Bonjour From France

Bonjour chers lecteurs (dear readers).

Just a quick hello from Provence to ask for more patience.

I usually think blog readers don’t need to know anything about the mechanics of blogging. But I have to tell you that uploading photos and preparing a post for publishing can be fiddly and time consuming. And writing requires a clear uninterrupted stretch of time. At the moment I’m a solo parent, so I don’t have very much time, let alone uninterrupted time*.

You may have caught my rant over at the Huffington Post about how Darling Man’s visa application was rejected by the French Embassy in Ho Chi Minh City. So here I am, alone in Provence with an active and inquiring two-year-old, both of us shaking off a bit of jetlag and a head cold each.

It is beautiful here and the people are lovely. I have so many interesting things to share with you … but later. Right now I have to see as much of France as I can, while doing all everyday toddler-care things that mothers do, like washing urine-soaked sheets, cooking three different types of dinner because someone won’t eat, spending hours patting a toddler’s back and microwaving bottles of milk at 4am.

When I tearfully kissed Darling Man goodbye in Bangkok, I thought I’d see him in a week or so. But now he can’t come to Europe and I miss him too much to continue on alone on the two-and-a-half month European adventure we had planned. So I will head home soon, keeping an eye on what’s happening in Egypt in the lead-up to the election on May 23. If there’s any sign of violence, we won’t stop over on the way back home to Asia.

Of course, it’s hard to expect sympathy when I am doing my solo parenting in a fabulous villa in Provence. There are a million worse things that could happen to a person.

But my blog posts are going to slow down over the next few weeks, and a few guest posts will appear. I hope it’s not too disconcerting. The blog will hot up again once I find some way to get help with Miss M.

In the meantime, here’s a quick look at what it’s like to be a solo parent traveling with a toddler….

… nap times are taken on the go…

… toilet training happens in some unusual places …

… and on most of our excursions, this is the main view: the back of the (borrowed) stroller and the baby’s head.

*Just a note on interruptions. I started writing this very short post with a glass of wine by my side and plans for a hot bath then bed. I’m finishing up the post nearly two hours later, reeking of vomit, as I wait for the washing machine to finish. Nice to know this unglamorous side of motherhood happens all around the world, even in glamorous places like Provence.

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By: Barbara

A career girl who dropped out, traveled, found love, and never got around to going home again. Now wrangling a cross-cultural relationship and two third culture kids.