Strolling overseas

In case you haven't noticed, I'm completed Internet addicted. I don't know how people could live without it and I definitely can't imagine my life without it. I really do almost everything on the Internet. If I could cut my children's fingernails through the web I certainly would. I need to be "connected" 24/7. The last thing I do before turning off my light is checking my blackberry and guess what is the first thing I do in the morning? Wrong. I first turn on my light :) This can't be good, right?

So here's the deal. I'm going away for four weeks. Yes, four full long weeks, with limited access to the cyber world and full access to my children (even more than I have right now). We'll be together aaaallll the time. No school, no playdates, no birthday parties, nothing. Which makes it even more difficult to have access to the outside world, but I'm really glad for that. However, since we will still be strolling around - yes, I'm taking a stroller with me(*) - I'll try to come here whenever possible to continue sharing our adventures. This time we will be strolling in Brazil and Uruguay, searching for a warmer, sunnier, buried-under-sand-and-sea-salt Christmas.

Cheers!

(*) Since I feel really inspired today, let's open a parenthesis on the stroller subject. I'm the happy owner of 3 strollers. You read it right. Not one, not two but three nice strollers. And here's what I've been noticing since I became a mother. Mothers are a whole different species. When they tell you that maternity will transform you, it is a fact. Believe me, not only your body changes, but you become a whole new person you didn't even know existed inside you.

Let me give you an example related to my bragging on having three strollers. Mothers are very competitive, but the competition takes place on a whole different level. They don't care how many houses, or cars or fancy shoes the other mothers have. They actually want to know how many words the other children are saying (can you believe it?! Some parents actually count and write down how many words their 2 years-old know!), with how many months they started to walk, they stopped using the pacifier, the bottle and so on. I've never counted how many words my children knew when they started talking. So whenever I had an appointment with the pediatrician, (here's my little dark secret - because I'm a mother, therefore I'm competitive as well), I would search on the Internet (my best friend) how many words they were suppose to know at that age. I did that a couple of times with F. and with P. I just told the pediatrician that he was talking a lot (in three languages, what about that?).

Since we are on the subject, here's another anecdote (mothers love to tell you about their special stories). The other day, I was talking with another mom from F.'s class and she promptly asked me how had F's report been. I blanked. I had actually completely forgotten to look at the report (just to remind you, he's only 4, so I still consider school like a fun place where children go to play, color, socialize and learn new things outside home). No need to tell you she looked at me and then at F. with a lot of pity in her eyes. She's probably thinking that with that kind of mother, F is doomed for the rest of his life. On the other hand, I was quite surprised about me. Given that I've always been the kind of nerdy student, I thought I would be like the other mom. I stressed so much with my own studies, that I think there's nothing left for my kids's. Maybe I'll change again when they'll be older...

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my original post. But those are my two cents on the subject before leaving on vacation. I wish you all a very happy Holiday!

I took the picture from here, and this guy has actually strolled a lot. Inspiring.

My picture won!

Remember this picture I posted here a few weeks ago? Well, it was selected as best photography in a contest I participated last week on the blog NY with Kids. The prize is a photo album from Memorare that should arrive any day here.
I can't wait to receive it!

***

I've just received my photo album and it's really cute.

Look:



Cultural day - Williamsburg

After visiting New York innumerous times and living here for almost 5 years I'm still not very familiar with Brooklyn. I know, shame on me! However, this is about to change. Actually, it has changed already because today I went on a fantastic tour organized by the same girls (Gisela Gueiros and Ana Strumpf) who took me to visit art galleries in Chelsea. And there will certainly be more opportunities to explore other parts of the borough.

 

 

Williamsburg has a small town feeling, with the advantage of being one subway station away from Manhattan. It's not particularly pretty but it certainly has its charm on its own. The buildings are usually three or four stories high, nothing out of the ordinary and the streets are practically empty. In fact, if you are not really familiar with the neighborhood it can be quite scary to wander around. But, since we were with our two fantastic guides, we got to visit and discover the hidden pearls of the place.

