This Girl is 8 Today and Don’t Fret – Those Aren’t her Real Lips

I know, I know, I promised a further installment in the cellar saga.

However, as I said before I am functioning on a sleep-deprived gnat brain at the moment so when I made the promise I forgot that today is Charlotte’s Birthday. This means I will be baking cakes, making specially requested dinners, and generally celebrating that eight years ago today she came into our lives. She elected a feet-first arrival into the world, which certainly explains my first C-section and perhaps explains why she is so special.

Anyway, off I go, because February 21st is and should be all about Charlotte, and the cellar light fixture “salvaging” episode will just have to wait until tomorrow.

And yes, it is not just your imagination, we have a lot of winter Birthdays in our family

Camille – January 15th
Clémentine – January 23rd
Franck – February 11th
Charlotte – February 21st

And I am all by my lonesome in October…anyway, back to my cake.

Only Evian for Us French Girls

In Canada we used good ‘ole tap water (boiled at the beginning, if I recall correctly) for Charlotte and Camille’s bottles. Here in France, however, I am learning that chic French women begin the lifelong habits that are responsible for their world-renowned health and beauty when they are barely out of the uterus.

Even though our tap water here in France is just as rigorously high quality as in Canada, we were informed at the Maternity ward in Beaune that to prepare bottles we should only use high quality mineral water to mix with the powder. Preferably Evian, bien sûr.

When Clémentine was suffering from un petit peu of constipation (sounds much more elegant when pronounced with a French accent) on her return from the hospital I called the sage-femme and asked her if there was anything I could do to help her digestion.

The answer was, of course, self-evident to any French female. You must vary your high-quality mineral waters to remedy any digestive upsets. So now Clémentine has a rotation of three different brands of mineral waters in her bottles, and her digestive tract se porte trés bien, merci!

Tomorrow I’ll get back to ongoing saga of the Beaune cellar renovations, including telling the tale of our unique light fixtures that were *ahem* “salvaged” thanks to another one of Franck’s projects.

Tasting Table Trials and Tribulations

I am beginning to discover that having a newborn means that while “tomorrow” sometimes means “tomorrow” it could just as easily mean the day after that, or the day after that…one becomes very conscious of how time is a relative thing in newborn-land.

Anyway, back to how to get the 1000 pound stone table top (otherwise known as “The Beast”) from the back of Mystery Man’s truck down the steep stone stairs and into the cellar to finish off our tasting table.

This, folks, is where Franck’s galvanizing personality comes in. When I look at the photos of PROJECT TABLETOP my first reaction is, who are these guys Franck is bossing around?

For instance, take this senior citizen who looks like he is about to have a coronary as he considers the prospect of helping take The Beast out of the back of the truck. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

Same goes for the guy in the striped Rugby shirt and the one with his back turned to the camera; I don’t know either of them from Job. The photos show that Franck managed to round up at least six men to help, and as far as I can tell, only three (the stonemason, the mystery man, and Franck) have a reason to be there.

However, I have lived long enough with Franck not to put it past him to rope in innocent bystanders. I strongly suspect that the other three men were probably taking a nice stroll down the rue Rousseau Deslandes, perhaps whistling in the wind or counting their centimes to see if they had enough to buy a baguette at the wonderful boulangerie at the end of our street, when they were unwittingly enlisted into PROJECT TABLETOP.

The lucky ones got to stay up top while the stone slab was slid down wooden planks into the cellar. And oh looky here! Franck has also talked his team into sliding down the extra stair step (needed after the excavation) while he was at it. I sometimes wonder if my dear husband didn’t invent the phrase “kill two birds with one stone” or perhaps more aptly “kill two innocent bystanders with one seriously heavy stone step”, but I digress…

Watch out below! Here comes the table top, and oui, a 1000 pound slab of stone is easily big enough to crush a man. Wanna bet that white haired guy is thinking I should have just eaten that stale bit of baguette I had at home…

And PROJECT TABLETOP is not finished yet. The Beast still has to be carried a few more metres over to the fabulous flower-pot table base.

How do you say “hernia” in French?

And move it just a leeeettttle bit this way. I can’t tell who this guy is from his shirt sleeves, but I’d wager good money that he wasn’t particularly popular at this juncture.

Because of his bad back my Dad was the official photographer of PROJECT TABLETOP. I haven’t asked him but I am thinking it must be sweat from all these manly men that makes those blurry spots on the pictures.

Ahhhhhhh…enfin! Finally the tasting table can be baptized. The innocent bystanders, relieved to have escaped unscathed except for a few sore muscles, may be starting to think, maybe I still don’t have my fresh baguette for lunch, but I wasn’t crushed and a fine glass of wine does make up for quite a bit…

And doesn’t the table look perfect now?

