Marvelous Adventures in Paris Last Friday

Pictures first from Thursday's adventure. Pardon my French. Spellings, that is.
Audrey sleeping past the Eiffel Tower (in the distance).

Audrey sleeping over the Seine River.
Audrey sleeping down the Champs Elysses.
Audrey sleeping past the Arc de Triumph.

Audrey sleeping going past Notre Dame.

Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, she got ANOTHER bag. This one is from the Baldridges. They got it in Ethiopia. Oh yes - THANK you.

Current events first:

Steve took off this morning at 6 a.m. to deliver Nancy and Lynette to the airport. It's now 7.30 and the kiddos are still asleep upstairs. It will be interesting to see how long they all sleep in a quiet house.

Backtracking now to Paris:

Friday morning dawns and we meet everyone downstairs in the hotel lobby. It is decided that we will try a restaurant for breakfast instead of McDonald's. So we go across the street from McD's to a place called Le Prevoyant. I shared a French version of an English breakfast with Audrey. It was ham & eggs, pastries, and coffee. I can handle *this* English breakfast. Not a tomato or baked bean in sight. We linger over breakfast and are amused by the lift/electric dumbwaiter that rises out of the restaurant's floor with supplies for the kitchen and bar. Very interesting.

We head out with the plan to use the tour buses as our transportation today for a couple of sightseeing stops in addition to trying to get on the 2 tour lines we didn't go on yesterday. We have to change buses at the tour company's base of operations - or their boutique as they call it - so Steve and I decide that he will pop in to see if the stroller is there yet from yesterday. While he's doing that, Cindy, Alan, Connor and I dash across the street to a C&A store. It's a clothing store. We are getting winter clothing for various family members. A coat for Connor, hats, mittens, scarves for Connor, Caleb, Audrey, Nancy, Cindy, Me, mittens for Lynette. I finally found a hat that fits my large head. It's a black wool hat with faux-fur trim around the brim. Warm and stylish. As soon as I picked this one out, I turned around to see that Cindy had picked out the brown version for herself. Nice taste, Cindy!

So we get back across the street to discover that after standing in line for 20 minutes behind some completely aggravating Spanish ladies, Steve learned that our stroller would be there in about 20 minutes. Five minutes later, an employee comes out with it. Good timing! And for the record, the ladies were aggravating because they weren't listening to the customer service lady explaining the different tours - not because they were Spanish.





I just ran upstairs to get Julie. I heard her stirring up there and I scooted up to get her a) before she woke up the other kids and b) before she decided to roll/crawl/move off my bed where she was sleeping. I got up there and she was sitting up between the pillows at the headboard just waiting for somebody to come get her. Thank goodness.





Anyway - back on the tour bus and headed to the Louvre. It took us quite a while after we got in to get tickets, get our stuff deposited at the coat check, get everyone through the bathrooms, and get upstairs to the correct floor to begin our tour. Our group, now 11 in number, is trying to make our way to see the "Mona Lisa." We have discovered in the Louvre that the elevators are: 1 - not marked very well, and 2 - not near the escalators. This piece of information is crucial to the next bit of our adventure: getting lost in the Louvre.





Yes, getting lost in the Louvre. Not everyone, mind you, just me and my girls. While everyone else was heading up the escalators, we were getting on the elevator. As I'm pushing the stroller into the lift, Audrey has the first of her "pink hat" tantrums of the day. The hat, scarf & mittens I got for her are made of pink chenille and she wants to carry them. Not wear them - carry them. But they're with all of our coats and junk at the coat check. She doesn't accept that we can't just go back and get the pink hat - we have to wait until the end of our museum visit to collect our stuff. So she's moaning & groaning about her pink hat as we get on the elevator and I just take a quick glance at the elevator buttons. The one on the top has a little picture of the Mona Lisa beside it, so that's the one I mash as I'm listening to "I want to go get my pink hat out of that box Moooooommyyyyy!"





As we ascend, I get the feeling that we're going up several floors, but no big deal because we're going to see the Mona Lisa, right?





We get off the elevator into a large red room with ginormous paintings on the walls. I follow the signs to the Mona Lisa (just around a corner) and glance at it as I keep my eyes open for the rest of the group. No rest of the group, but Audrey is making up for it with her volume. She is now throwing herself on the floor because she doesn't want to walk, she doesn't want to go, she doesn't want to listen, and if I had suggested eating ice cream with Cinderella, she wouldn't have wanted to do that either. We pass through the Mona Lisa room and go out into a big long hall. It's the one that "The DaVinci Code" book begins in. Still no rest of the group as I try to look up and down the hall.





Now I'm trying to figure out if it's ok to eat in here because Little Miss Sunshine is moaning about being hungry. I tell her that we might eat when we sit down and she starts yelling about "not might eat, YES eat!" Since I see no signs that indicate that eating is a no-no, I open up a chocolate chip granola bar, but I'm holding it because the chocolate chips are loose and I don't want them to fall on the floor. But NO. This is not acceptable. SHE must hold it. Fine. Whatever. Hold the stupid thing. Lose all the chocolate chips and make a mess of the floor in the Louvre. Give all American 3-year-olds a bad name, what do I care?





