The wine flight didn't hurt us too much last night - it also helped that everyone - including Natalie - slept in until 8:00. Whatever the reason, we were up, out and on our way to Jardin Des Plantes at a reasonable time. As we were walking through the 3rd, a pleasant, quiet walk on a weekday morning, we stumbled onto a small but well outfitted playground in a church lot called square Paul Langvin. The girls had a quick scamper while I patronized the patisserie down the block. I got a plain butter croissant and it had a light, sweet glaze. Yum! The girls each had a chouquette - a small puffy pastry with a dusting of pearled sugar. We needed the pastry to lure them back in the stroller for the last mile of our walk! Jacqui especially wants to walk and that would seriously slow us down. More snacks!

Once we arrived at the Jardin des Plantes, we wandered amongst the ancient trees to the menagerie - a small but intimate zoo featuring a few animals the girls were not familiar with. On the way out, we passed another playground so we took our picnic lunch there and the girls played and climbed between bites. Today was the first time that a french-speaking child had tried to interact with Jacqui and, based on her response, I think we are going have to step up the visiting-a-foreign-land-etiquette lessons. She gave him a blank look, shrugged and ran back to me (kind of what Jack does in the same situation - hmmm) I need to arm her with a few handy phrases like:

"My name is Jacqui - what's yours?"
"Je m'appelle Jacqui, et vous?"

"Want to make a sand castle together?"
"Voulez faire un château de sable?"

"It's not your turn yet, back off you big buffoon!"
"Ce n'est pas votre tour encore, vous dégagent grand bouffon!"

She has a hard enough time interacting with English-speaking children so I'm positive she won't even try conversing with someone who only speaks French but, hope springs eternal!

Anyway, after playground #2, we were too exhausted to walk the 3 miles home pushing the stroller down all those busy city streets so we 'hopped on the metro' which is sooo much easier said than done. We have to think long and hard before taking that Humvee of a stroller onto the metro again!

After the kids were settled, Jack and I enjoyed a fairly quiet evening in the Louvre and then dinner out.

All in all, another great day.