Walk with me

March has gone out like a lamb. The city is positively bursting with spring. Daffodils and forsythia are blooming madly and a rainbow of peonies are peeping out of the ground. The birds are singing, the teenagers are necking, and the weather is so mild, well, even I want to go play on the playground with Bee. (Which is something I generally don't care to do--all that yucky sand and misbehaving children.)

But yesterday, I was not noticing the pretty flowers or the little birdies or anything of the sort. David was working late, so I arrived home to face the task of shepherding Bee along on Maxwell's evening walk. Independently, Max and Bee are a joy to go out in public with. Together, they are Bonny and Clyde.

Grimly, I set to getting Bee dressed and finding Maxwell's leash and the keys and the doggy bags. We all made it down the stairs and out the front door when Maxwell promptly threw up all over the front porch. Better than in the house I guess.

Looking at the situation objectively, I knew that if we went all the way back upstairs to bring down a bucket of water to clean up the mess, well, we'd never make it out again. So we ducked and ran (fully intending to clean up upon our return). Maxwell was still vomiting a little, but quickly got whatever it was out of his system.

Bee seems to have given up riding in her stroller, for the most part, and I think that's a good thing. But gosh, a toddler's pace is maddening. She wants to go slow. Max wants to go fast. I feel like a Gumby toy, stretched in both directions. Bee is picking up leaves and little sticks. Max is looking for anything disgusting to eat.

On and on we walk. Two whole blocks down the street. We head around the corner when Bee spots a prize stick--big and sturdy, the perfect size for a two year old to carry as a baton. She's so excited, she's going to be leading an imaginary parade and she is just bursting with her find. Two seconds later, Max spots the stick as well. It's the perfect size for a Labrador to carry in his mouth! To chew and crunch into twenty tiny pieces. And he does just that. Oh the horror. Abby is screaming in anger at Max and trying to hit him. Max is dancing around in circles. I quickly grab another stick to placate Abby, but perhaps it was not a good idea to give my little Fury an additional weapon.

I separate the two. Max on one side, Bee on the other, angrily holding the replacement stick. She screams about the injustice of what happened for two more blocks. Max smugly prances on my other side. Score one for dogdom.

Fortunately, fortunately, at the end of this street is a phone booth. That might seem strange, but Bee loves all phone booths. She likes to stand inside and pretend to make a call. And as we continue walking, I can just see it. It's like a rusty beacon of hope. The Distraction. The holy grail of parenting a toddler. The phone booth trick works, and we are able to continue peacefully back home.

Additional excitement ensued later on, including washing the front porch where Max threw up (lovely how six people arrived home while I was doing that), but mostly it was just run of the mill toddler stuff. And you know, when I am at work all day, I am just waiting to go home to more of it. It's the only place I want to be.

Book #15: "Ireland" by Frank Delaney

This novel was utterly transporting. While reading, as I usually do, before going to sleep, I found myself propping my eyelids open to enjoy "just a few more pages."

I usually don't enjoy the story within a story gimmick. Most writers fail somewhere between the fictional past and fictional present. Not Frank Delaney though. He triumphs.

In "Ireland" the storyteller, the senchai, weaves such a captivating tale that I was startled back into the present at the end of each chapter. The rest of the novel was very evenly told, there was only a little drama, a small mystery, and no real romance to speak of. Its mild tone serves as the perfect backdrop for the soaring stories of the senchai. I have never so much enjoyed reading a history of Ireland, albeit a mythologized one.

Hard Rock Romania

Last Sunday we finally went to the Hard Rock Cafe in Bucharest. I had been very suspicious of this restaurant assuming, wrongly, that it would be a poor imitation of real American fare. But we had heard from some of our office colleagues that Sunday afternoons were especially for children, and decided to give it a try.

The restaurant is located at one end of a popular park, amidst the scariest group of amusement park rides you could ever imagine. "Whirling death trap" came to mind. A number of other cheap fast food joints were clustered around:



However, upon entry, you were whisked into the world of American rock and roll. Every square inch of the walls was covered with music paraphernalia and a number of flat screen televisions playing music videos. Bee was in awe.

The hamburgers were massive, the service was attentive, and they even had a girl dressed as a clown (an edgy clown sporting a nose ring no less) making balloon animals for all the kids: pure Americana in the heart of Bucharest. We'll definitely go back.

Spring Chicken

To celebrate the start of spring, Bee and I are reading books about ducks and chickens and other feathered friends:

The Little Red Hen is a favorite.


And if you have a toddler, I highly recommend "Chicky Chicky Chook Chook."

Tuesday is pastry day

I have found that in order to break up the monotony of the work week, I have to create my own special routines for myself, mostly involving food.

