No real reason to put this up, other than the fact that it’s very cute. The picture was the third in a series; the first two have Ethan staring blankly at me. This pose was what happened when I smiled and said “Hi Ethan!”.
Ethan’s stylish shirt comes courtesy of his grandfather, who made the double discovery that a) Toronto has a cool Vespa shop, and b) they sell baby clothes. The choice was pretty clear, at that point.
We made it to Paris! Ethan was so cute on the train and the scenery through the south of France wasn’t too bad either.
We’ll get closer to the Eiffel Tower later this week.
Ethan and I walked around the Foubourg St-Germain area that is primarily 18th Century mansions and palaces that have been converted to government buildings and embassies. We had quite a nice day and managed to take in quite a bit of Paris.
Aaron finished work early and we had a nice home cooked dinner in our studio hotel.
One of the things I’ve noticed about the Lyonese is that they love babies…specifically, Ethan. I can hardly get down the street without somebody striking up a conversation about the little guy. I’m now able to hold a short conversation in French about Ethan. He is not only a great conversation topic, he has also been a good travel buddy.
Okay…wow. Lyon. Is. Amazing. Full stop.
First thing this morning we stepped out (after 12 hours of being completely comatose) and found that they had set up a farmer’s market across the street along the river. The produce made me tear up. No joke. I swear; my eyes were getting moist, and I have never wanted a kitchen so much as I did in that moment. Observe, exhibit ‘a’, the largest mountain of chanterelles I have ever seen:
I began to feel weak, but somehow managed to forge on.
I was ready to call it a day at that point, and would have been happy to call Lyon one of the nicest cities on the planet solely on the strength of its mushroom selection, but having dragged Laura and Ethan halfway across the planet I decided to continue across the bridge to centre town where, we found, there was far more than just good fungus.
(insert cute, loosely connected baby photo here)
Lyon, is a walkable city. It’s not just that people walk here. It’s that it’s walkable. Lots of pedestrian areas, pedestrian malls, pedestrian bridges…and a correlating profusion of pedestrians. It seems as though you can walk to just about anywhere you would like to go, and anywhere that falls outside of that is accessible by public bikes which you can rent everywhere.
Food? Amazing. Restaurants and cafes galore, and you can imagine my pleasure upon finding out that Lyon is famed for its cuisine. Huzzah, says I. Yes, I would like a goat cheese salad with goat cheese so good it makes any I’ve had before taste like it was made from the milk of a yak (trust me, yak cheese sucks).
Wine? Well, we went to an 8 euro tasting that turned into a 90 euro tasting, because the wine was so good that my knees got wobbly. Turns out they make some good plonk in this “Cotes du Rhone” place, whatever that is.
Scenery? Well, mountains never hurt anyone. Nor did cobblestone streets, beautiful architecture or rivers. I could write 1,000 words…or,
Okay, end gush. I actually have to go and eat dinner, instead of bubbling effusively about what it would be like to go to dinner.
Not that I don’t hold Ethan in the utmost esteem, but I was expecting our planes, trains and automobiles excursion with him to Lyon to be – to put it lightly – a living hell. A four month old baby. An overnight flight. Waiting for trains, then taking trains across the country. Taxis. Oh boy.
But apparently Ethan finds travel to be the most exciting thing imaginable. He was so good on the flight that even the people who were scowling at us when we got on (”Oh god, there’s a baby next to me!”) thanked us when we were getting off for “having such a good baby”. No word of a lie, the kid was laughing as the plane was landing.
I was also fairly pleased to find out that in order to catch the bullet train to Lyon, we had to get all the way to…terminal 2. That’s right, when normally it is a struggle to get transport into the city from an airport, we were able to take a direct train across the country.
Lyon itself is beautiful. We are right across the river (a five minute walk) from the centre of town which is made up mostly of pedestrian streets, shops and restaurants.
Seeing as we were too tired to go for dinner last night, I’m kind of excited to get out there today.
What more can I say? This was today in Trinity Bellwoods Park, here in Toronto.
The key to efficiency? Automate your workflow. Feeding is getting progressively easier as Ethan takes on a little more responsiblity in the process.
It’s hard to take a decent picture when this kid refuses to look at the camera.
…I mean really, can you POSSIBLY imagine if your legs were this short? It’s funny; when I used to think of growing, I had always assumed that the whole body stayed in relative proportion as it grew. How wrong I was. It’s hilarious to see Ethan’s limbs grow willy-nilly, each on their own schedule. Hilarious and, of course, wrenchingly cute.
Science is crazy.
While I’m here doing several million posts to my blog, I should probably mention that we’re going to France…the day after tomorrow. I have a few things to do there with work, and Laura and Ethan are going to come with me and do some wine tastings while I sweat blood. Laura and I are currently working on hooking up a tour to the Rhone valley’s Cote Rotie one one of my days off.
Alright. Back to the Ethan pictures.
So here we go; a bajillion pictures of Ethan…this is an easy start: Ethan in his jumparoo. Recipe for good picture: mix equal parts extreme close up and cute baby, shake well.
Okay, so the outfit doesn’t hurt, either. Nor does the fact that he looks bald here.
Ahh…there’s the hair.
First, my moment of geeky delight; I got a new computer. It’s shiny. It’s big. It does lots of stuff. It has a bigger screen than some theatres. It excites me far more than it should.
Where does the challenge come in? Laura was adamant that with all this new fangled technology and a consolidated picture collection, I should be able to put some more pictures of Ethan up on the blog. Twenty more pictures, to be precise. Eager to prove the worth of my sudden excess of shiny hardware, I foolishly agreed.
Though I have been able to negotiate down to 18 pictures as a result of my last two posts, there still lies ahead a whole lot ‘o picture postin’. What drew this all to a head was Laura catching me scanning in a hilarious warning label that came with my new computer. It was the old “If you have time for that, then where are the Ethan pictures?” routine. But c’mon; this warning icon is awesome. Babies and adults beware…this bag is deadly.
But even better than that…
An afficionado of fine literature, Ethan took it upon himself tonight to help my Dad learn to read. Though they started with Tolstoy, Ethan quickly intuited that “Goodnight Moon” might be a better fit, under the circumstances.
Ethan has had a pretty amazing weekend full of people paying him loads of attention…capped off now by grandparents intent on spoiling the little man.
