Griffin - the sadistic ice cream man

Just thought I would tell a cute Griffin story.....

Picture this:

Griffin and Mommie on the carpet in the living room. Griffin has his little tykes ice cream car. This particular thrift store find is covered in stickers featuring ice cream as well as plastic- embossed ice cream treats. It also features a small blue button on top of it which plays, when pressed, the Mr. Softee jingle. We have had it for like, 4 years, and the jingle still works although I have never replaced the battery. Hmm....

Here's the scenario:
Mommie has a person who would like some ice cream. Griffin is the ice cream man.

Mommie has been waiting, rather impatiently, for some time while the ice cream man goes to all the other children and towns in the area.....

Finally, the ice cream truck enters her block HOORAY!!!!

(In the following scene, "hungry person"(HP) is played by yours truly and Ice Cream Man (ICM) is Griffin, who speaks in the deepest voice you can imagine coming out of a 3 year old - think a toddler version of James Earl Jones)

HP: I'd like some ice cream, please.
ICM: Oh, well, we're all out of ice cream. You have to wait until tomorrow.
HP: Waaaaaaaaaaahhh!
pause for about 30 seconds....
ICM: OK, it's tomorrow!
HP: I would like chocolate ice cream, please.
ICM: Oh, we don't have any chocolate.
HP: What do you have?
ICM: We have what's on my truck. (truck has ice cream stickers etc... on it)
HP: (pointing to dairy bar) OK, I'll have that one.
ICM: Oh, we don't have that one.
HP: OK.... How about an ice cream cone?
ICM: Oh, we ran out of ice cream cones.
HP: When will you get more?
ICM: In seven minutes.
another 30 second pause
ICM: OK, it's seven minutes.
HP: So, can I have a cone?
ICM: No, you are not allowed to have a cone.
HP: Well, what can I have????
ICM: Hmmm... we have.... this one. (pointing to chocolate covered banana)
HP: But I don't like those! Don't you have anything else?
ICM: No, we only have that one.
HP: When will you get more?
ICM: You have to wait until tomorrow.
(repeat)

He loves to talk, and he will do anything to prolong conversation - the technique of never agreeing to anything serves him very well to this end. He is endlessly creative - it is really fun to play with him.

He LOVES playing with cars - another top hit vehicle of choice is his bus- a green British looking one my mom gave him right before we moved here. In this game I am a person waiting at the bus stop. When the bus comes along - you guessed it - I can't get on. It is NEVER my bus - and when will my bus come along? In seven minutes, of course. All the busses here in Besancon have numbers - he loves to tell what numbers his busses are - for some reason 64 is a favorite number of his for the bus route- frequently along with 17 - although neither of these match the line numbers we usually take (that would be either 34 or 4 most of the time). He is happy to tell you where they go to. Popular destinations include: the store, home and the restaurant, but, alas, in Griffin's world, if you are lucky enough to get on the bus where you want to go, it will often change route, and number, while you are still on it.

He also enjoys trains. Today we were playing trains together (of course my train was never allowed on the track - the breakdown train had to come and it was unavoidably delayed). The names of the trains were: Grumpy (who had the James Earl Jones voice of course), Mr. Girl (who had a very high pitched voice) and Mr. Silly Willy (who was the baby).

He does great playing with Zander in this game - it is fun to watch them play together.

cross-training day

This morning I woke up right on time (4:52), did laundry and cross-training (2 supersets) followed by 12-min on the road to get bread and cash. My left foot plantar fascia is a bit tight... actually it's been tight for maybe a week but it's more noticable today, probably excacerbated by my walk in to work yesterday (work shoes just don't have the arch support my running shoes have). It was a nice walk yesterday, though, because of this beautiful arc-de-ciel. The buildings to the left are Zander's school, and the green building is the gym across the street from our apartment complex.

ladder on the track

Well, my running schedule has been derailed by the flu last week, but today I headed out to the track for a 1500m, 1200m, 900m ladder. There was ice on the track, some street lights were out, and it was cloudy--so it was very dark. I did the ladder at 7:20 to 7:05 pace.

Rebecca's weekly musings

So, I haven't blogged yet this week - I am having some start up energy issues for some reason. Also, nothing much has happened except Monday was my birthday - and I added some lines/edited André's birthday post so I didn't need to write about that myself. So I guess this will be another collection of random thoughts...

