys who grow up in the city don’t really have much opportunity to learn DIY. They don’t have garages that their father’s have converted into shops much to the mother’s dismay and they don’t move very often. Principe moved countries twice as a kid but always left his home in Spain intact to arrive to an apartment that was already furnished, so their was very little DIY needed.
So he is learning. We have moved three times now in the last 3 years and each time has required him to learn a little more. This time is is funiture assembly and small appliances. Today he is setting up the washing machine. Ouch.
I, at first, stood in the utility room in order for my aurora to give moral support, but I have since left. Principe showed both remorse and relief, but instead of getting frustrated and in a bad mood I decided to write. Why would I be in a bad mood? Because things aren’t going so well. We hooked everything up but when we turned on the water we saw that the connection between the tube and the main had a leak. There was quite a bit of swearing on Principe’s part, which always put me in a frustrated mood, so I left. I told him to figure it out without me since all I was doing was standing in the way and I left. He just yelled that he thinks he can fix it if he takes off a certain plastic part. I said go ahead. I like how he basically asks my permission to do this kind of thing. It isn’t because I’m controlling and he knows to ask before doing, it is actually because he wants to be able to share in the blame if something goes wrong.
There was just a lot of swearing going one. I’m closing my eyes as I type. “Lo he cagado” (Literally this means I pooped on it, but translated it means I messed it up) he just yelled. To which I calmly and sweetly said, don’t worry about it. No, no, he replies, I broke the tube. We have to buy a new one.
So much for doing laundry today. And the mountain is piling up.
IKEA is the store of jovenes (young people) these days. Especially those who need to fill a place with furniture. It is fairly cheap, has lots of ideas and has everything you can image. In the States I’m not so sure it is the first place that people go in order to buy furniture, but here in Europe it is the place. Even those who aren’t so joven go there if they need a piece of furniture that they plan to use but perhaps wouldn’t care if, in three years, it breaks down or doesn’t make the next move. The nice thing is that they have everything from the very cheap to a bit more quality and the in-between. Today we went with a ginormous list of things to buy. GINORMOUS!
The first mistake we made was to go at 5pm after having spent the morning unpacking and the afternoon getting Queenie to rest a bit. Finally we set out, thinking that the IKEA in France kept the same hours as the IKEA in Spain. Wrong. But we’ll talk about that later, since we didn’t know until they were closing…..
Queenie fell asleep on the way there and stayed asleep in her small fold-up stroller for about an hour and a half inside IKEA. Principe said we looked like some poor, young couple who shouldn’t be having more children since our child was squished in the fold-up stroller with her father’s coat to keep her warm while the other children were sitting in their new McLarens. Well, what are you going to do? It was an incredible advantage that she was sleeping. We did our first hour and a half really quickly. A sofa-bed for the guest-scrapbooking-play-room, two chairs for the living room, shelves for the kitchen, two closets for our room, a dresser for Queenie, a set of drawers for my scrapbooking (Queenie wakes up) a big girl bed along with a comforter and pillow and a tent for the playroom. Then two more sets of drawers for Principe and I, a kitchen table and three high stools for the kitchen. Along with all the accessories that you end up buying while in that store: candles, plants, frames, etc.
Just when we were reaching the end of the store we hear the announcement that they are closing. But we are good, right? Wrong. We still have to go through the factory part downstairs and pick up all of the boxes of the items we have written down. If you have never been to IKEA the top floor is the display area where you see the furniture built and you write down the specific aisle that the box is located, then you go downstairs and pick up all of your boxes. As we place the first two items on our cart we get two sales people, very nervous, approaching us to ask if we were finished. We showed them the very long list that we had to pick up and their frustration is evident. Five minutes later they come back over to see how we are doing and decide to “help”. Soon we have five people trying to help us. Unfortunately there are three things that are out of stock, but the rest they are going to get for us. So I go to the cashier to start paying for things and soon it looks like we are done. Principe goes to the other part of the store to pay for transport that will go out on Monday, which sucks but there is nothing that we can do about it.
When I join him he gives me a look that say, “This sucks.” Apparently they aren’t sure if they can get all of the stuff into the computer on time before the program shuts down. Five minutes later….success! And now to pay for the transportation: 118Euro. What? Well, you have to pay the 59Euro twice because there is too much weight. Fine. We do it. No arguing. It is 8:30 already and we are the only ones left in the store besides these two workers and security. We pay. We go find something to eat.