 

 

We all met for a nice brunch at Marlow and Sons (voted one of the best restaurants in Brooklyn by many food critics). And then we started our tour which consisted on visiting famous shops of Williamsburg (see the list below) and, of course, just walking around and trying to grab the feeling of the environment. The places we visited are very neighborhood stores, they are all low profile and they look like what probably used to be the traditional American general stores a few decades ago. It was like being in one of those Norman Rockwell cover magazines (especially the coffeshop Bakeri). What they all had in common is a kind of back-in-the-days feeling with a modern touch. The products and brands they offer seem to be all hand-picked by the owners. They usually have nice designs, they are charming, different, mostly hand-made and look vintage. They are those nice little objects that can give a special touch to a room or that could be a great gift to give to someone special. 

We also visited the Mast Brothers chocolate factory. All hand-made and organic. When we got there the staff was busy wrapping up the chocolate bars with their famous designed papers. I've included some pictures of the factory tour below.

Here's the list of the places we visited and they are all worth going:

• Marlow and Sons - restaurant
• Brook Farm General Store - general store, home accessories
• Mast Brothers - chocolate factory
• Moon River Chattel - antiquary, general store, home accessories)
• Sprout Home - florist
• Bedford Cheese Shop - cheese shop
• Future Perfect - design, home accessories
• Bakeri - bakery

Would you guess that this is a chocolate factory?

Chocolate beans

Staff wrapping up the chocolate bars

Tasting table with the chocolate bars beautifully wrapped

The group at Bakeri

Books of the week - children's magazines

Magazines from Bayard Press and Magia de Ler

Going back to the subject I've posted last week on raising multicultural children, I think that reading to them in our mother tongue helps a lot. Given that it's not always easy to find books in a foreign language, a nice way that I found to diversify our readings and to keep up with French and Portuguese is to subscribe the children to some magazines. We currently receive French magazines from Bayard Jeunesse and Brazilian magazines from Magia de Ler.

Bayard Jeunesse which is part of the big French publishing group Bayard Press - maybe the biggest one in France, also with offices spread around the world - is specialized in publishing high quality magazines for young readers of all ages. They've been around for some time now. In fact, as a child and then as a teenager, I was subscribed to their magazines, some of which were the same my children receive now. They are very nice and well thought out. Each issue comes with a story, nice illustrations, games, craft ideas, cartoons, short stories and some current subjects. It actually varies a lot depending on the age of the child (P's magazine is much smaller and vocabulary focused than F's magazines, which are already more story telling oriented), but they are all educational driven and usually add-free.

Magia de Ler is a Brazilian editorial group specialized only in children's magazines. They currently publish Toca (for ages 1 to 5), Peteca (5 years-old and up) and Joca, which is a newspaper for the young ones. The format and organization of these magazines is very similar to the French ones, because they were inspired on them. The quality of their design, illustrations and content is excellent.

What I like about receiving the magazines is, first of all, the excitement of the children when they see them in the mailbox with their names and address on them (just like mom's and dad's) but then, and most importantly, is the fact that is a monthly link to our countries (the Brazilian ones are actually bi-monthly publications). Moreover they come full of current subjects from those countries and new vocabulary or expressions that sometimes they would never learn with me.

I personally think it's a great way to keep up with our culture and not so expensive if you were to compare on how much it would cost to buy new books imported from those countries.

I'm not an expert on the subject and there are probably other magazines like these ones around the world. But the other two publishers of similar children's magazines that I happen to know by chance are the ones listed below. I've never read any of their magazines, but they seem very nice as well. If you know or have heard of others, please share them here with us.

• American magazines: http://www.cricketmag.com/ProductList.aspx?type=M
• Australian magazines: http://www.lottamagazine.com/Lotta/Lotta_magazine_for_kids.html (first Australian magazines solely dedicated to children and they have recently been launched).

I forgot to mention that Bayard Jeunesse also publishes magazines in other languages than French and Magia de Ler will start translating their magazines in English soon.

Paris vs. New York

From Paris vs. New York, a tally of two cities

Lately I've been dreaming on going to Paris. Just to stroll around or even better, just to flâner. Is there a better thing to do in Paris? As we are rapidly approaching the end of the year I've realized that the promise we made each other to take the children there once a year, so they would meet their french roots (or was it an excuse for us), has been broken. Oh, Paris, Paris, when will we meet again?

In the meantime, I'm very tempted on buying some of these posters, as well as the book. My two favorite cities, side by side. 

The weekender and the bubble wrap idea



Need to stress out? Click on the image

My impressions from the weekend.

The egg at WD-50. Even the egg shell was edible

WD-50 - interesting, creative but not fulfilling;
All good things - creepy, especially after googling the guy and finding out that he's back in New York;
Peking Duck House - great peking duck
La Promenade des anglais - so refreshing! French restaurant flavored with herbs from Provence in every dish. Simple and tasty.

And here's a great tip to entertain your kids when they are running around the apartment, not knowing what to do with their extra energy. Don't through away that bubble wrap you've just received with your last delivery. Ask your kids to close their eyes and count to ten or sing their favorite song. In the meantime, lay down the bubble paper on the floor. Ask them to open their eyes, put some very energetic music and tell them to jump on the bubbles as crazy as they can. You can also play the freeze dance while they are jumping. So when you turn off the music, they have to jump out of the bubble warp. Anyway, this was one of the activities at the birthday party we went on Saturday. And when all the parents saw that we all agreed it was one of those silly yet so genius idea.

Have a great great week!

Happy Friday - paper garlands

Any plans for the weekend? We have a quite festive one. Birthday party on Saturday and an end-of-year-class-gathering for F on Sunday.

Since we are all still preparing for the Holidays, here's an entertaining and VERY easy activity to do with your children. Paper garlands. We did some today and it was a success. You just need some color paper (actually white paper would do the trick as well), glue or tape and scissors.

Raising multicultural children

This week I read this article written by Martha M. Batalha, a Brazilian journalist who lives in New York and is pregnant of her first child. I’m terribly sorry for my non-Portuguese speaking readers, because the text is in Portuguese. But let me give you a small summary here. The article was written as a letter addressed to the author's son in which she shares her fears and frustrations on having to raise him in another country, far from home. Her worst fear of all is that her son will be so integrated to the American culture that he will be completely different from her and that that could tear them apart in the future. In the letter she makes references to a lot of things that were meaningful to her during her childhood in Rio de Janeiro. And what makes her sad is to realize how different her son's childhood will be from hers. Nonetheless, she hopes to be able to show him and make him understand the importance of where she comes from and therefore where he comes from as well.

I was moved by the letter and I could identify myself with the author in a lot of aspects. Not exactly in the exact same things that were important during her childhood, because I wasn’t raised in Rio, but while I was reading it I was able to make the connection with other things, sounds, places, perfumes, people that were important to me while I was growing up and that my kids will probably never know. In fact, the letter touched me so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the last few days and I kept thinking on how I positioned myself on that particular subject.

The text brought back some dormant fears that I had during my first pregnancy. There were many. But most of them I can’t even recall now, which probably means they weren’t that important. Nonetheless, my worst fear of all was the language. I was afraid my children would speak to me in English (or in Portuguese when we moved to Brazil). I don’t have anything against those two languages. I’m fluent in both of them and I actually like them a lot. But they are simply not mine. I don’t think in Portuguese nor in English. Saying “I love you” in them would sound fake and getting angry would not sound as effective as in French - the language I speak with my children.

In my opinion, language is the biggest mark of a person and a culture. In my case I’m totally divided, given that I’m bilingual in French and Spanish. Depending on the situation I think in one or another. I speak only French with my parents, my husband and my kids, but with a lot of Spanish words here and there. I express my love to my kids with tender Spanish words and I also curse in Spanish – this is my latino side, it always sounds more poignant and dramatic. French is however more dominant in my daily life (Spanish is my sweetheart).

I’ve decided not to teach Spanish to my children. I thought that French, Portuguese and English were enough for their little brains for now. However, I sing to them in Spanish and I was amazed to see that they can actually understand and sing along. I know that they will not be Spanish speakers, but this is my way of transmitting a part of my culture to them. And you can bet they’ll know and carry some Uruguayan cultural traces as well. They'll know that the best meat comes from there (sorry Daddy) and they'll certainly know that the best dulce de leche is Lapataia. In fact, we are heading there for the Holidays and we’ll stay for almost a month. They will never be Uruguayan, but they’ll learn how to like the country, even if it is only through my eyes.

I sympathize with Martha when she says that her son will never experience the things she liked when she was young. However, for me this would always be a problem, given that I grew up in different countries. How could they live the same life as I did if we would stay in only country? I would love them to go each year to the market in Mexico City to choose their own piñatas as I used to do. Or go to Switzerland to celebrate L’éscalade by breaking a chocolate pot. Or spend their vacations visiting grandparents in France and Italy. Don’t even let me started on all the things they could be doing in Uruguay. And what about Brazil, where their father grew up? But I know that this is impossible.

