Samuel Update and other interesting stuff

Saw the pediatrician last night.

By the numbers: 8.3kg, 73.8 cm

Roughly, 18 1/3 lbs, 29 inches.  He is about 25th % in weight and just above 50th in length. The doctor is not too worried about his weight especially considering he has been sick for 5 days.  He is concerned that he is not eating solids yet.  We had hoped to start solids last week but with Samuel being sick we thought it was best to wait until he recovered.

P & G has come through for us again.  I was struggling with learning french at Berlitz.  Most of the instructors are women over 50 who seem to be a protected class in France.  They are the ones that are most likely to cross the street against the light and to cut lines at markets. For whatever reason I have been unable to connect and learn from them.  Berlitz does have one male instructor who has taught me a lot but they will not guarantee that he will available for all my sessions. Thus, we went to P & G and they have agreed to transfer the remaining 117.5 (Did not know that I had that many hours of lessons authorized.  If I do not know how to speak conversational French at the end of this then I have no excuse) hours to a women who will come to the apartment.  She also likes to take the lessons out of the apartment.  So we will go to the market, the park or a museum, which will make the lesson seem less like learning and more like having a conversation with a friend which is what I had with the one male instructor at Berlitz.

Have to love the French medical system.  I am 48 years old and just had my first house visit from a doctor. It was quite surreal.  He did have the coldest hands of any doctor I have ever met.  Good couchside manner.

Samuel is developing his own language.  He says "ataa" quite a lot.  When we say it back to him, he breaks out in the widest grin.  Don't know what it means but it definitely has significance to him.

French medical care

It's official: Dave has the flu. Luckily we had Samuel vaccinated a few months ago - which we can only assume protected him from the worst of the bug. Samuel is still very congested and not eating as much as he should, but otherwise is back to being happy and playful. Dave spent 3 days out of commission and staying away from Samuel and me... for which I am thankful since so far I am not showing any signs of illness!

One of the good things about our current apartment is that we share the building with several doctor's offices, so if we need a GP (or even to have our teeth drilled while having a baby) we're in good shape. The GP is even known by P&G people as the P&G offices used to be almost across the street from where we now live, so our great help at the office (Isabelle) has put us in touch with him. He speaks some French and makes house calls, so yesterday morning I popped down, met his wife, and arranged for him to stop by at midday. In true French fashion, after confirming that Dave had the flu, he gave us a prescription for four different medications. I remember being told once that to feel like they are doing their jobs correctly, French doctors will always prescribe a minimum of 3 medications!

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Since French pharmacies are also heavily protected by the law, there seem to be more pharmacies in France even than boulangeries - there are at least 4 within a few hundred metres of our apartment, so it is very easy to get medicine whenever you need it!

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On Saturday we also went 'en famille' to see the opthamologist, to get Dave a new glasses prescription. Since the doctor didn't speak English, Samuel and I sat in the room with them and translated. Samuel is being exposed to a wide variety of French vocabulary.

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Tonight we take Samuel to the pediatrician for his 9-month visit - good timing, as it will reassure us to get his opinion on Samuel's health at the moment. A lot of medical activity in the last few days though!

An ode to sleep (or the lack thereof)

Samuel seems to be getting a bit better. His fever has mostly gone away but he still has congestion and a cough, and a very limited appetite. On the plus side, he is smiling again and even at times laughing - particularly when he can touch a cat or play with my computer. (Babies + computers = lots of strange things, many of which I will only discover later, including new calendar entries telling me I have a meeting called 'iiiiiiiiiiiiasgftyiiiew22222')

Dave has now succumbed to the dreaded bug and is resting in bed. Samuel is sleeping on my chest. I am trying to look after them both (and the cats) as best I can... hoping I can avoid the bug. It's been a pretty exhausting few days as Samuel has been quite uncomfortable and so wakes up often. Dave and I have tried to share the load between us - luckily we have a guest room at the other end of the apartment, so Dave and we can alternate trying to get some sleep there. Suffice to say though that at this point sleep is both a longed for salve and a distant dream.

While I wrote this, Samuel woke up. He had now had some food and is back on the floor exploring. He is still quite clingy - but I know he is getting better because he crawled over to his favorite destruction zone (DVD rack) and seemed like he was about to take all the DVDs out again... until he decided he wanted a hug, so he came back to my feet to get picked up. He's now back on the floor crawling towards the hallway and the cleaning products there that need to be put away..... I'll be back in a second.

Hopefully we'll all sleep better tonight. Tomorrow is a work day so I need to be able to stay awake. Friday was tough... the only good part of getting up at 2.30am is that you have a lot of time to work from home (in between caring for Samuel). It helps that one of the priviledges of rank at work is a high quality coffee machine and a fridge full of soft drinks. Caffeine is my friend.

Work continues to be challenging. I keep meaning to post on the blog... but there is never enough time in the day to get all the work done I need to as well as to spend the time I would like with Samuel and Dave. I have begun to get some results in terms of 'fixing the basics' (ie that my group can publish one set of consistant and accurate numbers - something that was surprisingly difficult!) but the next major challenge is to be able to start making an impact on the business strategy... as well as to figure out how to get our cost structure right. Working in French all day is becoming a bit more manageable, but if I am tired I will still sometimes revert to speaking English (while those I'm talking to continue to speak French). The hardest thing has been the need to invest so much in work - both physically (long hours per day and travel) and mentally (in particular full immersion business French) and so not being able to really relax at home and enjoy the family... or find a way to resolve all of our move difficulties rapidly and easily to make the transition easier for Dave.

It has been a huge help that my boss' assistant has taken over sorting out all the remaining difficulties we had with getting settled in France - finding Samuel a place at the halte-garderie, getting our medical insurance sorted out (more impenetrable French bureaucracy), finding an eye-doctor for Dave and an alternative supplier for language lessons after Berlitz proved to be a disaster. Hopefully this will enable us all to relax a bit more and better adapt to life in Paris. While unfortunately P&G appears to have outsourced the entire relocation process to the cheapest possible supplier (for unsurprisingly appalling results), the core P&G principles and policies remain very fair and supportive. You just need the help of someone competent (which is hard to find these days!) to be able to get it all sorted out!

I hope that in the next few months we will start to meet people and get out more. There are many people with whom we have meant to meet up but we haven't managed to. With the help of friends and family we also hope to get out and have some vacations over the next few months - whether just going away for the night while someone watches Samuel or going away as a family.

With very best wishes to each of you and yours that you are all happy and healthy (and not trying to play with cleaning products)

Julia