Never trust a French appartement at first sight

Remember how we were going to move in two weeks....well that was put on hold. i went last monday to take another look at the apartment we had chosen and were about to sign a lease for and noticed something very alarming.....The Metro. Yes people after being in the apartment for a few minutes i noticed a slight vibration (on the fourth floor). Clearly i became very alarmed and immediatly went to knock on what was supposed to be my future neighbor. I stumbled upon an old couple who are apprenantly not bothered by their house vibrating every 5 minute. Needless to say we decided against signing the lease. 

If you are planning on renting an apartment in Paris or any old city for that matter learn from my almost mistake. Double check everything and spend sometime inside the apartment before signing anything. Coming from California where most buildings are less than 50 years old I immediatly get bewitched by the old Haussmanian Parisian splendeur and forget to actually make sure the place is livable. Another essential this place was missing was an oven. I mean seriously, who furnishes an entire kitchen with stove and cupboards but omits àn oven! 

We are now trying to get an apartment in the same building as ours so wish us luck!

Dark Blue Velvet Sofa

I want to talk about why I love this sofa. If you are thinking about it...just do it!

Living in Paris where the weather is less than shall we say, this dark cozy yet cool sofa is perfect. Its dark color hides stains my husband likes to make, yet looks really glamorous. The only downside is that if there is a lot of light in your house you can see dust on it during the day. So it must be cleaned very regularly.

There are plenty of ways to accent this piece. For the past two years I have used light blue silk curtains, and a lot of blue and white stripes. From an earlier post you can see my DIY black and white dining table. I also have a pair of antique reupholstered chairs with a similar black white fabric. For my new place however, I am thinking lighter! I want more light pastel colors. Maybe I should do yellow silk curtains. With this piece there are so many choices!

Accent Wall????

To accent or not to accent?

This is the question I am pondering today. Should I or shan't I paint an accent wall in my new bedroom? I am thinking grey because I have these great light grey silk curtains that I really want to use.

Here are some inspiration interiors...

Aqua Baby Room

I keep thinking about what color I should paint my babies new room.

At first I was thinking blue/grey. But it might be a bit depressing. It is summer now but I always have to remember that it is cold and ugly in Paris most of the time. Therefore, a more lively color like aqua or green/blue might be a bit more cheery.

I think my favorite is the light aqua with yellow. 

Here is my inspiration...

Moving to a Bigger Apartment

We are finally moving!

Although we are sad to say goodbye to our very nice apartment and neighbors (we live next to my husband's sister) we are moving to a bigger place in two weeks. I will be needing lots of decor advice and will chronicle my plans for the new space. First off I need to post some pictures so everyone has an idea of what the place looks like.

The first thing to decide is paint color. Because this is Paris everything including painting an apartment is insanely expensive. So after getting an estimate of 5,000 Euro I decided I would do it myself. The only two rooms that I think need to be painted is the baby's room and our bedroom.

Here are some pics...

The French Creche aka Free Goverment Daycare

(This picture is pretty funny. Where are the screaming babies???)

I am currently awaiting the answer of whether my child will be accepted into a state run creche, also known as creche municipale. I signed up when I was 7 months pregnant last August and ill not find out until mid May or June almost a year later! If you are a pregnant foreigner in France I recommend that you sign up at your local Marie right when you are six months pregnant. Most foreigners make the mistake of waiting to sign up for day care until after their baby is born. I would have made the same mistake had a friend not told me to go as soon as possible.

After your baby is born you will receive 7 acte de naissance (birth certificates) from the person who comes to register your child's birth at the hospital. By the way if you don't have these you can order as many as you want from your Marie whenever you want. You have to send these certificates to your top 4 choices of creche's that you made when you signed up at the mairie while you were pregnant, as well as to the Mairie itself. You have to remember to send these as soon as your baby is born to complete your file and put you on the list awaiting a place in the creche. The city compiles the list for the kids accepted at the end of the school year for the coming September.

