petite anglaise

Forgive me, I’m just thinking aloud. In no particular order:

1. Register Tadpole for pre-shool for September 06 at local mairie in case Lover turns out to be an axe murderer and we decide not to leave Paris after all (deadline 31 January)
2. Purchase 2 camels, 1 donkey and several goats (www.oxfam.co.uk)
3. Put magnum of champagne in fridge to chill for party tomorrow, make mince pies
4. Ring UPS to convey “petite” to Ipod Hospital in Netherlands in her pre-paid envelope
5. Choose new glasses frames (Prada?)
6. Get passport photos for recruitment agency (black and white? more flattering?)
7. Pack Tadpole’s overnight/weekend bags
8. Pay nanny (tomorrow)
9. Check current status of misbehaving digital camera – need usual Christmas photo of Tadpole with antlers developed in time for sending of Christmas cards
10. Buy glittery pens for colouring Early Learning Center christmas cards with Tadpole

We approach the mairie at top speed, then grind to an sudden halt in the middle of the cobbled square in front of the main entrance. I realise I am going to be late for work, again, but pausing to show Tadpole Something Interesting is much more important than accurate timekeeping, in my opinion. And my annual evaluation was last week.

“Look! Those men are putting some big Christmas trees up over there!”

Tadpole turns to stare in the wrong direction. She hasn’t yet grasped the concept of looking to see what my finger is actually pointing towards.

“Over there, near the clock,” I prompt, impatiently.

“Ooh! Is VERY BIG that Christmas tree!” she exclaims, suitably excited.

“Soon, the men will put lights on the trees, and decorations, and it will be really pretty,” I explain. “I think they’ll probably turn the lights on on Thursday.”

What a wonderful thing it is to live in a country where the run up to Christmas only starts on December 1st, I think to myself. Overpriced Christmas trees are only just going on sale in the local florist’s, and so far I haven’t been subjected to a single Christmas song while shopping in Monoprix.

“And Père Noël will put some presents there for [Tadpole],” my daughter continues, clearly having taken to heart the lesson I taught her only yesterday using our newly purchased Happyland Christmas Set, pictured above.

“Yes, but only if you’re a very good girl,” I clarify. “If you’re a naughty girl, you’ll get …” I pause, for dramatic effect, to let her finish my sentence.

“No presents!”

I think I’m starting to see the logic behind the whole Father Christmas myth, now that Tadpole is old enough to understand it. There is seemingly unlimited mileage to be had out of The Christmas Threat. I wonder how many times between now and December 25th I will catch myself saying “don’t be naughty, Father Christmas is watching you!”

The only flaw in my dastardly plan is my patent inability to actually purchase any presents without giving in to a sudden and overwhelming urge to let Tadpole have them immediately. So, not only will there be no presents under the Christmas tree come D-day if my irresponsible behaviour continues, but Tadpole won’t actually care about The Christmas threat because every single day of the past week has been Christmas as far as she is concerned.

Must try harder.

Buy Tadpole stuff!

Technology, it would seem, is no longer my friend.

First, let me share the tale of woe of my beloved 40 GB Ipod, won in a charity reverse auction for the symbolic sum of £ 16.00 last Christmas. “Petite”, as she is known, is having some sort of identity crisis. She no longer remembers that she is, in fact, an Ipod. She has forgotten how to have cosy chats with my computer. Error messages abound every time I set “petite” on her stand. She “won’t mount”. I have no idea what could at the root of her sudden frigidity.

Reformatting her is not an option, as even the ‘restore’ tool will not acknowledge her existence. There is nothing for it but to send her, swathed in swaddling clothes and bubble wrap, to the Apple Hospital and pray that they are able to perform a miracle. Which clearly will involve wiping the 2,500+ songs stored inside her pretty head, which I, in my blondeness, have neglected to back up anywhere on my computer. Gah.

The good news: “petite” is still within her one year warranty period, so any repairs should be free of charge. The bad news: Apple may demand proof of purchase, which I don’t have, as I didn’t actually purchase her. So now I have to contact the nice people at Auctionair, to see if they have some sort of paperwork.

I’m not holding my breath.

