In which we go to the Awful Tower.

       Yesterday was an idyllic day. The weather has finally decided, once and for all, that it is spring; there were suddenly women everywhere in dresses and skirts where the day before there were only skinny jeans, scarves and boots. And since it was sunny and warm, we had decided it would be a good day to head to the Tour Eiffel. We went last time we were here, of course. But since Blythe has been asking to go to the "Awful Tower" for, oh, at least 4 months now...we knew we'd be going again.

    We came at it from a different metro station (due to getting an early start and hitting rush hour traffic on the Metro-yikes. A little nerve-wracking with 3 kiddos!) and decided to walk the last half mile or so, from the Ecole Militaire (military academy) up the Champs de Mars. So, after a quick stop at a friendly neighborhood Starbucks.....oh, by the way, if you're ever over here and find yourself in need of an easily accessible  public restroom-find a Starbucks. Seriously. Public restrooms are a bit hard to find here...as are water fountains. And a way to make a return at a store without filling out 8 pages of paperwork. Or get a checkbook or debit card from the bank where you have an account. Actually, a lot of things are just a little more complicated than they need to be.... Don't worry, my husband agrees. As does my French father-in-law, most of the time ;)

      So back to Starbucks. Add in a stroll down another street or two, a stop to take our jackets off, a look at the military school...and we turned onto the Champs de Mars. It's an impressive sight, at least for me; the long, rolling greens broken up by paths leading to the huge tower. And guess what we discovered today? There are two super-great playgrounds, a mini carousel, and a tiny cafe hiding there in the shadow of the tower! We knew there's a big carousel on the other side of the tower; but this was even better. The big kids, of course, wanted to go play; and we were all for. You know there's a certain amount of play-energy that kids need to expel every day, right? Regardless of whatever regular "exercise" they may get, they will be antsy/twerpy if they don't expel enough play-energy. So play they did.

      Adam ran up the mall to see about getting our tickets while I watched the kids play. Sitting on a park bench in the "little kids" playground, the sun streaming through new-budding leaves, I had another moment of surrealism. The sand beneath my feet was beach sand, soft with bits of ground-up shells, brought from some French coastline; my three kiddos played just as they do at every other playground we've ever been to (although, still no swings. What's up with that??)....and the Eiffel Tower is looming to my right. I laughed a little about how blase the mothers (ok, and the nannies....this IS Paris) are about their little playground on the Champs de Mars. But, really, I suppose that's how Chicagoans feel about the Sears tower. Or San Franciscans feel about trolley cars. Or Phoenicians feel about saguaros....

      Then Adam came back, and we headed to the tower. We gave the kids the choice of standing in a super long line to ride the elevator, which stops at the second floor and then continues to the tip top (what we did last time), or standing in a shorter line that moved much faster, but then they would have to climb the stairs to the first floor.

They chose the stairs.

Adam was positive we were headed for disaster.

       But they did great! Better than great...they actually loved climbing all the way up to the first floor. I knew Pax would be fine, but I didn't expect Blythe to like it...she's put up a protest a lot on this trip about walking. But apparently this was like hiking-different and, in her young eyes, an adventure! A chance to prove she could keep up with Pax! and she did brilliantly. At the top, we gazed at the view for a bit, then found a little cafe where they had water and pain au chocolate (chocolate croissants...my children have eaten pain au chocolate at every.single.cafe we've stopped at.). And the baby? He did fine, and was very happy when we let him out of the carrier long enough to have a snack. I've been carrying him like a baby kangaroo all over Paris-he tolerates it for a bit, then is ready to be FREE!!

     The rest of the tower was fun. A little viewing of the city, a browse through the giftshop; then hiking back down the stairs and across the neighborhood to get back on the metro. Pax started falling asleep one stop before ours and I felt horrible about making him stay awake...but he's just getting SO big and with the stroller, Blythe, the baby in his carrier, and all the steps in the metro stations-he just plain has to walk.

       After we'd fed the kids a late lunch, put the littles down for naps, and settled Pax, Adam and I looked at each other with a bit of a sigh of relief. Or thankfulness, really...for several reasons we just felt like God had given us a day of Grace. And we needed it, too-a day with no meltdowns, no flipouts, no arguments or fighting-just spending time together, having fun. Now, we certainly have fun and enjoy our kids every day (or, if we're really being honest, maybe for parts of every day)...but today was just a gold-star day. A day we will always remember. A day when the potential you see in your kids is, in one facet or another, fully on display...and you revel in it. If every day was a gold-star day for me, maybe it would be one for my kids, too-but even that morning (which started early) my husband had to remind me that it's about what attitude you chose to have as much as anything. (Actually, what he said when he got back from the bakery was, "Why don't you just go away for awhile? You're not in any condition to be with us right now," He said it half-jokingly, with a smile...but I made myself a cup of coffee and went into the bathroom to get ready by myself, anyway. He was right. I was a bit cranky.) I'm so thankful for our gold-star day...which ended with a trip across the street to jump on the trampolines, because apparently they didn't get all their play-energy out. And now, I leave you with a little video of the day, because the camera we brought shorted out and it's crazy expensive to get a disposable one. Oh, and they're crazy hard to find, too. Why? Well, it's like we tell the kids sometimes...because this is France, and everything is just a little bit different here. But when that "different" means fresh croissants and bread every morning from the bakery just around the corner, and they just happen to sell the best cafe eclairs ever there too...it's a very good different, indeed.