After your file is complete you basically just have to wait for the response from the Mairie. You also have some other choices however, just in case your child does not get accepted in a municipal creche. You can do garde partage with another family. The way this works is that you share the cost of a private nanny at either your or their houses. The nanny is your employee and you can discount the cost of her salary in your taxes if she is properly declared. Another option that I am exploring is the halte garderie. These places also run by the state accept kids only part time. So you can probably get your kid in for up to three days a week. The third option which I am in the process of finding out about is the creche parental. These are day cares run by the parents of the kids attending. I will post about this as soon as I attend the open house next weekend. There is also the option of taking your child to the house of a specially trained babysitter who can watch up to 4 kids. I am learning more about this and will let you know as soon as I find out more.

Just a quick note...the reason everyone wants a place in the creche municipale is because it is the cheapest option. Garde partage is super expensive (about 900 a month, 9:00 to 19:00). Halt garderie is somewhere in the middle, but the catch for this one is that it is not full time. You can only sign your child up for up to 3 days a week.
 

Lactation

I chose to breastfeed my baby. This notion is completely outlandish to the French and especially Parisians. For some reason most new French mothers never even try breastfeeding. It might have something to do with keeping body image issues, French women are notoriously obsessed with being skinny. I have also heard others say that they didn't want to be the only ones doing all the work, or be a slave to the baby. I can totally understand not wanting to do all the work while your husband sleeps or relaxes and breastfeeding definitely takes a huge toll on the woman's body. However, from my perspective there were just way too many benefits for the baby for me not to do it.


Since my baby was born in October at the beginning of the ugly Parisian winter and flu season I can tell you from experience that breastfeeding kept her from getting sick. The antibodies in my body got transferred to her through the milk and while everyone around her was getting the flu she was protected. At first I wasn't sure if I truly believed this notion. But when we visited with my husbands friends who had little babies that were coughing with runny noses I was sure that my kid would catch something. After all during the winter people like to be indoors with the heat turned up and rarely think of airing out their homes....thus the germs get incubated and passed to anyone who enters the "sick" house. After several visits to these types of infected homes I caught a cold, so did my husband but the baby had nothing! That's when I realized that there was truth in the breast milk protecting the baby notion after all.

My kid is now five months and a half and I am still breastfeeding. At five months I started giving her formula once a day during the weekdays because I am leaving her with a nanny to go to work and it just got too hard to pump at night (very very tiring). I felt a little bad about it but in the end I have to sleep and get out once in a while also! I don't know how long I'll keep breastfeeding but so far I really love it so probably till she is one. Next month I'll be starting puree's so there will be a post on how that goes...

I know that some people have problems producing enough milk. I used two recipes that really help increase milk production. The first is a mix of herbs for a tea and the second is a yummy cookie.

Lactation Tea:
In France you can find several brands of lactation teas. The one I started to buy was Les Jardins de Gaia, mainly because it comes in a bigger package and I like making my own tea bags. However, you could make your own tea with the following herbs. These are also the ingredients in the brand mentioned about. I drank about a cup or two a day. You don't need to go crazy with it, one or two cups is definitely enough.
***You need to be careful about what herbs you take when breastfeeding. Remember that everything that you eat and ingest (medicine, etc.) goes to your baby!

(This makes two cups)
1 tsp. fennel
1tsp. cumin seeds
1tsp dill
1 tsp. anis
a few raspberry leaves 


Lactation Cookie:
I found the recipe here and they turned out great. I made a few changes like substiture sugar for maple syrup and added coconut flakes.

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour (or if you are gluten free you can use any gluten free mix)
1 3/4 c. oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 c. almond butter or peanut butter
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. flax seeds
 1/3 c. water
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar (I used maple syrup, or you could use agave as well)
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
2 c. (12oz) chocolate chips
1 c. chopped nuts of your choice