Ten-Year-Old Trip at the Tuileries

 Our family has a wonderful tradition of taking each child, individually, on a "Ten-Year-Old Trip."  Last October the child was our son, Freestone, and the destination was Paris.  It's supposed to be a one-on-one, but we had a little hitchhiker on this trip, baby Tziporah.  We thought it would be fun to take a baby along, and we were right on so many levels.  All of Paris is in love with babies.  Tziporah was universally adored everywhere we went, by old and young alike.  One stern, old gentleman on a bus even pulled a fake Cyrano de Bergerac nose from his breast pocket and put it on to make the baby laugh!  If babies bring out the best in people, so do ten-year-old boys.  It's a magical age for the awkward, imaginative, lanky little creatures, and the perfect age to bond with a baby sister.  Ten-year-old boys are great travelers, too.  They don't care about the tourist stuff, they just want to relax and be happy.

On this afternoon in the Tuileries, I tried to convince my son to rent a sailboat, but he was content to toss his sister in the air and listen to her giggle.  At one point, my husband wanted to call it a day, but I said, "We will never be here in these gardens with these two children at these ages, ever again.  Let's just stay awhile."  We did, and it was an afternoon whose fluffy clouds and autumn breeze will be forever in my heart.