Bringing up Baby !

Undoubtly, knowing your parents, dear little munchkin, you’re bound to be a smart fellow. Knowing your uncles, I’d even say a baby genius… which brings us up to a rather interesting music sidetrack.

Eels being currently the sound stream currently dwindling down my aural canal, I noted they wrote an interesting piece called “Baby Genius” and oddly starting by the phrase “there’s been an earthquake” seemingly aloof as the rest of the song rattles on about a baby that’s grown up rather fast. Well I guess this song put me in the right mood at the right time, and I’m more eager than ever to see you come out to the world. Unfortunately, I won’t be there for your birth but I promise I’ll bring loads of toys for Christmas time.

Although it’s a secret, I’m pretty sure you’re a boy. Your mom won’t peep a word about it nor will your Dad. I guess mum’s the word and we all feel pretty bummed about it, not to mention we’re intrigued, on tenderhooks.

Some of the earliest memories I have date back to when I was some six years old and still a very small pudgy child. Back then of course my sister and I would argue and fight every so often. Our brother would sometimes join and it’d be a great confusion.
One day, as we were arguing in my sister’s room, fighting, jumping on the bedspread and shouting - a scene that would have made our mother faint - a slipper went sailing through the room at very high speed and hit my sister right on the cheek. Whether it was the left or right one, I can’t say.
The culprit, dear baby, was either one of your uncles. My memory seems oddly blotted and I can’t seem to be able to name the guilty.

In France, young kids usually snack around 4PM and have bread, butter (lightly salted mind you) and a mug of hot steamy chocolate. One time, my brother, your mom and I were finishing up the goûter. Anne-Lise was fooling around with a table mop - a spongelike one - until it landed smack in the middle of my bowl and came floating up, bobbing about in my chocolate. I probably started howling like mad but both my sister and brother found it rather hilarious.

Morale: «Little baby, mind your bowl when you have a hot chocolate, you wouldn’t want Mommy to drop a sponge in, would you?»

I guess Easter was my favorite holiday back when I was a kid. I barely celebrate it nowadays, mainly because our family is spread out, but don’t you worry kiddo, when you grow up you’ll your basketful of eggs, chocolate eggs, sugar eggs, name ‘em, you got ‘em. It’ll be simple eggxtravanganza.

Your mom - a smart one she is - had figured out a couple things about Easter. We both knew our parents were behind the bunny stuff (which by the way in France is replaced by a bell. Easter saved by the bell) and so on Easter morning (always a Sunday), we’d sneak behind the round window in the staircase and spied on our parents who were hiding eggs in the garden. Then the egg rush came! Our dad would summon us and my sister and I would rush down the 2 flights of stairs past our bemused parents to the garden and snatch every last egg. Now your sister, apart from being a very clever two-braid little girl, was also a pretty fast 8-year-old and my short 6-year-old legs were no match for hers.

Then again, I had a lethal weapon: the pout (from the French faire la potte. I never heard that expression but that’s what Mr. Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 says). Should I feel neglected or cheated out of my fair share of eggs, I’d pout. And where my legs had let me down, my face had won. But then again, your mom being sweet and kind (hmmm I wouldn’t want her to keep you away from me so any kind of cajolery is always in order).

I remember the piano was a strategic egg hiding place when the raid occured indoors. Imagine, on each key a small, carefully wrapped chocolate friandise - sweet! That’s where legs or no legs, pouts or no pouts the arguments started. My sister and I would fight over that egg pinnacle. Much to our parents’ dismay. But then again, whose fault was it in the first place? Never ever hid eggs in the piano, Dad!

Aaah Easter, t’was sweet indeed.

She sure is a biker, your Mom, a cyclist that is. I wouldn’t want you to picture your Mom in ultra tight leather jeans, leather jacket on a Harley Davidson.  Your Dad isn’t a biker either, he’s got what Grandpa (my dad) nicknamed a secouette, i.e. a rumbler.

Anne-Lise - yeah it’s high time you were on first name basis with your Mom - always liked to ride a bike so long as it didn’t get too hilly, specially upwardly. Who doesn’t like a downhill ride, the wind whizzing wildly in your hair. She learned how to ride a tricycle before I can remember, and as soon as she got on two wheels only, she whirled around in our garage. We’d built a whole station service out of cardboxes left over from our recent move, and my sister and I used to remember the garage as an immense space, where we could play hide and go seek. It was big enough anyway for us to bike. And in a city where rain is what you mostly get from above (apart from pigeon missiles), the garage shelter was most welcome.

When she was nine, she had a minor glitch while riding her green bike. I remember that day distinctly. We’d just moved again, to a new house in a cul-de-sac and my sister was biking around on the sidewalk when she leened a wee bit too close to our house wall and scratched her right arm very badly.

The rest of that day is a blur. I can remember my Dad taking my sister - your Mom - away to the hospital to have her arm checked. It turned out to be a scratch no more. Nonetheless, to this day, she still has a small, barely noticeable scar.