May 2011 - Part time terrorist AND Pickpocket

Zoë is expanding her repertoire - she's moved into pickpocketing...mostly her father in preparation for teenage years.

May has come and gone in a flash with visits from Mims, celebration(s) of maman's birthday and a trip to Tuscany to visit Bibi and Mimi. Life as Zoë is never boring!

May started with a visit to Tati Valerie's new home and a walk along the canal for a sneak peek at the Olympic stadium. Zoë decided she wanted to have her toe nails painted so Tati Valerie got her some orange nail polish. For maman's birthday, Marin and Zoë whipped up a chocolate cake with raspberries on top. They of course had to pre-wash the bowls before they went to the dishwasher. Mims came to London for a 10 day visit - What a treat! Zoë got to see her every day and they went to the Whipsnade Zoo where she saw lots of giant animals.

We ended the month with a trip to Tuscany to meet up with Bibi and Mimi. It was beautiful and Zoë ate pasta and pizza and more pasta and more pizza. It's no myth that Italians love kids - she had her cheeks pinched and was cooed over numerous times. She had a great time chasing pigeons, riding the carrousel and going to the playground with Bibi. She made her father very proud by eating lots of roasted rabbit. The slight downside of the trip was the air travel (yes, all 3 hours of it) - More experienced parents out there - when does traveling in a metal tube with a child become tolerable again??

Some other random highlights...

- She is now speaking to K in English and JJ in French which is pretty cool. She was also caught initiating a conversation with Marin in French.

- Favourite sing-along song: Pirouette Cacahuete - Zoë sings along with JJ by singing Cacahuete after JJ sings Pirouette - She'll even do it if she's in the middle of a tantrum or sucking her thumb. Second favourite song: New York (Alicia Keys version).

- When JJ suggests that she sings a particular song, she will often say "Pas celle la" (Not that one) until he has come up with an acceptable choice.

- Instead of saying "Qu'est-ce que c'est" (What is that)? She says "Que-ca?"

- She has been working on her counting - In English, she tends to forget the number 9 and in French she forgets number 5. For number 3, in French, she says 'ha' instead of 'trois'

- Favourite book - Dr. Suess's The Foot Book.

- Favourite foods - Pasta

- Favourite activities - Chasing pigeons, gardening, cleaning, and carrying shopping bags (hmm, no predictions on future professions please)

- Nursery Milestone - Zoë moved into the bigger kids room at nursery - Les Petits Poussins. She has had a really smooth transition and loves her new key worker, Marinela who she knew in the baby room. She has 2 friends from her old room, Marni and Bella which has made the move easier. She's still loving Football (aka Soccer) with coach Danny on Fridays and porridge on Fridays for breakfast.

See you in June again...

Pox and Ponies

Ok, this is supposed to be the April entry and it's 2nd May - But let's see if we can remember the last month...We have had amazing weather here in London (and in France) and we are thankful to Will and Kate for getting married and giving us an extra bank holiday this year. Between Good Friday, Easter Monday, THE WEDDING and the regular early-May Bank Holiday, we got 11 days off for the price of 3...so this is what Zoë did to take advantage of the short work-month...

It started out great with a visit from Bibi and Mimi (aka Bill and Joan). They flew into Heathrow where we picked them up and made a 2 hour journey to the midlands (aka Derbyshire) where we met up with our friends Michelle and Guy and visited some beautiful historical estates and took some nice hikes (translation: visited the petting farm and the cafe at the estate and walked across a field to look at some cows). The highlights of the trip were blowing out the candles on Bibi's and Guy's birthday cake and feeding carrots to some horses. Wild stuff!

The middle of the month was a bit rough - Zoë contracted chicken pox exactly 2 weeks after her pal Marin had them (who got them exactly 2 weeks after their friend Leo had them). Yes Americans, you read correctly, Chicken Pox. We still have it here in the UK (and Europe for that matter). We learned quite a bit about this wonderful childhood disease...The NHS (that's the UK's free health service) does not fund the vaccination as it believes that a) it's not cost effective to vaccinate UK children against this non-life threatening childhood disease and b) it's better immunisation to have chicken pox than to have the vaccination and then potentially forget the booster every 5 years and risk having it as an adolescent or adult when it's not such an innocuous, non-life threatening disease. All I can say is in retrospect, it may be non-life threatening but several sleepless nights later, 2 days of missed nursery, lots and lots of very uncomfortable itchiness and now a mild obsession with that lovely tasting "'cation" (aka Benadryl), the vaccination is looking pretty good to us. Anyway, Zoë (and we) lived to tell the story. When she was finally deemed non-contagious and able to leave quarantine (our house) we ventured to Ikea. Unfortunately, the non-contagious, healing stage involves lots of plague-like scabby bumps so generally generates a variety of looks including horror, recrimination and sympathy (from experienced parents). In Ikea, it meant that the aisles were cleared as we wheeled Zoë and her scabby face through the store. Thankfully, she was fixated on the ice cream cone promised to her at the end of the maze, I mean store, and was oblivious to her surroundings. (BTW, we do not (officially) condone bribery as a parenting method).

A slight side note here - We are (fill in the blank) to announce that Zoë has completely mastered the art of the tantrum. She can stomp her feet, kick, scream, turn beet red, cry massive crocodile tears and even froth at the mouth. A recent tantrum required 2 full grown adults to get her into the car seat. Another one involved screaming at full volume from the time we left the nanny all the way home on the back of K's bike, up the stairs, through the door and into the house (for a total of 47 minutes). [Parental note - there is an upside to these - Child expends enormous amounts of energy during these sessions, rendering them much easier to put to bed later on]

The month ended well with our 11-for-3 holiday. We decided to skip the wedding (invitation graciously declined of course) and take the car train to France. We first visited our ex-landlords, now friends, the Harmers who have a lovely house in Picardie in northern France. They have 4 kids under the age of 11 + a new trampoline and there was a local village Easter egg hunt. What more could a 2 1/2 year old want? Then we headed to Montpellier (9 hour drive over 2 days) to see Jean-Jacques' parents. Zoë stayed with Mami and Papi overnight (and parents got to sleep in until 8:30 am 2 days in a row, hooray!). She enjoyed Mami's food, including sardines, mussels and brie cheese. We got to go to the beach, the zoo and Zoë had her first pony ride. She had a grin from ear to ear the entire time. And now we're back at home, ready to tackle May, looking forward to a new room with bigger kids at the nursery, a visit from Mims (aka Carol) and a trip to Tuscany with Bibi and Mimi at the end of the month. Life is good in Z-land.