Vlad

This is the kids' youngest cousin whose name is Vladimir. He is FREAKING ADORABLE, although I still love smallest child the best (of course!). It's super weird looking at him, because he is around the same age smallest child was when I arrived in France. He is so tiny. I really don't remember smallest child being that tiny and incapable of doing anything for himself, although I do remember him being this cute! It's so funny to see how much he's grown up in two years - he can do most things for himself now, and he's a real little person. Astonishing.

Interestingly, smallest child is almost the same age middle child was when I got here and although the difference is not as startling, she has definitely grown up a lot too! Eldest child must have, but I have no-one to compare her to so I can't remember. Two years is a very long time!

Today we went to a stud farm (where they breed horses), which the granddad hilariously tried to explain to me the night before by saying 'they take the mummy horse and the daddy horse and make the baby horse'. I had no idea what he was talking about, so naturally this conversation surprised me somewhat! It was actually super cool, we went on a horse driven carriage tour of the farm, where we saw lots of horses and the horse even galloped with the carriage at one point! The commentary was in French and surprisingly my 'stud farm/horse' vocabulary is slightly limited, so I didn't understand most of it, but it was nice anyway.

Back to Paris permanently tomorrow.