What Doesn't Kill You Will Make You Softer

I recently had a very interesting first experience. It seems like just about every day here in France there is some new “first” for me. Last night, for example, while out at a restaurant, I had my first encounter with a co-ed bathroom…but I’ve already talked ad-nauseum about bathrooms so we’ll keep that one for later. However I’m afraid that this specific “first” for me may prove to be a “last” as well.

A friend has been telling me for sometime now about how much she loves to go to the hammam, she goes on and on about how invigorating and relaxing it is and has invited me several times to join her. Once I figured out that she wasn’t just in the early stages of a speech-deteriorating disease, and that hammam really is a word, I took her up on her invitation. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this silly-sounding word, a hammam is a Turkish bath. Apparently they are quite popular here in France with both the Arabic and Caucasian populations.

The words “relaxing” and “invigorating” somehow seemed to be the only descriptors that stood out to me in my conversations with my friend, so much so that I never really grasped the concept that this was a public bathing situation. My friend phoned me the day we were to go together to the hammam to tell me what to bring. She told me that I should be sure to bring a two piece bathing suit and my shower things. I immediately had visions of the high school locker room and a cold shiver ran down my spine. I tried to gather more information without sounding too prudish but wasn’t very successful. There were questions I wanted to ask but didn’t have the guts to, questions like: what exactly is it like there? Is it like a public swimming pool? Is it like a spa? Why do I need to have two pieces to my swim suit?

I’m afraid that after my tentative conversation with my friend I was left with very little useable information. I have come to discover that this is quite common. It seems that we often are too afraid to bluntly ask the questions that will truly help us understand what it is we so deeply need to know. Questions like: Who is God and why does he matter? What is really happening to the environment? Why do I need a two piece swimsuit? This is a very important question for me.

So based on the little bit of information I could gather without completely revealing my prudishness, and combined with my own rather geeky background, I cobbled together a picture in my head of what this “bath” would be like. Unfortunately the only images of public bathing in my head come from reading about ancient Rome, so in my minds-eye I envisioned us all in togas (modestly covering our two-piece swim suits) and eating grapes while we tossed water on steaming coals. This seemed intriguing to me, perhaps there would even be the exchange of philosophical ideas, the shaping of democracies, and the formulation of western civilization just like in Rome.

Let’s just say I was WAY off.

From the outside the establishment was very nice, very spa-like. I took this as a good sign. Inside we were shown to a locker-room of sorts and told to change into our swimsuits. I did manage to summon the courage to wear my two-piece bathing suit which I affectionately refer to as my burqini, but I think the actual name is a tankini. It is a very modestly cut tank top with a little skirt attached to the bottom half.

Yes, there really is such a thing as a burqini and I want one. I read an article about a young Muslim fashion designer who wanted to give Muslim women a way to go swimming without uncovering or being immodest. Her design is called a burqini and it has a dress-like top with long sleeves and a high neck which comes down to the knee with a pair of tight leggings and a matching headpiece all made of burqa-blue lycra and spandex. I think that this would market very well in the US, I am considering opening my own burqini boutique.

After changing we went down to the bath. It was actually very much like my Roman imaginings, but there were no coals and no philosophy. We sat in a large tiled room filled with warm steamy air and little faucets and basins which you could fill with warm or cold water to pour over yourself. This was ok, I could handle this. Sure it was a little weird to be sitting in my bathing suit pouring cups of water over myself in public (by the way this was a women-only night at the bath so there were no men, phew!) but when in France…

After a while my friend suggested a turn in the steam room. This took me off guard as I thought we were in the steam room and judging from my now very rosy complexion so did my circulatory system. Needless to say I didn’t last long in the steam room. After only a few minutes I began to feel a sudden kinship with lobsters. This must be how they feel when they are put into a pot of boiling water. The pain around your lungs as you try to sort air from water, the sensation of needing to gasp for air but there is no air to gasp. The feeling that your internal organs have gone ‘critical’ and your brain is slowly burning down through your body like your own self contained china syndrome. I politely excused myself.

Back out in the main bathing room women were chatting away while pouring water over their heads and lounging on the tiled benches. I was just beginning to relax and let my American up-tightness slip away when we were summoned. My friend had explained to me that we would be called at some point for our “gomage” which apparently was the whole point of this hammam thing. She had tried valiantly to explain what it was but I’m afraid that I still didn’t have a correct impression of what was about to happen to me. Based on her descriptions I had envisioned a spa-like atmosphere where we would be given skin treatments while Yanni music played in the background. Images of movie stars with mud and cucumbers on their faces wrapped in fluffy white robes, relaxing while someone rubbed their feet, this is what I had prepared myself for.

I followed my friend back to a room that resembled a torture chamber more than a spa. There were three tiled tables, at each was a high pressure hose coming out of the wall and a large drain in the center of the room. I suddenly felt like perhaps I had been kidnapped by the CIA and taken to a secret European prison. I began to worry that “information” was going to be “extracted” from me. I could see it clearly how it would be: large men asking questions from behind a bright light until I was driven to the point at which I confessed that the banana bread recipe that everyone loves is really Martha Stewart’s and not mine, that I really can’t make chocolate chip cookies, that I let my daughter wear dirty socks to school today, that I do take a bit of artistic license with my blog entries.