My birthday - (hmm... did I say I wasn't going to write on it? I lied) I loved all my gifts, several special drawings from each of the kids, lots and lots of emails (thanks facebook - you are so cool) from friends and family, a beautiful necklace from my sister and a whole package of goodies from mom and dad. Highlight of this was a hand crocheted bag - which I LOVE. Plus we had chocolate cake for dinner. Whenever I have the occassion to eat cake at a strange moment, I remember Bill Cosby and his famous 'chocolate cake' skit. We had the record as a kid and listened to it on occassion. The audio for this skit (with some strange guy lipsynching it) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElQZ5iXVrdk. If you've never listened to it - it is great1 (although much better with the original cosby expressions etc...) We all sang Andre's praises 'Dad is great, he gives us the chocolate cake!'. The cake was awesome and lasted for about 3 days (one advantage to having no friends here - not too much sharing of big chocolate cake)!

One of the things that has always separated my birthday from the madding crowd was that it is on Groundhog Day. I always liked this as a kid. It's never good to have a birthday on a 'real' holiday (like Christmas Day or something) because your birthday is overshadowed by the big event. But Groundhog Day is perfect. It serves only to remind people it is your birthday. I imagine friends and relations the world over thinking to themselves... "Oh, hey, right, it's Groundhog Day...isn't that Rebecca's birthday??? I'd better give her a call/email."

When I grew into adulthood and started my paganistic spiritual journey I discovered that Feb 2nd has been a holiday, like, forever. It is known as Imbolc. It is also the day to celebrate the Godess (or Saint if you want to depaganize it) Brigit AND also a festival called Candlemas. You can learn more about all these amazing festivals on wikipedia (of course).

But what, you may wonder, do they celebrate on this day in France? Well, many of you may be shocked to learn that the answer is, none of the above (at least that I heard about). Does this mean that Feb 2nd, oh day of days, passes by unnoticed in France? Of course not, that would just be wrong. Here in France, on Feb 2nd, we celebrate Crepe Day. That would be the important day we make and eat crepes. (I thought, based on what I see people eating here, that this was any day in France, but, I guess, crepes are so important they wanted to make sure no french person would accidentally let a whole year pass without consuming some). All the kids got them in school (except poor gluten intolerant Griffin of course) and enjoyed them with sugar or nutella - yum. Some day, when I make some good french friends, they will ask me about my birthday and they will say, oh yeah, crepe day! By the way, this amazing festival has NO entry in wikipedia - I need one of my french readers to add one - so I can learn more about this thing!

André has been on a real blog kick lately - getting excited for his upcoming race and tracking all his runs here. This morning he slept in a bit and missed his run - sadness. Speaking of getting in shape - I desperately need to! That has definitely been the worst part of moving here - back home I went to the gym between 3 and 5 mornings a week - here, nothing! I am trying, as my birthday present to myself, to find a yoga class that meets 2-3 mornings a week and that I can get to while the kids are in school. I have been saving for 2 months to have the money to pay for it but, unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to find something that will work. Will keep trying.

A bit now about that rainbow. My rainbows have always, in the past, been limited to the streak like line up in the sky - my most memorable of these was the one that hovered over my sister Tina's high school graduation, over the Lakeland bleachers - I remember not being bored during the ceremony because I was amazed by the rainbow. Well, this one put that one to shame. It was, bar none, the most glorious rainbow I have ever seen. I guess the thing that made it the most amazing for me was that you could literally see the entire arc, like my daughter always draws in her pictures, crossing over the sky. Made me want to climb up it and slide right down, made me want to chase it until I found that legendary pot 'o' gold. Also, there was a second rainbow right next to it - a double bow (though the second wasn't as bright). The colors were pure and breathtaking, Callie was saying, LOOK - it has red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. For the kids, it was the first real rainbow they remember seeing - so that made it special too. It also lasted about 15 minutes. I feel like I should write an ode or something to this rainbow - our camera just couldn't do it even a bit of justice.

Well, here is a recent ad I saw that our camera (hopefully) can do justice to.... I saw this and just about laughed out loud. I know I have mentioned in the past that the French love their meat, and the different meat producers try various things to convince you that theirs is the tastiest. Now this campfire of pickle logs and flames made of ham looks revolting to me - and the ad's claim (translated here for your convenience) "Aoste Ham - Yummy every day." is not too convincing. You want me to eat that every day (yuck). But I guess it looks yummy to the French. It is absolutely true that my kids now have developed a love for ham that makes them want to eat it in plain slices as much as I will give it to them.... must be rubbing off somehow. The pickles here are ALL that mini gherkin type - I miss dills or, even better, those giant jewish garlic pickles from the deli barrel.

