complainypants's Profile

Bonjour à tous!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your comments! I am the OP Mme Stanley, but somewhere along the way I forgot which email I used to submit the good question :( So here I am as complainypants...though with this trip coming up, I don`t have much complaining to do!

I am a teacher...actually I teach french Immersion...so this is why essentially we are going in August. I am not worried about things being closed. As this is a family vacation with two young'uns, we are fully prepared and aware that it won`t be the same kind of vacation to Paris we would take on our own. Slow and relaxing is the theme. We are dreaming of our picnics in the amazing parks and just generally watching the boys enjoy themselves as we see the sights and eat, eat, eat. We will spell each other off for museum trips and the flea market, etc. I am excited to use my French and get better! My son will be starting in French maternelle when we return so this is an exciting opportunity for him to be inspired to learn the language as well.

I am so excited by all of your comments and suggestions and have bookmarked away! I think we will get a Maclaren Volo (looks so light and sturdy) and take our Ergo.(Funy-I used to own the MiaModa Facile but it got damaged. I wonder if the volo will just be lighter?) We live in a bigger city and take transit with them, so I am accustom to it. We have one thing working against us walking too much as I need hip surgery in the fall. But hopefully the lovely French wine will help me walk a little happier :) I know we will, at times, need the stroller when I just can`t lift the baby AND my shopping.

We are taking the TGV to Provence, and once there have a rental car. Thanks for the tip about the first class-I was wondering if it was worth it as I am just about to book the tix!

I have been reading Oh Happy Day! Love it. Wish I would look so effortlessly stylish while traipsing around with my two there...but my joke is I`ll want my hubby to take a super classic photo of me leaning out the French window, wearing red lipstick and a scarf...it`ll look great except two seconds later the baby will smear my dress with cheese and the other will be screaming about his dragon toy falling apart :) Reality!

@Carole I would love to chat with you! Please feel free to email me: mme.stanley at gmail. We have rented an apartment in the 3rd.

Luckily we will not be potty training on vacation! But thanks for the tip of seeking out Starbucks for my older son's potty needs.

Bringing Up Bébé is exactly what I had in mind when I made the original post. Its was all over the news etc. My kids have good manners...or so I like to think. But they are kids. And, they are antsy at the dinner table. We are planning to eat out for lunches and probably eat dinners at our apartment to save money and frustration, or picnic. Of course it will be très genant if they are not sage, but maman will get over it :)

I am so excited! Merci!

NEW QUESTION: For those of you in France: what are the child seats like? I am nervous since I am a big stickler for car seat safety and know our laws in Canada so well. The rental car company(Europcar) is providing the carseats in Provence (a toddler seat and a preschooler seat-which I am assuming is the booster). If someone could direct me to a transport website that outlines the carseat laws I'd love it!

Its really tastefully done...everything looks great, but it just feels so wrong! Once when we were looking to buy our first condo we looked at a two bedroom on the main floor of an older building. Near the end of the tour the agent got all excited and it felt like he was about to show us the deal closer...and then he did: the linen/laundry closet had a toddler bed "cheerily" stuffed under the shelves of bleach and extra paper towel rolls and pantry food. It was so, so, so creepy and depressing. I get that the family living there was used to living in probably much crampier quarters (in China) and that this was pretty acceptable to them...but it just seemed so sad. The above space does not seem sad at all...but still. If the space is available (in what is obviously a three bedroom home!) then I think this is just icky.
i dunno...I try not to judge other people's choices, but here I am. Once on vacation we put my son's playpen in the big hotel bathroom so he could sleep. I guess I am throwing stones?

I JUST stored my glass coffee table (round with a beautiful retro/midcentury teak base), so this post couldn't be more timely for me. I am actually so glad to be reading it and hearing the same advice from everyone (store it for a few years) because I've been feeling really down about putting it away and wondering if I'm over-reacting.
My oldest (3) is very mindful and while he pushes the boundaries sometimes and sometimes forgets and has to be reminded, usually he never climbs or leans on it because we've asked him not to. My 8 month old boy is just pulling up and toddling now and it was going fine...BUT I find the absolute most worrisome thing is when my kid's pals come to play! I don't want to be telling other people's kids the "rules". Its no fun-and I can't risk them not listening when I turn my back and something bad happening. So into the attic goes the table. I just hope I still like the style once the boys and their friends are just not into banging/climbing/sliding on furniture (man...this could be never!).

My wedding colors were orange and brown and we were married in October. The bridesmaids wore an rosy-orange shade that really brought out their beautiful rosy complexions. We had bright orange roses (I think they were called simply Orange Surprise?) and red hypericum berries in the bouquets!

Totally depends on your market. And how eager you are to sell. Its beautiful, but if you are decided to sell then you truly have to think of the house and already sold and not yours. My parents are agents. Paint everything white...rent a storage unit and move out a lot of your stuff. Keep only 2 or three beautiful baskets of toys that can be displayed...Think of the "Christmas" joy your kids will have when they get them back after the move! We'd like to think people have imaginations...but they don't. Not everyone is reading design websites! Have you seen design/house hunting shows on TLC? People go into a place and say stupid things like "Oh I love this house...but, oh well, that color carpet is hideous. I guess we'll pass." Like, wha-?!??