One table in this chamber of horrors was occupied by a woman who was completely covered in black mud and flower petals, this made me feel a little better, I felt like I could manage mud and flower petals without revealing my deep dark secrets. Just as I began to relax with this new confidence a rather swarthy middle-eastern woman approached me. I am almost certain she had a mustache and she looked like she could be the relative of a communist dictator. She told me rather tersely to sit on the table and to take off the top of my bathing suit. I clung to my burqini like a drowning person to a life raft. The woman insisted and in the face of what I felt was surely to be “information extraction” I gave in to the pressure.

I laid down on the table and the Stalinist woman began to scrub me with what I believe to have been industrial grade sandpaper. I lay there feeling disillusioned with my situation. I had expected the gentle touch of an experienced masseuse and instead was being peeled like an onion by the bearded woman.

After a while the woman stopped scrubbing, which was quite a relief, but then she started spraying with what felt like a fire hose. I looked enviously across the room at the woman in the mud. I was just about to confess to all the crimes I have ever thought about committing and beg for mercy when the spraying stopped and I was told I could put my top back on and leave. It was all I could do to not to grovel and thank the woman for sparing my young life, to tell her that my children would bless her for not taking their mother away from them so soon. I tired to nonchalantly walk from the room as if this is the sort of thing I do every day. Once around the corner and away from French eyes I gripped the wall and gasped for air, and then I began to feel it.

You can’t tell, because I am writing this, not sitting in front of you telling you this story over a cup of coffee, but I am a red-head, a VERY fair red-head. I have been accused on more than one occasion of being an albino (needless to say the movie DaVinci’s Code has not increased my popularity) and in High School the rumor was spread that I had narrowly escaped a fire and that was the reason I had no eyebrows or eyelashes.

Let me put the record straight once and for all, I DO have eyebrows and eyelashes, they just happen to be very blond and virtually transparent. I am NOT an albino and I have NEVER been in a fire. For those of you who don’t know, life is very different for a red-head. We are constantly assaulted by older women in grocery store checkout lines who, despite the unwritten American personal space laws, start petting our hair. This, I may add, is the reason I will never have long hair again.

Unlike typical blondes or brunettes, Redheads recall their summer vacations not by the year, or exotic tropical location, but rather by the degree of their sunburns. “Oh, the Bahamas? Let’s see that was third degree sunburns. And the summer we spent in Florida that was only second degree”. My beach kit consists of a tube of spf 50 or more sunscreen along with a large bottle of lidocaine topical anesthetic and aloe vera for the inevitable sunburn. The only time in my life when I have been tan is the first ten seconds on the beach as my freckles come out and run together in an attempted to protect my near-transparent skin.

All of this to say that I was very familiar with the sensation I was feeling as I stood outside Attila the Hun’s beauty salon. Pain. Not just ordinary pain, but radiating, throbbing, heat-filled pain, highly-offended-sensitive-skin pain. This is not a sensation I enjoy, in fact it is my kryptonite. I have had three children and pride myself on my ability to “suck it up” when it comes to physical discomfort but come anywhere near me with a needle, a band-aid, or ultraviolet light and my superpowers fail me. Anything that bothers my skin, even itchy sweaters, can make me feel sick to my stomach.

As I stood there gripping the wall I struggled to breath and “find a happy place”. I managed to recover myself mostly and went on to take a shower in the very public shower rooms but at this point I no longer cared. Just to be free of my torturer was a victory in and of itself. The shower was painful too as the high powered water felt like needles against my offended skin.

There were more events to this evening at the hammam. There was a massage, a period of time in the “quiet room” where we Americans were anything but quiet as we laughed about the gomage experience. After it all you are allowed to get dressed and sit and enjoy a relaxing cup of tap water…how nice. As I sat and sipped, I remembered the conversation I had had with my friend that got me into this situation to begin with. I remembered her words that had seemed so alluring to me. She had used the terms “invigorating” and “relaxing” and somehow, looking back over my glass of tap water, I felt I had missed that part. The only words I could think of as I sat here were “chaffed” and “embarrassing”.

I came home that night to a husband who expected a pampered, radiant wife. Unfortunately what he got was an extremely tender person who resembled a freshly steamed lobster and who walked rather oddly because her pants rubbed against her sore skin. I could see his brain spinning with all sorts of jokes about clarified butter, but as he is a good husband (and I’m not sure that he knows what clarified butter is anyway), he refrained. After about three days of red irritated skin, the benefits of this treatment finally became evident and my skin was nice and soft for about one afternoon before the cold winter air sucked all the life out of it once again.

I’m not sure what the point of this essay is really, if only to seek sympathy from the universe and validation of my suffering. In another essay about French bathrooms, I ended with a short moral about my experience, but I’m afraid I’m struggling this time. I could end with advice to my fellow red-heads about avoiding swarthy middle-eastern women and the benefits of having a large supply of lidocaine on hand.

My story could be more of a cautionary tale, a warning about the use of adjectives, in particular the words “relaxing” and “invigorating”. Perhaps as with antibiotics, the use of adjectives is far too frequent in our society. Their overuse can lead to great misunderstanding and disillusionment. But as I think about it now, I suppose am learning that, like all things in my French experience, what doesn’t kill me will make me stronger, or softer in this case. And hopefully what only humiliates me will make for good writing material.

