Mundanities

Even in a dream world of fantastic food,loving grandparents,beautiful scenery and inspiring poetry, there are things that gotta be done every once in awhile. It has been a day like that, no, two days like that. Yesterday was a little more fun; I scheduled TWO outings with my children, one child at a time, but one of them involved a doctor's appointment and getting lost for 35 minutes.

The first one was with Aragorn, age 11 and 11/12ths, to a music store down town to try out guitars. The man in the shop enjoys chatting with him and letting him try out as many guitars as he likes. He gives me a "wow" look every time he talks with Aragorn because my son knows a lot about guitars, amazing amounts. We stopped by the cafe I hung out at in my exchange student days for a "diablo menthe" and a cup of jasmin tea. We hopped on a bus and arrived home just in time for him to leave with all but Alienor for the grandparents' house for lunch.

Pierre was stuck here with me when the internet connection crashed and he spent lunch hour repairing it. I found myself with two people to feed instead of one child to eat something easy with, and thus cooked up a little lunch. It was nice, but time-consuming.

After lunch, Alienor, 81/2, and I took the bus downtown before her appointment with the osteopath. She wanted to visit the library, and since it was Wednesday, it was open. I had come prepared with a phone bill as proof of residence and the librarian signed up all of the children at once, very kind of her. She gave us a tour, showing us what was in each section, explaining the rules for check-out and talking about the collection. Alienor was so excited that she had a heck of a time choosing just three books. I know she picked out Farmer Boy in French, because she has read it so many times in English that it will be an easier read for her in French. I chose three as well and put them under one of the other children's names; The Hound of Baskerville in French for Lily and I in preparation for our trip to Edinburgh, The Princess and the Pea on CD with a beautiful book for Puck, and something on symbol reading that they all want to read. We also left with a DVD for pizza night, Harry Potter II, that we watched in French together last night.

As luck would have it, I struck up a conversation with a girl who ended up being an English teacher. Lucky kids, her English is excellent and she seems like a fun person. That can make so much difference when you learn a foreign language. We almost missed the bus, we were chatting so long, but we made it with a few minutes to spare.

It was when we got off the bus that the trouble started. I had been to the address once before, by car, but standing in the middle of the sidewalk with road stretching out ahead of me and road stretching out behind me, nothing looked even vaguely familiar. Did we stop to ask for directions? Is chocolate a miracle cure for all of life's problems, small and large? We got directions from a whole bunch of mixed up people, nobody else knew where we were going either. Finally, a pharmacist (God bless pharmacists) pointed us in the right direction, and a mother I asked a little boy to call out of her house, sent us up the last correct street to the office.

The visit was lovely. The osteopath, a pretty, gentle, capable-looking woman, spent 45 minutes adjusting Alienor. I sat silently knitting during this time and became so relaxed myself that I had to put down my needles twice and just let my limbs melt into the chair. Alienor has been suffering from migraines for months now, poor little girl. Back home, she sees a chiropractor who adjusts her and makes it all better for a time. This town being short on chiropractors, we accepted my sister-in-law's offer of an appointment with her osteopath. Does anyone else have a child with migraines and have you found a solution to them?

Today has been filled with phone calls; excessively boring details (need an adapter for the U.K., who knew all of this side of the world did not plug in the same way?),making breakfast, cooking lunch for everyone, dressing the kids, doing hair, biking to and from the in-laws (I'm getting faster!), taking care of email, doing laundry, cleaning the apartment. I might as well say; "nothing to report" and get it over with! There were two bright spots; a great friend I have not talked with for ages called and we planned a visit, I can't wait! I also had five minutes to read a story to Puck and play Legos for a little while.

I have a couple of photos from our trip downtown I will post for your entertainment.