As long as we are wandering into unconnected topics, I will quickly write a bit about the amazing gym equipment in Callies school. They do great activities with the kids on the obstacle course pictured here. She has to climb upsidedown on monkey bars, jump through hoops, run across teeter totters, balance across thin beams and, most hysterically, run around in a human sized hamster wheel (or get rolled in it while she clings on). Of course, she performs all these feats with alacrity, and helps those who have not been blessed with such amazing physical coordination.

OK - here is a one liner - When the hell are they going to clean up the dead Christmas trees that are STILL littering the sidewalks of Besancon????

Oh - I can't beleive I forgot about this! I finally met with the mysterious American that André and I met on the street before Christmas. Her name is Isabelle and she was actually born in France and moved to America for 13 years before moving back here to Besancon 7 years ago with her husband and family. Believe it or not, she still owns a house in Mahwah, NJ which is not too far from Ringwood, where I grew up. She patiently listened as I talked and talked and talked to her - such a relief to talk and be understood in English! Isabelle now knows more about me than any other person in France outside my family, in just about an hour over hot chocolate. She is very kind and is going to try to help me meet more Americans she knows. One of them is someone who worked in a cooperative nursery school - and has 3 kids - perfect! Goodbye loneliness? Let's hope this is a good start towards that goal.

Until next time - I love you all!

Rebecca's birthday

So for Rebecca's birthday she wanted me to take the day off, to be able to watch 2 episodes of Lost, to eat out, and to have black magic cake. There may have been more that she requested, but if so, I forgot. We started the day together and took all the kids to school, and then we decided to spend the time as we would spend special time with the kids--we pick something that we'd both like to do together. We did our blogging together, watched 2 episodes of Lost, picked the kids up and went out to lunch at the Comtoise (I forgot the whole name--it is a local place specializing in Franche Compté food. We've really enjoyed their food in the past but today it wasn't great. The lunch special was a salmon lasagna - and it was overdone - and tasted about as wierd as it sounds - and the dessert was brownies. Never eat brownies in France - they are not brownies!) We then dropped the kids off again and let Griffin entertain himself while we sorted out some details with our upcoming vacation rentals. We believe we've found the cheapest way for us to travel--we rent an apartment for a week, direct from an owner, and use that home-away-from-home as our base for cooking and sleeping and day trips. We are excited to be confirming our Belgium and Paris locations. After that it was back to chauffering kids and tutor time. When the kids were done with tutoring, I took them to the bookmobile, and as they pawed through their new acquisitions, I literally put the icing on the cake. That was dinner. Not a balanced meal? Hey, I made whipped cream icing--that should count for the dairy food group!

Happy Birthday, Rebecca! Here she is opening presents and then we're singing around the cake (with tea lights for candles!) We topped off the evening with a babysitter putting the kids to bed as Rebecca and I went out for pizza--actually a special treat for us since with Mr G's wheat intolerance we can't ever go out to a pizza shop as a family--and brought two decks of cards. This was so we could play canasta. This is the game Rebecca grew up playing with her parents and also with her Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill. She remembers her mom telling her that Grandpa Barille would always hold everything in his hand and then go out all at once. Well, the ancestors must have been on her side for her birthday because, when I was in control and ahead the sneaky girl put nothing down and then went out all at once! We had to play again, of course and Rebecca beat me handily a second time. At margin of over 500 points each time!

We came home to watch yet another episode of Lost... can't wait for to find out what happens and for this obsession to be over... but then again, I think we'll never finish, since the show is now in season 6 and I bet viewers still don't know what's up with the Others... and our DVD's only go to season 4 - what to do????

Train to nowhere...

What is one of the things Europe is famous for? Trains, my friends, great, fast, amazing trains that get you places, fast! Plus, they're excellently ecological. Well, before we moved to France, this was one of the big perks we offered the kids to cushion the blow of moving. We'll get to go on lots of trains, kids! Well, much to our suprise, it hasn't actually worked out that way. The trains are only really fast if you use the bullet train, and that's expensive. So we haven't been on one since we got here. We recently found out, however, that our bus passes give us FREE train rides as long as we stay in the Franche Compté region. Looking at a Saturday with nothing to do, we decided to pack a lunch, head to the train station and get on the first train that came along.

