Bonjour Mes Amis

Hello, from France. It's your favorite world traveling blogging baby, Weston (pronounced with a french-sounding accent on the "o" and a silent "n"). This past week and a half has brought a whirlwind of activity into my life and I've yet to process it all fully, but I do know a couple of things: I am in love with France. And I want to be French when I grow up.

It all started on Tuesday of last week. A baggage packing frenzy occurred in the Bargoz-Tedeschi-Tedeschi household that morning and then suddenly we were off to the airport. We left our home an absurd 4 1/2 hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. I thought that was awfully excessive on the part of M & D. I'm just a baby. How hard did M & D think it would be to get me through security?

Turns out, O'Hare was a breeze. We checked our bags, flew through security and battled it out with the other baby on the flight to get the only bassinet on the airplane (that baby and her mom didn't stand a chance against my mommy's military tactics). I must note that the airplane bassinet basket is a pretty clever invention. It's a little metal-framed bassinet that attaches to and is suspended from the bulkhead. Ingenuity aside, I didn't want anything to do with that bassinet. It's bad enough I didn't get my own seat. Did they really think I would fall asleep in that old dirty basket which I am sure was manufactured in the 1970s? No thanks. I spent the entirety of the flight in M & D's arms, which means they didn't sleep very well, but who can sleep on an overnight flight crossing the Atlantic anyway? Mommy and I also experienced a traumatizing but necessary in-flight diaper change which I will not elaborate further on.

In France, M & D had their brightest idea yet (and I say "brightest" with the highest degree of sarcasm fathomable). They decided to rent a car with a manual transmission (i.e. - a stick shift) knowing full well that neither of them knew how to drive stick. Daddy watched a couple of YouTube videos on it and mommy read a Wikihow article on the flight. Really, folks? These are the people who are supposed to teach and guide me in life?

Well, it's a good thing I slept through the entire hour-long drive from the Marseilles airport to our home in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Mommy told me about it afterwards and, albeit hilarious, it wasn't pretty.

Daddy drove and things were initially going pretty well.. until we stalled out at our first toll booth... about 8 times... before we even made it up to the ticket machine. He had to turn his hazard lights on because a crowd of cars accumulated behind him as we were struggling to inch forward. After we finally made it up to the machine - ticket in hand and barrier gate up - we stalled another several times trying to pull past the gate.

From there, things were again going well... until the second toll booth. Same story: stalled out over and over again just getting to the machine. Hazard lights on. Then, when we reached to the machine, M & D realized they couldn't pay the toll because they only had 100 Euro bills and no small change. (Again, these people are supposed to be my role models in life?) When a human being finally came to our aid, Daddy had to reach his entire body out of the driver's side window to hand the lady our money because the booth was 3 feet in front of him and he couldn't inch the car close enough to her without stalling.

Then came the pinnacle of our drive in. We finally made it to town and were about 5 minutes from our home when we stalled out in the middle of an intersection. With so many people honking behind him and the pressure really on, Daddy lost his cool and couldn't get the car going again without stalling out... over and over and over and over and over again... until two French men got out of their cars and physically pushed our car out of the middle of the intersection. Daddy was sure there was something wrong with the car. Which, in fact, was not the case. Daddy eventually regained his composure and confidence and was able to get the car going again.

We finally made it safely to our very French, very charming cottage (three bedrooms, immensely stocked kitchen, jacuzzi tub, fireplace, terrace with enclosed stone grill), which is located within a little hamlet of remodeled and modernized farm houses owned by a lovely Chicago native named William. William and his staff had a home cooked dinner (and more importantly for M & D after the drive in, a couple bottles of wine) waiting for us upon our arrival. And they brought us fresh baked croissants and pain au chocolat in the mornings.

We arrived on Wednesday of last week. On Thursday, we explored our little town of Saint-Remy-de-Provence and got our bearings, followed by dinner on our terrace. On Friday, we visited an ancient Roman aqueduct called the Pont du Gard. On Saturday, we drove down to a beautiful town on the Mediterranean called Cassis and took a boat ride along the "Calanques du Cassis," which are little creeks carved into the massive cliffs lining the ocean. On our way home, we stopped at a lookout point where I got my first (of many) "roadie" diaper changes in the back of the car. Daddy's gotten pretty good at the roadie diaper change. Mommy, on the other hand, can't handle them because they offend her type-A (i.e., control freak) sensibilities.

More on the rest of the trip later. Until then, I leave you with some (rather, a lot of) pictures from the first several days.

Love,
WFT

Book Club = Baby Club

Boy did time fly this week. Nothing really exciting to report on my end, which might explain my lack of blogging. That, and my inspiration to write has been at an all time low. I seem to be battling with a bit of writer's block. But have no fear, my devoted followers. I'm sure it's but a phase. Every baby prodigy with his own blog is bound to go through it.