Things I DON'T want to hear Ethan say

Every parent has a favorite age or developmental stage that they enjoy watching their kids go through. My favorite is probably from about 18 months to 3 years old. Yes, I realize that this encompasses the “terrible two’s” but let’s just say I enjoy a challenge. I particularly enjoy watching my kids develop their language skills in this phase. I love words anyway and to be able to actually watch the discovery of language is an amazing thing. I have a list of my favorite words that my kids have invented during this phase. Emma’s favorite was “fashies” which meant lotion…I’m not sure how she came up with that one, and Eli’s was “Botit” which meant Thomas the Tank Engine, to whom he was addicted at a very early age. Ethan too has several words that will make their way into the Maxson dialect, “Nungie” is the number one right now, meaning blanket and specifically refers to his huge security blanket that MUST go with us everywhere.

There is of course more to this developmental phase than just language discovery. This really is the “great awakening” of a little mind. They are seeing things for the first time and realizing that they are a part of their world. Their little personalities are forming in funny ways and their methods of expression are just as hilarious. With Emma we were enthralled with our beautiful first baby girl. Everything she said was an epiphany to us, filled with wonder and humor. Eli was frightening, his intellectual capacities became evident very early on and his grasp of all things mechanical and electrical were (and still are) rather intimidating. Fortunately he had enough sense to avoid dangerous things. Ethan on the other hand is my Columbus. He gets an idea about what may lie just out of reach and won’t rest until it has been discovered, who cares if it is dangerous, poisonous, or just plain not a good idea. He has already, at his age, had innumerable discoveries and adventures.

As much as I love to hear Ethan talk I have learned that there are several things that I really, REALLY don’t want to hear. I have compiled a brief list of some of them. I have written them phonetically because they loose much of their cuteness in the translation but for those of you who don’t speak Toddler I will include a brief translation.

· “I squwirt Mommy” (I’m going to squirt you Mommy)
These words uttered during a diaper change will strike fear into any mother’s heart. And believe me, he’s good for his word.

· “What doin’ Daddy” (What are you doing Daddy?)
Typically these words aren’t catastrophic but it is the place and time at which they are spoken that is the deciding factor in their cuteness level. When they are said while standing next to our bed in the darkness at 3am they are most certainly NOT cute.

·“I go work Mommy. Kiss.” (I’m going to work now Mommy. Give me a kiss)
These words were spoken just a few weeks ago while I was making dinner. He toddled into the kitchen with his sister’s backpack on his back, his brother’s water boots on his feet and the house key in his hand. While the image was very cute and I couldn’t help but give him a kiss, I was still very worried. These words, when taken into account Ethan’s previous solo expeditions in our neighborhood, were enough to make me very afraid. I have since kept the doors locked and the house key out of reach.

·“Where goin’ Mommy?” (Where are you going Mommy?)
Like the second bullet point this phrase is judged by its content. When I have just spent a good hour rubbing his belly, snuggled up with him in his bed trying desperately to get him to go to sleep so that Will and I can have 45 grown-up minutes together before falling into an exhausted sleep, these words are not what I want to hear. I have mastered the technique of slipping out of his bed with out making a sound and sneaking across the squeaky floor, but I am all too often thwarted by the noisy door knob which gives me away. I cannot begin to express the horrible sinking feeling that overwhelms me when I hear these words when I am just inches away from my freedom.

·“Ok Mommy, I cween up” (It’s ok Mommy, I’ll clean it up) or “Sowwy Mommy” (Sorry Mommy)
These phrases I’ve grouped together because they are often heard together or used for similar circumstances. These words are often spoken after a period of silence. Silence in our house is not a good thing. Silence means that Ethan has gone exploring, usually in the kitchen or bathroom (see the list of things Ethan has destroyed below in the April 1 blog). Usually when I hear these words I am coming down the stairs and I catch a glimpse of Ethan as he runs into the kitchen to get a towel and run back to the living room, where invariably he has experimented with some food product on my living room rug.
There is one distinct difference between these two phrases though. “Sowwy Mommy” is often said while performing an intricate facial distortion, in which he pouts his lower lip, hangs his head, gives a general slump to his shoulders, and manages to increase the size of his eyeball to twice their normal circumference. This display of facial dexterity usually arouses either humor or sympathy on my part thus leading to a dramatic limiting in his punishment…clever huh!

· “Uh, oh” (uh, oh) “Oh my goooooodness” (oh my goodness) “Oh, mess” (oh my, look at the mess)
All three of these strike terror into any mother’s heart. They are usually preceded by the sound of breaking glass, a large thump, a crash, or a bang. “Oh, mess”, however is usually said with a slightly different vocal inflection from the first two phrases. “Uh, oh” and “oh, my gooooodness” are usually drawn out slowly and said quietly with a slight decrescendo at the end. “Oh, mess” is said in a surprised manor often with the voice rising and speeding up. He is genuinely surprised to find that the entire box of cereal would not fit into the drawer of the coffee table, or that the VCR will eject his half eaten cookie. His reaction to these situations are so unusual that I often find myself wondering what he thought would be the outcome….sometimes I am afraid to ask.