Back at home, with Queenie in bed, we express our frustration at the items that were out of stock. Taking out the recipe and the list that we had written down during our voyage through the display area we start looking for the things that were out of stock…and find that we have paid for only HALF of a sofa-bed and that our two sets of drawers didn’t make it onto the cart either. We paid for twice the transportation and we don’t even have all of the items that were in stock. So much for the five people “helping” us. They didn’t get it right. We have to go back. Awesome. The frustration level is high right now. But there is nothing else to do but to go to bed and wait until Monday to see if we can get the other items and get them on the truck. Luckily our truck isn’t set to go out until 6pm. Hopefully they will be nice and let us get the other items on there.
(Didn’t have internet yesterday to plug in this post. So here it is today.)
10:00Am
Having movers pack your stuff is a strange experience. Right now Queenie and I have been pushed to a corner in my bedroom, made to get out of the way. Every time we dare to leave we bump into someone, making us feel in the way and outsiders in our own home. For awhile we were huddled in the kitchen having breakfast on the floor while playing with her choo-choo. it was fine until she saw a strange man pick up her maneeno that her papa brought home from the United States and put him into a box. There was a little freaking out, but after explaining to her over and over that maneeno would be in her new room in just two days she finally settled down. Other than that one little moment she seems to be fine with the fact that all of our stuff is going into boxes. I guess that since her parents are okay with all of this that she feels like it is all okay. That and the fact that she is watching her choo-choo movie for the first time since going to Toulouse!
13:30 (We use military time in Europe)
Time to eat lunch. The movers left to eat lunch and Queenie and I are now at a diner to do the same. Honestly, I thought that she might take a nap, but then the waitress brought crayons, so, well, things must be colored on. She ate two scrambled eggs that I managed to make for her before the moving storm moved into the kitchen. I really wasn’t prepared for how rapidly they do stuff here. I went to get a wash cloth and they suddenly weren’t there! The annoying thing to me is that I have no control over stuff and they don’t really ask me. I had to remember to go set aside cleaning supplies and paper towels and the mop myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t get there in time to grab the mop bucket so I will have to squeeze out the mop water by hand. Sweet. What with my germ phobia and my joint problems (they keep cramping up. Is that gestational arthritis???) I am totally looking forward to that. Did I mention that last night I got less than 6 hours of sleep. I can’t stop yawning.
Oh, french fries. Gotta go!
18:15
Cleaning is done. Queenie hasn’t had a nap and it shows, although she is being really good. Other than the fact that she has tried to place a screw into an outlet two times now which has led to her mommy yelling NO like she has never yelled no before, she is being pretty good. I am tired and my back is aching and honestly, with the mood I am in, if I were the child I’d be in the corner right now. She really wants me to sit on the floor and color with her and the more she pesters me about it the more frustrated I get. I am trying to speak calmly to her, (except for the outlet incidents), but I am having a hard time. Or I should say, that I was having a hard time. Now that I’m done cleaning I am feeling a bit better. But now it is snowing (something that has actually kept Queenie entertained) and my plans to go downtown to kill time and buy a brown sweater are no longer feasible. So we will have to go to the tiny mall near our house to kill time. Principe won’t be coming home until 7pm, so he says. But when Principe says an certain time of day you have to add at least another hour onto that time. So I’m thinking 8pm. And my aching back could just scream at that. I haven’t sat down since lunch and I have been bending over in strange ways to reach the backs of cabinets and drawers for the last hour and a half. I can barely walk. I need tea. So right now, at this very moment I am drinking tea at the coffee shop in the mall while Queenie walks circles around the tables and takes a bite of her croissant while passing by me. What a way to eat a snack. I need to figure out dinner for her. She is still walking but is so tired that I’m not sure how well she is going to behave while the casero (landlord) comes and has us sign off on the house. He’s really nice and I don’t fault him for wanting to do this, but the idea of it makes me cringe. Queenie could be either really good (as she has been today) or could end up having a temper tantrum, which is something I won’t be able to handle with my back and my outright tiredness.
Principe says he should be home no later than 19:30. So we’ll be leaving here at 19:30 and no earlier. I really need to figure out dinner.
Ugh. Time to go. I literally have been sitting here staring at my precious daughter walking around and around and my mind has been otherwise blank. Blank, blank, blank. I will live in Toulouse starting Friday. Wow. I’m a little sad. Pretty sad. I had lunch with a friend yesterday where we found out that we have more in common than we thought we did, which just made us sad because we won’t be able to develop this friendship in a normal way. It will have to be through the internet. Which can still happen, but it isn’t as nice as having actually coffee face to face while we watch our daughters play together. But what are you going to do? We are moving. And I’m excited about that. But I will have another four months of no friends.