However, I can teach them what my parents were able to teach me. Values. I can teach them to respect and appreciate each and every culture. I can teach them that they don’t necessarily need to agree with all aspects of a certain country and that they can actually take advantage of their diverse background to pick good things of all the cultures they are been exposed to and make one of their own. The one we are creating at home. We read in French, English and Portuguese. We watch DVDs in all three languages as well. A typical meal at home could include pasta (my Italian side), arroz e feijão (rice and beans, typical of Brazil) or crêpes (with Uruguayan dulce de leche of course). And this is normal. This is the way it has always been for me and this is what I want to pass on.

No culture is better than the other and no country is better than the other. I actually don't like when people start to become too nationalist. Probably because I can't understand what that means to love only one country, but also because it has always been at the root of any war. I believe that we can be happy and form a family anywhere in the World. Besides your kids could have completely different experiences than yours even if you stayed in one place all the time. Times have changed, the environment is different, and the parents of your children (you and your partner) are different than the ones you had. Education and values however should be the same. Our task is to guide our children. You can share the same culture as your fellow citizens, but you know that what will always prevail is what you were taught at home and the way you were raised. As parents of multicultural children, I believe that we have a quite challenging task ahead of us. Of course we want them to understand and respect where we and they come from. However, we have to be careful also not to alienate them from the local culture. We may not like everything, but we have to respect it.

When we moved back to Brazil, most of the people could not understand why I wanted so badly to come back to New York. Apartments are smaller, there is much less help than in Brazil and most importantly there is no family (I should also mention the winter). Agreed. It's not easy to be by yourself with two small kids and a husband away from home most of the time. But why wouldn't I want to come back to the only place in the world where for the first time in my life I didn't feel as a foreigner? For me New York is like a neutral place. People come from all over the world. Speaking more than one language at home is almost the norm. I love taking my kids to the playground and nobody looking at us because we speak French (the way people used to look at us when we were in Brazil, with that look in their faces meaning "strange"). I love that F's classroom looks like a small U.N. summit. I love that I'm not the only foreigner in my building or at my Pilates class. I love that even the Americans who live here are not necessarily from here. I love having friends from all over the world. And I love the idea that my children are exposed to all this diversity and are part of it. 

Home will be their safe-heaven as it has always been to me. As long as I can teach them my language, my values, what is important to me, to respect other people and their differences. As long as I can guide them throughout their childhood and why not even their adulthood. As long as I can provide them a safe place to evolve and become whatever they want to be. As long as they can understand that my roots are expanded all around the world and, therefore, theirs will be as well. Then I know they'll be fine. And I'll leave to their father the task of teaching them what it is to belong to one and only one place, because if it depends only on me they'll become citizens of the world. This is what I know and where I come from.

This is my own particular opinion on the subject, but I would love to hear your side of the story. How do you feel about raising children in a city/country that is not yours? What are the challenges you encounter? What about the positive side? And what about the people who are raising their children in their own country, how does it feel? Leave a comment and let’s start a constructive discussion. What do you think?

Wood or plastic?

I'm more of a "wood" person. If I could I would only buy wood toys for the kids. Usually the design is better, the colors look nicer, they are decorative and they are eco friendly. Nonetheless, it's true that they are a little bit more expensive and they don't come with lights and sounds, usually big attributes for our little ones. Besides you wouldn't have Legos or Playmobils, which are big hits here at home. Hence, the need of having both kind.

Look at this cute wood laptop I found today. Too bad it doesn't seem to be sold here in the U.S. (actually this is good news for my wallet). If you find it, please let us know!

I-Wood laptop by Donkey Products

Books of the week: Babar the Elephant

From The New Yorker

Babar is one of the most charming characters I know in children's literature. You've probably heard about him. He's such a star that even The Morgan Library organized an exhibition in 2008 - Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors. Babar is a French fiction character and he's just turned 80 years-old . He's the king of the elephants and he lives in a city named after his wife Céleste, Celesteville, in the middle of the jungle. However, he dresses up and lives like a gentleman.

I've always liked Babar as a child and then as a grown-up I still find him charming, sweet and I enjoy reading his stories (I mean for me, not for the kids). When I went to the exhibition I learnt so many details, about the story of his creation and about his authors, that made him even more interesting to me. Besides I had never seen the first sketches, drawings and first editions. So I was captivated by everything I was seeing and reading that day.