·“MMMMMM dewicious” (yum, this is delicious)
I hear these words quite frequently so one would think that they aren’t too frightening, but as with several of his phrases it depends on the context, more specifically which room of the house he is in when he says them. 50% of the time, when uttered in the kitchen, they are a compliment on my cooking. The other 50% means that there is some large mess that I will have to clean up. When these words are said in the bathroom it means that I need to look up the number for poison control (actually I have it memorized, 1-800 222-1222, but unfortunately this only works in the US, not in France). When these words are heard from the front yard it means that I need to go get a clean change of clothes for him because he has ingested mud, insects, dirt, grass, rocks, or flowers and is now filthy. When I hear these words from the living room it means it is time to vacuum. He has either taken something from the kitchen and dumped it onto the rug for better access, or he has simply found lots of interesting crumbs under the couch to dine on and it is time to clean the floors. When these words are said from my office/bedroom it again means that it is time to call my friends at poison control because he has eaten my chap stick, moisturizer, or found some interesting office supply product to suck on.

While this list may seem exaggerated I assure you it is a faithful account. I have even pared it down quite a bit for those of you who might be squeamish. For example I will not go into the definition of the phrases “I too sick, bucket”, and “Yuck!” Be grateful. For all his frightening phrases there are hundreds that take my breath away. “Wuv oo Mommy” and “Kiss” will forever hold a place dear in my heart. The one drawback to loving this phase of development, or any phase for that matter, is that the words I love to hear so much are slowly going extinct. Soon there will be a day when he won’t want me to kiss him, a day when I tell him I love him and all I get in return is an embarrassed “Aw Mom”. So while they last, I’ll treasure these frightening phrases just as much as the amazing ones and hide them away in the corners of my heart.

my french revolution

I recently found myself involved in a revolution…a failed revolution but one nevertheless. I find it very fitting to be involved in one while living here in France, perhaps it will add to the “frenchness” of my experience.

My mini-revolution is one that all women, whether they would openly admit it or not, have thought about starting at one time or another in their lives. The first time I can remember contemplating such violence was at a baseball game during the seventh-inning-stretch when the line for the women’s restroom stretched down the corridor while the men seemed to come and go effortlessly. There seems to be some fault in modern architecture, or perhaps a conspiracy of male designers who are determined to continually short change women. Why is it that the men’s and women’s restrooms are made the same size when the demand is clearly not the same?

To fully understand my participation in this failed revolution we must first delve into the French and American psyches and explore some very important cultural differences. With three small children I pride myself on my ability to locate a bathroom in almost any major department store in the US. I can locate a McDonalds or gas station bathroom within 3 minutes of hearing the words “I gotta go potty” uttered from the back seat of the mini-van. But all this has changed dramatically since we moved to France. What was a sense of security in knowing I was surrounded by restrooms has become a constant terror that I will have to let my son (much to his great pleasure) urinate on the sidewalk (or on the subway platform) because there is no public restroom within a 10 kilometer radius.

The lack of public facilities has been a great topic of discussion between me and my husband. It is remarkable to us that a socialist country, which provides free healthcare and gives three years of maternity leave, would not take into account the everyday physical needs of its citizens. At first we philosophized that perhaps it was because America is much more comfort oriented. As Americans we like our shopping aisles to be wide, the colors to be bright, the store to be clean, the neighborhood to be well kept, our cars to remain untouched in the parking lot, and the products we buy to work. We like to be comfortable where ever we are. The French don’t seem to have this cultural trait. They can walk into a grocery store and not expect to get everything on their list. Pity the poor produce manager in the US who decided not to stock bananas for three consecutives days. He would be treated to a tirade by every self respecting soccer Mom in the US. The French can walk down filthy sidewalks and still enjoy the beauty of the day, while my kids can’t seem to get their eyes off the dog poop as they walk to school making gagging noises the whole way. The French actually use the bumpers on their cars; they are very useful in making an extra six inches of parking space in an otherwise cramped spot. So maybe the whole bathroom issue is because the French don’t feel entitled, as Americans do, to have everything clean, orderly, comfortable, available and working properly. This great philosophical discovery may sound wonderful and might encourage us to look beyond our somewhat spoiled American culture; but it is unfortunately, not at the root of the bathroom issue.

The simple truth to the great mystery of why the French don’t have bathrooms around every corner is because they don’t drink anything! There are no “Big Gulps” here, no “Super Sized” 36 ounce drinks, even their coffee cups are about ¼ the size of American ones. (As an aside for all you coffee lovers out there, the French call our coffee “dirty sock water”). In the US we drink liquids as a pastime; we grab a 20 ounce coke while we stroll the extra wide aisles of Super Target, my mini-van had 8 cup holders, even my stroller has 3 cup holders! The French have the same approach to drinking liquids as they do to eating I think. You don’t just grab a coke and drink it on the bus or in your car here, you pay $5 for a bottled coke and you sit in the outdoor café and nurse it along for about an hour. Will is convinced that French mothers start training their kids from an early age allowing them only 4 oz of juice at each meal, whereas we used to buy juice 6 gallons at a time. I think that the French must be world leaders in bladder control, which explains their lack of public facilities. Their concessions to those less with less sophisticated control, (i.e. poor tourists and newly arrived ex-pats who are wading through the plethora of new French gastro-intestinal bugs) are the free “Turkish Toilets” and the few pay toilets that randomly dot the cities.

