Going on a Trip

So Sam has the travel bug too. Ever since the weather has been nice, he loves to go outside and play. He loves to drive his little car. He always says, "I'm going to go on a trip to Mexico to find Papi." (Ivan works in Mexico and Spain about half of the year.)

Sam is also into his alphabet lately. He likes singing his ABCs. I started singing them when I started brushing his teeth--once on the bottom teeth and once on the top teeth. This is just so I know how long to brush them. But now he likes to sing them too. And yesterday when he was taking a bath, he was playing with bath crayons. He said, "M Mama" and drew several "M"s on the wall.

Eric used to be content to sleep and eat. But now he's a lot more social. He wants to be in the same room with everyone else, and would prefer to be held, tickled, and laughed at at all times. He's very social. Sometimes, he often picks strangers that he likes out of crowds and smiles at them until they notice him. There's nothing more fun than a smiling, giggling baby.

It's a Small World After All

Well, I've been back from Paris for a month now. Wow. How time flies. Maybe I'll get more than one a month as I get rolling.

The sleep thing has been going pretty well. Sam now goes to sleep on his own. About a week after the "I need some love" incident, one night as we were singing and rocking, he actually said, "Put me in my crib, Mama. I want to sleep." So things improved. But those first five days or so were rough.

Paris was ... well, Paris. I love Paris. I could go there year after year and never tire of it. There is always somewhere to go. This year we did a chocolate tour, which I highly recommend. Our guide, Iris, was incredible. We got to taste lots of chocolate and hear stories about chocolate and see some places of Paris that I'd never seen. (Actually, it was right outside the Louvre, but I've always stayed inside the Louvre.) Amazing chocolate.

Eric did really well. I'm going to try to post a few pictures of him in his Baby Bjorn. He slept the entire flight over. Then he slept most of the time in the Baby Bjorn in the morning while I took the group to where they needed to be. Then I would head back to the hotel and enjoy the afternoon reading while he slept. I read the Mr. Darcy trilogy. I have to thank my friend, Dona Griffin, for sending me this thin little baby blanket. It was so soft and thin and it worked out perfectly. I could lay it over his head to block the sights, sounds, and wind, and not worry about him suffocating.

So before I left, I was emailing my friend, Anne, whose husband is a traveling opera star, and she goes with him. In January, they spent a month in Paris. She met some people in Paris, who have the cutest little girl with blond curls. She took some photos and posted them on her blog (http://www.stuckihouse.blogspot.com/) My first night in Paris, we were coming home from dinner and I saw this little girl in the metro. I thought, "It must be the jetlag." I rubbed my eyes, and we were going in the same direction. I said to them, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" They said, "Yes." "Do you know Anne Stucki?" They looked at me like I was strange, but said, "Yes." I couldn't believe it. What are the chances? Of the 11 million people in Paris, what are the chances that we would both be in the Rambuteau station at the same time?

This is Eric and I in front of Notre Dame ...