Secondly, our faithful digital camera (which does not have a name or gender) is being temperamental. Sometimes it can see perfectly well. At other times the preview screen remains black. After warming up for a little while, the camera may deign to recognise a light source like, say, a naked lightbulb if it is approximately 2 cm from the lens. Other than that, blackness. A form of depression, perhaps.

Obviously the dark phases occur when I am at home fiddling ever more desperately with the settings in the comfort of my apartment, and the working perfectly well phases occur when I am standing in the Fnac about to ask the opinion of an expert.

I suppose as these things always come in threes, I must brace myself to see what is going to malfunction next. The computer itself? The rather ancient video recorder which Tadpole uses to watch Noddy and Pingu?

I don’t suppose the bulb which exploded when I turned on the hall light this morning counts?

Preoccupied as I was with all my technological woes this morning, I fed and dressed Tadpole on autopilot.

After bundling her into the lift, I squeezed in beside her with my large plastic bin full to overflowing with bottles destined for the recycling bin (note to self, just how did I get through that quantity of red wine?) Halfway down to the ground floor, I heard Tadpole’s muffled, and rather puzzled voice emerge from beneath several layers of fleecy (pink) clothing.

“Mummy, I got my slippers on.”

I am left wondering whether I can’t climb into a nice padded envelope and send myself in for a service.

When my Lover is not with me, I sleep fitfully, work worries flitting around my head, like moths around a lightbulb. When I do manage to sleep, I migrate onto his pillows, which are impregnated with the scent of his skin, unconsciously seeking the comfort of a warm shoulder.

I wake and the winter moonlight gives no clue as to the hour. It could be hours or minutes before the alarm sounds. Reluctant to rouse myself further to squint at my watch, I lie wide awake nevertheless, mildly paranoid, as always, that I’m going to be late, that the alarm will not work at all.

Familiar knots tighten in my stomach as my mind predictably turns to the office. Will it be a neutral day, or a stormy one? Weather map symbols swim before my eyes. Where once every day was dry with light cloud and sunny intervals, nowadays there are, at best, ominous grey clouds gathering; at worst, a violent storm.

After what seems like an eternity, electronic beeps signal 6.45 am. I switch on the bedside light, ease my glasses onto my nose, and try to will my body out from under the heavy, duck down duvet. Five minutes pass, then ten. Why, oh why does a bed always feel at least ten times more comfortable when it is time to leave it?

If I strain my ears, I can hear a gentle, regular snoring coming from Tadpole’s room along the hallway. She’s as reluctant as I to wake in the winter, and invariably turns to face the wall, her sleepy, plaintive voice protesting “No mummy! I can’t get up. I’m tired!”

Today is no different. Softly I repeat her name until she stirs; the pattern of her breathing subtly changes. Curling into a foetal ball, she emits a little moan. I begin to pull on my work clothes, knowing that she will come around, in time.

Sure enough, when my head emerges from a polo neck jumper, I see sparkling blue eyes looking at me mischievously over the top of a teddy bear.

“I peeping mummy!” she giggles, as she raises herself up on one elbow.

I smile, feeling one of the knots loosening, unravelling, in my stomach.

Gathering the sleeping bag sheathed Tadpole into my arms, I sink into the nearby sofa, my face buried in her neck. Small, soothing fingers caress my neck and run themselves through my dishevelled hair. She pulls herself upright, eyes close to mine, the tips of our noses touching. Suddenly animated, she exclaims:

“Go outside and make some clouds?”

I see us in my mind’s eye, yesterday morning, walking alongside the park, our warm breath visible in the frosty air. Tadpole’s eyes were wide with wonder, and she beseeched me “souffle mummy, souffle!” over and over again. Simple things which I take for granted take on new meaning when I can show them to Tadpole for the very first time.

Slowly, in the presence of my daughter, office stress recedes into insignificance. From our exchanges I draw the strength to face my day.

I can hear the gynecologist talking on the phone in the next room. A personal call, judging by her cooing tones. Despite the fact that she is ten minutes late, that I am the only person in the tiny waiting room, sitting awkwardly on the overstuffed leather sofa, glancing at my watch periodically to see just how late back to work I am going to be, she is clearly not it any hurry to call me in. Classical music plays on invisible speakers, but does not have the desired soothing effect.