The Turkish Toilets are free because the French know that you could never get anyone to pay for such a horrific experience. Eli fondly refers to them as “Squatty Potties” and starts screaming if he is led toward one. When I first used these free toilets (out of sheer desperation) I thought I had stumbled into some sort of free shower for the homeless. The toilets are merely shower-like stalls with a drain in the floor and two slippery porcelain places to put your feet. Flushing consists of a high pressured gush of water that is randomly aimed all over the floor and it is important to remember to jump clear as soon as you push the button or you will find yourself rather moist from the knees down. While these facilities are a shock to the delicate American sensibilities they do have an upside. When faced with the dilemma of how to support oneself while using these facilities you quickly find that you have remarkable thigh strength and stamina. Suzanne Summers beware! The Turkish Toilet workout is 10 times more effective than the Thigh Master.

When compared to the alternatives, the pay toilets look like paradise to a drowning tourist or a desperate sufferer, but beware, dangers lurk in these oddly shaped metal walls. First there is the problem of payment; this is made more exasperating because all the French coins seem to be about the same size and each toilet I have visited seems to exact a different toll and require payment in different ways. The process of selecting the correct coins and finding the right way to pay the monolith machine is complicated by the urgency of the situation one finds oneself in by the time one finds one of these machines. I am sure that once Sarkozy is securely installed as President and his more ‘capitalistic’ and ‘American’ policies are in place, these machines will take credit and debit cards. The second hurdle is the style of toilet. This too seems to vary from region to region. Fortunately, all the pay toilets I have seen seem to provide at least some sort of basin (usually not a seat though, sorry ladies) so at least you are spared the rigors of squatting. Once you figure out which is the toilet and which is the sink (I always find it hard to distinguish between the two) be prepared because there is never toilet paper, or soap for that matter. The most important thing to remember in using these facilities, however, is that you are being timed. The door will automatically open after several minutes, whenever your payment has expired I presume. Also at some regular interval (I have never actually stuck around long enough to discover the exact length of time) the entire inside of these oddly shaped huts is automatically washed down with some sort of blue cleanser. Before I leave France I want to spend all day waiting outside one of these things to see if anyone comes out a soggy blue.

So now that we have explored the history of the public restroom in France we can get on with my failed revolution. I was recently at the opera, an opera that would not end…two hours into it we were finally granted a 15 minute respite and of course, all 1000 women rushed to one of only two bathrooms. What made the situation even more frustrating was that the French don’t know how to stand in line, and so there was just a random mass of women hovering outside of the bathroom. After waiting with my British friend in this mass for 10 minutes we began to feel the urgency of our situation. With only 5 minutes remaining in our entr’acte, this was the time for action. There was a stir of activity farther up in the ‘line’ and what looked like a large portion of the women still waiting mounted a revolt and walked into the neighboring men’s restroom (which of course did not have a line). Feeling bolstered by my British friend’s “European-ness”, I followed her into the men’s room. I felt as all revolutionaries must at the moment of action; after waiting in frustration and torment, the moment had finally come for resolution. I felt emboldened remembering all those wasted minutes of my life spent waiting in a line to use the restroom while watching the men snicker or look sympathetically at the line of desperate women as they strutted freely in and out of their male-only sanctum. This was payback time!

I felt sure that I was the only one with this overwhelming sense of satisfaction at this mini-revolt. This is Europe, where co-ed bathrooms are common from five star restaurants to busy train stations. I was sure that this sort of rebellion was nothing special to these other, bolder women. But for me this was all new. I was finally shrugging off my American prudishness to experience liberté, égalité and fraternité. I was finally snubbing my nose at all those men who had ever snickered, the men who could just go use a tree while camping, the men who didn’t miss the second act because they didn’t have to wait in line, the men who say “what took you so long?”. I took a deep breath, feeling my courage rise and my heart swell with this newfound liberation, and pushed open the men’s room door.

As soon as the door closed behind me, regret, like a striking serpent, snatched the courage from me in a flash. What had seemed to be vast numbers of women united in equality turned out to be only two other women other than my friend and myself. We stood there, the four of us, in a line of our own making. There were only two stalls, and so we must again, wait. I found myself at the back of this little line of freedom fighters too terrified to lift my eyes from the hem of my friends dress. I studied closely the intricacy of its design and stitching as the line slowly crept forward and one by one the other women were finally able to use the bathroom and exit this chamber of disappointment. All this time men kept coming and going. They would open the door and stop for a moment, slightly bewildered to see a line of women in the men’s room, but then they would simply bypass us for the convenience of the urinals. For all my ideas of payback and justice, here I was in this male sanctum still being passed by, snubbed and snickered at. Suddenly my focal point was gone, my friend was gone, it was her turn in line and I was standing there…alone in a men’s room. In a meager attempt to maintain my dignity, I tired to hold my head high, but in doing so I suddenly became aware that I was standing right next to a bank of urinals…all of which were being used. The next thirty seconds were the longest of my entire lifetime. Standing there frozen between evolutionary instincts: run for your life, wait to use the bathroom … run, wait … run, wait.

