It’s official: the baby human hitherto known here as “le bébé” shall now be referred to as “the babe.”

Why? Well, I need to slowly let go of Paris. I’m not going back. I’m not French. And I’ll be damned if I go all Madonna and adopt a foreign accent when we all know I’m from Maryland, and people from Maryland don’t have any accents at all. Unless you’re from Bawlmore, but that’s another story.

Anyway, I’m in America for the next year, so we’re going native, in our language and cultural explorations (look for reports on things like the siren song of Whole Foods and Oklahoma cheeseburgers the size of a pie plate). But more importantly, I’ve recently decided that my child’s perfectly round head and so-chubby-they’re-sagging cheeks make her look more and more like the Sultan of Swing every day.

Just to give you an idea of just how much reverse culture shock I’m in for over the next couple weeks, let me  describe my morning:

I woke up with le bébé and instead of feeding her under 12 foot moulded ceilings in front of a marble fire place, I fed her while sitting in my brother’s old bedroom – which is plastered with old surfing posters and broken skateboards. It’s a wonderful room, but kind of like waking up in a time capsule from 1997.

Then we went for a walk – not through the majestic Parc Monceau, but up the steep winding suburban street of my youth. I passed the house I grew up in, the house where my grandma lives, and a few neighbors I didn’t recognize.

And then on the walk back, I noticed two guys in full camo gear scaling a tree in my dad’s back yard.

Ahhhh, the local deer hunters. Mind you, it’s not so rural out here anymore and I’m not sure which direction those guys could shoot their crossbows without spearing someone’s window. But they were up early looking for wild game. In my back yard.

If I had known I would have brought back my crappy French oven for them – they’d probably be pumped about the gibier setting!