Gotta go. The casero will be sitting out in the snow waiting for me.
Midnight
We are in Valladolid. Queenie actually fell asleep the moment I placed her in her carseat without the car even being started! So strange for her! She didn’t end up eating anything else for dinner and screamed twice during the trip for what seemed to be tooth pain, but went back to sleep both times and is now in her travel crib asleep. Didn’t even peep on the move from the car to the house.
Besides my daughter not giving me stress I am trying not to be pissed right now at our new landlady. She is a real peach. And when I say peach what I really mean is a 5 letter B word. She lives in Paris and has decided to come into Toulouse at 2pm. She told our intermediary that we HAVE TO BE THERE NO LATER THAN 2PM to go over the house with her NOTARY and discuss the holes that are already in the wall and how much she will be charging us for any additional (along with stains, rips, crack, etc). She won’t let the movers start until after this is done and says she will need at least 2 hours to do this. ERRRRR! She is basically making us leave at 5 in the morning to get there by 2pm, not having yet eaten and possibly with a two year old that hasn’t taken a nap and definitely hasn’t gotten to run around all morning long to walk around the house at a snail’s pace to find all the “problems” in the house. I am trying really hard not to be angry that this woman is imposing her timetable on us when we are supposedly the clients in this business transaction. Ignacio is annoyed too that she is trying to make us pay a fee for moving in three days before the start of a new month. She seems a bit odd. Ugh. 5 in the morning we have to leave. Just thinking of it makes me feel dizzy. And the moving part won’t even get to start until 4pm. So we won’t get to settle into our house until bed time. I just pray that Queenie is a good on Friday as she was today. Please, please, please!
Time for bed. Moving day part one is over. Part deux to come.
Did you ever think about the dignity that you lose at the end of pregnancy and, of course, in the birth? How many people within those two months see our vaginas and stick their fingers up them? It’s really disturbing when you think about it that way, isn’t it? The place that is supposed to be the most private on your body suddenly becomes the focus of many people’s attention. Something that your mother always told isn’t supposed to be touched except by you or your husband (my mother was a dreamer…but that’s what I’ll be telling Queenie and little N!) ( I just have to add a side note here that Queenie is dusting my house with baby wipes, and doing a spectacular job. My judgement might be a bit turned around since I don’t dust….) is suddenly being felt over by so many different people’s fingers that you lose count.
I am to that point in the pregnancy. Getting past the point of the penis-like ultrasound wand (UGH!) is always my number one goal, which I was happy to find was much easier on the second pregnancy than the first. With Queenie I had the joy of getting that penis wand stuck up me four time because they could never find her without it! Now I am at the monitoring part, the “Let me stick my fingers up you to see if you are dialated” part. Ick.
(I would like to interrupt here just to say that I have just noticed I only put deodorant on one armpit today….)
One good thing is that I really feel like Little N is going to come sooner than her internet inspired due date of April 6. (My doc never gave me an official date. She said she doesn’t find it important since they can come whenever they want!) Why do I think this? Just from the way she is moving. She is super low right now. So low at 30 weeks that I feel her fingers move across my pelvic floor. A freaky, icky sensation in my book. I also have certain pains that I only had at the very end with Queenie and I am starting to have contractions. Not big ones and very sporadic, but contractions all the same. To the point that I have started to refuse to pick up Queenie. Me, the mama who did weight lifting until just a few weeks ago (when these weird signs started and I thought I should slow down a bit) who refused to stop wearing a baby sling with my toddler in it until I was 23 weeks along and simply couldn’t anymore. Me, the one who used to roll her eyes at my SIL because from the day she found out she was pregnant she stopped picking up her one year old.
We shall see one week from today what my new doc thinks. Yes, that’s right, I have a doctor! Yea! An English speaking doctor at that who works in the second best clinic to give birth in in France! Their c-section rate is only 15% and they have water baths for birth. Don’t know if I’ll get one, but they have them! There is one little glitch that we have to get smoothed out in the next few days, though: the clinic is private. So we aren’t sure if our Spanish and private insurance combination will cover a birth there. They claim that their birth costs are lower, so maybe it will work out in our favor, but that has more to do with bureaucracy than anything else. So, while awaiting a call or email from the insurance company, we will dream the big dream of going to the second best place in France. With an English speaking doctor. And if it doesn’t work out it will really be too late to care about anything else other than finding a doctor, so……here’s hoping it works out!
