Paris, Baby!

Book excerpt: Is it possible to maintain chic as a single-mom-to-be in a city where it's all supposed to be effortless and breastfeeding is a horreur? Does one live by the Parisienne's pregnancy plan of smoking, drinking, and cheese-eating avec vin blanc, but jamais jamais gain more than six kilos? And how to handle a pickup attempt by a married man in the baby department of Bon Marché when you're eight months along? After all, American girls do things differently: Lamaze class and baby showers, sensible prenatal care and...family to watch you proudly grow more and more pregnant. Paris is full of delights for a new mom: the Luxembourg Gardens, baby boutiques too precious to be passed by, a petit brioche for a teething tot. But home exerts a powerful pull. Should your child grow up skipping by the Seine or scampering up a tree house? Should it be "Mommy" or "Maman"? And can a tall blonde with a taste for Veuve Cliquot and Vuitton ever make it in the land of mom jeans and Happy Meals? Paris, Baby! is novelist Kirsten Lobe's warm, funny memoir about Paris, Frenchmen, friendship, babies, and making it on one's own.