Glass around kids scares me...we have a glass coffee table I love, but everytime other people's children come over I cringe-they inevitably are banging their heads on it by accident, etc...because they aren't used to it. But also our son will lean on it and hang off it from time to time-its just so hard to resist! I can't imagine a dining table because I would be constantly having to windex the fingerprints and also you can't have a hanging high chair either...For a dining table really, you can't beat Ikea for something that looks good but is cheap and you won't care about it getting hurt. We have a black table that cost us 100 bucks! It looks modern and we don't mind it it gets a scratch or two! The danish modern is what we want to and matches our 197o's townhouse...we will get it one day. What about putting a custom piece of glass on top of it? That would be a great compromise! A heavy enough piece won't slide around and it won't cover the look of the table. OR I've also been considering the farmhouse look. Rustic pine slabs, a knotty look which looks better once there are more marks. There are some modern pieces too that have steel legs etc. Good luck!

I live in Canada and second or third or fourth the suggestion to buy the footie jammies that ZIP. So much easier in the dark...and my hubby much preferred to fumbling with snaps in the middle of the night (or day for that matter) and always having them not match up right :)

I love the quality of Children's PLace. However, Walmart sells 3 footed zipper jammies for 9.99! That's right! They are hung up with the infant clothes! I discovered these with my son two years ago but they had smaps back then. I'm expecting my second any day now and just bought some more in gender neutral colors and they are now in zippers! They will outgrow them so fast and barf on them so much you cannot go wrong for 9.99!

Do you expect to be able to do laundry every day? Easily? Or is laundry harder for you to get to (like you are in an apartment etc) that will make a diff in your number of jammies. I liked (and my son was born in December) a onesie that buttoned up all the way up the front for the newborn stage when I was sheepish about getting things over his head, and then a sleeper/jammies. I would say you could go through three sleepers and three onesies in a day. Truly. Not every day, but definitely two. So plan accordingly for how often you want to do laundry. I would say 6-10 newborn sleepers and onesies. That is all. Then wait to buy the rest when baby comes because I loved having a little reason to get myself out of the house when I had my newborn...and a trip to Walmart or the mall and a Starbucks was sometimes big enough of an outing!

People will give you "outfits" for sure if you are having a shower...way too many baby blankets and baby hats. I seemed to have more of these than I could ever use.

We used the Kiddopotomus Swaddle Me's faithfully. You can open the bottom without disturbing their tightly held little swaddled arms-so you can nurse/feed, then diaper change, not getting them too cold or waking them up too much. We loved these so much and the swaddling really worked for my son.

Congrats and good luck!

I live just outside Vancouver as well. I remember going downtown with my mom when my son was 6 weeks old to Earl's for lunch. Well I was really enjoying my first glass of wine since pregnancy...and nursing him at the same time (something the fancies dining there were a little fussed about gven the evil eyes I was getting) but it went downhill when he had one of those newborns explosive poos that went through his clothes :( They have no changetable! And worse: a very modern slab of slanted glass makes up the "sink" and "counter", so there was nowhere to lay him but the floor on a blanket. The whole time a freezing cold AC vent was blowing on us.

Nevermind. I took it in stride. We chose to dine there for the uppity atmosphere and wine, not the balloons and kids menu. Recently my hubby and I took him to an Earl's (he's now 2.5) and we sat in a booth. No they don;t have boosters or highchairs, but again, hubby and I were looking for a bit more of an upscale lunch. So I think its all about choice here...As a visitor to the city though I can see how you would find it annoying to not get highchairs in DT restaurants, though I have been to many cities and would be hard-pressed to think of any that have "character" downtown areas that have wide accessible doorways or parking for double strollers and highchairs available. Its just not feasible in tiny little coffee shops etc.

I took my son on the buses and skytrain almost every day I was on mat leave with no problems. The scenery is amazing here and there is so much to do and see for moms and dads as well as little ones...I would say that Vancouver is a very kid friendly city, but maybe its downtown restaurants are lacking in that area? Granville Island for chasing pigeons and seagulls and grabbing fresh coffee and pastries-as well as grabbing the coolest toys at the kids market, taking the rainbow colored water taxi across False Creek, or the ferry to Lonsdale Quay, the beaches, Denman's cupcake shop, Stanley Park's totem poles, Aquarium and Science World (as mentioned), a gondola ride up Grouse Mountain to see real bears...I could go on and on! Can't wait for my scond mat leave to start (3 weeks and counting) so we can have some more fun adventures! I will be using a double stroller that is single-wide though :)

I totally agree with Homesweet! My family lives on the other (east) side of the country and every time we visit I panic about nap times and late sleeping times because I know my family will want to spend time with him and keep him up. Amazingly-it all works out-I just keep him on his normal "home" hours!

When my son was 8 months we did a weekend trip to Seattle and stayed in a hotel...we put him in the big bathroom with his noise machine to sleep. That was a funny adventure-we'd have to pee before his bedtime! But it worked out well-we took turns going down into the city/mall and doing things we like (my hubby shopped for video games etc or watched movies I wouldn't like in the room, while I shopped and drank Starbucks and people watched).

Oh Kensington Market just made me think of the peameal bacon sandwich. Mmmmmm. Used to get one on Saturdays and then go pick up some fresh produce and cheese from the cute cheese guys. Sometimes I miss Tdot.