Bonding Nights and Things Feeling Right

This morning was one of those mornings where I stayed in bed and ate oatmeal and lentils and drank copious amounts of tea and read.
But the general after-effect of staying in my apartment all day is me feeling generally deflated and terrible and missing home and wondering why I'm even in Paris.
So I hauled myself to the metro to pick up P from school and read some more of my book (Looking for Alaska by John Green) on the semi-sunny pavement on a narrow, winding street of the Marais/Bastille area by the Seine.
When P emerged from the big doors she asked if we could go to the park. The park in nanny language can mean one of two things: either the child runs manically around the playground tormenting other children, eating handfuls of dirt and other park materials, trying to escape out the fence into the road, or swinging by one ankle from the highest playground equipment. In another scanario, the child makes friends easily, has a generally content, happy time playing tag, climbing safely, and swinging only from the lower bars.
P is one of the latter children.
So I dreamily sat on a park bench reading John Green's beautiful prose by this park framed by the Seine, with little shops and cafes surrounding us. Even the teenagers were chic as they congregated in little nicotine-stained groups on the grass surrounding the playground.
We headed home with little fuss and made couscous, soup, and fish fingers for dinner. P announced she would help me cook, because she is a chef, and then she would shower and we could eat in front of Scooby Doo.
God I forgot how great Scooby Doo is.
Afterward we read stories, which included Love You Forever, during which I choked back tears for the entire story, which made it very hard so sing the refrain:
I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be
The story really hit home for me because of everything I've done over the past two and a half (!!!) months since I left Vancouver.
After story time she threw a minor I WANT MOMMY tantrum, which I successfully calmed by singing a mix of Baby Beluga, Gabrielle Aplin, and Sara Bareilles. I swear calming a small child by singing to them until they're reduced to a thumb-sucking sleepyhead is one of the most satisfying feelings in the whole world.

And now I sit in a chair by their huge window overlooking Boulevard Beaumarchais writing, skyping with my mum, and thinking about all the good things to come.

I feel like my Paris has finally arrived.