Noel.. avant la naissance

Alexandre ayant pris son temps pour arriver, nous avions pu conclure les festivités de noel en décembre.
Zabeth and the guys.

Gouter de famille à la maison.
Brother and sisters.

Mahe, encore en jambes.

Les cousins.

Et la famille.

Reveillon chez Jacques et Laurence ; Ruben a eu plein de cadeaux à ouvrir.

Dejeuner du 25 avec la famille rue de Charenton.

Domi gere les petits, facile. Elle n'est pas encore d'accord pour les garder tous ensemble en vacances par contre..

Et diner de noel/ anniversaires avec Anne-Marie et Zabeth le 25.

Alexandre !

Alexandre kept us waiting but finally made it right on time for the planned term and for Eric's birthday! He was born on December 26th, at 5.38 pm. It was a natural water birth that went so fast that I had no time for epidural (ouch) and that Eric missed the birth (he had gone back home to fetch my blood type card). Luckily, Eric arrived after about 5 minutes and therefore did not miss much of Alexandre.

Same as Ruben, Alexandre opened wide his eyes and started looking at the world from the start.

Ruben at day 1.

I keep thinking back to Ruben as a new born. So many similarities yet there are differences. Some of their attitudes and postures are so alike...
Of course, a big focus area is sleep, or lack thereof. Same as Ruben, Alexandre does not sleep much - but, luckily, he has some quiet times awake and sleeps in longer streches than Ruben used to do. I am therefore not as exhausted as I used to be with Ruben.

With daddy.

Ruben came to see us in the maternity and pretended to ignore Alexandre. He is unsettled by the new family dynamic and gets upset easily these days..

Family picture.

 Alexandre again.

With Clemence.

Mahe very unfortunately broke her hip bone on the 25th and has not been able to meet with Alexandre yet. I was just able to go and see her in the hospital as she underwent surgery in a facility very close to our home. Now she is recovering in Fondation rotschild in the 12th and it is going to become even more difficult to visit her..

Virginie, Eric and the kids Mailys and very young Alban came to see us. One month older than Alexandre, Alban already looks like a big baby.. Virginie and I on the other hand look like exhausted new mothers.

We left the maternity quite quickly, on the 29th in the afternoon. As everybody says, things go much more smoothly with a second one than with a first born.

As usual, the grandmothers have been stellar. They have been taking care of Ruben a lot.
With Zabeth.

With Mamido.

We have had just a few visitors at home so far. Emeline came to see us and to see Mahe.

Aude and the girls.

Holiday break

Some update from my holidays, before the big next upheaval in our life..

We've been very busy since july, moving in our new place in the 15th arrondissement, settling down, going back to work (for me), shifting jobs (Eric), getting used to the daycare center (Ruben), etc.

Nao and Ren came to France in july and stayed at my grandmother's for a few days. It was really nice and unexpected, meeting up again so far from India/ Japan.

In August, Eric and Ruben went down to Briancon for a nice week-long holiday. I joined them there for a few days. Ruben loved it there!

At the end of the month, Ruben, who had stayed with a private nanny over the summer, started going to the kindergarten. It took him a while to get used to it but he is doing really fine now there. It's a small place with few kids, which helps.

In september, we attended a big family reunion in Rouville, the old family country house on Eric's side. Over a hundred people were there! Here with just of a few of his cousins.

Mathilde and Julien then invited us for a week end in Fontainableau. The house of Mathilde's parents is a mere 10 minutes walk away from the boulders. The adults and the kids (here Ruben with Tof & berangere kids) had a good time climbing around.

In October, we traveled over the Tousaint week end to Toulouse, to visit Juliette, Florent & Lois. Toulouse seems to be a very nice city to live in, their new house is big and great, the weather is nicer than in Paris ; lucky them to live there! When we came back to Paris, Ruben kept asking for 'l'autre maison', he liked it very much there.

In November, Eric and Ruben took off again to Briancon, with Elizabeth. This time I stayed in Paris for the whole week, focusing on putting everything into order at work before leaving.

Aboard the train to Briancon, first traverse shoot !

There was quite a bit of snow in Briancon and the guys had a good time there.

And some indoor/ outdoor videos.

Back to Paris.

Meeting with Juliette, Alex & Cecile's very young daughter.