The gratitude I felt when my friend opened the door of her stall cannot even begin to be expressed in writing. I nearly plowed my friend down as she was leaving the stall in my desperation for a few moments of invisibility within its four tiny metal walls. My hands were shaking, my cheeks were a lovely shade of purple, but finally I was invisible. I gulped down air like a drowning person trying to calm myself. The one glorious consolation in all of this, the one moment when I felt that God was still watching me even here in a French men’s room, was when I realized I had drawn the handicapped stall which had its own sink. This meant I could wash my hands in the safety of the stall and then with only one big effort make a mad dash for the door. I began to relax a little and do what I came here to do. I was beginning to feel more like myself and start to see the humor in my situation when the world suddenly fell out from under me. The handle of the stall was turning, someone was trying to get in; a MAN was trying to get in. I flung myself at the door with the force of a 300 pound down lineman, pinning it closed with my shoulder. “Un Moment” I rasped, trying to make my voice sound more masculine. I stood there shaking, unable to move, shackled by the nylons around my ankles. Quickly I pulled myself together, washed my hands and braced for the longest sprint of my life.

I prepared myself for what was to come, imagining the ten feet from the stall to the door, taking deep breaths and visualizing freedom. I swung open the door so fast that I frightened the poor man who was waiting outside, his shock only growing when he realized I was a woman. I raced passed the urinals with my eyes fixed forward, I reached for the door… but the handle was gone. In my sprint I nearly ran over a man who was just opening the door from the outside. Loosing precious time, I was forced to make way for him as he entered the men’s room. He looked at me and cocked his head to one side; he stood between me and my freedom. If he had stood there one more second he would have felt the full force of an embarrassed woman flatten him to the ground. Instead, in an act of ingrained chivalry he reached out and opened the door to freedom for me. Giving me a slight bow he said “Excusé moi, madame.” I darted through the door and gasped for air as if I had just come up from the depths of the ocean. I found my friend and we dashed back to our seats as they were sounding the last call for the entr’acte, anxious to leave our experience, and any men who might recognize us from the restroom, far behind. I fell into my seat next to my husband just as the lights were going down for the next act.

It was of course impossible for me to concentrate on the final acts of the opera. As the heroine lay tragically dying on the stage it was all I could do to keep from giggling as the humor of my earlier experience finally caught up with me. Needless to say that the drama of my episode in the men’s room far exceeded that of the opera, and an already tepid performance on the stage was overshadowed by my own comedy during the intermission.

I suppose there must be a moral in this story somewhere. Perhaps it is never drink too much at dinner before a 4 hour opera. Perhaps it is simply never drink while in France. Perhaps it is never join a revolution until you are exactly sure how many people are on your side. I think however that my story is a reminder to all women who have ever waited in line for the bathroom. No matter how desperate you are, no matter how much of the play you will miss, no matter how many others you think will follow you in, the men’s room is no place for a lady, but you might just find a gentleman there.

Art Imitates Life

The great artists always painted with their own distinct styles. You can tell a DaVinci from a Picasso pretty easily. My kids, too, paint with their personalities. Emma tends to be a realist and a pretty good one too. At her age all her Daddy could draw was “Will toaster and Daddy toaster” you can imagine how exciting that was, two squares with arms and legs. Emma, on the other hand, likes to draw princesses and Veggie Tales characters. Her princesses are long and willowy with hair that would make Brooke Shields envious, and her vegetable characters are amazingly accurate. She likes to draw it “right” as she says. For her, realism is everything, it has to look exactly like what she intended it to be. With Emma’s paintings you never have to say “Oh that’s beautiful. What is it?” Her drawings are, and I say this as a very proud mother, amazing and I think we had better be looking for art lessons rather than ballet classes. She is a realist in real life too. She was hanging out her second story window last night and I chided her telling her that she could fall out. She said, “Its ok mom, I’ll just use my umbrella and float down like Bugs Bunny”. We always have to clarify that cartoons are NOT real and just because the Road Runner can order a space ship in the mail, and strap rockets to his roller skates doesn’t mean that we can too. At Disney World she was crushed to realize that “Story Time with Belle” didn’t mean you actually got to go climb up on her lap and have one-on-one story time. She was devastated when she found herself pushed to the back of a herd of 50 plus whiny preschoolers and overbearing parents straining just for a glimpse of a lip-syncing college student in a costume. When “Belle” stood up to leave Emma jumped on her seat and screamed at the top of her lungs “Belle, it’s me, Emma” as if watching the movie 100 times made her an intimate acquaintance.

Emma's Larry the Cucumber and Friends

A Rose

Eli’s art, well, hmmmm, Eli is a minimalist with tendencies toward cubism. He lacks the ability of his sister but then she has two years of fine motor skills development on him, but I think his talent will always lie in other areas. This is not to say that his creations are any less lacking in originality or personality than his sisters’. His paintings are sparse and to the point, as if getting his message across with as little expenditure of time, paint, and effort is part of the creative process. I am attaching a family portrait that he recently did in school. I’m not sure who is who but you get the general drift. In a recent assignment at Christmastime he was told to paint a Christmas tree. All of the other children’s paintings had wild swirls of green flecked all over with squiggles and dots to represent ornaments. Some children just abandoned the paint brush all together and resorted to finger painting, not Eli! His tree was the simplest representation he could think of: one long green line for the trunk and eleven shorter lines for the limbs growing out to one side. I guess that it was redundant to put limbs on both sides of the tree when one knows perfectly well how the branches of a tree grow. Why bother to draw what one can extrapolate? His decorations are on the minimalist side as well; a single silver dot at the end of each branch. Now if I can only get him to be a minimalist about his trains as well!

