You know what is the same in France as in the US? Sleep deprivation.
The blog has been silent for the past few weeks as I've been immersed in the 24-hours-a-day life of caring for a newborn. This part is really the same no matter the country or continent. I would say I'm sorry for dropping the blog ball, but the truth is I mostly have no idea what day it is, or what time it is, or what my own name is.
Speaking of dropping the ball, another thing that I have to believe is the same is the adjustment of the older sibling to the baby. Overall, Baby Oil is very sweet to his little sister, who I'll be calling Mademoiselle here - except, for instance, when he dropped a soccer ball on her head quite purposefully, then tried to claim that the "ball fell down" and it was an "accident."
I had a follow up appointment with my ob 12 days after the birth to get the bandage from the c-section removed. Imagine my surprise - and chagrin - when at the end of the appointment, the doctor asked me to step on the scale and record my weight. I'm not even pregnant anymore! Why do you need to know how much I weigh?! And to top it all off, his response to the number I gave was, "Well, that's a bit high." Thanks for the confidence boost less than two weeks post-birth, doc.
Today we officially submitted the paperwork at the US Embassy to establish Mademoiselle's US citizenship and apply for her passport. This meant that earlier in the week, I had to get passport photos taken of a four-week-old baby. It being Paris, naturally it turned out that French passport photo requirements are a different size, so there are only a few places you can go in order to get US passport photos. The photo shop I went to was just blocks from the fashionable Rue Faubourg St-Honore, so of course the other customer in the store was an actual fashion model picking up new photos for her lookbook (thank you America's Next Top Model for the appropriate vocabulary). I'm standing there, recently declared fat by my doctor, with my little munchkin, next to a stick-thin, dressed-entirely-in-chic-black, unbelievably gorgeous model. Oh Paris, you always provide amusement.
We are starting to think about spring/summer travel plans so there are sure to be some adventures as we figure out how to traipse around Europe with two kids...
