Five Things I Love About France

1. The Simple Life. No activity mat. No bouncy chair. No swing. No boppy pillow. No Baby Bjorn chair. No wipes warmer. No toys (save for my giraffe security blanket, which I wouldn't even categorize as a toy). Take away all of my baby accoutrement, and I felt and acted much more like a man. I was even able to entertain myself for somewhat unfathomable periods of time, simply sitting by myself on the couch or on M & D's bed.

2. The Road Trips. I'm beginning to realize that, while their judgment is sometimes somewhat questionable in my opinion, my parents may actually be intelligent people... although there's not enough evidence to say for sure. But in any event, they're quick studies. After our bumpy drive in, daddy became a pro at driving stick. Mommy worked up the courage to give it a try after a couple of days of watching daddy and she was an ace driver. She is better at it than daddy (she made me write this). And she didn't stall out once during her first drive to the supermarket and back (she made we write this as well, although it's purely a statement of fact). We took a lot of road trips through the gorgeous countryside in Provence and saw some really cool places (all of which I'll detail in a future blog post) and I loved riding in the car. I was usually on my best behavior and didn't mind it at all when we got lost and/or drove for hours.

3. The Food. While I am on a strictly breast-milk diet, I enjoyed the food as an observer and lived vicariously through M & D. Croissants, pain-au-chocolat, fromage, charcuterie, fresh fish, grilled steak, gourmet cheeseburgers, duck, crepes, and chocolate are just some of the delicacies my parents (mostly mommy because daddy is somewhat strict with his diet... I won't get into it, it's for a different blog post) enjoyed while in France.

4. The Wine. Again, I lived vicariously through mommy and daddy (mostly daddy this time) as far as the wine goes.  And boy did they enjoy some wine. We were taken on a day-long wine tasting tour through the Luberon region by a French wine expert named Francios. Francios taught M & D the proper way to taste wine and now daddy employs the method all the time, which at one point involves taking a sip of wine, holding the wine in your mouth while taking in 2-3 sips of air, "chewing" the wine (a/k/a swooshing the wine around in your mouth) 2-3 times, and finally swallowing. You're only supposed to do this when you initially taste a newly opened bottle of wine. Daddy now does it with each sip he takes. Picture it.

5. Piano Lullabies. We all struggled with jet lag the first couple of nights in France. Always quick to experiment with new things, M & D started playing piano lullabies for me at night. There's an album of popular rock/pop songs played on the piano that mommy found on Spotify. It's something that will always remind me of France because we played it every night, all night and I loved it. The lullabies were so soothing, they helped me sleep 8-9 hours straight each night pretty much the entirety of our trip.

Vive la France!

I leave you with a video of me "dancing" in France... and of mommy laughing at me doing it. She will need me more than I need her one day and guess who will be laughing then.

Love,
WFT