Finally, five minutes later, I am summoned in. I shake her hand, trying not to think about where it spends much of its time, and take a seat, opposite her desk.

“Now, remind me of your name,” she says, looking not nearly as bashful as she should, under the circumstances.

I comply, puzzled as to why she doesn’t have my notes in front of her. What does her secretary do all day? Blog?

“I seem to have misplaced your notes,” she continues, rising to paw through her filing cabinet half-heartedly, but apparently still drawing a blank.

I sigh, and refresh her memory as to the subject of our previous appointment, less than a month ago. Explanations out of the way, I am invited to strip naked (bottom half only) and take up the habitual position on my back, feet in stirrups.

My mother always told me that once you’ve had a baby, any inhibitions you used to have will disappear. I found this to be true during my pregnancy, largely because due to my burgeoning belly, I couldn’t actually get a clear view of what was going on down there anyway, but shortly afterwards, my inhibitions returned to haunt me with a vengeance.

Suffice to say that the snap of latex gloves being pulled on is not a sound I look forward to. Nor is the fact that French gynéco’s all seem to be rather fond of checking for breast lumps with their bare, cold hands, which is not dissimilar to being groped by a particularly inept sixteen year old boy.

Thirty seconds later it is all over, and when I return to my seat, a prescription awaits me. I pull out my cheque book and pen.

“Sixty five euros?” I ask, wondering if my memory can be serving me correctly.

“Oui, Madame, c’est exact,” comes the reply. Her nose is already in the next person’s file, signalling that I have been dismissed.

Inwardly fuming, I write my cheque. Sixty five euros for five minutes of her precious time. Sixty five euros to see a doctor who has misplaced my records, has no idea of my history, and yet feels qualified to make a snappy, thirty second diagnosis. Sixty five euros, all because she has a double-barrelled name and a tiny cabinet from whose windows you can almost, but not quite, make out the Louvre.

I mumble the usual niceties and take my leave, vowing never to cross her threshold again, even if she is within spitting distance of my office.

Three things offended my delicate sensibilities today. In the following order:

First, the grafitti in the lift which takes me into the bowels of the earth to catch my morning métro:

“Pas heureux chez nous? Allez donc crever de faim chez vous!”

Glad to see the spirit of fraternité is alive and kicking in the twenty first century.

Second, old greasy bum is back on a billboard near you (shameless recycling on the part of the Galéries Lafayette) and almost succeeded in putting me off my brioche.

Third, work. I don’t talk about work. It’s my new rule. But if I say I decided it might be prudent to revamp the CV today, that’s not really talking about work, is it?

I had been dreading Tadpole’s appointment with the optician ever since the day I scheduled it, back in September.

Pyschologically scarred by our previous visit, during which I suggested to the optician that perhaps a kiddy straitjacket might be a worthwhile investment, I couldn’t help fearing the worst.

Has anyone out there ever tried administering eye drops to an energetic twelve month old? It wasn’t the first set of drops which posed a problem, although they did provoke an ear splitting squeal which was probably heard by every resident of the 20th arrondissement.

But the fun really started when I went back for a second attempt. And a third. And fourth. At the merest glimpse of the eyedropper, Tadpole screamed and clamped her eyes tightly shut. With one hand holding the pipette, the other attempting to pin her wildly gesticulating arms to her chest, a third hand was required to perform the prising open of Tadpole’s eyelids. But, being anatomically quite unadventurous, I sadly do not possess a third hand. In despearation, I called for backup, and left a frantic, expletive-riddled message on Mr Frog’s mobile phone messagerie. To no avail. Reinforcements were not forthcoming.

Forty minutes of toddler-wrestling later, one of Tadpole’s pupils was greatly enlarged (her eye not dissimilar to my own in a favourite photo entitled “petite outside the dance tent, Glastonbury Festival, 1995″ in which my irises do not appear to exist), whilst the other remained a stubborn little dot. Eyedrops, mingled with tears, ran into Tadpole’s ears and hair, and dribbled down her clothes. Her protesting face was the colour of a beetroot. At my wits’ end, I vowed never again to brave the optician’s alone.