Besides, there’s something to be said for being involved in great artistic endeavors, a bit like the slaves felt as they laboured on the Pyramids in Egypt. You know, posterity and all that. And did I mention the good wine?

But sacré bleu, that was one heavy piece of stone…

Innovative Use for Flower Pots

***Was going to post this yesterday, as promised, but Blogger decided it wouldn’t accept photos for some tempermental reason, and its spell check STILL isn’t working, so please excuse spelling mistakes. You know. Sleep Deprivation…well, OK, also the fact that I am a terrible speller… ***

Last night was our first truly heinous night with Clémentine. She had a bad case of the sniffles so every time we tried to lay her out horizontal to sleep she would get all stuffed up and cry. I probably enjoyed a grand total of two hours of broken sleep, which has left me with the attention span and brain capacity of a gnat. However, I vaguely remember promising posting something about flower pots, so here goes…

Franck befriends people all the time, and over the past year he has become buddies with a man who shall remain nameless, as we don’t want him to get in trouble with his boss, who has been working on our street. Luckily for us, this mystery man also happens to be an expert on renovating wine cellars, as he has renovated some truly spectacular ones himself in places such as castles in Champagne and massive chateaux in Bordeaux.

In the strange fortuitous way things seem to work here in France, their friendship has evolved to the point where mystery man has named himself de facto volunteer general contractor on our cellar project. He doesn’t want to get paid (god knows, we have offered), he just likes seeing a cellar renovated the right way, and I guess he enjoys working with Franck.

He does things like spends three hours power washing the entire cellar with his own power washer, because that is the way it should be done. All he would let Franck do to thank him is take him out to lunch. Anyway, suffice to say that he is a miracle worker for us, and if our cellar turns out as lovely as I think it will, the credit should largely go to him. But it can’t, because his identity must remain a mystery. Zut alors.

During one of their many long conversations Franck and mystery man concocted the idea of a tasting table, as our cellar is not only going to be used for storing wine for ourselves, our families, and our clients, but also for hosting tastings whenever we are able to swing it. In my opinion wine never tastes as good as it does when you are tasting it in a real wine cellar, similar to how hot-dogs never tasted as good at home as they did at school in Canada during Hot Dog day.

Our mystery friend has more than a few tasting tables under his belt, and rather then pay for an expensive stone base, he suggested using two concrete flower pots filled and glued together with concrete. And although I was very skeptical when Franck told me the plan, I was amazed how good the base looked when it was all said and done;

Looks like a real stone base, doesn’t it? Except that it costs about a twentieth of what a real stone base would cost.

Next step was going to the stone quarry to pick out a table top. Franck, mystery helper, and my Dad all hustled off to the quarry that’s in the village of Chaux right beside us in Villers-la-Faye.

Men being men they of course picked out what must have been the most imposing, heaviest table top in the place. Here is the beast in the back of the truck;

My Dad figures it weighs about 1000 pounds. Seriously. So now the problem is, how do mystery man, Franck, and my Dad who has a seriously bum back, get the huge slab of stone out of the back of mystery man’s truck and down into the cellar?

You’ll see tomorrow…

In Love with Petit Bateau

More on the cellar tomorrow, but first I just have to take a moment to profess my love for Petit Bateau baby clothes…

Our friends Martial (who we’ve asked to be Clem’s godfather, incidentally) and Isabelle presented Clémentine with lots of lovely presents shortly after she was born, including her lovely soft dou-dou that as you can see below has already become a big favorite.

However, my favorite of their presents are the two Petit Bateau onesies they gave her. Like all Petit Bateau products, the cotton is impossibly soft and is just the perfect weight

The one she is modeling below says “Ma Petite Cherie” and makes her feel very French and feminine, which is important when one has very little hair on top of one’s head. The other one has many cute French phrases written pink on a white background, but she peed all over it as I was posing her for her photo shoot.

Anyway, check out the Petit Bateau website, which already has me drooling. Just click here;

http://www.petit-bateau.com/

And their US website;

http://www.petit-bateau.us/asp/us/?lang=US

They have recently added adult clothing and underwear as well, which the French women I know are snapping up. Anything Petit Bateau makes them feel very nostalgic as they all began life in Petit Bateau onesies like Clémentine.

Now Here’s Where the Muscles Come In

The first thing to do was dig, dig, dig as there wasn’t as much ceiling height in the cellar as we would have liked. This was a laborious process, not only was the ground hard and rocky, but all of the stuff that was dug up had to be hauled up to street level via those two wooden planks in plastic bins. Very heavy, sweaty work.

So I guess it was no surprise that the stonemasons stopped after digging about half a foot, protesting they couldn’t go any further because of rock. Quitting when you become fed up isn’t something to be ashamed of over here, on the contrary it’s a French perogative. At this point my workhorse of a husband picked up a pick and a shovel and began to dig and pick-axe himself, shaming the masons into grudgingly picking up their shovels again and digging a full foot alongside him in a matter of hours.

