Ah, Paris

One of the plans we had when we moved here was to travel with the children and then write books for people travelling with children. There are very few of these available, and those that are don't seem to include the useful bits of advice that real parents of real aspiring globe-trotters need. They show pictures of smiling mums and dads beautifully coiffed with little Tyler and Taylor beaming up at them as if to say, "You guys are the best parents ever! We are SO going to support you in your old age!" They do not show travelling with children as it really is.

The do not show M&D trying to enjoy 30 seconds of peace in a park while T&T whinge about not being able to climb onto some piece of incomprehensible play equipment. They do not show T&T with chins, noses, sleeves and trousers coated in chocolate drool howling in a cafe over who got the last cookie. They do not show M&D trying desperately to get T&T to shut up and go back to sleep at 5am.

So here, having just returned this evening from our first family trip - a long weekend in Paris - are some hard-won pearls of wisdom.

1. Children need to eat. In fact, they need to do this with astonishing regularity, as often as three times a day. Much to our chagrin, wine and cheese is apparently not an acceptable substitute for a nutritious, well-balanced meal. Fortunately, crepes covered in bananas, chocolate sauce and whipped cream are, as are ice cream, sugar waffles, and just about anything sold from a stand near a carousel. This is doubly fortunate, since no Parisian restaurant worth frequenting will serve dinner before 7:00.

2. Children require entertainment. Again, we were surprised to learn that this does not include cabaret, architectural masterpieces or insane people. It does, however, include statuary, particularly the sort with no clothes. For example, in the Jardin des Tuilleries, Michael noticed that a particular statue was naked and crying. "Maybe he has to go wee wee really bad".

3. Children require sleep. This must also be provided with the sort of regularity that would warm the heart of any Swiss watchmaker, and must be offered in extremely large quantities. Normally, the children's sleep habits are not particularly onerous - they sleep, I do something else. But although we were in the City of Lights, they apparently don't turn them on during the day, so not being able to go out at night was a bit of a drag. A bottle of wine in the hotel room can do wonders to lift the spirits, though. Just remember to leave the glasses out of reach the next day.

4. A stroller is effectively ballast in Paris. Yes, it would have been nice to let Michael fall asleep in it rather than in my arms halfway up the Eiffel Tower, but you can't actually take a stroller up there anyway. So after dragging the damn thing on and off 4 trains, through two security checkpoints, around miles of subway tunnels (all of which seem to be at different depths, connected only by narrow stairways), and over at least 9 different sets of feet, it saw exactly 14 minutes of action, and all of it in London.

Michele and I first went to Paris in 1 B.C. (that's 1 year Before Children, or 2000 A.D. by the Gregorian calendar), and it was a completely different city then. The Paris of 8 years ago was one of fine restaurants, long strolls through shopping arcades, an afternoon nosing around a Monet exhibit at a back street museum. 3 hour dinners with a good stinky cheese after.

This year's Paris was one of playgrounds and toy boats, of carousels and piggy back rides. It was a Paris where our offspring climbed through the mouth of a bouncy castle dragon and slid out the other end. It was a Paris of joyful shouting on catching yet another glimpse of the Eiffel Tower around a corner or over a tree. It was a Paris of hanging upside down, sloth-like, from a plane tree.

I think I liked this year's Paris just as much. At least I got to catch up on my sleep.