For one, as soon as arrive at work I brew my morning cup of cinnamon tea. It is not a gentle herbal blend but rather spicy-hot cinnamon paired with strong black tea. It's as close to coffee as I'll ever get.

However, since Tuesday is my least favorite day of the entire week (over the shock of Monday and Friday is depressingly far off) I plan for a very special bribe: the melc.

While the word melc may sound unpleasant, it is oh so delicious. A melc is a swirl of sweet yeasted dough, soft and gooey in the middle, and crispy on the outside. The inside of the spiral is filled with raisins and cacao.

I like to buy my morning melc at the bakery located inside the metro station by my office. While most bakeries are either delivery or heating up frozen pastries, this one actually bakes from scratch.

It's the little things like pastry on Tuesday morning that carry me through the week.

Books #12, #13, and #14

I was able to read a lot on my trips to Paris and Iasi, while waiting to make numerous airline connections, with the exception of catching the Munich-Bucharest leg on my way back from Paris. That was a 40 minute connection and we took off from Paris 15 minutes late. Fortunately, my sister lives in Munich and I know the airport fairly well, but still, I ran, and arrived at my gate out of breath and just in time to board.

But the books . . . I picked two good ones for my trip from the gem of a bookshop around the corner from my apartment.

"The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield
I bought this book because the review on the back said, "Start reading this on the bus and, I swear, you won't only miss your stop, you might even lose the whole day." And it's true, the story was very engrossing, although not entirely to my taste. Basically, it's the story of a lonely bookshop girl (who only likes to eat toast and hot cocoa, I don't think a single eating scene in the book had her chowing down on/sipping anything else). The girl aspires to be a writer and gets has chance to write the biography of a very strange writer who had an even stranger childhood. It was interesting, but not very believable.

"Tatiana and Alexander" by Paullina Simons
I was extremely irritated when I finished this book because I realized that it was the second book in a trilogy. Now I have to go back and read the first one before I read the next book in the series. It won't be nearly as enjoyable since I know how the first book ends!

This novel tells the story of, you guessed it, Tatiana and Alexander, husband and wife, she Russian, he Russian-American, who end up separated at the end of WWII. Tatiana escapes the Soviet Union. Alexander is forced to fight in the Red Army. Both of the main characters really want to find the other. . . Lots of adventure ensues. I was reading this in the Iasi airport, and the plot was so suspenseful that I realized I was clutching the book. When I looked up, the lady sitting across from me was watching me with a bemused expression.

After my trip I picked up:
"My Enemy's Cradle" by Sara Young
This novel tells the story of the Lebensborn program during Nazi Germany in WWII. It's a quick read, and tells the story of two cousins and how one of them, Cyrla, who is half Jewish, finds herself a prisoner inside one of the Lebensborn maternity homes--essentially hiding in plain sight.

In Season: Spinach

This is how we triple wash.

After a barren winter, spring vegetables are beginning to arrive in the local market. The temperature outside is much more wintry than spring-like, but despite the persistent chill spinach, radishes, green onions, and new potatoes can be found in all the market stalls.

I love spinach. We put it on our pizza, in salads, with any kind of pasta, stuffed in crepes, on veggie melts, and tomorrow morning . . . in a nice cheesy omelet.

Mothers and daughters

Some women are just meant to become mothers. Everyone has a friend about whom you think, "She would be such a great Mom." Your friend is capable, comfortable with a crying child, confident in her own self. Maybe she's married, maybe she's not. She might be a proud aunt or sister. She may be a teacher or caregiver. Whoever she is, whether she can actually bear children or not, you just know, she would be the best kind of Mom.

By the best kind of Mom I mean the kind who would make homemade birthday cakes slathered in frosting, who would always has a minute (but just a minute sweetie) to crouch down at her child's level and build a castle out of blocks, and would (at least appear to) have endless patience with fourth grade science projects. Not a TV mom, none of the extremes of June or Roseanne, but a real Mom who loves her children with her whole heart.

I know now that motherhood begins when the idea of having a baby is mere gossip on the playground and continues on, through labor and delivery and birthdays and college graduation, following an endless thread. However, it is the new mother, cradling her floppy-necked, wrinkly baby with a mixture of protectiveness and awe, who is the epitome of maternal grace.

The new mother still remembers how much labor and delivery hurt, hasn't slept more than three hours at a time for three weeks, and is hoping that she is doing it right. Even though it has been two years since Bee was born, I still remember those days with the utmost clarity. Maybe it is impossible to ever forget.

But it is now my sister-in-law's turn to be washing tiny onesies and socks, to be nursing and rocking though the night, and as she and her baby drift in and out of sleep, to imagine what shape her daughter's future will take.

