Family time and touring in Toulon

It took five days for Tristan to recover from jet lag. It was kind of horrible. There is a 9 hour difference between Vancouver and France. Typically, we can adjust to the new time zone in a day or so but we found out the hard way that we could only adjust as quickly as Tristan could. When he would wake at 2AM several days in a row, we felt like we were back in the newborn days. We were so tired! He had a hard time adjusting to the changes too and he had trouble sleeping and would cry more often too. For the first five days, we basically didn't do anything aside from visiting with Jean-Louis' grandfather.



This was a family trip. We knew that it would be so we didn't expect much fun from it. The plan was for Tristan to meet his family on Jean-Louis' side and to get to know them a little better. But two weeks of just that is a long time. We found ourselves very bored. This is usually the case anyways when we visit France. Toulon, in particular is pretty boring. Sure there are beaches and shops but after two days, you just get bored. Nearby Toulon is much more interesting but we have to drive out. My favorite part of Toulon is definitely their farmer's market. Strawberries and cherries were in season and Tristan couldn't get enough of them!



Tristan was in new territory and was fascinated. He would run everywhere, touch and grab everything in sight. He learned quickly where things were and when we would release him in the morning, he would go to the same places and start pushing buttons and turning knobs. He would climb where he could and when we wouldn't let him do something, which was often the case since my parents in law's place was not baby proofed, he would some times throw tantrums. He acted out on us because we imposed too many boundaries on him and he was turning into a terrible two before our eyes.

It was great for Jean-Louis' parents to finally meet their only grandchild. Tristan was mostly scared of them since they were like strangers to him so we never left Tristan with them. They are also not used to being around small children and we weren't sure if we could trust them with Tristan's safety. Just from our observations, we didn't think they could last more than 5 minutes alone with our hyper-active toddler :)

In terms of having lots of family time, this trip was a success. We got to see everyone in the family. Jean-Louis doesn't have a very big family so it wasn't too hard. His two cousins and their kids came to see us. One drove into Toulon from Orange and the other took the train and met us in Paris from Vernon. It was great for Tristan to be around some children during the trip, even though it was only for a couple of hours at a time. I think it worked well because everyone was looking forward to meeting Tristan for the first time. Of course, that also meant that he was spoiled! It was great though :)