The first time we’d tried to visit the Eiffel Tower, we traveled via the batobus, which offers a scenic ride down the Seine.

Too scenic, as it turned out.

We arrived at 7pm and faced lines that snaked from the entrance back and forth all the way across the plaza. We were without sufficient food or line distractions to survive the wait, so we risked – and faced – the boys’ loud and bitter disappointment by turning back and regrouping.

The next day was stormy and windy and Eli didn’t nap. We debated: on the one hand, the weather might be keeping the crowds down; maybe a tired boy would be a docile and patient line stander…. But probably not, on both counts. We stayed home and cooked dinner.

Finally, we planned our ascent of the Eiffel Tower like mountaineers plan for Everest. In this case, Tony and I were the Tibetan sherpas, and the boys were Sandy Hill Pittman, who show up and have every desire met, needing only to put their bodies where they’re told and not use up too much oxygen. I was grateful they didn’t want cappuccino (although come to think of it, at the base of the Eiffel Tower, that would be easy to provide).

We’d been advised that the lines are shorter in the late afternoon, so we waited until after Eli’s nap, hoping that the boys would be well-rested, the lines a little easier, and that we’d get up to the top and out before it was way too late for dinner (or even bed). We brought Eli’s view master and discs, Ben’s journal, 2 cameras (since Ben’s a big photographer now), and windbreakers in case it was cold at the top. More importantly, I spent Eli’s naptime packing up food:

carrot sticks, water bottles, baby bell cheeses, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 2 nutella sandwiches (never underestimate the motivating power of chocolate), 2 Z bars, and a ziploc bag of almonds and raisins. We set off at 4, arriving at the base at 5pm. Tony grabbed a bench with the boys while I staked out our place on line.

We didn’t make it out without any tears (from Eli, when I started walking down a flight of stairs holding his hand rather than letting him hold the banister):

But, we made it up, we made it down, and we made it back home, our backpacks empty, four and a half hours later.

cross-posted at Learning to Eat

There were many things we loved about our two weeks in France. I got to meet my long-time computer friend, Susannah, and her family; Ben got to practice his newly-acquired French (which was charming except when he was frustrated with us, and would shout a begrudging “D’accord!”); we all got to eat lots of ice cream and crepes and nutella and pain au chocolat.

But perhaps our favorite thing about France was the carousels. It seemed like every park, every plaza, practically every wide spot in the road had a carousel plunked down in it, and the boys rode them all. They learned to distinguish between up-and-down horses and rearing-back horses; they learned to look for leather belts that weren’t too worn down to buckle (because those rearing-back horses reared waaaay back!); they learned that sometimes it’s pleasant to ride the carousel on a bench swing, or a stationary, climb inside (rather than climb aboard) animal, or even a bench.

In Paris, we found carousels outside Sacre Coeur and in the Tuileries, and in the Jardin du Luxembourg. The one near Sacre Coeur was double-decker, the first we encountered (though we went on to see them in Montpelier and Avignon, too):

The carousel in the Jardin du Luxembourg doesn’t look like much; it’s not as sparkly bright and bejeweled as the others. It’s a single decker, rather small and delicate, there’s no music, and the animals, who are all sorely in need of a fresh coat of paint, don’t move up and down, or rear back, they just sway genty back and forth.

But none of that matters, because here, after the carousel operator checks each rider’s buckle and gently pats each animal’s head, he hands each child a short wooden stick, and as they spin round and round, picking up speed as they go, they get to try to catch a brass ring on the end of their stick.

The kids love it, and the parents all cheer their kids on — suddenly carousel-riding became an exciting spectator sport, and we all had a ball.

Mama, PhD is just starting to make its way out in the world, and yet my attention is split between that and my new book project, Learning to Eat, which I’m co-editing with Mama, PhD contributor Lisa Harper.

As the book proposal makes the rounds, we’re blogging about feeding our kids. Right now, our summer travels have us writing about learning to eat in Hawaii, in Paris, and on airplanes, but eventually, we’ll get back to where it all started: the kitchen, the playground, the dinner table.

Come join the conversation!

It was good to get home yesterday, after a long and emotional day (two airplane rides, Evan Kamida’s beautiful memorial service, and one big earthquake), to find that all my guys had remembered Tony’s and my anniversary.

Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to get anniversary cards from one’s children, but they just like to celebrate. Perhaps, even more, it doesn’t make sense to get a card in the shape of a famously sunken ship, but the boys just like boats right now (if you’re having trouble telling the two boats apart, just remember that the Queen Mary has 3 smoke stacks, the Titanic has four. I did not know this at the beginning of the summer).

A Titanic love, is how I’m thinking of it.

Months ago, the lovely and talented Gail Konop Baker, a former Literary Mama columnist, invited Elrena and me to guest blog at The Debutante Ball, a group blog for writers publishing their first book. It was a fun post to write — and I hope a fun post to read! Here’s an excerpt from “3,000 Miles, Two Writers, One Book:”

Meet over email. Of course; you live, after all, 3,000 miles apart, but it helps our relationship get into writing right away. We are literally words on a page (screen) to each other for the first year of our collaboration (we don’t even talk on the phone!) It doesn’t hurt that we meet via Elrena’s submission to the section of Literary Mama that Caroline is editing at the time.

Meet when one of you is pregnant. This helps get the conversation personal, pronto, as Caroline cautions Elrena that she might not get back to her very promptly with edits.