Which brings us to Saturday morning, 8.50am. Petite and Tadpole alight from a number 26 bus at the junction of rue des Pyrénées and rue de Bagnolet, armed with an impressive artillery of bribes (madeleines with chocolate chips, colouring book and felt tip pens, favourite dolly). We scurry past the Flèche d’Or, which I glance at wistfully (petite’s social life – R.I.P.), and arrive at the cobbled rue St Blaise, home of the children’s ophtalmologue.

Tadpole fiddles dubiously with the various grubby looking, paleolithic toys which populate the waiting area; I wrestle with my own sense of foreboding. A door opens, and the ophtalmo appears.

“Tadpole Anglaise?”

“Oui, c’est ma fille.”

“Et quel âge a-t-elle?”

I hastily count on my fingers. “Er, … 29 months.”

“Right, come on in!”

My jaw drops. “We don’t have to do the eye drops first?”

“No, she’s old enough to do an eye test this time…”

Brimming over with gratitude, I resist an overwhelming urge to throw my arms around the optician lady.

Ten minutes later, we are free to go, as Tadpole has successfully “read” the test chart on the wall, with only two minor hesitations, and one rather perplexing moment where the optician points at a picture of a flower, and Tadpole cries:

“hélicoptère!”

In the bus on the way home, I discreetly finger the untouched chocolate chip madeleines in my bag, with a smile of anticipation.

If you had seen me last night at 10 pm, kneeling on the icy cold tomette tiles of my kitchen floor, head and torso wedged tightly into the cupboard under the sink, rear end protruding, you would have been forgiven for wondering what on earth I was doing.

It all started with the innocent looking cardboard notice which greeted me as opened the lift door yesterday evening, proclaiming that a quarterly reading of the water meter was required. I sighed, and cursed my landlord, and the inept bunch of renovators he seemingly employed to give our flat a superficial and ill-thought out makeover prior to our arrival in December 2002.

The “kitchen”, where the infamous water meter is located, is little more than a glorified corridor, as is often the case in circa 1900 apartment buildings, where the original, respectably sized kitchen was later carved up in order to create a bathroom alongside it. Prior to this, shared facilities would have been the norm.

When Mr Frog and I moved in, the only equipment in our “cuisine équipée” was a sink unit with gas hobs set into the work surface adjacent to the sink, (meaning, helpfully, no space for a draining board). Below the sink, the cupboard my bottom was protruding from. Below the gas hobs, an empty space and the wherewithall to plumb in a washing machine. With a little creative thinking and an ikea catalogue, I managed to create a compact and bijou kitchen out of this tiny space, which works well enough, so long as not more than one person wants to be in there at any given time.

That is, until a reading from the water meter is required.

In order to obtain said reading, one must first reach behind the cupboard under the sink and detach the washing machine hoses. As access is rather awkward, it is advisable to empty said cupboard of its contents. Then, once the water hoses have been disconnected, the washing machine may be eased gently from its housing. Unfortunately, the person who devised and fitted the kitchen unit decided to make it exactly as wide as a standard-sized washing machine, but not a centimetre wider. With the result that my faithful Zanussi “appliance of science” has to be be prised, wiggled and coaxed out of its space with a certain amount of difficulty. Every time the manoeuvre is repeated, the future of said kitchen unit looks ever more uncertain. Half way through said manoeuvre, it becomes apparent that the free standing work surface/cupboard located directly opposite the washing machine needs to be wheeled out of the way, into the hall, to enable the washing machine to be heaved into the space it occupied.

Finally, one must crawl on hands and knees into the space vacated by the washing machine, preferably armed with a cloth for mopping up the water which has undoubtedly escaped from the dangling water hoses, and also a torch, for the reading of the western world’s most inaccessible water meter, located on the back wall. After which the washing machine must be coaxed back into its sheath and re-connected to the water supply/drain.

An operation which takes, on average, twenty minutes, and which can be likened, in terms of the discomfort and physical contortion involved, to the act of kissing the blarney stone.

