Our Eiffel Tower Pics & a Video of it lighted up!

So, one of the first places we visited when we arrived in Paris was the Eiffel Tower.  It's still an awesome monument, but it doesn't ball me over the way it did the first time I saw it in 2009.  I was utterly overwhelmed and almost brought to tears by its gorgeous presence.  It just emerged out of nowhere.  I thank God that I came up from behind it.  If you walk toward it from the front, you can see it from various parts of the city.  When I saw it in 2009, I literally turned a corner, and BOOM! there is was. Just amazing.

Anyway, here are some shots of Jonathan and I at the monument. Also, we were there one night right when they turned the lights on. It was a sweet surprise to see the light show.

Christmas in Paris

Christmas time in Paris starts almost after Halloween.  Pretty much like in the states.  Decorations start going up in restaurant and store windows, lights get strung along major shopping streets and the Christmas Markets start to appear, with the major one along the Champs Elysee in the 8th district.  Sadly, I was never able to get a good shop of the street with the booths. It's quite beautiful. Here's a stock image pic that gives you a bit of a idea of how the booths look:

The weekends were always crowded, barely enough walking room. I found myself there during the week a few times, when it was much more manageable. Never bought anything but churros (those long, sugar coated fried donuts) and sausage and fries from this one vendor that really knew what they were doing. However, you could buy just about anything. There were also cute rides for children and even ice-skating (though the rink was pretty slushy).

Here are a few images of Jonathan having fun at some Market activities and a cool pic of Santa in a bubble:

The American Church in Paris also had its own little Christmas Market where Jonathan got a pic with Santa.  The American Library also had a nice Christmas afternoon with games, crafts, singing and time with Frosty that Jonathan enjoyed:

Since 2013, I've been leading a small online life group through my church, Liquid Church (liquidchurch.com).  I recently sunset it because it was too hard juggling the time differences. However, one of the members lives in the UK with her husband and daughter, who is Jonathan's age. They stopped through Paris on their way home from a trip to Germany, so we got to meet in person for the first time.  Jonathan and I met them at the Gare de l'est train station and walked the short distance with them from there to Gare du Nord station. We took some good-bye shots in Gare du Nord:

On December 14, Jonathan participated in a Christmas sing-along during the contemporary church service at the America Church in Paris.  Here's a shot of him all do'd up and a video of the children singing with the band:

Finally, managed to get a small Charlie Brown Christmas tree:-), and enjoyed spending Christmas Eve Service at the American Church.  Here are some shots of the Christmas Tree, Jonathan on the bus ride to church, a balcony view of the service and a shot of Rue St. Dominique, a major shopping road, where you can see a view of the Eiffel Tower at night.  Unfortunately, we never got to the tower for the Christmas lights.My next post will contain pics from October when we managed to see the lights get turned on one night!

Something about Jonathan

Bonne Annee, everyone!!

So, it's been ages since I posted. I have a lot to talk about and loads of pics to upload, but I wanted to add an entry today about Jonathan and how things have gone at his school. It sort of dovetails with much of my silence these past couple of months, as I've been dealing with a lot of confusion and tumult about either staying or leaving.  Anyway, I'm gonna just copy and paste info from a long email to a friend about my meeting with his two teachers, Miss Elsa (I've been thinking it was Esla all this time) and Miss Valentine, the School Director, Mr. Coote, the school Psychologist and a translator.

Here's a pic of his teachers (Miss Elsa is holding Jonathan's hand on the left (probably so he can stand still; clearly by how his head is leaning he was moving around:>); Director Coote is standing next Elsa; Valentine is the shorter girl on the right and the tall woman is the sweet class Aid, Miss Aida).

Sadly, but great for her, Miss Elsa did not return when school started on January 5.  She got an opportunity to teach in Africa and ran with it!  She was a replacement teacher for the regular first half of the week teacher, who is on maternity leave, so I suppose it was easy for her to leave. They are currently looking for her replacement. Here in Paris, however, if a teacher can't come to class due to sickness or quitting, there are no substitute teachers to grab to cover the class - at least at the preschool level.  Parents simply have to turn around and bring the kids back home.  For working parents that must be painful. I'm not in class right now, so it's no biggie for me.  This policy is strange, considering the amazing after-school and vacation program that the public schools provide, virtually free.