Babar was originally called "Baby Elephant" and it was a story about an elephant who left the jungle after his mother was shot by a hunter. He fled to a big city where he was adopted by a lady - the Old Lady - who taught him how to dress, how to eat properly, and took him to school, among many other things. He then comes back to the jungle and brings "civilization" to his fellow elephants, becoming their king. For the youngsters is a nice story full of adventures with pretty illustrations and where the main characters are animals, which is always a big success among the young crowd. However under a more mature eye we can also find some traces of satire and criticism to the French colonisation, which make the books even more appealing and enjoyable at any age (here I'm referring more to the first ones of the series but almost all of them have a hidden moral message).

I have to confess, that more than the books, what I like the most about Babar is the story of his creation. He was invented by Cécile de Brunhoff for her sons during bedtime. The children liked the story so much that they asked their father, Jean de Brunhoff, who was an artist, to illustrate the "little elephant". Eventually, he ended up writing and illustrating the whole story and this is how Histoire de Babar (The Story of Babar) appeared and was first published in 1931. He then published six other stories before his death in 1937. But what is extraordinary is that Babar didn't die with him, because in 1946, when he was only 21 years-old, Laurent de Brunhoff, an artist as well, decided to take on his father's task and published Babar et ce coquin d'Arthur (Babar's cousin: That Rascal Arthur). He continued to write and illustrate more than 30 books and is still working. Now aged 86 he has just published Babar aux jeux Olympique de Celestevill (Babar's Celesteville games).

Isn't this a great story on how a character was created and maintained alive by a whole family for two generations?

I've just received my copy of Babar et le père Noël (Babar and Father Christmas) and reading it for the kids tonight was a pleasure. I actually read it this afternoon by myself and I could still remember the words, sentences, pictures from when I was young. I think that Babar is one of those characters that stays with you forever and is always a joy to revisit with or without the children. As Adam Gopnik so well puts it in this article that he wrote for The New Yorker "Once seen, Babar the Frenchified elephant is not forgotten".

I haven't read them all and, although I'd love to, I don't own the whole collection. But here are my favorite ones:

  



Because of this book, I still dream on visiting the Sequoia National Park

Felt garlands for Christmas

From Anna Maria Horner's blog

For those of you who didn't notice, I wasn't feeling very motivated on Friday. It was just one of those days when everything, and I really mean everything, goes wrong. Does it happen to you too? There are some days when it seems we attract (or maybe we just see) bad things around us. Even my husband who usually makes fun of my "bad days" was kind of surprised with my bad luck. Anyway, I survived. And there's nothing better than a good weekend to recharge the batteries.

I was thinking about what I wrote on Friday about my creativity and I actually do have some. I usually need a lot of inspiration and a great deal of models, but at then end I end up doing some nice things. So I wanted to share an idea of a garland made of felt for Christmas. I took the idea from here. I didn't do the garland per se, instead I adapted the idea to make some decorations for P's 1st birthday party. It looked very cute. Once you have the technique, you can actually do whatever you want.

Elephants, ball, and number 1s for my little boy's first birthday

A circus without colors and a clown is not a real circus

My mess

The garlands ready and hanging over the sweets table (one day I'll put some pictures of the birthday's details)

This year, for instance, for F's birthday, the theme was Spiderman. I think it's hard to really personalize a party when you choose such a commercialized character. So I decided to make some Spiderman faces and number 4s out of felt, using the same technique mentioned above, and I hanged them over the sweets table.

Hope you like the result and that they may inspire your creative side. Have a great week!

The Circus, the movies and the not so memorable restaurant experience

This was an intense weekend.

We started on Friday night with Hugo. This is a movie for cinema lovers. The story is magical, the images and the music are beautiful and the 3D effects are so well done that you can't imagine seeing the movie in another way. What I thought was fantastic about the movie is that is about the story of the cinema, the really first movies that were made, but seen in 3D with the latest technology. It's just beautifully well done and told.

Saturday was non stop. In the afternoon we went to the Big Apple Circus. It was a fun experience, mainly because of the kids. For their young eyes everything was new and astonishing. For our older and much more blasés eyes nothing was new or impressive. F is absolutely convinced that a doll became a human being in front of his eyes. P, who is only 2, remained concentrated, with his mouth wide opened, for two hours (I couldn't believe it). Seeing their reaction, their enthusiasm and their amazement was priceless.

