What a week.

And I don't mean that in a "wow, what an exciting, fun-filled week!" way.

I did appreciate the two or three days we had this week when Noah was not sick and was sleeping at night without random screaming episodes. Unfortunately, two or three days was all we got of that. Yesterday the runny nose started again and so did the screaming. Sigh.

Benjamin will be a very lucky little boy if he makes it to his fourth birthday. He's testing all the limits, pushing all my buttons, and I expect to have a nervous breakdown very shortly. I'm sure Frederic will be happy to post about that to let you all know when it happens.

Three weeks after we left home and after multiple phone calls to various services at La Poste, our mail finally started being forwarded. It seems our mail carrier from home hadn't been doing his/her job setting our mail aside - hardly surprising given that we have a different mail carrier practically every day; most of them must have missed the memo. (Why it's up to the mail carrier and not done directly at the post office is anyone's guess. Call it French efficiency.)

And we've also been fighting a large overdraft for a couple of weeks, since our bank so kindly informed us that when they said it would take 7-10 days to deposit a check in US dollars, what they meant was seven WEEKS. Then the bank director told Frederic it would take "about a week" for an international transfer, which he later rectified by email to "15 to 20 days." Either the French have long weeks or we are having some major communication problems... but Frederic's first language is supposed to be French, and he's the one talking to these people.

So we decided to go with Paypal, only to find out that European money laundering regulations mean you can't receive more than a certain sum per year through Paypal without sending in all sorts of documents proving your identity, your address, and your ownership of the bank account in question. But all that has finally been sorted through, and in a few days we should be able to start paying our (now very late) bills. Of course, we aren't at home now anyway, so it won't matter much if they cut off our electricity or anything.

And here are two pictures of the monsters to finish out the post. They look nicer in pictures than they are in real life, but don't tell them I said that.

I cut Benjamin's hair again, but he was very wiggly so if it's uneven and he has bald spots, it's his own fault.

And here's Noah not going up the stairs (he won't do it for the camera), but thinking about it.


Here's hoping this week will be better!