Anyway, over the rest of the week, I'll add more info on our activities during the holidays and the cool pics. I promise!

Note:  Pasting in blogger can make the text look weird.  Apologies for that, but this content is a bit too detailed to retype altogether.:-)
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I had the meeting yesterday with Jonathan's teachers, the School Director, the school Psychologist and a translator.  Though I was a bit nervous, everyone was so helpful and kind.  The meeting went well and was productive. They are going to research options for outside school activities for children his age.  There is a music school near a metro station that's close to us, which I will check out (Jonathan is very musical, so maybe some lessons would be good for him).  I also got a reference to a therapy center in the 17th that has English-speaking therapists.  The psychologists thought that they might be able to provide further insight about his behavior.  I'm gonna curb video watching, particularly in the morning. That won't be happening anymore.  Too much stimulus for early in the day and the images tend to stay with the child all day, so it's best that he not consume such material in the morning. In reality, he has watched too much TV for his age.  The primary problem was in my parent's home, where we lived his first 3 years.  There are TV's in almost every room, and it became normal to let him watch cartoons while he was eating, starting at 7 months when he commenced eating solid foods and begin sitting in a high chair. A sore mistake on my part. I should have just turned the TV off from day one.  Since I'm not much into TV watching myself anymore (save HGTV), I'm not sure why I allowed Jonathan to get sucked into a TV habit.  Live and learn.  I thank the Lord He is able to reverse the damage by His power and grace.

Jonathan's main issue is that he has a hard time when they are in circle time - sitting together as a class (which they do about 3x per day).  He'll only sit still if an Aid is there, who will rub his back, scratch his head, just give him tactile attention like that.  When he is engaged in activities, he does extremely well. He's much more advanced academic-wise than the rest of his class (knows all his ABC's and counts to 30 - can identify letters in words and his name).  He also doesn't need instructions to do any of his class work - he just takes a cue from what the other students are doing and completes all his work perfectly (which really impresses his teachers).  He is interpreting back in English what the teacher says to him in French. He is very sensitive to the feelings of others when they are crying or sad (running to get tissues and such).  They got their class pictures back yesterday, and Miss Esla pointed out that unlike how most children (and adults) look for their own face in a group shot, Jonathan was more concerned with identifying the faces of everyone else in the picture.  

His sensitive nature has its negative part, though.  He will not disengage from activities without crying or upset (he does this at home and when transferring metro trains). He simply does not do good with transitions (so the general anxiety that probably underlies all this is associated with his transition from the US to Paris).

So, generally his academic skills are excellent, but his social skills need a lot of maturing. As an only child who hasn't really benefited from neighborhood children to play with or cousins his age (like I had growing up) or siblings, he just really doesn't know how to engage others in play within a confined environment (classroom). And I didn't have many friends in NJ with kids his age.  I'm hoping to improve that here. Pray for me!  Outside, however, he loves to play with other children (which I was aware of but the teachers also pointed out). He's really a peculiar study as a child!

I know that when he's doing any manual work (such as in the construction area at this museum here called the Cite Science & Industry museum) he goes into a zone.  They say he is the same with any tasks/classwork he is given. He is focused and gets the work done.  The Director suggested they look into seeing if he might visit a higher age class during the week to be further stimulated. Maybe that will help.  I also discovered, after accompanying his cute little class to a movie at a nice cinema near us (no school buses here - we walked!), that he can sit through a movie and stay still.  He doesn't do that with videos at home, which made me nervous about taking him to a theater.  However, now that I know he can sit still, we'll be adding that as an activity we can do together.

So, that's where we are at.  The Director was so sweet. He said it's great to have a child who is so curious and active - not a bump on the log, which made me feel good.  We'll try all of these different suggestions, and prayerfully all of it or some, plus general maturation and Jonathan getting more familiar with the language and Paris, will improve the situation.  He really does love school and is excited to go every morning and sometimes asks about going during the weekend.

We'll meet again in April to see how things are going.  I'm believing things will be going very well!