After the kids were tuckled in bed, we ran to the movies again. This time to see A Dangerous Method. But I didn't like it. I thought it was boring and not a very good description of the characters. I have recently seen a play about Freud, that I found much more interesting (Freud's Last Session). After that disappointing film we went to the recently opened Boulud Sud and that was another disappointment.

We were six at the table, so as appetizers we shared some "small plates" that were good, but not great. Then as a main course I had the Daurade, which was extremely dry (it was suppose to have a "Romesco sauce", but I couldn't find any trace of it). My husband shared with someone else the "Rib Eye" and that was delicious. It says in the menu that is for 2 people but is actually for 4, so at least, I could leave my fish and have some of the meat. Desserts were good. Overall, in my opinion, the restaurant was nothing to write home about (I have however just dedicated a full paragraph to it).

We ended the weekend with a very lazy but fun Sunday, hiding in the most unexpected spots.

P.S: When I wrote the title of this post it made me think of the film The Trip, that I watched a few months ago. Have you seen it? I think it might be the best movie I saw this year. I'm pretty sure is the most hilarious I saw this year. I laughed in the theatre like I hadn't in years.

Inspiration is down - TGIF

Not feeling very inspired today. So here are some other great ideas for Advent Calendar. I'm amazed (and I must confess soooo jealous) on how many creative people exist in this world.

From Martha Stewart

From The Pretty Blog

From Nuvonova

From Land of Nod

From It is what it is

I'll stop here, because I'm getting completely obsessed with Advent Calendars. Besides, instead of bursting my creativity and inspiration all these websites and blogs with their great ideas and so talented authors made me realized how ambitious I was when I decided to start this blog.
(Big, huge, Sigh)

***

Anyway, we are going to the Circus this weekend. I haven't been to a real one since I was a little girl(I don't consider "Cirque du Soleil" or those chinese acrobats as real ones - they are fantastic but not the traditional kind of circus I'm referring to) . That - I think, I hope - will be fun.

Hope you'll all have an inspiring weekend!

Preparing for Christmas - Advent Calendar

All our Advent Calendars (from right to left): 1- Calendar with little books in each window; 2a- Playmobil Calendar; 2b- Playmobil Scene to place each piece found in the windows; 3- Calendar that came in F.'s French magazine Pomme d'Api; 4- Calendar in P.'s French magazine Popi

I don't come from a very traditional family. I was raised as Catholic but now I'm not very religious. Nonetheless, Christmas is still very important to me, because I see it as a family gathering. It's the only time of the year when we all try to be together. And this is not an easy task given that my family is spread over three continents and I lost count on how many different cities. But, this year, for the first time in many many many years, we will ALL be together. My parents, my sister and her family, my brother and almost all the family from my mother's side. There will probably be some stressful situations, some fun ones, some sweet ones, but I'm sure that above all there will be a lot of joy and fond memories being created for ever.

As I was saying, we are not traditional at all. But, there's one thing that has been recurring over the years, since I was a baby. The presence of an Advent Calendar in the house from December 1st till December 24th. This is something I've decided to continue to do with my children. The calendars may change, but the idea and the excitement are still the same.

The Advent Calendars started in Germany, in the 19th Century, but they became popular after World War II. At the beginning, there weren't calendars the way we know them. It seems that people would draw a line with a piece of chalk or they would light a candle each day until Christmas. Nowadays, the most popular ones are made of cardboard and they have 24 "windows" that have to be opened one at a time each day until Christmas Eve. Inside you can find a Christmas related image (the simplest ones) or there may be a chocolate (my favorites when I was a child).

There is a wide variety of Advent Calendars, especially now that they became so popular. We had, for example, one at home (and my mother probably still has it) made of felter with little pockets, where she would put a chocolate or a small present inside. Every day, my sister, my brother and myself would take turns to "open" the windows. And, of course, the big thing was to open the last one. So sometimes we would just open it all together, because we couldn't decide who would be the lucky one. Or we would even try to remember who had opened it the previous year (or taken the object of the last pocket).

