The class visits necessarily throw her routine off. We have it pretty down pat: Marie-Hélène wakes up at 7:00 in the morning, drinks her bottle, plays, eats a breakfast of fruit and cereal, and then goes to bed for her first nap at 9:00, during which I read and drink a cup of tea. She’ll sleep between an hour to two hours. Feed at 11, lunch, play and a little more play, and then, its a second nap at 1:00. By 3:00 Marie-Hélène is usually awake and in a good mood, and after a bottle, we go for a bike ride until Papa comes home.

Since The Baby Whisperer puts so much emphasis on routine, and since it suits us quite well, we don’t consider ourselves all that particular. If I told you that we plan our week’s supper menu in advance, you might be of the contrary opinion. But whew! I didn’t say that out loud… I think.

So back to last Friday… Leaving in the morning, I categorize the mental list of things to bring by activity: eat, sleep, play. Her visit to the class is just before 10. Marie-Hélène now rarely falls asleep in the car, so visits to the school usually mean that I spend the day in that neighborhood, plopping down diaper bags, toys and a playpen at the Palud condo and making a mess in the kitchen. If you knew how neat and tidy my mother-in-law is… She’s 72 and she’ll still get on her hands and knees to wash the floor despite osteo-arthritis. It makes me crings a little everytime I visit. She embodies the characters whose homes were described as having “floors you could eat off of” in books by Lucy Maud Montgomery. And last week, the Palud seniors were away, in Edmonton, for a wedding. Their absence only made their condo seem cleaner… like a museum set that should have been cordoned off to intruders like me.

By the time I fed Marie-Hélène lunch, it was far past noon. The trip I had made to their floor, Marie-Hélène on one arm, the diaper bad, my purse and a 500 pound playpen on the other, had been enough exercise for the week; Michelle Obama arms be darned. Once I had mixed the blueberry-apple compote with an equal amount of rice cereal, and warmed it to the exact degree Marie-Hélène likes, I realised I’d forgot the chair we usually use to keep her somewhat contained while we feed her, in the absence of her usual high chair. Sigh of sighs, it was in the car, umpteen floors down, one cold bowl of cereal later and scattered Cheerios to boot. Forget it, I thought. I’ll feed her on the balcony. If we dirty the floor… it won’t be too bad.

And it wasn’t. There was no spilled milk, no broken glass… Just a little girl who wouldn’t sit still between spoonfulls of blueberry goo. But… (And this is where I insert a note from Marie-Hélène… translated especially for you…)

Dearest of dear Grandmaman and Grandpapa…
I think my Mama might have lost her mind a little on Friday, when she let me eat lunch on your balcony. Nonetheless, I loved the view. Views are such nice things when they can be seen through such nice glass, from such perfect heights. I loved the view so much, I might have kissed that glass, with big blueberry-cereal lips… maybe even twice… And my Mama might even have forgot to clean those kisses off, just as she forgot to roll up the window in the car that she locked. (But don’t tell Papa… it’s a secret.) I miss you lots, especially your glasses!
Love and kisses,
Marie-Hélène

So you see? Messing with the routine is worse for me, than it is for Marie-Hélène.

She’s learned that rolling gets her places, including underneath our furniture. I raced downstairs to grab the camera, hoping to show you just how perfectly she fits, but she’d already decided it was time to roll on…

because there are just so many things to lick…

Her laugh delights us, and we’ll do peek-a-boo over and over just to hear it.
“Does Marie-Hélène eat food?” She loves rice cereal. Peas make her shudder. Pears are good only in rice cereal. And sweet potato? Not more than a bite.

She’ll squirm in our arms and notice my new earrings. And when a stranger pays her attention: “She’s so small! She’s so cute! What beautiful eyes!”, she sits still and smiles at them, and when they leave, she resumes her squirming. So I bury my nose in her tiny neck, where the little folds smell so good.

Helmet and goggles? Check! And boots and snow blades?

She approves. If she really wanted to steal away with him, she’d hide herself in his boot, but she worries about the smell. It could curl her hair.

The roads were bad a good quarter of the way to Saskatoon, which stretched the time to ten hours.

I read a good book with bite-sized chapters, and now spout nutritional facts to anyone who listens.

And it was my birthday. And of all the candles shaped into a 26…

I missed three…

Christmas wishes 09 from Jacinta Palud on Vimeo.

But, whew, once this exam is over, I’ll bake cookies and visit friends and wrap presents and read anything that does not involve anthropology and live in bliss until the next education-related emergency. But really, I do love it.

And thankfully, Marie-Hélène doesn’t understand it, because it could all go to her head.

And even if Grandma threatens to eat her, starting with her cheeks, Marie-Hélène is confident enough to fall asleep…