Fowl Language

Last night with dinner we had a bottle of Champagne, real Champagne mind you, with dinner. It was somewhat expensive, but hey, we're in France. We washed it down with three quarters of a bottle of Bordeaux.

It was ok, the Champagne, the Bordeaux is always good, but I don't mind telling you that I'm not a Champagne expert, though I could possibly be considered a wine connoisseur at this point.

And as my shame struggles valiantly to cripple my pride with a baseball bat to the knees, I relate to you that we weren't even all that intoxicated. I believe I have graduated from ultra lightweight, to lightweight.

Today, Ben and I headed back to Le Jardin D'Acclimatation. We hit the swings, of course. Unfortunately they hit back this time.

Ben hasn't fallen off them yet, and you can check back to the first visit to see the picture of the swings, but it's more or less a big boy swing, and he goes as high as he does in a toddler swing. This time, he played the kicking daddy game, where I pretend to be mortally wounded, and he was laughing himself silly. Always a dangerous period in time as I'm well aware. I let him calm down, but the next swing, he tapped me and I fell backwards acting the part, only to hear a light thud and a loud wail. I think he overextended himself trying to clobber daddy and slipped off the back.

Luckily, he was at his nearest point to the ground and fell right on his back. It may sound bad, but trust me, I could write a book on falling, and in this particular instance, this was the best way to land.

Little bite to the lip, but the blood dried up pretty quick and he was ready "go see more stuff" after about 5 min.

We checked out the Gymboree that was right there too and picked up some literature. They are all around the states too, but in the states, there's plenty to do and kids to meet at most parks, so I never really considered going to the Gymboree.

It's gonna be about 63e a month (about $75), with one 45min session every week involving songs and exercises and games. We feel it's worth it for him to get some time with other kids. Even if he can't understand them. So we'll start that this Wednesday I think.

After that we found the mirrors. I had passed by them before, but being bored, we thought we'd check em out. Most were kinda weak, but a couple had some good distortion. Unfortunately, almost all of them were made for people about 5'7", so kids got almost no distortion on any one of the mirrors. Kinda dumb.

After that we headed to the 6 to 12 year old playground (pictured on our second trip there I think). Ben made it across the pictured logs all by himself. Walking. I was right there in case he slipped, but I just told him to keep his arms out and he made it first across the short one, climbed up and did the long one, with no breaks, all by himself. I think he's been sneaking in youtube videos of Mary Lou Retton when I'm doing the dishes...

I also threw in some pictures of a weird tree there. It's like a coniferous palm tree or something. Very odd. They also have palm trees at various locations in Paris, which I also find weird.

We were gonna head out, but the roosters were having a crow-off (hence the title...I can hear you groaning by the way), so we went over to check out some of the birds again. Ben always wants to pet them, but I have to tell him the big ones might peck him so he has to be careful of them. Big is relative however as even a sparrow can be somewhat formidable to a 2 year old. And the turkeys, the 2 male turkeys that roam free and fearlessly walk up to you to beg for food, are like elephants compared to Ben.

Can you picture a turkey the size of an elephant bobbing it's way toward you? Yikes.