Here at home, with P. too young to understand, F. still has the priority. Though I think this might be the last year and we'll see how it will go next year when he'll have to share his calendars. We might actually avoid the fights cause we always end up having more than one calendar (see the picture above). My mother likes to give the children one each year, I like to buy another one and we are subscribed to some French magazines for children (I'll write a post about them) that also come with Advent Calendars in the December issues.

For the past two years, my mother had brought from Switzerland (where my sister lives) the traditional chocolate calendars. But this year she gave us this so cute calendar, where in each window, there is a tiny tiny book that we have to put in our tree. We read the first one this morning while F. was having breakfast. It was such a nice way to start the day. I'm more materialistic and consumer driven so this is the second year that I bought a Playmobil calendar. I know there are more charming ones in the market, but I like Playmobils as toys and the children can keep them to play during the whole year. Last year I bought one with a Medieval theme and this year I bought one with a more Christmas related theme. The nice thing about this calendar, is that each day the kids only receive a little tiny piece of the whole scene (today we got the mailbox).

Here are some other ideas of Advent Calendars that I found interesting:

• This one is similar to the one I had as a child, with little pockets to hide small gifts. I'm very tempted to buy one for the kids.

• The next one is composed of 24 boxes that can be rearrange as pleased:

• I love this idea:

• And this one is my favorite - my project for next year:

There are many more great ideas, but not enough space to put them all here. What is your favorite Advent Calendar?

Cultural day - Galleries in Chelsea

1- Jim Hodges; 2- Andreas Gursky; 3- Nan Goldin; 4- Neo Rauch; 5- Uta Barth; 6- Youssef Nabil (exhibition curated by Shirin Neshat); 7-Joan Mitchell

Do you know why moms usually sound futile, uninteresting and seem to be talking only about their children? Mainly because it is extremely difficult to read anything with kids around you - at least this is true for me. However, I always try to take a glance at the headlines on the newspaper and, on my lucky days, I even get to read the editorial and one or two articles.

The headlines on the FT this morning were quite catastrophic. It really felt like it was the end of the Euro, the end of the airlines industry, the end of the banking industry - basically, the end of the World as we know it. But, like I said once to my dear mother when I stopped working in the middle of the financial crisis in 2009: "there is no crisis in baby world".

Therefore, I left the news behind me and headed to Chelsea for a great gallery tour. Very futile of my part? Maybe. Probably. Most certainly. But staying at home wouldn't solve the World's problems either. So let's enjoy life while we can!

Our tour included:

• Neo Rauch - David Swirner Gallery
• Uta Barth - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
• Andreas Gursky - Gagosian Gallery
• Jim Hodges - Gladstone Gallery 
• Nan Goldin - Matthew Marks Gallery 
• Hiroshi Sugimoto - The Pace Gallery
• Joan Mitchell - Cheim & Read Gallery
• Shirin Neshat - Leila Heller Gallery 

There are tens of other galleries in town and you can go whenever you want. As I said in another post, galleries are for free, so take advantage on that. But, let me tell you something, it makes such a difference to go with someone that can explain to you what you are looking at, talk about that particular artist, his work and his surroundings. At least for me, today, it was essencial. I wouldn't have understood half of what I saw today if I'd had gone by myself. I think that the understanding of art in general takes time, studying, lots of readings and lots of visits to different exhibitions (especially contemporary art). But, when you don't really have time for all of this, calling a specialist might be a good idea. Besides, isn't it great to go with a group of friends with whom you can discuss what you are all experiencing?

I didn't like everything that I saw today, but I certainly appreciated everything. By that I mean that knowing what the artists intentions were or knowing about their backgrounds makes a big difference. It puts the art in a certain context and it educates your eyes and your senses so you can appreciate what you are looking at under a whole new perspective. For instance, a month ago I entered the Pace Gallery, took a look at Hiroshi Sugimoto's work and 5 minutes later I was out the door. I just didn't get it. Today, I walked in the same gallery, to see the same exhibition and I liked what I saw.

If you are interested in organizing your own tour, do not hesitate to contact our guides Gisela Gueiros (giselagueiros@gmail.com) and Ana Strumpf (anastrumpf@gmail.com). The tour was well organized, Gisela was really prepared and her presentations before entering each gallery were simple (no fancy words), short (no big lectures in front of each piece of art) but full of useful details and information. What I liked the most was how she would give us some heads-up on what we were about to see without giving too much information at the beginning so we would still have a surprise when entering the exhibits. And what a surprise it was!