Ausfahrt and Baby farts

Conor in his Bruce Springsteen onesie from Uncle Jordan

Fun Fact: Ausfahrt means "exit" in German. 

La Vie Quotidienne: Life has been refreshingly routine since Christmas.  We haven't travelled anywhere (until this weekend) and have enjoyed a few lazy weeks at home.  Conor is finally back on something resembling a schedule and is starting to sleep a bit better (i.e. longer and less wake-ups in the middle of the night ... except that as I am writing this blog he just inexplicably woke up for close to an hour).  Most mornings he is wide awake by 6:30 am and wants to play.  The French are not morning people and the six o'clock hour is a tough time to be awake in this country.  It stays dark until about 8 am and the morning news doesn't start until pretty late - and most of you know I'm addicted to the morning news.  My point is that between 6 am and 9 am French time is a pretty good time to get ahold of me - especially through Skype (hint hint).

We've started a few regular activities - first, weekly French lessons! Every Tuesday night an instructor comes to our house for a two hour lesson.  James' co-fellow at IRCAD, Vivian, is in our "petit cours" and we are having a great time.  After our lesson we make dinner, drink wine and hang out a bit - a nice little Tuesday night. 

Second, Conor and I have been regularly attending two playgroups.  On Wednesday mornings, Strasbourg's English Speaking Community (ESC) hosts a playgroup and on Friday mornings, the Americans in Alsace Association (AIA) has their own (some would say competing) playgroup.  At the AIA playgroup last week I met another mom who teaches violin so I'm going to re-start taking lessons.  (Some of you may remember that I have big plans to learn the violin so I can someday play in an Irish pub.  I took one lesson in San Francisco and learned Row Row Row Your Boat).

Third, I've been going to yoga twice a week.  I really look forward to these classes.  The studio is beautiful and is less than five minutes from our house.  I'm happy to report that I can now, for the first time ever, sit in the full lotus position.  It is quite painful to sit this way. 

Fourth, having the flu seems to be a regular activity.  We celebrated James' birthday a few Saturdays ago and, since it was his birthday, I took the morning shift with Conor the following Sunday morning.  At first I thought I just had a bit of a hangover but by mid-morning I had the chills, bodyaches, sore throat - basically the full blown flu for the second time this winter!  This one was a doozy and I was pretty much in bed for three days feeling terrible.  James thought he escaped the worst of it because he had a night with flu-like symptoms about a week before.  But - no such luck - he came down with the same flu this past week. 

Here's a picture we took on our walk home the other night:

Baden Baden:
After a few quiet weekends at home, we decided to head to Baden Baden yesterday for one night.  Baden Baden is in Germany but less than an hour from Strasbourg.  Bill Clinton somewhat famously said that "Baden Baden is so nice they named it twice."  It is a nice town but VERY sleepy and full of retired Germans and Russians.  Baden means "baths" in German and, as its name suggets, the town's claim to faim is its thermal springs. 

James and I spent a very relaxing morning at Friedrichsbad (http://www.carasana.de/home/en/roemisch.html) - the 130 year old Roman baths with Irish hot baths in the center of Baden Baden.  Sundays are "mixed" so male and female, young-ish and old cruise around naked from bath to bath.  It was great but I was thankful to be relatively sure I wouldn't happen to run into anyone I knew.  I can't think of anything much awkwarder than unexpectedly having to steam naked next to a co-worker or, worse yet, a boss. 

Conor Update: Conor is starting to turn his nose up at the delicious pureed vegetables I make him but will gobble up the sweet fruit puree I feed him each afternoon.  I think he's developping quite a sweet tooth.  In an effort to make his vegetables more appetizing, I tried adding a bit of fromage blanc (like sour cream but not sour) to make it creamier.  Then, because I had a huge tub of fromage blanc, I added it to his fruit puree and evening porridge.  I think I OD'd him on fromage blanc because for the next few days he had the worst gas!

When I picked him up from daycare the following afternoon, one of the ladies told me that Conor was standing up at one of the playpens and tooted really loud.  Then, he got all surprised and started looking around to see where the noise had come from :)


Here's Conor devouring an orange and some fromage blanc




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