In early december, I finally went on maternity leave and Eric started on his new job. He is now working on financing renewable energy projects. We are done settling in our place (just unpacked the last box over the week end) and are almost ready to welcome 'petit frere'. Ruben is getting interested in christmasy things -christmas trees, christmas lights ! It's nice because he hasn't realized / is not focusing on the presents coming. By the way, as Ruben is making progress with his speech, he has now truly become a real French boy, not understanding English anymore but knowing lots of different cheese by name (gruyere, brie, morbier, chevre, (camem)bert, and his current favorite mimimolette)..

Back to Paris, back to a regular life?

6 weeks already that we've been in Paris, how time flies by! We've been very busy relishing the fresh (cold) and wet weather, spending time with family and friends, looking for a new place to live, looking for a nanny/ kindergarten for Ruben, and working (some). We've had great, wonderful conditions so far in Paris, with my mother lending us her place near Gare de Lyon and she and Elizabeth coming often to babysit Ruben.

The good news is that we are almost settled! We've found a flat in the 15th arrondissement to rent and we'll move in early August, once our container reaches France, we've found a private kindergarten after september, Eric of course is back to work (we reached Paris on Saturday June 1st, and he was at his office on the Monday), and I'll go back to regular work on july 22d, with the Ministry of agriculture. We're still uncertain about 'nanny-arrangements' for the summer, as the person who was supposed to work for us let us down, but we're hopeful that we'll find a replacement on time (poor Ruben will have little time to get used to her). And there'll still be some 'fun' time ahead, when we'll both be working and moving in the new place. 

Besides enjoying the weather in Paris, its pure (yes, I know) and fresh air, going for walks and exploring the parks, we managed a few outings: a week end in Nancy to visit my sister's family and Ruben's cousins, a week end in Grenoble to meet up with Eric, Virginie, and Mailys, a day out in Fontainebleau.

First carousel ride for Ruben, courtesy of Mahe.

Our future flat, when we visited it. We've had to go all over Paris looking for a place. There isn't much choice and there are too many people looking. The flat we have found is well located, near La Motte Picquet Grenelle, which means that I'll be walking to work and it will be just slightly longer for Eric. It's cute, quiet, and quite big but not quite big enough (two bedrooms - we were looking for three-, a tiny kitchen, a big living room/ dining room, and a long, useless corridor).

In Nancy, Caroline horseriding. We went to the 'fete de l'art et du cochon' (... pork & art-lard festival?) where Emeline was doing a tap dancing show. Nice, except that the weather was freezing cold and that we had to leave before Emeline actually took the stage.

In Grenoble, we had a great time with Eric, Virginie and Mailys. They live in a nice house in the countryside, and they seem to be living a great new life.
On the Saturday, the weather was not so good and we mostly stayed around the house. Guillaume and Delphine came for dinner, which was great.

 And the day dawned bright and clear on sunday - perfect day to go hiking.

Getting started.

 Mailys and Ruben did great on the hike, walking almost an hour and a half uphill, on a sleepery trail. The pace was very slow, what with Ruben stopping every 20 meters to play with twigs, but they did great!

For lunch, we met up with Antoine and his twins. It was nice seeing him after so many years since university.

We tried to put the kids (and ourselves) down for a nap in the shade, with no luck.

Back to Paris, Clemence enjoying some park-time with Ruben - we're looking forward to her coming back from her holiday in China and doing some baby-sitting (not sure that's in her plans though...).

As Emeline, Thomas, Caroline & Francois, came to stay for the week end with Mahe, we managed to all meet up together - it had been a long time. We had lunch at Mahe's favourite place, the Chinese restaurant, and took some family pictures.

 

Eric and Ruben ready to ride.

On the sunday, exploring the Jardin d'acclimation with Emeline & all and her friend Laurence & family.
The ladies went on the boat ride with the kids.

Whilst the men, and brave Laurence, went for a ride (looked really bumpy).

Lunch time.

Leaving with the 'toy train'.

On July 14th, we finally managed to go back to Fontainebleau, a great outing with a lovely weather, and Eric did climb some rocks.

Ruben played with sand, sticks, moss, rocks, etc, and even ran on the way back.

As for me, I enjoyed the day outdoors. There's going to be no climbing (and running/ skiing/ etc) this year for me but we're looking forward to a Christmas addition to our family.

 Last but not least, would I say that we are missing India? No, not really. It was interesting but challenging. We do miss our friends from there, but for the rest life is nicer around here so far. Ruben has made lots of progress since we came back, which is also great.