Food issue taken care of, being lost still a problem. I'm thinking that maybe there's an escalator at either end of the hall, but I don't' see anything marked on the map...but then again, I don't get a quiet moment to actually LOOK at the stupid map because of Little Miss See-How-Horrible-I-Can-Be-In-Public. So we start walking one direction, see no escalator, then go the other direction. No escalator.





By now I'm getting really irritated with everything. So I decide to get back on the elevator and backtrack. I have no clue which floor I started on, since it's all in French and I KNOW ZERO FRENCH. But I get back on the exact same elevator (after making a proper stop to see Miss Mona) and end up back where I started. I decide to walk up and down this little hall to see if I can see the rest of the group. No rest of the group.





Back on the elevator to the next floor. Lo and behold, when the doors open, I see Lynette, Nancy, Cindy, Connor, Jarrett & Caleb. Alan and Steve are off looking for us. Wonderful. As Steve returns within a couple of minutes, we convince everyone else to head up to the Mona Lisa floor because there are at least places to sit there, unlike this floor. All but Jarrett & Nancy go up. They wait with Steve, me, and the girls for Alan to return. Finally we send J & N upstairs, too. Alan finally returns and we head upstairs. We quickly see Jarrett & Nancy, but not the rest of the group. Great. Fabulous. Wonderful.





So we reunite with those 2, then wander around the hall for a while. Finally we sit and Steve & Alan go off looking for the rest of the group. Probably 10-15 minutes later they all come strolling up. Bathrooms are next on the agenda, then lunch.





Turns out the Louvre has a little mall-type area with different shops and a huge food court! We go to the food court, but have to divide up and sit in 2 groups since it's tough to find seating for 10 plus room for a high chair. And as it turns out, the place I had the highchair wasn't acceptable to Mr. French Food Court Manager. He came by after I had fed Julie and when I was almost done eating and told me first in French, then in bad English that I had to move her because she was blocking a little aisle. He wanted her over on the other side of our table hanging out into the large aisle. Brilliant, Frenchy, but you're the boss. I wonder what he would have done if I had just said, "No." Not confrontationally, just matter-of-factly. No. Oh well, moot point.





I finish lunch and need to change Julile. I ask Frenchy where the elevators are and he tells me, in French. But at least he repeated himself 3 or 4 times and waved his hands around. Helpful, no? No. Just joking - I got the drift and found the lift. But once I found the restrooms, I discover there are no baby changing places. Or places to nurse babies. So I find a nice little discreet spot on the floor kind of tucked away, change Miss Massive Nasty Diaper and then nurse her. By the time I'm done, I've seen our whole group come down the escalator and they've all seen me. We decide to wander around the little mall area for a bit. After we're done wandering, we all gather our outside gear that Alan has fetched and then find the loos. Not all of us need to use the facilities, so while Connor and I are in the loo, some of our group decides to sit down and wait for us. On the floor. But no. The sitting police come by and tell them they cannot sit on the floor. There is no place else to sit. Alan asks if they can stand. I don't think the sitting police caught the sarcasm, but oh well. By this point I think we're all pretty much nearing the ends of our respective ropes.





Leaving the Louvre, we have to use 2 different elevators. To ensure that nobody gets lost, we use an elaborate plan of SENDING SOMEBODY BACK to bring everybody to the same end spot.





Time to don the outside gear. Big, huge, massive, enormous, giant tantrum time. Pink hat tantrum. She wants to carry it, not wear it. I want our family to stay in possession of it, not lose it along a Paris street. It was an ugly one. I kid you not, the girl had SIX different pink hat episodes that day. SIX. This is in addition to her usual Little Miss Contrary-type behavior.





Speaking of Little Miss Contrary, when we went to the antique toy fair in Reading a couple of weekends ago, there were some Mr. Man and Little Miss books that we bought for the kids. We got Mr. Bump, Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Splendid, Little Miss Chatterbox, Little Miss Dotty, Little Miss Giggles, and Little Miss Contrary. No joke. Little Miss Contrary. Steve said this morning he's just glad we didn't get Little Miss Axe Murderer. I second that.





I'm going to stop here for now. Our misadventures in Paris are far from over, though. I haven't even finished Friday. It just makes me tired to re-live it all.





Julie has her 9-month pictures today at 2.30. I'm not sure what she's going to wear. I think it might be something I have to iron, though. This afternoon after pictures I think we may go by a "Fancy Dress" shop - a costume shop - for Halloween stuff for the kiddos.





Steve got back around 9.15 and reported that he got L&N to the airport and they were waiting for a wheelchair when he had to leave. Hopefully all is going well for them.