Internet Joy

I was starting to write a post that went: “I mentioned on my facebook status that we were looking for a babysitter on craigslist.” And then I remembered a much more interesting thing I have been thinking about – how dependent we are on the internet. If we had taken this trip 10 years ago, it would have been impossible to start with since Ken wouldn’t have been able to keep up his normal work without major concessions. We wouldn’t have found a babysitter on craigslist. We wouldn’t have been able to auto-translate the French messages written on the main door of the apartment telling us important things like: the water is being flushed on Monday, don’t drink it after 9:30. We wouldn’t be able to type two locations into google maps and get walking directions with approximate times. We wouldn’t have gotten to video chat with friends and family. We wouldn’t have our home phone ringing in Paris. Heck, we probably never would have found such a great apartment to rent. Ok, so maybe this takes some of the adventure out of the situation. But it sure makes it lower stress and more doable with a 1 year old. 

Anyway, back to the babysitter. Amy is a New Yorker, who just graduated from NYU and is teaching english outside of Paris. I was very nervous about the whole thing. (Will she kidnap, harm, feed too many cookies, or ignore the baby?) But I did as Leslie suggested and trusted my instincts that she was fine. Ken and I went out to dinner at The Quiet Man last night and had a lovely baby-free time. I think Sonja had a lot of fun without us. She usually gets to see Nonna and Grandma a lot, so it is probably getting a little monotonous for her with boring old Mama and Dada 24-7. So we are going to try to have a regular gig once a week with Amy. I’m very pleased!

 

We took Sonja to the Musée d’Orsay on Thursday. She was most interested in the little cords that they use to keep you from getting to close to the paintings, go figure. Though she did like a painting of cows though, as well as the Degas painting that is featured in the children’s book “Olivia“.

 

~Rachel