I suspect my writing funk is a direct result of the fact that I am currently required to hang out with a bunch of babies all day, instead of passing away my days with just mommy (and the various adults that came in and out of my life periodically), peacefully sitting in deep contemplation and introspection. Nowadays, there are loud, laughing, screaming, drooling, burping babies around me all the time. And our mommies do things like crowd us together on the floor in a circle and take pictures of us. And then the baby next to me starts licking my hand, of all things. It's utter barbarism.

Of course, if you haven't noticed by now, I may have a penchant for complaining for dramatic effect. Truth is, I am quite enamored with all my new baby friends, boys and girls alike. And the baby who licked my hand? Her name is Harper and I think she's pretty cool. I applaud her audacity. And I was more than happy to share my hand. I must confess I love to lick it too.

Last weekend, after the hubbub of Halloween subsided, mommy and I went for a nice quiet lunch with her friend Erika and baby Hugo. Baby Hugo is my kind of guy. He looks a lot like me (we both have very charming chubby cheeks) and he acts a lot like me too. For example, he, like I, cannot sit quietly throughout an entire lunch. It's because we both have a joie de vivre about us.

On Monday, I had lunch with my buds Aidan and Brady at our moms' favorite spot - Crosby Kitchen. On Wednesday, I went to music class at Old Town School of Folk Music (we go every Wednesday). I love music class. Our teacher plays her guitar and all the mommies sit around singing to their babies. There are some pretty cool babies in the class, including one stunning little baby girl named Teddy. Maybe one day I will work up the nerve to sit next to her in class. On Thursday, we had book club a/k/a baby club (more on that below). And on Friday, I went on a long walk with my favorite twin girls Clara and Violet. Our mommies took us to Starbucks and Home Depot. A curious combo of destinations, but I didn't care where we were going as long as those little twin ladies were by my side.

On Thursday, mommy met with her book club (which is actually our mommies' group). On our walk to our host Jennifer's house, I was envisioning and looking forward to an intelligent and animated discussion of The Great Gatsby. Silly, silly, severely mistaken me. The scene that unfolded before me was anything but what I had imagined. There were babies everywhere, taking up every square inch of Jennifer's living room floor. There were mommies drinking wine and a very large spread of delicious-looking snacks. And there was a very abbreviated discussion of the book, which was very quickly trumped by talk of babies, breastfeeding babies, sleeping habits of babies, baby poop and pee, and anything else you can think of relating to babies. The event culminated with the mommies positioning the babies in a circle on the floor for a group picture. And the icing on the cake? I later discovered that mommy didn't even read to book. (She claims to have read it twice in the past, but I am skeptical. And in any event, she didn't reread it or even try to skim it as a refresher in preparation for the book club).

To all the book club mommies - drop the act, ladies. Stop choosing books and just rename the event "baby club."

Love,
WFT

     

Mommy Tricked Me and Ate My Treats

Yesterday was Halloween. A holiday which I surmise is more fun for parents of babies under the age of 1 than for the babies themselves. Parents of small babies sieze upon the fact that said babies are too young and feeble to express an opinion or put up a fight and force upon these defenseless little ones ridiculous and often uncomfortable costumes all for the sake of taking pictures and showing other people how cute their babies are.

Yesterday I was the subject of such parental abuse. I was forced to wear a very large, very bright and very puffy pumpkin outfit. Mommy snuck it onto me while she was breastfeeding. One minute I was dressed in a very sleek and sophisticated all-black outfit. I thought I was going to be a Parisian artist of sorts for Halloween. The next thing I know, I am suffocating beneath the green leafy bits of an enormous pumpkin costume. She might as well have stuffed me into a pillow. And, don't even talk to me about the hat.

Okay, okay. I'm being overdramatic here. Once I realized what was happening, I decided to go with the flow and even grew quite fond of the costume after a while. It wasn't as sexy as the artist would have been, but it was pretty cute. I have to hand it to mommy - she really nails the "cute" look for me. And luckily for me, cute goes a long way with the ladies these days. However, when I am older, I will most likely turn to daddy for fashion consultations.

Mommy and I went to a Halloween party at my friend Aidan's house. Picture 16 babies, all under the age of 4 months, all dressed in absurd (but admittedly quite adorable) Halloween costumes, together in one room. It was quite a sight to see.

Later that day we went trick-or-treating down Fremont Street with M & D's friends Brian and Becca and their son Leo. I really didn't care much for trick-or-treating, perhaps because, one, it was raining and, two, I can't walk, but mommy still insisted on lugging me in the carrier from one house to the next. I think she just enjoyed having everyone swoon at the sight of the ridiculous-looking baby in the oversized pumpkin costume. Then she went home and ate all my candy. That's the last time I let mommy take me trick-or-treating.

Love,
WFT