Congratulations J. You are the best kind of mom.

Love,

M

Little shoes

Bee is sleeping with her new Nikes tonight. Like all new pairs of tennis shoes, the colors are bright and unsullied and the shoe itself is factory fresh.

Bee was so excited to try out her latest pair that she cried when it came time to undress and get ready for bed. The compromise we made was that if she took them off she could sleep with them. (The shoes haven't been outside, so they are relatively clean.)

As I tucked my daughter into bed (who was holding in her arms both shoes, a small doll and a McDonald's happy meal toy named "Old Mac Donald's dog", with a bear wearing a nightdress and an ugly plastic baby alongside) I reminded myself that I belong to the "pick your battles" school of parenting.

I could have insisted that she put the shoes away. Bee would have cried for a few minutes, maybe more, but in the end, she would have gone to sleep without them. But taking a pair of new shoes to bed doesn't break any of the major family rules (cleaning up after yourself and being nice). It's not a health or safety issue. And it made her happy.

Parenting a toddler can be exasperating. I find that I am constantly asking myself, with the onset of each new (minor and major) drama, of which there are many each day, "is this important?" If it is, I stand my ground. If it is not, I let it go.

So if Bee wants to wear her rain boots and stomp in every puddle while we're out walking Max, wear her tutu to the vegetable market, or dance in Starbucks, then so be it. She has an amazing spirit which I am privileged to watch grow.

One more post about Paris

My weekend in Paris was too short. I need to go back and spend a week. Bring David and Bee. Rent an apartment off of one of the winding streets in the Jewish quarter. Eat more croissants. Spend more time in Notre Dame. Say my confession to a French priest who speaks four languages. Visit the crypts.


I want to go back to the Louvre. Ponder the pyramids with "The Da Vinci Code" tucked under my arm. Become lost in the galleries.




I want to wander down the Champs de Elysees, window shop,
drink hot chocolate, soak up the city life.



Someday, I suppose.

The women in Paris...

In Notre Dame I met the brave and virtuous St. Joan of Arc. Keep praying for us, Joan.

This lady is fierce. Nike is not to be trifled with, even without a head.

What can I say about the Mona Lisa?
Even behind bulletproof glass her eyes follow you around the room.

Here she is surrounded by the paparazzi.

My hands down favorite, though, was meeting Venus de Milo.

She is perfection.

If I lived in Paris

I would have a pretty apartment with a window box for flowers.


I would shop for cheese at a fromagerie.



On the weekend, I would take long walks along the river.



And I would never want for fresh bread.

Icon

What's that up there?



See something through the trees?




Oh! It's beautiful.



I *heart* Paris.
More pictures to come.

Iasi

It's hard to believe that a week ago tonight, I was on a business trip in the far north of Romania, eating a really tasty chimichanga for dinner. The hotel/restaurant where I spent my second evening in Iasi was called Little Texas. True to its name, they served up delicious Tex-Mex food at about one third of the price in the US. The owners are allegedly Texan, or at least visited Texas at some point in their lives.

My first night's dinner in Iasi was not nearly as good, mainly because I arrived after 8 pm and didn't feel like venturing out into the city. I joined fellow solo business travelers in the hotel dining room. Each of us sat with a magazine or book at a large table by ourselves, the loneliest crowd of restaurant-goers you could ever imagine. In an attempt to cover up the awkwardness, the owners blared hip-hop music. This was in an Italian restaurant. Very incogruous, but I was too tired to care.

My main entertainment for the evening was when a crowd of French businessmen and their Romanian translator showed up for dinner and all demanded French fries and salad. That was all they wanted and I don't think the wait staff could quite believe it.

I have discovered that I really like the concept of business travel but the fun wears off after about three hours. I am just not used to being by myself. I did a little sightseeing, but mostly spent my down time reading through the big stack of magazines I squeezed in my suitcase and polishing off two more novels.

I didn't take very many pictures in Iasi. Most of the city seems to be under construction.


St. Nicholas church was lovingly cared for.


The Culture Palace was very big and undergoing an even bigger renovation.

Mostly though, when I wasn't working, I was thinking about the upcoming weekend--in Paris!

Pot of gold

I wish I could take credit for this photo, but it was snapped by David during his father-daughter trip to the mountains this weekend. Romania can be so heart-breakingly beautiful.

And we're off!

I'm off on a business trip and then headed to a girls weekend in Paris.

In my absence, David is taking Bee to a ski resort for some father-daughter bonding. They are planning on building a snowman, or two, and going sledding.

See you next week.

They're all tuckered out:

And so am I.