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Health & Fitness

Tour de Paris, Conversations with Baby Claudia, Part Cinq

I did it for the baby. And the shopping of course.

I did a series of video blogs for Baby CJ while in Paris.  It wasn’t easy.  In fact, it was really hard to know what to say.  Glad I’m here, wish you were too??? Or perhaps, glad to be here, wish you were hearing learning French like a proper European baby??? No, no, well, just glad to be here, glad to be anywhere (taken directly from Rolling Stones Rocker Keith Richards, I admit). 

I’m kind of embarrassed that it’s so goofy but I hope CJ will give a listen to these snippets in time someday and think, wow, Nana is a down to earth sort, despite her worldly travels, she has always clearly been about me and my mom.  That Nana has her priorities aligned properly.  

True enough. 

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Battling any deadly disease should set you straight.  

This is not to say that I do not have my vices, chief among them retail therapy for Baby CJ.  That poor child, she is the most fashionable baby on the planet and I say this when I suspect that it matters far more to me than to her.  She’s happy with a cookie and a hug most often than not.  I sincerely apologize every time I deck the baby out in whatever I have gone off and bought her.  She would rather be escaping out the doggy door to my backyard as my daughter recently found out.  Like all those involved in a good prison breaks, Claudia has shown zero remorse for her actions.  She’s like the bank robber who, upon getting paroled from a long prison stint goes directly back to rob the bank, or in this case, out the doggy door.  She is also like those raptors in the movie Jurassic Park, she remembers and continues to test the fences, so to speak.   

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We all have our priorities and Baby CJ’s is putting one over on her family.  Mine is finding baby chic outfits around the globe.   

That and convincing myself that I can do the impossible, trek all over Paris on a bike that hardly steers and not slam into any locals or get hit by errant bus drivers.  I have frankly astonished friends who were convinced I was making up the whole bike in Paris thing (creative license) which is why I am glad I did the videos.  If not for prosperity, if just to do that incredibly immature, AH HA!! thing that I am fond of doing when somebody is dead wrong and I’m completely right about something bereft of importance.  

I did the same thing when my beloved surgeon warned me that I would probably never be able to raise my arm completely over my head again after three brutal surgeries in less than three weeks.  I never once took him seriously, of course and thus one day was able to walk into his office, V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y lift the arm in question over my head (all the way) and say with decided glee, “Gooooooooooooooooooal!”  

Those of us who shop competitively, totally get this.

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