Tonton Bo and talking to strangers

Today, Suzanne and I took a trip down to a summerlike Paris to visit Bo and Benoît. Bo is Suzanne's Godfather. Bo was a student of mine when I was teaching English at the Fine Arts school. They were all a bunch of losers except Bo. Basically, for an entire school year I got paid to talk to Bo for 4 hours a week. We became friends and in 2005, he was our guide on part of our trip in China.


Bo is a very special person. When we first met, he didn't speak a word of French and now he is getting a degree in phiosophy at the Sorbonne. He is smart, warm, open, curious, questioning, and still slightly optimistic. Anyway, it's a little strange that our half Jewish half communist atheist daughter has a "God"-father, but we wanted to make Bo part of the family. That's how special he is. But this summer, he and Benoît are moving back - to Shanghai where it's more modern than the rest of China and there's more opportunity.

We spent the day walking around the Marais, going in and out of galleries. We saw this exhibit...can't quite grasp the artistic interest of tatooing pigs with Disney-like drawings, but that's the Belgians for you.

I would have loved to spend more quality time in Paris, but it seemed to all revolve around feeding Suzanne. Suzanne had a hell of day though. I've never seen so many smiles in the Paris metro before. One woman even took out a picture of her own grandson to show us. I couldn't see what my daughter was doing (since I was behind her) but I could see people waving and smiling to her so I think she was doing the smile-wave-tilt head thing she's been doing recently.

By the time I got on the train, I had totally forgotten to pee. About 15 minutes into the hour long train ride back to Lille, I couldn't stand it anymore plus Suzanne had a full diaper. So I decided to find the changing table. I thought maybe there were straps so I could strap her in and then pee?! But, I never made it to the changing room because it was 3 cars away. As I looked panicked, a very helpful man pointed me in the direction of the changing table, and I felt compelled to tell him, "no, it's for me not for her." Why?

I went back to my seat and thought I could make it but was daughter was all wound up from her day of smiling, waving and seducing every stranger she could. She wanted to stand on my bladder. After a couple minutes of playing it out in my head, I decided to try : ok, if I can put paper on the seat, and somehow drop my undies while holding Suzanne, I can then sit her on my lap while I pee. For reference for any other moms travelling alone, this method does work. And I even managed to pull my undies back on. Good thing I was wearning a skirt. And the lavatories in the trains have lots of mirrors so Suzanne was really amused to be able to smile, wave and seduce the other baby watching her mother pee.

She and I are both so tired from the heat, the walking and the excitement that we both forgot her bedtime nursing session. And so it goes...