It's amazing how their minds work...

We have been having a pretty hectic spring/summer, and I have not been very good at keeping up to date here about some of our adventures.

My Mum was here the last week of May and first week of June for a visit - and I was able to go with Marc on a business trip to Oslo for two nights. What a beautiful city, lilacs blooming, blue sky (it had been raining here for three weeks at that point), a visit with an old colleague - overall, lovely!! Thanks Mum for the opportunity!!

Another thing we did (to get back to how my kids minds work), my mum and I that is, was to take the kids to a little kiddies amusement park called Didiland near Strasbourg and spend the night in Strasbourg. It's a park geared, I would say, to the 3-8 year old crowd. My kids LOVED it.

Julia tried lots of the rides - insisted in fact (though she usually started protesting "me off, me off!!!" halfway through. The only one she didn't protest on at all was the flume which she thought was great. Meanwhile I was clinging to both kids and the raft (involved using my legs too) thinking "how stupid am I to take two small kids on this??"

Now my mum isn't that big on rides. Stu made her go on one near the beginning that looked really tame (hot air balloon thingys that go up and come down slowly) but in true Stu fashion found a way to make the thing spin in circles - and tested how fast he could make it go. She did venture a few others and was getting quite brave near the end of our visit.

I was still pretty surprised when Stu and I got off the (evil) bumper cars to see Mum and Julia on the caterpillar rollercoaster. Stu of course couldn't be outdone by his sister, so we had to go on. It was horrible!! Fast, bumpy and I got the safety bar wedged between my ribs (or at least that's how it felt). Mum and I agreed that it was not the most pleasant ride at the park. Julia apparently protested the entire ride.

Well, Julia has mentioned several times "Me go caterpillar with Nana, go fast fast round!" with frantic arm gestures. But it has been a few weeks. Then tonight, I was sitting next to her crib watching her. She was at that beautiful stage of almost dropping off... heavy eyes, slow hands, I stroked her cheek and she reached up to stroke mine... really beautiful bonding moment, remember why you had kids...

And then - eyes wide open "Me go caterpillar with Nana!! Round round, through apple, fast fast!!"

So Mum, I don't know what she was thinking about, but the 3 minutes of discomfort left a huge impression on a little person :-)