An American Citizen in Paris

The Raffamonster is now officially American! We went to the embassy to register his birth and sign him up for a passport in anticipation of our impending US trip. Unlike the French administration, even though our paperwork was not perfect (Raffa's photo background was not entirely white and my proof of living in the US for 5 consecutive years was not perfect) instead of making us come back, they just made Thomas and I solemnly swear to tell the truth and they submitted the forms. Little Godzilla got his very own American flag to celebrate his citizenship.

Raffa and I spent the rest of the morning walking in Paris. The Champs Elysees is dangerous, especially when there is a sale on at Baby Gap and Petit Bateau... needless to say the kiddo picked up a new outfit. :-) We then met Papa Bear for lunch in little Tokyo, where the three of us were able to enjoy a meal ensemble (including Raffa who nursed discretely in my new carrier). Good times. And of course I subjected him to a photo session in his new outfit (his first big people clothes!) with the fluffmonster supervising...

"I pledge allegiance to the flag... see mommy, I take this whole American citizenship seriously!"

"Fluffy here bears witness that I solemnly swear to adopt some American culture. For example, Sundays from September through February are reserved for watching the Pittsburgh Steelers!"

"My country tis of thee, mama give me some liberty! Can I go sit in the swing now?"

"See, Paddington? I still support daddy's sports too! Check out my Paris SG shoes! Paris SG, c'est magique!"

"Hah hah fluffmonster! I will use my kickass ninja moves on you! Check out my crouching snuggle bug, flying baby bear! Hah hah!"

And now, to attempt dinner without burning the house down... Love and face eating kisses!

"Haha mommy! You want photos of me in the bath? I pee on this idea!"

So today was another one of those days when my baby blues raised their ugly head again and I got ridiculously sad that my little Raffa was visibly bigger again and time is passing too fast. So I resolved to document more precious moments, including bathtime. Raphael no longer flails and has plumped out significantly since those first few days... He doesn't resemble a little batty bat anymore and although there usually is some significant screaming during the soap time and the dressing time, bathtime is no longer quite so stressful. So I thought, what the heck. Let's get some photos so I can shame Raffa during his tender teenage years. As Tom was snapping a photo of me carrying Raffa in a towel en route to the tub, Raffa takes this opportunity to have a massive pee all over me, his only clean baby towel, and our living room tile. We had to laugh and fluffmonster watched the whole thing in interest. Bear's first words? "No kittenfluff, we will not rub Raffa's face in it!" Hopefully the cat will not take this as an invitation to mark the tile as his territory. And we got some bath photos... So my little Godzilla, when you see this one day, know you have already retaliated and that mommy is laughing in the photo because mommy's dress is soaked in baby pee! :-)
In other news, Tash brought over our brand new carrier! Woo! Pictures of its maiden voyage to follow soon.
Enjoy our batty bat's bathtime...

"I am soooooo angry you are taking this photo mommy! I just know you will use it to embarass me  in front of girls when I am a teenager! Also, I hate being naked."

"Wooooo! I am floating! Woooooo! I like to float! Each time before I get in the water, I scream my head off. Then I remember how much fun it is to floaty float!"

"Mommy I don't want a bath!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!! I am going to escape using my super squirmy Godzilla skills!"

"I don't get it, mommy! Why are you laughing? I just peed ALL OVER YOU! You are supposed to not want to give me a bath now!"

I should also mention that each time I give our little Raffamonster a bath, we sing the batty bat bath song. "It's time for batty bat to get a bathy bath! It's time for batty bat to get a bathy bath! It's time for itty bitty bat to get his batty bathy baaaaaaaaaaaaath.... It's time for batty bat to get his bathy bath!" Heh. And now to clean up the baby pee... Love and face eating kisses!

1 Month, 1 Awesome Series of Adventures...

Wow. I cannot believe it has already been a month since the 65 hours of labor and the arrival of my sweet little angel! He has grown so much and is now too big for newborn size! This was his first outfit in the hospital which he was swimming in. Now he has maybe two weeks left of being able to wear it! He has changed sooo much- it is really amazing to watch. Part of me wants to stop time and keep him as a sweet cuddly newborn forever, while the other part looks forward to every step and change on the upcoming journey. :-) Soon he is going to be too big to wear this too! And to think that two weeks ago I was thinking to buy more 1 month sized clothes because I thought he'd only fit 3 month size stuff at Christmas! All I can say is that he may not have been Godzilla sized at birth, but Raffa is on a Godzilla sized growth spurt! And speaking of said growth spurt, today I was slightly (read extremely) concerned (read panicking) because Raffa had an insatiable appetite and did not seem to be satisfied no matter how much he was eating. I broke out the emergency formula, but Bear convinced me to check if my boobs had truly run out of milk. Turns out that this was not the case, as I managed to accidentally send breastmilk squirting across the room and all over my dinner. Awesome. Am thinking it was just gas (my son's solution for everything is to eat.). That or Godzilla has a bottomless pit of a stomach! Even though I have resisted the urge to buy more adorable outfits, I could not resist getting these slippers. I used the whole one month birthday of Raffa as an excuse. Here is a lovely series of photos I subjected Raffa to pose for today. The gorgeous Armani hat- Raphael's first piece of couture- was a present from his Finnish godmama Anna. Godzilla will be stylin' this winter! :-)

"I wish I could wear awesome shoes like little Godzilla... Being a fluffball is just not cute enough anymore!"

"Mommy I am dreaming of all the couture you are going to dress me in before I can actively protest...."

"Kitos Godmama Anna for my awesome hat! I can't wait to spend a summer with you, Markus, sauna, summer cottage, and the hot Finnish girls! Hehehe.." 

"Paddington is totally jealous of my awesome new teddy bear slippers. Mommy  is glad to have something cute to replace the bunny slippers I grew out of! They also have a rattle in them so they work as an early warning system for mommy to come get me when I wake up!!!"

Aaaaand it is bath time. Love and face eating kisses!

"Don't worry! You will forget it all!"

Pregnancy was a real adventure for me. I did not have many preconceived notions as to what pregnancy would really be like. Sure, I knew that morning sickness was a definite possibility. I expected my belly to expand to the size of a watermelon. Bear was on alert for crazy 4 am food cravings. And of course I knew at some point I would feel some serious kicks.

However, pregnancy was NOTHING like I expected. For the first four months, I was miserable. There were few moments that I did not have the feeling I was about to toss my cookies everywhere. After vomiting on some poor professional man's shoes on the metro (and vomiting numerous times on our street in attempts to get food) I started carrying airsick bags with me everywhere. My coworkers started a nice collection for me from different airlines. After thorough testing, I can definitively say that Air France / KLM.bags are the sturdiest and have least chance of causing an accidental vomit spill.

While I had food cravings- I wanted avocadoes in any form at all times, there was the two month obsession with babybel cheese which later turned to an Iberican cheese obsession- the first tri was filled more with foods I wanted to avoid. Part of this had to do with a strong metallic taste that I had in my mouth. In January and a good portion of February, the only form of dead animal I could consume was processed chicken from McDonalds. I vomited just from smelling certain foods. Later on in the second trimester, I had to cut out all simple starches. Eating just a little bite of baguette would give me a hot flash and bring back the constant nauseated feeling from the first tri. So, no pasta, no bread, no yummy French patisserie. Great. Especially when one lives in the land of bread and cheese.

And of course I managed to develop lots of fun complications. Luckily they all affected me and not my little Godzilla. :-) One of the most entertaining complications was a sort of weather related narcolepsy. Any time the clouds came in, I would literally be knocked out for the count. There were quite a few times when I would fall asleep at the kitchen tabke or desk while working. And then there was the cholestasis (pregnancy related liver failure- it makes you extremely itchy and you feel like death- only cure is giving birth). Towards the end of the pregnancy, I spent almost all my time in bed. But I would do it all again and more for my little Godzilla! It was all worth it when Dr McGinnis placed a smiling Raphael on my chest after delivery!

My last photo pregnant, taken by the lovely Natasha Wroth

 

Godzilla is coming!

So apparently I am the pregnant woman that everyone feels the need to talk to. AWESOME. It is only April, and I am getting stopped daily by random people on the street. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Stranger (translated): Oh wow! The baby must be coming soon!
Me: Nope. Not due until September.
Stranger: Dis donc! You must be having twins!
Me: Nope. Just one boy.
Stranger: Are you sure?!
Me: Yep. One very big boy. :-)

After hearing this daily from many random people as well as being told by the drs that I was going to have "un grande garcon anglosaxon!" who would be around 4 kg (9 lbs) at birth, I have decided to refer to you, my little boy, as Godzilla. :-)

There are some benefits to being genetically programmed to show off your fertility- the French are super supportive of pregnant women. I always have a place to sit in the metro and everyone smiles at me. That's always nice. I also enjoy freaking out single men. Godzilla enjoys pushing his feet out and making my belly visibly move anytime we are on public transport. As it looks like something out of Alien, anyone not familiar with pregnancy can be slightly freaked out. I enjoy the scared glances as well... And in good news, after 19 weeks I do not feel like tossing my cookies anymore!

How Our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Got His Name...

Finding a name for a boy is sooooo much harder than finding a name for a girl, especially one that we both could agree on! Years ago, when bear and I were pontificating parenthood, we agreed that if we had a girl, her name would be Audrey. It's pretty, works in both languages, and I have always loved Audrey Hepburn. However, for a boy, we were kind of stuck!

At least we knew immediately what we wanted for a potential baby boy's middle names. Here in France, it is common to have two (Thomas's middle names are Bernard Noel). Since we lost both our fathers to cancer as children (me at 15, bear at 4), we decided to honor them by giving our firstborn boy their names- Gary and Francis- as middle names.

