My life in a hotel

We have been in a hotel since March 2, 2010. With 3 kids. Thankfully it is fully paid for and we got a suite with a living/kitchenette area, and two bedrooms each with their own bathroom. It seems like we have more space than we did in our 687 sq ft apartment in SLC. As potentially horrible as it could be with 3 kids, the boys are holding up well and they all sleep just fine in the same room. We have a makeshift wall between the boys bed and Timmy's bed. The couch cushions help block Timmy's view.
Matt and Thomas share a king sized bed. The 4th night here Thomas rolled off the bed and whacked his head on the corner of the side table. After carrying him in to our room I noticed that the back of his head was bleeding. There wasn't too much of a goose egg, but there was a cut. So I called the on call nurse to figure out if he needed an ER visit. I woke him up every couple hours throughout the whole night asking him questions. (neurological checks), and hoping that he wouldn't throw up (a sign of a concussion). He was fine the next day and slept just fine. I, however, did not.

We've spent a lot of time at Chuck E Cheese. The weather was a bit rainy for the first week. I treated the boys to cotton candy with the tickets they earned. The next morning Thomas helped himself to a lot of cotton candy and threw up for the rest of the morning. His cold also got worse and we ended up borrowing a nebulizer to give him breathing treatments.

It's not all bad. We are allowed a daily allowance for food and therefore we eat out alot. I thought it would be a lot of fun not having to come up with what to cook and I don't have to cook it. However, with a 20 month child in tow, it is a lot more difficult to go out to eat in nice places. we have gotten a babysitter a couple times so we could go out for an adult dinner. The boys have really enjoyed Olive Garden. And they were so excited to get Happy Meals because there were Star Wars toys. I think that the boys have eaten macaroni and cheese just about everywhere we have gone. In the end, they both still agree that my homemade mac & cheese is the best. One result of going out so often is that Timmy has now mastered using a straw. He's very pleased with himself. Also a result of using a straw is that he has also tried his first taste of root beer. He loves it. It's funny to see his little eyebrows go up when it is something that he likes.

The boys like being stuck in a hotel. They like going to the pool. I have to admit that it is helping them to be better swimmers and less afraid of the water. Matt has improved so much since last summer. He is now willing to blow bubbles, and get water in his face. It's too bad we never lived in an area with a pool (or I was never willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for a pool pass). I guess the longer we're here, the better he will be. I think that the school in France does swimming every once in a while. The boys met a French Canadian family at the pool and they got very excited when they heard them speaking French. They are learning new french words every day.
The boys have learned how to entertain themselves in a hotel room. They play hide and seek. Thomas needs to learn to stay in one place while counting. The two older boys really enjoy hiding and let Timmy do the seeking. The boys hide under the covers and then jump out and Timmy giggles. They also play cars. We've only lost one under the refrigerator. Doug has hooked up the PS3 so now they can also play video games.
Timmy discovered the kitchen utensils and he plays with them. The other two boys also took his lead and they have used them for lightsaber duels and they pretend that the pasta ladle is a dinosaur with big teeth that likes to eat cars. I have yet to get out the Lego sets I have packed and all the other Little People toys. I'm hoping to hold them in reserve until Paris.

Peek!

Every once in a while I will look at the pictures of our apartment in Paris, or Google the street view. It does help me to keep looking forward to it. One day as I was "walking" down the Champs Elysee's, I started thinking of the song. So I googled it and played it for the boys. We learned some of the words and then got a little silly.

My boys have some interesting dance moves. Play the song in the video and then play the dancing video at the same time. I don't have sound on the camera.

Matt and I do "Mommy and Matt school" every day. I took him out of school on the 9th thinking that we would fly out on the 11th. He reads a 'Magic Tree House" book everyday and I have him write a report about it. (what happened, what he learned, where it took place, and his favorite part). I actually had 6 new books being held in reserve for when we got to Paris, but he read all of those and we had to go to the library to get more. We do math time with story problems. We have spelling tests. I've found a couple web sites where kids can play educational games online. I really don't know how people home school their kids. Then again, maybe they're a lot more organized than me.

At the end of the day, all of my boys are still pretty tired.
Hopefully we're out of here soon. Everyday I think of my fresh baguette. I probably ought to use this extra time to brush up on my french. I'm hoping that it will all come back shortly after getting to Paris. About a month ago, I sat down and watched "la Belle et la Bete" en francais. (Beauty and the Beast). The boys even sat down to watch it with me and they watched the whole thing with minimal explanations. I found that after watching it, I was thinking in French the rest of the evening. There is hope that it will come back!