We are near the end of a 7-week stay in Paris. Since we lived here for five months last year, the city is familiar, but it is a different experience with a 1-year old! Ellie likes Paris a lot, as well she might -- parks and playgrounds all over the place, good food, museums, lots of people on the streets and in cafes, etc.
Ellie took her first unassisted steps on May 18, the day before her first birthday, but she really started to walk on her own (i.e., more than just a few steps to one of us) only a couple of days before we left for Paris. Perhaps as a result, she was immediately delighted by our 450-square foot apartment, since she can cover all of it, without stairs or gates or other forbidden zones in the way. (Boy, do we have a lot of childproofing to do as soon as we get back.) She hasn't destroyed anything yet ... but we do hear periodic "thunks" as she finds some new item to carry into the bathroom and drop into the tub, an endless source of fascination. Dropping things behind the sofa is nearly as amusing.
Although she can be diverted now and then by toys and games, Ellie's favorite activity by far is walking. She has improved a lot over the seven weeks of our stay, perfecting her turns, her stability on cobblestones, her squatting to inspect items of possible interest, and her puddle-stomping. Our main task in keeping her amused is to find places that she can walk with as few constraints as possible. We live right near the Luxembourg Gardens, one of the largest parks in the city, and she usually goes there once or twice a day, to feed the ducks, play in the sandboxes, and kick her soccer ball. (Given that she has only just learned to walk, she dribbles surprisingly well on smooth, flat ground. But her fondness for picking up the ball suggests that her future may lie in goalkeeping.) Park Montsouris is even better (though further away), since in contrast to many Paris parks one is allowed to walk on the grass there.
Some of Ellie's other favorite places (or at least some of our favorite places to take her, and surely that's what matters) are the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes -- with orangutans, leopards, ostriches, all sorts of other birds, and the occasional opportunity to pet a goat -- and the Pompidou Center, site of the National Museum of Modern Art. The latter may not sound like much of a place for a 1-year old, but the giant plaza out front is a great, uncrowded place to walk before the museum opens in the morning, the Eiffel Tower exhibition in the children's gallery is full of fun things to look at, play with, and shake, and the basement level usually has very few people in it and is another fine, large space for walking around. She is also fond of the Daniel Buren sculpture garden at the Palais Royal, which has an abundance of columns, grates, raised strips, and other variations to entertain someone close to the ground.
We haven't been doing a lot of grand dining out, but Ellie has discovered the joys of fresh croissants, baguettes, crepes, quiche, and ice cream cones from the Ile St. Louis, and of course she remains fond of takeout Chinese food. She has also developed a great fondness for apricots and will eat as many as we will give her ... and yes, we do have some sense in that regard. She has enjoyed playing host, over the course of three successive weekends, to four grandparents, one great grandmother, and two of our best friends, showing reasonable tolerance for eating at outdoor cafes provided that she gets to walk (or at least be strollered) between courses.
Although her declarations are becoming ever more varied and inflected, sounding very much as though SHE knows what she is saying, Ellie doesn't yet say any words that we recognize as English, or French (or Chinese, though there we would have a harder time). Encountering three languages in three months may have her a bit confused. She is definitely beginning to understand things, however. She waves to hello, goodbye, bonjour, or au revoir. If we ask where her soccer ball is, she will usually look around for it, though if it isn't in sight she has decided that the best answer is to point to whatever is readily available. She understands, but usually ignores, "no" (and "non"). She has a French Teletubbies video that features "tete, epaules, genous, pieds," the French version of "head, shoulders, knees, and toes." She has mastered "tete" -- and frequently invites us to join her even if the video isn't on -- but she not yet gone on to "epaules."
During the week, we trade off parenting duty morning and afternoon, as we were doing in Columbus before we left and will mostly continue until Ellie starts day care in the fall. Since each of us has ambitions that go beyond what we can accomplish in a 25-hour workweek, our daily satisfaction depends strongly on the quality of her naps, and on whether she decides to wake up with us at 6:30 or sleep in until 7:30. Since Ellie's happiness also depends a lot on how much sleep she gets, our interests and hers coincide ... but Ellie doesn't see it that way, so each nap is pretty much a roll of the dice. We have at least become experts in timing walks so that she falls asleep five minutes from home and in carrying a sleeping baby in one arm up five flights of stairs with a diaper bag and groceries on the other arm. If our building had an elevator we would be completely out of shape, but climbing 500 steps a day and walking a few miles has kept us from becoming totally decrepit.
True to the orphanage report, "listening to music" is indeed one of Ellie's favorite activities, and she is adding dancing to the list. We brought 3 cd's with us from the U.S. and have bought a few more for variety over here. Ellie starts bopping her head whenever a song she likes comes on, and if she's standing up she will jump up and down a little, sometimes finding a chair to hold on to so that she can do it more vigorously. One encounters a fair number of accordion players, drummers, violinists, and so forth on the Paris streets, and Ellie loves to watch and listen. Indeed, one of the things that she (and we) will miss the most will simply be living in a city where people are out on the streets. Though Ellie remains rather shy about playing with people she doesn't know well, she likes to have lots of action around her. She also likes to catch people's eye as she passes them, giving a grin or a wave, and walking by sidewalk cafes is an an ideal opportunity.
We fear that returning to Columbus may be a bit of a shock for Ellie. Overpasses on the Olentangy River are not quite a match for grand bridges across the Seine. And in any case, when has she ever been BACK to a place she left? We are certainly not looking forward to the flight back -- Paris to Dallas is only a hair shorter than Tokyo to Chicago, and Ellie is bigger, more active, and less patient than she was three months ago. But we're feeling about ready to head home, and we hope we'll be back for another visit in Paris next summer.