Imagine, if you will, the fun I had performing this task for the first time, when heavily pregnant with Tadpole. I sat down, panting, to fill in the card which the water company had left on my doormat. Only at this juncture did I notice that the number they were interested in was the one which appeared in the black area. Not the red one which I had just taken down.

Yesterday, however, I successfuly employed Mr Frog’s meter reading method (patent pending), marvelling at how effortlessly simple it was. After a mere five minutes spent with my torso wedged in the cupboard, arm outstretched into the void beyond (praying that it would not encounter any spiders, cockroaches or other vermin along the way) and a few “click click click click beep” noises, the reading was mine, all mine. Not a drop of water was shed; not a female tennis player style grunt of exertion was to be heard.

Pure, unadulterated genius.

“We’re going to see lights flying in the sky. Very noisy lights, that go whizz! and weee! and BANG!”

“BANG!” repeats Tadpole, waving her arms enthusiastically and managing to elbow me in the chin in the process.

I realise that it is not easy to describe fireworks to a two year old without performing a variety of sound effects, and regret the fact that I didn’t choose to do so in the privacy of my own home.

Painfully aware of the taxi driver eying me incredulously in the rear view mirror, I decide an explanation might be in order, for his benefit.

“Mummy calls the light fireworks, in English. And in French they are called feu d’artifice,” I say, in my best educator’s voice.

“Feu n’artifice! Feu n’artifice!” shrieks the resident parrott.

I thank my lucky stars that this year Tadpole is too young for an explanation of why the effigy of a man called Mr Fawkes is being burned, somewhat barbarically, on a bonfire.

We alight at the British Embassy and make our way to the garden, where the fun and festivities are to take place; I put down my mulled wine and busy myself sending a text message to the very kind reader/embassy employee who invited Tadpole and I to the annual bonfire party, to announce our arrival.

Small children race across the lawn in the semi-darkness, squealing with excitement at being allowed to stay up after bedtime. Tadpole, almost invisible in her black coat, proves almost impossible to keep track of. My insistent pleas to “stay near mummy” fall on deaf ears, and every few minutes I am forced to interrupt my conversation and set off in search of my errant daughter. To think that I used to take for granted the fact that I could look someone in the eye while having a conversation and actually finish my sentences. Those days are, sadly, long gone.

Only bribery in the form of unhealthy foodstuffs provides Tadpole with an incentive to spend a little time with mummy, and I am pathetically grateful to the kind ladies on the barbecue stall for their array of toddler taming quavers, hot dogs and curly wurlies.

When the firework display begins, Tadpole darts over to the mesh fence which has been used to section off the onlookers from the bonfire, and throws her head back, roaring with delighted, slightly deranged sounding laughter. The child is most definitely not afraid. I drop to her level and we make the obligatory “ooh” and “aah” sounds in unison.

For the remainder of the weekend, whenever my daughter talks about the fireworks (approximately once every hour), there is a frightening glint in her eyes, which I have only seen once before (when my mother in law evoked her weekly trips to the town casino).

I try to convince myself that by attending the display, I have not unwittingly sown the seeds of pyromania.

Cars they may have been a-burning, and people they may have been a-rioting, but petite, oblivious to it all this weekend, swapped her keyboard for a paintbrush, set her ipod on its base, and, rather randomly, decided to play albums by bands beginning with the letter K while she worked.

And it was very relaxing indeed.

At first, I agonised over how Tadpole would react to the fact that not only did daddy now live across the road, but that there was also a new man in my life.

I was adamant that he couldn’t come to stay in the flat I used to share with Mr Frog, sleep on what had, until recently, been his side of the the bed, on what my daughter still refers to as “daddy’s pillow”. (Although the pillows, mattress and all of the bedding is, in fact, symbolically new.) So, for the first few months we visited Rennes, Tadpole and I, and much as I wanted to, I didn’t invite Lover to visit me in Paris unless Tadpole was away.

I have a vivid memory of our first journey to Rennes together, Tadpole giggling at her reflection in my powder compact, while I hastily applied a little make up, anxious to look my best when we stepped off the train. My daughter, desperate to wear some lip gloss “just like mummy”, had to be fobbed off with lip salve, and was allowed to “help mummy” by dragging a brush, somewhat painfully, through my hair.