First we got on the bus going the wrong way - because André said he needed to do something... Turns out it was to show me a terrific early birthday suprise - about 4 stops away from our house is the local equestrian school - he has gotten me an introductory course (12 lessons) as a gift. I haven't ridden regularly since I was a teenager but I LOVE horses and all things riding (I hope, one day, when my ship comes in, to own part of a horse) and this will be great! I am a bit worried about the language barrier - hope I can adequately understand the instructions the teacher will give out!

The kids are impatient with this detour - didn't you say we were finally going to get on a train!!!

So we leave and head over to the train station - there is a TER train (those are the ones we can use gratuit) leaving in about 15 minutes. We can go as far as Mamirolle for free. Well, we've never heard of Mamirolle (or Saune, or Morre - the other two free stations) but hey, there must be something there, right??? We could go to Dole... but that trian won't leave for another hour. So we sieze the moment. The kids are just thrilled to be on a train at all - it is only one car long and we get seats right near the conductors in the front.

So, which of the three stops should we hit? The wonders of technology never cease to amaze me - we get on the train and, as the kids are completely immersed in traininess (that word's for you Mel--is it spelled right?), use the time to start surfing the web via the laptop and see what's to do in the 3 possible stops. It seems that the ONLY one that even mentions things to visit is the first stop, Morre. (It has a church, some sort of famous persons house and a waterfall called the hellmouth - appealing, right?). Great - except we would get there in 5 minutes. That would cause major dissappointment to the kids, who are basically just all about the train ride. They are so happy - just looking out the window - you can see Zander and Griffin here - with beautiful Besancon in the background - we can't just drag them off in 5 minutes!

So, Mamirolle it is - about 20 minutes on the train. We get dropped off at 10:30am and the train is not to return until 1:30pm (abbreviated Saturday schedule). Well, I have to say, I can't imagine why it is free to go to Mamirolle. Within a one minute walk from the station we arrived at this lovely playground which included a seesaw! We then walked through the town, passing an early pioneer of one of the most important modern institutions of our time - the retirement home. We also passed a fountain and World War I and II war memorials. Callie found this lovely natural treasure.... near the place where we had to change Griffin since he, of course, decided to pee in his pants. There was a sign for a cheese museum, which got us really excited, but after walking to the edge of town and seeing nothing but miles of fields ahead, we figured it had to be in the next town over. We did find a lovely old church - which was locked. I can't believe it - God is supposed to keep the doors open, right? Have I mentioned yet it is January and about 35 degrees outside? All right, I admit it, there is a reason that it is free to go to Mamirolle. There is nothing in Mamirolle. (sorry Mamirolleans....) The kids were pretty good sports, considering we were all freezing! Griffin said, "C'est froid" and "My entire body is freezing!" We stopped at a bench near an unmarked cross and ate our sandwiches and sipped hot cocoa. We then went back towards the train station and saw a cat on a hot tin roof. They could put that in tourist brochures... It is the whitish dot in the corner where the gutter is. We spent the last 45 minutes in the (unheated) train shelter writing notes to friends who have recently been kind enough to send us packages. Zander wrote the entire note in cursive - and it is even legible! Daddy, of course, did not wear his winter coat, and was really suffering....but eventually the train came and we made it back home again - and we all slept well.

it's not a cold, c'est la grippe

OK, so it's not a cold. We have the flu...aches and pains and lethargy. I stayed home from work 2 days, skipped my runs for 4 days, and slept a lot! I'm still weak, and so is Rebecca, who is probably 5 days ahead of me with this bug.

Today I was back on the road (running) but only for about 25 minutes, followed by a quick stop at the grocery store for eggs and a stop at the boulangerie for some bread.

Then I worked with Griffin to bake Rebecca's birthday cake, while Zander and Rebecca made cookies for Z's school teacher--her birthday is the 2nd as well. Griffin is pictured here greasing the pan before I flour it. He's a very patient and cooperative helper. It's really amazing--I never bake except for Rebecca's birthday, but she loves to and so the kids are learning a lot about how to follow a recipe. He's patient enough to sit and wait as I measure out each cupful or spoonful of ingredients, then he dumps it into the bowl. He pays enough attention that I can later ask him if we added any specific ingredient (flour, baking soda, baking powder)--and he knows whether we added it or not. It's so cute! He's also pretty good at mixing without spilling, and didn't try to steal even one taste of batter (good thing, since it has wheat in it).

Today the kids wrapped their home-made presents for mommy, then later they noticed it was snowing outside--so they played out front for a bit. They're getting old enough they basically got themselves dressed and could play without much supervision. The snow was only a dusting, but they could pack it into snowballs so it was fun. I think this is only our second snowfall of the winter.