Here’s what it looked like by the end of that day – still a cellar, but with lots more head room to come down and have a comfortable tasting.

And of course Franck broke out the wine at the end of the day, so the masons would come back the next time we needed them. For anyone doing any renos here in Burgundy, take note of this essential practice.

And tomorrow will bring the next installment, when my husband and his mysterious helper perform magic and transform concrete planters into a tasting table….

Progress in Beaune Cellar

Over the past month while I have been busy having a baby, Franck has certainly not been resting on his laurels. There has been phenomenal progress made in the cellar in Beaune, which as you can remember looked like this when we bought it along with the apartment which has since become Le Relais du Vieux Beaune.

It had been unused for as long as anyone could remember so was very dark, dirty and full of cobwebs.

Nothing had been done to bring out the good aspects, like the amazing stone pillar and the double vaulted ceiling. Tommorrow I’ll post the first batch of the amazing transformation photos. Must fly now – Clem is hungry!

Prepare to be amazed!

In Praise of Tears – Part III

Just to preface the third and final installment of “In Praise of Tears” I have to state for the record that Franck now thinks he can get away with anything due to my effusive blog yesterday.

This morning I had gotten Charlotte and Camille dressed, coiffed, and equipped for school, given Clémentine her bottle and put her to sleep and I was finally ready for one of my favorite moments in the day, my long hot shower.

Franck, who had been lingering over breakfast, had the audacity to say he wanted to shave first before I steamed up the mirror. When I protested rather hotly he fixed me with a cheeky look.

“Tais-toi femme! If you are forgetting how wonderful I am you should go and read your blog from yesterday. I can do no wrong.”

Mon Dieu. I’ve created a latin lover / monster hybrid.

*****

In Praise of Tears – Part III

I asked Franck the other day if as a child he wore his heart on his sleeve, like Charlotte does. He said he was exactly like her, living completely emotionally in the moment. Although he no longer cries at the drop of a hat, he didn’t and still doesn’t see any point of being any other way.

I think if you asked most other French people how they are able to express their emotions so freely, they would be puzzled. From what I can tell they simply don’t see the point in repressing anything. Contrary to many Anglo-Saxons, emotions for them are simply things to be lived, not managed. I, on the other hand, was brought up in a society where showing emotions was generally viewed as a sign of weakness. However, I completely disagree with this now, and have come to view the Latin way of letting the tears flow as a sign of emotional strength.

The stark contrast in the emotional nature of my two oldest girls is a perfect case in point. Camille had a completely different way of reacting to my parents’ departure than Charlotte. She remained stoutly dry-eyed, and when I told her it was OK to cry if she felt like it she leapt around in her bed like a jumping jack and replied, “Oh, I’m not sad.”

“You’re not going to miss Nana and Grandpa?” I asked.

“I will, but I just don’t think about it.” Yes folks, I’m here to tell you that denial can begin as early as six years old.

I know for a fact that Camille adores my parents every bit as much as Charlotte, and that she is going to miss them terribly, yet she has somehow inherited my tendency to stuff everything down inside. However, it comes out, whether we like it or not.

And sure enough, it did come out the day after my parents left. She broke down in hot, gushing tears several times for things like not finding her favorite stuffy, me “pulling her hair” as I brushed it, and the fact that her favorite cartoon was over. She was tired and cranky and preoccupied, classic signs of the emotional hangover I have come to know so well. Charlotte, on the other hand, having gotten the tears out of her system the night before woke up bright eyed and ready to take on the world.

Over the months to come I’m hoping that being in France will help me teach Camille (and me) to cry more, not for Charlotte to cry less.

Happy 40th Birthday to My French Guy

My wonderful French husband is 40 years old today. All through high school I despaired that I would never meet a nice guy who was smart, masculine, and didn’t talk about women like they were various models of sports cars. There are moments even now, eighteen years after we first met, when I can’t quite believe my luck that I found him.

There were also moments today when I couldn’t quite believe I am married to someone who is FORTY YEARS OLD, but as he says, he’s just like his beloved Burgundian wine in that he improves with age. Besides, as my Dad says (and he would know), it takes a pretty special man to be a father to three daughters. Joyeux Anniversaire Franck.

P.S. Have a look at Franck’s photo and then the photo of Clémentine below. The medical team in the OR all agreed she had a definite “aire de papa” when she was born and I think they were right on the money.

Totally Gratuitous Photo of Clémentine

Final Installment of “In Praise of Tears” tommorrow, and next week is all about the amazing progress Franck has made in the cellar in Beaune, with lots of photos. Now that I’m not longer pregnant I can go and look for myself (though maybe on second thought should wait until C-section incision closes entirely) without fearing I will turf myself ass over tea-kettle with unborn child down the steep stone stairs.