Later that weekend, glancing back at my daughter, who was walking hand in hand with one of Lover’s girls and chattering happily, I realised that although this new relationship might seem complicated on paper, it didn’t have to be in practice. And when Tadpole shrieked with delight, seated high above me on Lover’s broad shoulders, I knew that although he would never replace her daddy, she had found a new friend.

Yesterday I reflected on how much things have changed, since that weekend in June. Nowadays, Lover comes to stay in Paris for a week or two at a time, and is a semi-permanent fixture in the anglaise household. When we arrive home in the evenings, Tadpole knocks insistently on the front door, calling his name over and over, until he opens it just a chink, and peeps through the gap. Every day the same routine; every day the same delighted giggles from Tadpole. He is entitled to a kiss and a cuddle at bedtime once the stories have been read. Futile attempts have been made by Tadpole to enlist his support against me when my daughter and I are in conflict over a plate of untouched dinner. Luckily, he is wise enough to take a step back in situations like these, refusing to take sides or to allow the resident manipulator to get her own way by playing us off against each other.

Occasionally Tadpole shows her possessive streak and becomes annoyed at the fact that she is not receiving my undiluted attention every single second of the day. “That’s MY mummy!” she shouted petulantly, eyebrows furrowed, when she arrived home after a weekend with Mr Frog and the In Laws, indignant at being asked to share.

Tonight Tadpole and I will return to an empty flat, the lights out, the laptop conspicuously absent from my dining table. Tadpole will finally have me all to herself, and yet I know that the first thing she will say to me when I pick her up from the childminder’s will be:

“Go see Jim?”

I pace the apartment impatiently, already wearing my shoes and coat, noting that having adjusted the clocks on Sunday, not a single one displays the correct time, or agrees with any of the others.

Regardless of which one I choose to believe, Mr Frog is still, undeniably, late.

Finally, I hear the lift jerk to a juddering halt, and the voice of a chattering Tadpole within. Opening the front door, I crouch down to Tadpole-level, my heart catching in my throat.

I haven’t seen my daughter since Saturday morning.

Mr Frog pushes open the door of the lift, and a golden haired bundle hurtles into my outstretched arms, shouting “Maman MaMAN MAMAN!” I bury my nose in her curls, inhaling her scent, and hold her to me a little too tightly, reluctant to set her free.

So overjoyed am I to see her that I am willing to overlook the fact that she has come back all French. I resist the usual impulse to repeat her French words in English. Just this once.

There are new clothes in her bag, from mamie and papy, explains a slightly sheepish Mr Frog, and he launches into an anecdote from the weekend, but sadly there is no time to linger and chat, as I am now running late for the childminder’s.

So, in the absence of Mr Frog’s report, I try to extract some information from Tadpole on the way, as I strain to push the buggy through the soggy leaves strewn several centimetres deep across the pavement.

“So, what have you been doing at mamie and papy’s house?” I enquire.

Tadpole turns and replies, somewhat cryptically, “Babouche! Nicolas! Noddy!”

“Nicolas? Who’s Nicholas” I wonder, as I happen to know that Babouche is a stuffed monkey and Noddy undoubtedly refers to her DVD of the new, inferior, animated version.

“It’s a baby!” Tadpole replies. I am none the wiser, as I don’t know of anyone with a son called Nicolas. I suspect it may be a doll, but can’t be certain.

I try a change of tack. “Did you ride your bike?”

“Oui!”

“Did you draw some pictures?”

“Oui!”

“What did you draw?”

“Tadpole… and mummy. And a car.” Sounds plausible. As long as I wasn’t driving the car.

“What did you have for your dinner?”

“Pasta!” Either Tadpole never eats anything else, or this is her stock response when she can’t remember. It’s difficult to tell.

I decide that an email to Mr Frog will probably be more effective, as my daughter is clearly still rather hazy about what the word “yesterday” means, and has the memory of a goldfish. Either that or my interrogation techniques are woefully inadequate.

So, instead, we turn our attention to spotting spiders’ webs on the park railings and singing “Incey Wincey ‘Pider”.

We are back in our little routine, where we belong, the weekend apart already forgotten.