Eli's Christmas Tree

Eli's Family Portrait

Ethan is still growing into his artistic personality, but right now he is experimenting with murals and various artistic mediums, such as water, cereal, peanut butter and melted chocolate. Because of his current fascination with life sized art his canvases have become walls, tables, chairs and floors and so a suitable example is hard to show on something as small as this screen, although I can see the remainder of a recent work on my computer screen as I type. Ethan also believes that creativity can also be expressed not just through the creation of something but that creativity can be expressed in the destruction of an object. For example just in the writing of this entry Ethan has successfully destroyed all but one of the art projects that you see here (thank goodness I scanned them when I did). Ethan also enjoys making himself the canvass, using his body as an expression of his creativity. His preferred mediums for this expression include permanent marker, ink, crayon, peanut butter, melted chocolate and spaghetti. We find it fascinating that at such a young age he is able to combine his two loves, food and exploration into such an artistic reference. We are sure that as he develops as an artist he will find many new and exciting ways of expressing himself.

War Paint

Those of you that know me well will know that I am my father's daughter. I love to organize, I love to alphabetize, and most of all I love to make lists. I have been known to make lists of my lists. I have been known to make lists of things that have already been accomplished just for the pure joy of crossing everything off. To illustrate our lifestyle while fulfilling my list quota for the day, I have compiled several lists for you all to enjoy. Hope these shed some light onto life with an almost-two-year old!

A descriptive list of all the things that Ethan has eaten, destroyed, ingested, broken, spilled, spoiled or in any other way ruined in the past six weeks:

A container of margarine…half eaten the other half smeared on the leather furniture and the rug

Several boxes of cereal….eaten, then the remaining contents dumped onto the floor and rug

A container of cumin….rubbed thoroughly into his hair

A container of dried ginger….ground into the rug

A bag of raisins (imported from the US)…dumped into the ginger which was ground into the rug

A box of sugar cubes…eaten…all of them except what was ground into the rug

A container of cookies…eaten…all of them except what was ground into the rug

A bunch of bananas…eaten mostly and what was left ground into the rug and the peals hidden in various parts of the furniture until they could be located only by their smell

The DVD/VCR player…the VCR side was filled with refrigerator magnets and the DVD player with melted chocolate cookies (fortunately Will was able to salvage it)

The TV/DVD/VCR….the VCR was filled with his sisters hair barrettes and bands, the DVD player with…chocolate cookies

Most things in that come in cardboard containers which are kept in the cabinet…this was accomplished while repeatedly filling an empty two liter bottle with water at the sink and dumping the water all over the counter, cabinets, kitchen floor, hallway, rug, bathroom, dining room floor, Elijah and Emma

A Rubbermaid container of left-over spaghetti…completely ingested, except for what was rubbed into his hair, clothing and of course the rug

Three bars of dark chocolate used for cooking…eaten and then the melted residue on his hands wiped all over the audio/visual equipment

Two cereal bowls…broken on the kitchen floor

Three glasses…broken on the kitchen floor

One plate…broken on the kitchen floor

Two juice glasses…broken on the kitchen floor

Disabled the furnace…this was done after he had locked himself in the basement

Turned off the hot water…also while in the basement

Large hole found dug in the unfinished side of the basement….while in the basement

A toilet paper holder….ruined while being used as a shovel to dig the hole in the basement

Half a jar of peanut butter….eaten, then the spoon used to scoop it out hidden under the couch and subsequently stuck to the rug

A 20 oz container of Nesquick dry chocolate milk mix (imported from the US)…dumped on the rug

Culinary discoveries that Ethan has made in the last six weeks (most of these discoveries were made after the entire object was consumed):

Bathroom cleaner does not taste good
Spray starch does not taste good
Leather furniture does not taste good
Grubs do not taste good
Ladybugs do not taste good
Flies do not taste good
Ants do not taste good
Licking the rug does not taste good
Sucking on the balcony railing does not taste good
Diaper wipes do not taste good
Bleach wipes do not taste good
The wax that the cheese comes wrapped in does not taste good
Bread still in the plastic bag does not taste good
Kiwi fruit still with the fuzzy skin does not taste good
Crayons do not taste good
Markers do not taste good
Colored pencils do not taste good
Watercolors do not taste good
Acrylic paint does not taste good
Glitter glue does not taste good
Pastels do not taste good
Emma’s art projects do not taste good
Water drunk out of the lid of the hair gel container does not taste good
Hair gel does not taste good
The rubber tires off his brother’s toy cars do not taste good
The sticker decals on his brother’s toy cars do not taste good
Vicks does not taste good
Chap stick does not taste good
Vaseline does not taste good
Used tea bags out of the trash can do not taste good
Anything out of the trash can does not taste good
Toilet bowl brushes do not taste good
Dried cumin does not taste good
Dried ginger does not taste good

Top ten rules of the Maxson house:

10. Always remove the rubber tires from any new toy car
9. Always lock the front door (Ethan escapes)
8. Always lock the gate (Ethan escapes)
7. Always lock the bathroom door
6. Always lock the basement door
5. Always lock the computer
4. Always put the rubber bands back on the cabinet doors
3. Always make sure any consumable item is kept sealed in plastic bags (which Ethan can’t open, yet) and kept higher than four feet from the floor
2. Always place spill-able liquids higher than four feet from the floor
1. Always bungee cord the chairs back together around the table when you are done eating

We don't call him Captain Destructo for nothing!

