Olympic Trials

Today we went to a sports event hosted by McDonalds that was free for kids to join.  There were 6 activities to participate in and each was a mini class.  Each class lasted at least 10 minutes and taught the kids important aspects of the sport/activity.  I was very impressed by the setup, and the boys had a blast.  We spent several hours here! 

It was great to be involved in something that was not intended for tourists – no one really spoke English, so the kids were thrown in.   Jack watched the other kids, and sometime did the right thing – but the other 5 year olds that spoke French also were occasionally doing their own thing, so it is hard to know what is lost in translation and what is lost in a 5 year old’s head….For Owen, you could see him absorbing new words.  At one point I asked Owen what a word meant.  He said, “I am not sure exactly, but you don’t want them to say it to you.”  (Turns out the word meant something  like ‘oh bummer’ that you say when some doesn’t quite get it.  And the French apparently don’t believe in 2nd chances because no kid expected one.  If you missed, you moved on to the next thing or got back in line for another try. One little boy did cry, but took a deep breath, wiped his eyes, and started playing again.)

dancingjudo (Jack’s on the far right)

You have to watch this twice to watch Jack and then Owen.  Their little personalities are right there.  I know that Owen would want you to know that the boy he is up against is 9!

volleyball

running activities

cycling (jack takes off after a bit, then you see Owen coming over the jump toward the camera)

basketball

Both boys loved the Judo best.  here was Mama’s most exciting thing…

In the States, I would be disgusted by just the sight of these and I  avoid porta-potties whenever possible.  Here, they are a godsend!  Public toilets are few and far far between.  Twice I have looked and looked for a bathroom, and desperately gone into a store to ask for Jack.  I even bought lunch at one place and Jack did the potty dance and everything… “Sorry, it’s closed.”  yeah right.  I could write a whole blog on the topic – I just might.

Back to today for now. 

After our Olympic village run, we headed over to Parc De Villette.  This park has a music museum at one edge and a science museum at the other.  Sandwiched in the mile or so between them are all kinds of different parks that have sculptures, playgrounds, artwork, or just have big grassy areas that you can sit on (grass is usually only meant to be adored in Paris – and not touched! so this is very nice change.)

The boys were awed by the big geodome, but weren’t interested in watching a massive movie inside or going to a science museum. 

I was too interested in watching the boys play at the sporting events that I got no studying done for the GRE, so I was happy letting them play at parks rather than leading them through exhibits.

They ran around a grassy field for a bit, and practiced some of the gymnastics stuff that Owen is missing from his team.  Then they discovered a tree and were little monkeys climbing up and down.  It was a perfect tree with lots of branches that made climbing fairly easy.  I don’t think either of them had truly climbed a tree before, and this was pure pleasure!  Climbing the tree came in 2nd place for “best thing we did”  for the entire day.We walked through a sculpture garden with pieces of a huge bike sticking up.  The boys enjoyed figuring out what parts were what.  (We were not supped to climb on these…oops.)

a playground – Owen was obsessed with this piece of equipment

Dinner was from a street vendor, and once again we came home much later than I expected – not that I care too much, but it still surprises me.

And just so you don’t think our lives are all fun and games… we spent quite a bit of time this morning trying to get to our destination. I took the boys to one metro train, but then decided that too many changes would be difficult with the scooters, so I switched to another line at the same station.   The connection to that line ended up being especially bad where the underground walk was a crazy distance with billions of stairs, moving sidewalks and escalators. The first train on the new line was packed, but we squeezed on, only to be told “ba ba blah, blah, blah” over the intercom and everyone got off.  The next train had  some kind of issue too, but we just put up with the long stays at the stations and the unknown information that we being fed over the speakers.  Once there was an announcement and about half of the people on the train got off.  Many of those left looked confused.  It was hard to know if there was just going to be a delay and only some people were going to stay and put up with it, or if the remainder of the people were just tourists and were cluelessly standing on a dead train.   But hey, that makes you all the more glad to get to your destination, right???  right!!

Also, after we got home, I had quite a surprise to freak out over.  When I was washing Owen’s face, I noticed little black flecks in his hair. Something gave me this bad feeling that  it was lice.  I went to investigate further and kept thinking, “Be sand! Please, please be sand!!”  But every time I tried to get a piece out, it jumped back in his hair.   My mind wandered to my friends’ experience of washing all the bedding and clothing every day, including the ever important DRYER (something that I do NOT have and is several blocks away!) and I began to feel sick and really want to cry. I finally became convinced that I was the one flicking the sand back into Owen’s hair, and nothing was actually moving nor did anything look like the photos of nits and lice that are online.