France, Part 1: Paris avec le petit garcon

The only truly useful advice one could give about intercontinental travel with a two-year-old is, “don’t do it.” Seriously—when your beloved child is of an age when an afternoon outing to the park requires the logistical acumen of General Patton, you’d have to be an idiot (or simply childless) to think that the daylong flights, sightseeing expeditions in unfamiliar territory and steady stream of new foods that constitute a big trip won’t push your patience and your kid’s temper to the brink of Total System Failure. There were definitely moments when Tom and I wondered what the hell we were thinking when we decided to haul Henry across the Atlantic so we could enjoy France. But there were many more moments when we had a lot of fun. And part of the fun was thinking, “man—I can’t believe we’re doing this! Who brings their 2-year-old to Paris? We soooo crazazzy!” Really, it was great.

That said, traveling with Henry meant we had to make a lot of compromises about the kinds of things we could see and do, especially in Paris. For example, we did not go to a single museum or gallery. I never stepped foot in a women’s boutique of any kind. There was no go-for-broke, pay-it-off-in-monthly-installments 5-course meal at a Michelin starred restaurant. And we saw only a small portion of the city because the massive, maze-like Metro stations were a nightmare to deal with while wrangling Henry (current motto: “No help!). And when on foot, we had to make frequent stops so Henry could chase pigeons, follow a new pattern in the brick walkway, or jump on a storm drain. (I must say, there are a lot of pigeons in Paris. Big ones. Also, many, many storm drains. Not sure if I’d have noticed if it wasn’t for Henry. Take that, Louvre!)

Basically, serendipity kept us sane. A few times we decided to see something specific and actually made it there (Le Jardin de Luxembourg, the Eiffel Tower), but mostly we simply set out from our hotel in the Les Halles district with a vague goal to go here or there and then just let the day unwind as it would. After all, it’s not like you have to dig deep to find ways to entertain yourself in Paris. When we got tired we’d hit a café where Henry sipped “chocolat chaud pas de chaud” (the closest approximation we could get to chocolate milk) while Tom and I had wine and cheese. I was always happy to eat the leftovers when Henry didn’t finish his chocolatine pastry. And every bistro we entered reacted like it was perfectly normal to bring a small child into the establishment. No fawning over-attention, no looks of horror and dread, even when we went for sushi at 11 p.m. (We were pretty jet-lagged the first few days. And, weirdly enough, we had sushi twice in Paris. It was really good).

I could go through what we did point by point, but I think it's better just to say we enjoyed being in the city, eating good food, drinking nice (and cheap!) wine and doing what we could do, given our less-than-flexible travelling companion. Henry had fun, too, but at least once a day he’d start chanting, “home, home, home, home.” It was a little humbling. Kids just don’t like being taken out of their element, even if it does mean they get to eat chocolate buns for breakfast and ride a merry-go-round first thing every morning (there was one right by our hotel). The country was more enjoyable for him. I’ll post something about that within a few days.