A Rather Rambling Essay on Rubber Bands

My middle child, Elijah is an interesting kid. He has always been an interesting kid, ever since he was tiny. When he was a baby we would just sit him in his little bouncy chair and instead of cooing and giggling he would "ponder". He would just sit and think. His little downy brow would furrow and his eyes would get serious and you could tell that he was trying to figure out how to make nuclear fusion a viable and safe energy source. He is the only preschooler that I know of that can carry out lectures on the workings of Semaphores (train signals) and Pantographs (the metal apparatus that carries electrical current from overhead wires to the engine of an electric powered train). And lecture he frequently does.
He is also a peanut butter and jelly fanatic. I can count on one hand the number of days that have gone by in which he has not consumed a PB&J sandwich and it was probably only because he was too sick to lift his head. I think this obsession with peanut butter is directly related to his current obsession with rubber bands. Bear with my while I explain.
Here in France good peanut butter is hard to come by, it is get-able but you have to be willing to pay through the nose for not so good brands. We prefer to import our own. We have acquired quite a stash and I confess I have secret hiding places for the peanut butter so as to ensure a constant supply. There is a problem though. The peanut butter supply is in danger...well actually most consumable items in our house are in danger. The reason...Ethan!
Ethan is also an interesting boy. Ethan eats everything...literally everything! If there is any food even remotely accessible in a 500 foot radius he will find it. I have even caught him gnawing on my leather furniture when no food was readily available. Here in France our kitchen is very small (by American standards, by French standards, quite large). There are only four cabinets in which we have to keep the contents of our previous American sized kitchen, and of course the one in which we keep the food and spices is down low, perfectly accessible to anyone under three feet tall. Ethan has quite a reputation for getting into this cabinet...there will be future essays on his adventures with food in days to come! Being the incredibly resourceful mom that I am, and because I am still waiting for my husband to install the child safety locks, I have taken to fastening the cupboard doors to one another with rubber bands. I have noticed lately that my rubber bands are multiplying like rabbits. The source of the rubber bands? Eli.
On our way back and forth to school (at least three times, round trip a day) Eli is always looking for treasure: "soft rocks" (I'm not sure what makes a rock soft) and rubber bands. When we get home from our walk the "soft rocks" go in his dirt pile (what used to be a flower bed) and then he takes his rubber bands off his wrists and puts them on the cabinet doors while muttering something under his breath about Ethan and keeping his peanut butter safe. I am astonished at the number of rubber bands he is finding and their quality. Our experience with French products has been less than satisfactory and I am amazed to find such quality in a product discarded on the sidewalk. These are not your skinny American rubber bands that break if they are wrapped around anything larger than a small town newspaper. These are fat, sturdy, well fed rubber bands. After weeks of careful observation I think I have finally discovered the culprit. It is a stout, grumpy looking man who delivers the junk mail. I find it interesting that the junk mail is delivered separately. Perhaps the regular mail carriers complained that because of the increased weight in their bags they would have to take a three hour lunch instead of their usual two hours to recover from the exertion. The grumpy little man pushes a cart stacked high with all sorts of interesting advertisements and credit card applications all bundled up with beautiful fat rubber bands. He puts the soon-to-be trash in the mailbox and throws the rubber bands on the sidewalk. I find it very ironic that it is the trash that gets put in the mailbox and the product of good quality is what ends up on the sidewalk but who am I to judge? All I know is, if the grumpy little man knew what joy his rubber bands brought to a little boy intent on saving his precious peanut butter from the "Monster Baby" he may not be quite so grumpy.

Welcome to France

The early morning sunlight filled the small hotel room. The summer breeze carrying on it the sounds of a city slow to wake, came through the open window. As I came slowly out of a jet-lagged sleep I realized an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. 'This is it' I said to myself, 'I am finally living my dream'. I had made it, finally, I was in France, not just on a vacation or a student exchange program, but my dream to live abroad had finally come true. I could only imagine the adventure and romance that lay ahead for me. For a few glorious minutes I revelled in them, dreaming but still awake. I could see the misty vineyards on a crisp early morning, feel the tingle of the creative energy hanging in the air of a Parisian cafe. All of this was mine to discover. Still lingering in my half dreaming state I absorbed the sunlight and the romance of what was to come on this next big adventure in my life.
Suddenly a sharp pain, something pushing me, pulling me by force out of my soft reverie...
"Mommy...I'm hungry"
"Mommy where are we?"
"Mommy...Mommy...Mommy?"
"Daddy, is Mommy dead?"
Somehow I had failed to check the "fulfill before family" box on my original 'dream application'. At 30, married and with three kids under the age of 6 this is not exactly how I had originally imagined it. Now here I find myself in the most romantic place on earth looking not for the creative energy of a sidewalk cafe but the safety of a McDonald's with the ten glorious minutes of quiet that only a Happy Meal can provide.
So here I am living the dream with a twist that only a God with a sense of humor could have thought of. There is still romance and adventure they just aren't what I was expecting. There is romance in a sloppy bissou from my two year old and romance in singing a Christmas carol with my kids in the vaulted chamber of a 12th century castle. And as for adventure, well that's why I'm writing this. There's gotta be a book in here somewhere! Life with three kids all 24 months apart is going to be an adventure anywhere, add trying to figure out life in a new country to that and believe me, it's exciting!
So sit back, stay tuned and watch God work...