Don’t always stick to the point. We know we are both writers, and mothers, and if we’d stayed on topic it might have stayed at that. Instead, we digress into breastfeeding and parenting and graduate school and ivory tower life — and friendship. And then, ultimately, a book.

Click on over to The Debutante Ball to read the rest!

We’ve published three terrific new columns this week. I’m particularly grateful for the sensitive, sadly timely Me and My House:

As I nurse my son, I think about women as priests, as deacons, and I think about women who lay no claim to such titles, but whose lives show forth the same devotion. Women who gladly give of themselves in the service of others. For the past few weeks I haven’t needed to venture outside of my house to find a community of people to care for me; women have brought the Body of Christ to me.

Click on over to Literary Mama to read more.

I learned yesterday that Literary Mama columnist Vicki Forman‘s son Evan died suddenly, and I have not been able to think of anything else since.

Vicki and I have never met in person, though we’ve exchanged writing and music and were looking forward to doing a reading together next month. I never met Evan, or his big sister, or Vicki’s husband, but I got to know them all a little bit through Vicki’s gorgeous writing. Now, somehow, Evan is gone and the writing is all that’s left. It’s a wonderful tribute to her strong and spirited son, but oh, Vicki. . . I wish you still had your boy.

I’ve posted a note at Literary Mama, where readers can send a note to Vicki and contribute to a memorial fund in Evan’s name.

Years ago, when I was studying for my PhD exams and thus doing a lot of procrastinatory reading, I indulged in one of those fabulously long New Yorker articles about something you don’t particularly think you’re interested in, but the writing draws you in despite the topic (I lost the better part of a week in college to a 3-part piece about interstate trucking).

This happened to be a piece about pilots, and how airline pilots learn to fly, how difficult it is to get the hours in the air required for a commercial pilot’s license unless you’re in the military first (or independently wealthy). And while I was absorbed in the piece, I mentioned it to a friend, whose dad was a commercial pilot at the time, and he said that while of course there’s a lot of complicated work involved in flying a plane, in some ways, once you’ve got that big bird up in the air, it’s kind of like driving a bus. And I found that so comforting, somehow. I’ve never been terribly afraid of flying, but it always used to make me feel a bit anxious, like I needed to concentrate very hard to keep the plane aloft. But now, after the take-off is accomplished and the plane’s leveled off, I tend to relax and think, “Automatic pilot. Like driving a bus.”

Having spent 11 hours on planes yesterday, and today feeling the effects of the 10-hour time difference I crossed, I’ve been thinking a lot about automatic pilot, and how much I wish I could engage it right now. Of course, pilots don’t use it when they are tired, but to avoid getting tired. They can set the course and relax a bit, knowing that they don’t have to concentrate for five or ten solid hours on each little adjustment required to keep a plane in the air. Now I’m not saying that my life here at home is quite like keeping a plane flying, and I’m not responsible for 300 people in this house, but the two people I do share responsibility for are reacting to their jet lag with an astonishing relentlessness, requiring continual food and drink and books and thoughtful responses to incessant “why” questions (Eli will not be brushed off with “Because” right now) and tape and markers and help with lego creations. They are very happy, and very energetic, and –unlike most days when they will go off and play by themselves for a little while and even (Eli anyway) nap for a couple hours in the middle of it–requiring a lot of participation and witnessing to their play, while I just want to curl up in a ball and nap. Why don’t they? That’s my why question for the day.

I guess the auto-pilot system for parenting is called a babysitter. With all the plans I made for this trip, that’s one that slipped through the cracks. Next time.

We’re on the verge of leaving town, but this post by MomBrain inspired me to stop packing and puttering and organizing for a minute and just take a bloggy little snapshot of my desk. Here’s what it holds:

A tube of hand cream and some lip stuff, because a girl can’t write if she’s distracted by chapped lips and dry hands

A lumpy black rock that fits perfectly in the palm of my hand, from a beach near Seattle

A green resin bracelet made by my late father-in-law (clanks the keyboard too much to write with it on)

A box of tissues

A box of ginger altoids

An empty box of ginger altoids filled with paperclips (and yes, I do reach for the wrong one all the time, and yet I don’t feel the need to mark them in any way. It’s my little daily surprise.)

A Venetian glass quill pen and a tiny bottle of blue ink, a birthday present from friends when it looked like I was going to make a go of this writing thing

2 pink ribbons with red, heart-shaped Cancer Is A Bitch dog tags on them, plus an early copy of the book, my friend Gail Konop Baker’s amazing memoir

A parking ticket

A list of things I can’t forget to do before we leave town: grab the boys’ loveys from their beds; take the garage door opener out of the car and leave it for the woman who is house sitting; turn off the computers and printers; pack airplane snacks…

Encouraging notes from my guys: a picture of the sun from Tony, 3 colorful splotches from Eli, and “I hope you feel better!” from Ben

Review copies of The Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block and Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself by Amy Richards, books on subjects near and dear to my heart

A red clay heart that Ben made for me in preschool

A copy of my book proposal; a copy of a friend’s book proposal; a copy of an essay I’m trying to write

An empty glass of water. Come to think of it, I’m thirsty!

We’re leaving for a big vacation in a few days, and so Tony and I have been reading a lot of guidebooks:

Apparently, Ben thought he could do just as well: