Field trip to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

The other day was market day in Menerbes. It's a small market, as you can see. Maceo, Kate, and I wandered up and down it while we waited for the small grocery nearby to open so we could buy our baguette, pain au chocolat, and pain a raisin. There was a cheese seller, some veggies, some nougat (at 45 euro a kilo!), a butcher, and a fish monger. We got some veggies.

After that mini adventure, we got organized to go to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. La Sorgue is a river that issues from Fountaine du Vauclouse, a spring/small town nearby which we plan to visit on Tuesday and might even canoe on, if they let Macers paddle. The town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is known for its antiques market, and it also has a floating market on Sundays, as it is criss-crossed by canals and is quite picturesque. This also means that the day we went, normal market day, it was quite crowded, too. It's a bit different, we are learning, travelling with a toddler. Excursions are truncated. But it's also fun, as everything is new to him, and therefore, we see it a bit anew, too. Like this chair.

Later that day, we went to dinner at the house of a friend of Lucy's. Laetitia had spent a few days in Amherst as part of a Fulbright program and ate dinner one night at the McMurrers's house as part of the program. Apparently, she and Lucy hit it off, and it turns out that her house is about 25 minutes from Menerbes, where we are staying. By the way, here's our street and the church next to our house (up on the right) here in Menerbes. The people at the door of the church are listening in on the daily practice sessions for an upcoming Mozart concert the choir is scheduled to perform.

We have dubbed the GPS in our car "Mrs. Pickles", as she has a bit of an English accent, is polite to a fault ("Follow the road, please"), and Kate has a colleague who shared that she has a Brit coming on an exchange program named Lucy Pickles. In any case, Mrs. Pickles steered us to the house in fin style, though we didn't fully believe her and ended up both consulting two tiny French women in the town of Lagnes and ending up in a field. Dinner was lovely; their house had a big yard with a pool, a small play house, a toy tractor for riding, and a Beagle, all of which enchanted Maceo. Dinner was roasted pork tenderloin, various sausages, a tomato salad, a green salad, and a dessert of cheeses and the local melons the region is famous for. We stayed till nearly 10:30, and even Maceo left happy and smiling. He wasn't so happy when he woke up at 7 the next day, but that's what happens when you stay up late, partying with a Beagle.

Hiking and Eating

We are waking up slightly earlier now, moving Maceo's bedtime back a little each night. Last night, he went to bed at 8 and awoke this morning at 7:30. Tonight, he is in bed at his normal time of 6, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Our expedition today was to a goat farm/restaurant in a village that is one of the highest in the Luberon Valley. We drove on small two lane roads through various villages until we arrived in Apt, where we were slightly lost. We found our way from there via maps and the GPS navigation in the rental car and finally arrived at the tiny village of Sivergues. From there, we could see a forest fire down in the valley below.


As we watched, and were joined by nervous villagers, we saw a number of planes come, descend quite low, and drop water to fight the flames. It was quite impressive and we were all very interested in watching. We hiked up the dirt road for about half an hour until we arrived at Le Castellas, a working farm and auberge. There was another family there, with two small children, and Maceo shyly eyed them from afar, not daring to go join them. They were both older, in any case, and French girls, so quite intimidating.

Lunch was soon brought to us. First course: sangria and ratatouille, along with roasted red peppers and baguettes. Soon, we were given slices of ham. This was followed by wine and a platter of potatoes and roasted pork, both with nice crunchy sea salt on their skins. Finally, we were given goat cheese and coffee. All the while, we were seated under trees on a hill at rough wooden tables on benches, gazing down into the valley while Maceo ran around gathering sticks and chasing a cat.

 We soon met Joseph, the little boy whose family runs the place, and he and Maceo proceeded to get into a bit of mischief at the fountain. We ended up spending about 3 hours here, eating, relaxing, and playing. Finally, we packed up and said our goodbyes and walked back to the car.

 

Back in Menerbes, pool play, Maceo's dinner, bath time, and bedtime reading. It is now 6:15, the sun is still strong in the sky, and we haven't really thought much about dinner, still feeling rather satisfied from the feast at Le Castellas.

Bonjour!

Bonjour de Menerbes!  After two plane rides, several hours of delayed flights, major sleep deprivation, and a crazy rental car ride to our little Luberon mountain-top oasis in Provence, we installed ourselves happily in our new home for the next two weeks, enjoying a wonderfully local lunch of rotisserie chicken, olives, roasted new potatoes, cheese, baguette, rose from the region, and $40/pound nougat with dried strawberries. 

Maceo adjusted very quickly to the time change in France and life in a 3-story stone house nestled along the mountains in a town that is almost painfully picturesque.  He adopted his new 'barrister walk' as we like to say.  Hands behind his back, deep look of contemplation on this face, and pacifier studiously chomped on.  Maceo could play for hours on this terrace that allows him to point endlessly at the doves around the yard and in the trees along the mountain and a spacious wrought-iron railing perfect for throwing his lunch over.  We all like life in France.  For different reasons.

We are placing a bet on the number of bottles of wine we'll have consumed within two weeks time. My money is on 15 bottles. That's two a day plus one extra for our last night which will merit greater wine consumption.

Did we mention there's a pool on the ground level of the house?  Someone loves the pool and someone loves streaking through the house a bit nude after the pool. 

This is the view from our house when you step out onto the street.  Maurice walks on ahead as we took a lovely, slow-paced stroll through the tiny town of Menerbes on our first day. 

Three generations of Man-ra-loewen-hans!

Maceo almost joined a different family when we were sightseeing. Luckily, he remembered who gave him sesame stick snacks on the plan.

 

Maceo eats his first of many pain au chocolats at the Paris airport.  We plan on making him super French by trip's end. Sans any pretension but with a great palate. 

More skills!

There's carrying the truck like a small briefcase into the kitchen and back to the front door. There's also dancing to Hannah Montana, unfortunately.

Just another Tuesday morning

 Maceo and I drove downtown with Kate, as she was going to a fancy work shindig and Maceo and I were going to the Zoo! We parked the car at Macpherson Square, ditched Kate, and began the adventure. First off, walking along K st NW in the morning, there are, as Maceo can tell you, an inordinate amount of busses and trucks. This does not mean that Maceo didn't try to count them, though ordinal numbers are beyond his ken. He points out every truck and bus he can hear/see and asks you, "Unh?" It's pretty much his favorite thing. Once we got to Farragut North, we took the metro to Woodley Park and walked up Connecticut Ave, pointing out large vehicles en route. We arrived at the Zoo at a little before 9. Buildings don't open till 10, so we walked through a pretty much empty Zoo. We stopped to see the cheetahs, but couldn't find them. We did find the panda. Maceo stared intently.

Next up were the flamingoes. Maceo liked them because they made noise and they were right up next to the cage and therefore rather easy to see.

Down the path were the giant rheas, which I thought were emus. They walked towards us, which Maceo found interesting, but they didn't come very close, so we moved on.

Once we got to the bottom of the park, we went to the petting zoo and then the giant pizza. Maceo very much enjoyed the pizza, though he was frightened and bemused by the model cow that mooed when a button was pushed.

He's our little pimento. 

The walk back to Mt Pleasant knocked him out, and so he was asleep when we got on the glorious bus, but he soon woke and enjoyed watching through the windshield and grabbing for the call for a stop wire, and smacking any flat object within reach.

Once home, and after a lunch, he was out for a nap. When he woke up, he and Tupelo and I lolled on the bed for about half an hour. Tupes was very patient and Maceo was very pleased.

"I love you, man."

Finally, the next day, we watched some of the Spain-Portugal soccer game in the European Championships. While Maceo has been cheering on the Italians, he found this game quite entertaining, too.

Milestones

Recent new skills of Maceo's, in no particular order:

1) Walking up stairs one step at a time, provided you hold both hands and he can lean back to a 70 degree angle.
2) Waving bye bye while sounding like a European ambulance--"Anh Unh, Anh Unh."
3) Raising the roof.
4) Climbing down the ladder at the pool (maximum of one rung--the top one).
5) Climbing all the way into his high chair.
6) Climbing up onto sofas and chairs.
7) Climbing onto his stroller (but not into it) and then doing violent squats to get it to move around.
8) Finding my computer's mouse when I don't think to put it out of reach and bringing it to me.
9) Identifying busses's motors immediately and then looking around to find them.
10) At bed time, if, during reading time, Kate asks him if he's ready to go to sleep, immediately turning and cuddling right up.

PS-- And he likes sticks all of a sudden. Here he is exploring treasure in the playground across from our street after a recent violent storm.

Maceo's gettin' active!

So, if you've been following our stellar blog and the "regular" postings, you'll know that Maceo is moving from crawling to walking. He's probably at about a 10% to 90% ratio of crawling/walking. But he's still a drunk little monkey on his feet. For example, when I went to pick him up from daycare on my bicycle last Thursday, I learned that he had fallen on the blacktop at playground time and scraped his forehead and nose.

It didn't seem to slow him down at all or bother him, and it is nearly entirely healed now. But he does fall a lot.

He's getting better, though, and it's fun to see. Tonight, I got him home from daycare (I drove, because it was a million degrees in DC), and when we got home, we discovered some diaper rash. We let him run around upstairs with nothing on his lower parts (which was a mistake, three times, if you know what I mean), and he and I played, for the first time, tag/chasing/hide and go seek. I would make eye contact with him and distract him from the fan on the floor he likes to pick up, and then I would run to some part of the upstairs--the bathroom or into our bedroom or into the guest room. He would come staggering in and see me and kind of turn around by walking a one footed circle around his pivot leg and stagger out, with me jogging almost in place behind him to chase him and soon tickle him. This played out three or four times and was fun and cute. Plus, it maybe tired him out a little, and we need as much sleep from him as we can get!