When we still had no potential boy's name in February, I started to stress a bit. The day after Christmas, it kinda hit me while I was in the shower that I was having a baby boy. No idea as to why, but I was fairly certain this kiddo was of the male variety. Thomas was not a fan of my name choices (apparently I like old fashioned French names) and vetoed anything fashion-related (Christian, Gabriel, Yves). He also nixed Nicholas because I wanted to use the nickname Nichou (I had joked if we had twin boys, we'd have Michel and Nicholas and call them Michou and Nichou). I was not sold on any of his suggestions either.
So, we decided to go to Buffalo Grill since I wanted some American cuisine to debate name choices. After throwing out lots of names, bear suggested Raphael. He had a childhood friend with that name- he spent many hours playing video games with him- but they had gone their separate ways in high school.

The minute bear suggested Raphael, I launched into the theme song of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sure, there are the archangel and the artist, but my first thoughts went to the pizza loving sewer heroes. My initial reaction was no way should my son share a name with a cartoon character, but the name itself sounded quite nice... And we both liked said name, which is not something we could say of many other names...

We wanted to keep the name secret, but since I was on the fence due to the TMNT reference, I asked my bff Lauren her opinion. She convinced me it was a good name and only pur generation would think of the cartoon.
It took another week before I was completely convinced. We went to Venice to celebrate Carnivale with the entire Lugnier clan. Bear and I took a day to lose ourselves in the mists and tiny canals of the city. We found this amazing seafood restaurant filled mainly with old local Venetians and over a delicious lunch, the name Raphael was cemented as our choice for a boy! :-) Now I just hoped my mom would not hate it...

Bear and Bunny on the balcony of the awesome place the Lugnier family rented. Cassinova's place is across the canal.

Ah the gondolas of Venice...

View from our romantic gondola ride....

Bear on one of our wanderings through the city, very close to the amazing restaurant we found.

So many bridges to cross...

So many canals to discover...

So excited to be on this new adventure with such an awesome husband! :-) I love you Bear!

A last view from our balcony. My baby bump is just starting to show! End of first trimester! Woo!

Best Christmas Present Ever

For Christmas 2010, I got two things I wanted since childhood- a Steinway piano (courtesy of my HP Christmas bonus) and a Persian cat (courtesy of bear). Bear did a great job choosing the fluffmonster- he is an awesome cat and lets me subject him to lots of snuggles and a dance marathon from time to time. The only possible way to top the previous Christmas would be for me to finally be pregnant.

We made the decision to start trying for a baby back in July. Dr McGinnis gave me a pregnancy readiness assessment, had my insides cleaned, and stuck me on chlomid for a month to get my ovulation regular. After a chemical pregnancy in August and lots of work trips in the fall, I still was not preggers. Each month, I would get all excited and then nothing. Each month, my hormones would get to me and I would cry when my period came again.

It just so happened my next period was due Christmas Eve, so I felt like this could be a sign. I had a feeling I was preggers this time (even though I had been convinced every month prior) because I had some serious crying for no reason- first when I saw Sound of Music with my sister in law and niece and second when I was toy shopping. Maria had found the Penguin game I had as a kid and when I went to buy one for me, the store was out. Even though they were getting more in, I cried hysterically on the street for 15 minutes.
Of course, being impatient I took a pregnancy test on the 20th and it came back negative. So I had to just hope that it was too soon to tell. I was going to try to wait for Christmas Eve, but on the morning of the 23rd, I could not take it any longer. Whaddya know? It was positive! I was on cloud nine with excitement. Of course I wanted to tell Thomas in person. I got impatient for him to arrive home, so I called to check his progress. He totally knew something was up when I called because I was totally weird on the phone.

As soon as he got in the door, I told him "Guess what?!" and handed him the pregnancy test. Thomas lifted me up in the air with excitement. He made me take two more the next day just to be sure before we told our families. So Raphaël, you are mommy and daddy's best Christmas present ever! Too bad we would have to wait another 8 months to actually meet you!

PS: Your journey began at your Godmama Anna's wedding in Finland.
PPSS: Your big brother Fluff Diddy is going to be in for a big shock when you arrive. However, he is excited that mommy will have someone else to torture with cute outfits soon. Daddy keeps telling me that I don't really want a baby, I want a doll to play dress up with.

"Ho ho ho... I cannot believe mommy is making me wear this ridiculous reindeer outfit. I plan to retaliate later by peeing on her bed.... heh heh heh Merry Christmas!"

"Look! I am Santa Claws! Hah hah! And mommy is getting extra kitten fluff fur on the couch for Christmas!"

"I am so ashamed to be in this outfit mommy. I can't believe you made me wear both outfits for the family Christmas party... And now there is photographic evidence..."