onicox's blog

Arthur went for the first on a merry-go-round (without crying!!)
The first time was for May Bank Holiday



For the video: go here

We also went on bumper car, but we were just the two of us, so there is no photos. But, a month and an half later, there was Wallingford carnival and then Marc took some pictures:



Rémi wasn't happy to join us so in the next ride we put him with Arthur. He cried when he started, but then was really happy to be with his brother:

Christmas started really early for us. Beginning of December, the nursery organised a craft day to create some Christmas decoration. Rémi was really pleased by the idea, but Arthur preferred to play hide and seek with his friends outside.
We came back home with food for the Father Christmas Reindeer to put in the garden on Christmas Eve for them to find our house, a decorated pine, a decorated CD and a star for the Christmas Tree.
Rémi even came back with his first face painted.


Then, there was the children Christmas party individually. I managed to go to both of them.
Rémi’s one was a disappointing. It consisted for the parents to stare at each other while the children were playing, then a snack and at last Father Christmas visit. Rémi got terrified by him and didn’t want to go to pick up his present. He got a lovely book with animals which make noises.


Arthur’s one was more interesting as the children made a little show with some songs. Unfortunately Arthur spotted me in the room straight away and preferred to suck his thumb all along. His teacher was really disappointed because the same morning during rehearsal he sang well, but I knew he will react like that. In any way, it’s been few weeks he kept singing all the songs at home.
Then there was a snack and Father Christmas visit. He got two submarines which are still really popular in the bath.

Nadine, my grand-mother from my mother side, celebrated her 95th on the 15th of February! The day before, we organised a big party for her.
Unfortunately, there were only our part of the family as my aunt was hospitalised the same day.
Remi played with his two-weeks younger cousin, Galadriel:



We played to the Finish skittles:



The children had a party in the bath:

But most of all, Nadine enjoyed her children, grand-children and great-grand-children:



Even if we left really sad about my aunt, we were really pleased to see everybody.

Here we go again, one month spent in the speed of light.
The last news that we gave where just after Arthur's second birthday party. So many things happened since, that's why we were so quiet on the blog front!
From the 8th of April, we hosted Rosa (Marc's mum), Le nonne (Marc's grand-father) and Luc (Kathia's son, Marc's sister) for 11 days, but not long ago after there arrival (the 9th!), Dutschke family arrived for a week!
So to summarize, we were 6 adults and 3 children in the house for a week.
Melanie and David rented a car, so they spent the week traveling around the English countryside with or without us. Our evening were spent by play cards game or « Let's buy Hollywood », to eat some chocolate and to laugh around a cup of herbal tea.
The children liked each other more or less. Arthur was getting on Luc's nerve, scared Samuel in the bath, but he has being really friendly and let them play with his toys most of the time.
When all these people left, my sister Nathalie arrived on her own for 3 days. It was great, we discovered back each other. We see each other twice in the year and all the time with all the rest of the family, so in a difficult situation to talk about everyday things. She introduced to us a English girl who spent three months in her house, Sophie. It's the proof that the world is small, Sophie and her family leave half an hour away from us. We spent a lovely evening at her parents' house.

Adding to all the visits, we celebrated some birthday. Yes, all Arthur's friends turn 2, now. The 12th of April, a week ahead, we went to Elliot's party, the next day to Ben's (but we don't have any picture as we just poped in) and finally, last week end, Luke's party.

We also enjoyed the warm weather which chase the snow:
- we went to have a walk at Millet Farm with a colleague of mine, James and his family.
- We went to the park to play with bubbles.

In all the cheerful events, however we had a bad news. Fiona, the childminder, decided to quit to work in a nursery. It was a chock, but we found a couple which are both childminders. They are Fiona's friends, so Arthur knows them well, there names are Natalie and Robbie. His first week with them just passed and apart from a lake of sleep, he is really happy with them, he doesn't want to go home in the evening. He loves Robbie.

Now, in the everyday life news.
Arthur speaks more and more Italian, he repeats everything we say, does everything we do and we have to be really careful to not set the wrong example.
He is in his opposition phase and it's not easy every day.
He had his first dentist appointment to get use to him and of course didn't want to open his mouth i front of him, but it was his first contact. He started a homeopathic treatment for his asthma and he doesn't cough for a month now. He also stopped to drink cow milk and drinks goat milk instead which seems to make it work too.
He talks a lot about wee-wee and poo, but he is not interested by potty training at all.

Marc went to Malta for 4 days, but he will tell the story himself. He came back tanned.
He still has a lot of work.
He also started a homeopathic treatment for his sinus and he is blowing his nose less and less.

About me, I am on maternity leave at the end of next week. We will have a scan next Friday to see if the placenta is not in front of the exit anymore and will allow me to have a natural birth. Baby is moving still a lot.
I am suffering of swollen ankles and feet because of the pregnancy and the heat, but I can have a foot massage almost every evening so I am not complaining

Here we go, I tried to go to the essential. Soon, for sure, I will have more time to write more.

OK, my New Year resolution of writing a post per week hasn’t been followed, but I have good excuses!!

Last week we started the week with a birthday and we ended it with an other one and between, we celebrated few others!
I explain:

• Sunday 25th of March: Jacob's birthday from my post-natal group in Wallingford. In reality, his birthday is the 20th, but his parents and himself came back from Australia (his father's family leave there) on the 18th or the 19th and they were all tired and sick!
  
• Monday 26th of March: our wedding anniversary (ok, it's not a birthday, but almost ;)). Christelle came to baby-sit Arthur and we went to the Sweet Olive, pub belonging to some French guys, where we ate really well. We will go back!
  
• Wednesday 28th of March: Olwen's birthday from my post-natal group in Wallingford who I met the first time in Wallingford hospital because her mother was there when I gave birth. I know her since she is 4 days old! I finished work earlier to go to the party, but I forgot the camera!
  
• And finally Sunday 1st of April: the most beautiful boy's birthday!! ARTHUR!! I can't believe it! We invited all our friends from England and suddenly we realised we know a lot of people, but a lot of people with children. We were about 40 adults and 20 children (babies and new-born!) We are crazy, but we pretended to do our house warming at the same time. In any case he had a lot of present, he played with everybody and was quit excited to go to bed. To all of you who came: thank you very much!
  

Here we go a busy week passed and it's only the beginning.
For Easter, Sabrina, Marc's sister is coming and then it's my brother, Jerome, and all his family! But they are other stories, so other posts!

The week end which just passed we went to Strasbourg for two reasons:

• Our friend Jose (and Marc's witness at our wedding if you were there) birthday party
• The birth of our common niece: Mazarine.

But before that we had to arrive in Strasbourg. We were supposed to take the plane Thursday (the 18th of January in case you are not following!) evening. For that we took our half day off. All that morning there was a lot of wind, so we decided that we should leave the house quite in advance in case there would be some traffic (2 hours ahead of schedule, this detail is important).
We were right, we had to stop three times because of traffic jam, until we arrived at the junction of the M25 with the M11 which goes to the airport. The M11 was closed!!! Because we didn't have a detailed map of England, we stayed on the motorway to take the next exit. 20 minutes after we were stopped in a big traffic jam: 8 miles in 1h!!!!
We gave up when we went out of the traffic because we were at 30 minutes away from the airport, but the checking was closing in 5 minutes.
We stopped to a services area to walk a bit, and buy a detailed map of England
We went home in one and a half hours (without any problem), we had just spent 6 and half hours in the car!! And during the time Arthur has been an angel. When we arrived at home at 8.30 pm I booked a single ticket for the next morning at 7 am!! Which means: wake up at 3.30 am to leave at 4 am. So obviously we went to bed straight away. We can call this kind of afternoon was a F...... afternoon!
But we made it to Strasbourg!!
The Friday, then, we went to see Mazarine. She is so cute! She barely cries and when she does, she sounds like a kitten who's meowing.
In the evening, we went to sleep to my brother Jerome and my sister-in-law's new flat that they just bought. It's really big and spacious. They are really well settle in it.
My nephew Iago who's 2 and half years old didn't want his mummy to look after Arthur and at one point he said to Sylvie while she was holding Arthur: “Thraw that!!”, but he played a lot with him and it was funny to see them playing together.
Saturday lunch time, we went to see our friends JB and Mimi (Jean-Baptiste and Myriam for their real names) who were leaving in Poland at one point: melted Mont d'or (a stinky cheese) on patatoes. DELICIOUS!
At the end of the afternoon, we went to my parent's house to get ready for Jose's surprise birthday party (which wasn't a surprise after all). The party was taking place at l'Escale (a social and cultural building) in La Robertsau (a neighbourhood in Strasbourg) near my parent's, so we went there with Arthur, this way our friend were able to see him and we brought him back to my parent's at around 9pm for them to look after him while we were still partying. He was knacked because he didn't have any nap the all afternoon, but he was really smiley and enjoyable and obviously he had no problem to fall asleep at my parent's place.
We spent a lovely evening. There was a really good buffet, we dance a lot and we saw a lot of friends we didn't see for a long time and also met some people we never saw before.
Went to bed at 4 am, the next morning was pretty hard for Marc. My father wanted to take care of Arthur, but he didn't know how to deal with the washable nappies so Marc wake up to show him, then he didn't know what to give him for breakfast, so Marc did it. Remark for next time: teach the grand parents to sleep longer!
For lunch, my mum made a Choucroute for me (a typical Alsacien dish). My sister Veronique, her daughter Melanie-Dior and my grand mother joined us. We drank coffee with my friend (and also witness to our wedding) Aurelie and her mother. They almost missed Arthur who slept for 3 and half hours!! A record for him, he slept for the day and the day before!
In the evening, we had dinner at Marc's parents house with his three sisters and their respective boyfriends (if you are following the Leroux-Carlucci saga, my brother Pierre-Emmanuel and his children was there too). So we saw Mazarine again a little bit! For dinner we had home made pasta and some meat ball. A real dietetic weekend!!
Monday lunch time, we ate at our friends Marie-Salome and Robert house with their daughter Camille. Simple menu, but delicious. There too Arthur had a long nap so when he woke up it was time to go back to Gambsheim (a small village where Marc's parents live!) to pack and have dinner.
The way back home passed without any problem with a little Arthur really excited instead of sleeping. He was partying in the plane with one steward and the air hostess. He slept well in the car back home!!
Here we go our long week end, but too short when we are going to Strasbourg. We didn't see half of the people we wanted to see like Cedric and Stephanie, my neighbours, Phil and Isa, Slim and Laurence, Christophe and Elizabeth, Cecile and Cedric... three days it's too short, but with this daily rhythm it's enough to not come back home died!!

Yesterday, we went to Arthur's first halloween organised by a friend of mine that I met at Aquanatal.

Here is a picture which tells better than me: