Big T is 1!

Hi everyone!  It's been a busy few days here in London!  Here is the recap...  First on Friday night our new babysitter Alison came over and JJ and I went on our first date ever in London!  We decided to stay local and went out near our neighborhood.  I made reservations at a restaurant here at 9pm and we did a little pub crawl walking down there.   The pubs were fun, the food was great and we had a wonderful kid-free evening! 

Then it was time to prepare for our big birthday celebration for Tyler on Sunday.  This was hard for us as we would have loved to gather with family and friends for his birthday, but we made the best of it and had a nice little celebration here with the 3 of us and had a virtual party Skyping and Facetiming with folks.  Sunday we woke up and set up some of Tyler's new toys.  I still think that it is hilarious to listen to Tyler's toys speak with the accent.  It makes me want to send every kid I know a toy from here!  We then had reservations for "Sunday Roast" at the Freemason's Arms here in Hampstead.  It is right by the Heath (the big park here) and has a huge beer garden.  We walked in a couple Sundays ago hoping to have lunch but they told us they were completely booked.  So I called ahead this time and got us a booking (they don't say reservation here).  They must have just opened when we got there at noon and for a time we had the whole room to ourselves but then it quickly became crowded.  We got their Sunday Roast which is just a lot of meat (they had chicken, beef, and pork options) and potatoes, carrots, etc.  I got the chicken, JJ got the beef, and Tyler got some fish & chips (minus the chips).  It was so much food and super delicious.  Tyler was an angel the whole time for his birthday lunch.  He ate a lot of fish and didn't drop his sippy cup once so we let him have some of our Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert- a very British dessert and it was tasty.  After lunch we went to the nearby park.  It was also a rare beautiful day here.  It was about 50 degrees and sunny and just felt like spring.

We Skyped/FaceTimed with family and then it was time to have cake.  Now since it was such a small celebration I decided to make the cake, and since I'm on a bit of a healthy cooking kick I decided to try one of the sugar-free, good for you cakes.  Most of these called for frozen apple concentrate.  I looked all over for this and frozen concentrate is not something they do here (what am I going to do about Lime-aid for summer drinks!!!).  So like everything else that I can't find here, I decided to make it.  Turns out it is relatively easy.  You just boil some apples and then squeeze the juice out.  The cake turned out OK and Tyler really seemed to enjoy it.  It had a lot of bananas in it so it ended up tasting a lot like banana bread.  It probably wasn't as good of a smashing medium as some of the other cakes since it was pretty dense, but Tyler didn't seem to mind! 

On Monday for Tyler's actual birthday, he opened a couple more presents before JJ went to work and then we had a pretty typical day at home.  After all the nice weather on Sunday, we had a downpour Monday that still hasn't stopped so we stayed close to home and played inside.  Lucky Tyler got a birthday celebration again Monday night because in my family you HAVE to blow out candles on your birthday, it's an absolute must!  It has been crazy to think back and reflect on this year and how challenging, rewarding, and exciting it has been.  Definitely the most change occurred for us in 2012 than ever before.  Big T has been such a blessing to us and he has grown from a pretty darn good baby to an even better toddler before our very eyes! 

Now that the celebrations are over, Tyler and I are busy filling up our social calendar.  He loved spending time with the babysitter again today during the day.  Alison is going to come over and help me one day a week now.  I'm also meeting about a potential very part time job in mid-February so I wanted to line someone up in case I end up working a bit again.  Tyler loved spending time with her today.  I stuck around the house for the few hours that she was here so I could show her the routine and around the flat and Hampstead area.  It was great to see that Tyler didn't cling to me at all and loved showing her all of his toys and his sweet dance moves.  We are also getting more involved in the Women's Club here in Hampstead and have joined a playgroup and met a few mom's and tots through the club.  Most of the people I have met have been American so we share that instant connection and it has been nice to get to know them.  I'm hoping to meet a few Brits and people from other countries as well though!

Lots of pictures to share! 

Talking to the city cat on a walk with Dad

He loves his new car ramp!

Sunday Roast!

Sticky Toffee Pudding, yes please!

Beautiful day at the Freemason's Arms.  People are eating outside again!

Celebratory beverages for everyone!

Not the best looking cake, but it works :)

He has kind of already learned how to pose for the camera...

FaceTime cake chat with Grandma

Yum!  We thought he might throw up after eating so much but he kept it all down!

Shooter!

Birthday cake #2 chat with Grandpa Kern and Becky!

Birthday morning - Dad wait - that's MY present!

Big birthday boy!

Another Week in Hampstead

There isn't much new to report over here.  The snow is starting to melt here and it is supposed to be 50 degrees next week!  I feel for our friends and family back in Chicago and Michigan enduring those frigid temperatures.  Stay warm over there!  I hope it warms up for them soon.  Our big boy is growing up more every day and now that he is walking the pace of growing up seems to be going at lightening speed.  Today he walked up to our front door all by himself, walked in when I opened it,  walked right over to the steps and crawled up the first 3 all by himself to our flat.  He paused as if to say, "Come on Mom!" while I stood at the front door shocked at how big he looked. With growing up also requires a bit of discipline.   I did write down a few rules today that require discipline after I grew tired of spending all day getting my hair pulled (that gets a firm NO! and separation from the hair pulling victim) and picking up the sippy cup after it is dropped about 50 times a day (offenses to this just include him going thirsty until the end of the meal when he can get the sippy cup back).  This way JJ and I and the babysitter can all have a consistent response. Wow I feel like the real parenting is just beginning...

Earlier this week we went to music class again and then I ventured to the Leisure Center to take him to an open swim for babies.  That was interesting.  I never really thought about how difficult it is to change a toddler and yourself from a wet bathing suit into dry clothes in a public locker room.  I had a heck of a time doing that for the first time.  I'm open to suggestions from friends about how to make that process a little easier :)  I think we will start swim classes next month so I hope to learn some tricks.

We are still trying to figure out life here and I think we will be continuously learning.  It was funny when we came back from the holidays in the US it took a couple weeks to remember to insert my credit card into the chip and pin reader instead of hand it to the cashier, to use the word buggy/pushchair instead of stroller (got a long blank stare from one of the babysitters I interviewed when I said something about the stroller), and to figure out all the crazy names for household items around here.  Here is an example of the differences in words.  I needed to buy dishwashing soap since ours we brought from the US was running low.  I do all my shopping online so I searched "dish soap" and got nothing.  I searched soap and only got soap to shower with.  I searched dishwasher and only got dishwasher detergent.  What the heck?  So then I remembered that at corporate housing we had dish soap with the brand name Fairy.  So I searched Fairy and got a million kinds of dish soap.  Although they call it washing up liquid.  Weird.  As for British-isms, my favorite new word is suitable.  The Brits love it and I find myself using it all the time!

The weekend should be exciting - we have a date night on Friday!  Our babysitter Allison is coming over and JJ and I are going out on the town!  How exciting.  This date we will probably just stay local but we are each planning a big London night out date to see some new areas and really get to know this fine city.  Then of course Tyler's birthday is Monday so we are going to celebrate Sunday so that JJ can be there for cake eating, etc.  We have a booking for "Sunday Roast" at the Freemasons Arms Pub at noon on Sunday (don't I sound British!) and then will come back for hopefully some virtual birthday chats with our friends and family.  We will also be thinking about Colin Graber who was born just one day before Tyler and his big birthday party Sunday (wish we could be there!).  It is really surreal to me that a year has already passed.  The year has flown by yet it's hard to remember our life without Big T.  What a blessing :) 

I don't have too many interesting pictures to share this week so here are some from around the house of Tyler.

Who needs toys? This milk jug is awesome!

Whew that was a good meal, Mom!

Sure I will help you take the laundry out!

I will even shut the door!

Take that, Euro "buggy"

London actually ended up getting a decent amount of snow this weekend.   It was true what JJ heard about the tube delays when it snows.  It took him over 2 hours to get home Friday night and he ended up having to finally take a bus home.  We still can't quite figure out why the tube is slow when it snows since most of it is underground, but regardless the delays were real!  It snowed most of Friday and by Saturday there was a nice little covering of snow on the ground.  We live near Parliament Hill, a huge hill in the Hamsptead Heath that has an awesome view of the city and is one of the most hilly areas around.  We figured it would also be a hotspot for sledding (well sledging as they call it here) but we had no idea how many people were going to be there.  There were what seemed like close to 200 people there near Parliament Hill Saturday.  So many people were sledging that most of the snow on the hill had already worn away.  It was fun to watch although we did not come prepared with a sledge (maybe next year), but the little guy had fun toddling around in the snow and chasing dogs.  Now ever since we got here I've been cursing our huge American strollers since they are a pain to take pretty much anywhere compared to the tiny compact Euro strollers most people have here.  But this weekend, I loved it as we could plow through anywhere with our BOB jogging stroller.  We took it everywhere this weekend with ease while others were slipping around.  Reminded me of how much I like the US again :)

Sunday it continued to snow a couple more inches all day and we took Tyler out again to the park to play around in the snow.  I had originally planned to go do something touristy Sunday like go to the aquarium or a museum downtown but the snow prevented that so we just made chili and stayed close to home. 

The other big news of the weekend was Tyler's haircut.  JJ did a very professional job giving Tyler his first real haircut.  Up to this point I had only trimmed his rat-tail off or trimmed his bangs but JJ gave him a good all around proper cut.  He did such a great job that I named him the official barber of the house.  And I confirmed why I was so resistant to have it cut - he looks SO old!  He's definitely not a baby any longer.   The house looked like a tornado went through it Sunday night.  In a matter of about 60 minutes, Tyler learned how to tear up paper napkins and left napkin shreds all through the house, he also threw his dinner everywhere because he was distracted that JJ has cutting his hair during dinner, and then to top it off we had baby hair everywhere.  It took a while to clean all that up.

Today we went back to Toddler World at the gym (I also signed up for a gym membership!).  Tyler has gained a little more confidence now that he is going to the same places and can also walk around so the classes are starting to be a bit more enjoyable for us both.  JJ says it must be the new "fade" (haircut) that gave him confidence.  Happy MLK Day!

The ponds at Hampstead Heath

Strolling in the BOB

Warm and cozy!

The walk up Parliament Hill

Big boy!

The sledging scene

Fun with Daddy

Hey guys, where's my sledge?

Snow angel :)

Fun with Mommy

We can't take credit for building the snowman but Tyler was definitely curious

Pre-hair cut fun in the pantry

Playing at Toddler World - look at that big boy haircut!!!

Snow Day!

Well the hype about the snow proved to be true and so far there is an inch or two on the ground and it hasn't stopped since about 9am.  It's unusual for London to get snow, especially snow that sticks so people are a little out of sorts about it.  JJ has heard that the tube has lots of delays when it snows so his commute home might be interesting. 

We ventured out in the snow for our Mini Mozarts class and out of 12 or so babies in the class we were one of three to show up (I mean there is only an inch of snow on the ground but people here don't know what to do with that).  But the small class size was actually very cool.  The woman leading Mini Mozart today was the co-owner and she had to have a career in theater because she had an absolutely beautiful strong voice and also played the violin.  She had a woman with her that was playing the piano.  Tyler loves class.  They weave in a story about a princess and a frog to tie all the songs together.  He gets a little bored and antsy during the story part but as soon as the instrument starts playing he is captivated.   And since the class was so small today he got a lot of personal attention.  He is in the class for babies - 15 months but is the oldest in the class.  Most of the other babies are around 6 months old and just kind of sit and stare but he is all over the place.  The woman today did a very nice job of reeling him back in when he started to drift.  And his Nana has certainly brought out a love of piano from him.  Now that he can move he is much more opinionated and he decided today that he wanted to play the piano with the woman (it also didn't help that the woman playing was very cute so he wanted to flirt a little too I think!).   So while all of the babies were sitting under a parachute I was trying to wave the parachute with one hand and stop him from playing the piano with the other!   Everyone was patient with us and we survived.  Afterwards the owner made a comment about him being the firecracker of the classroom.  I guess all we needed was for him to walk to come out of his shell! 

Now we are home and Tyler is napping and I'm trying to get motivated to clean up the messy lunch he just had.  Here are some lovely pictures of Hampstead in the snow!

Big T Making Big Moves

Tyler is officially mobile!  After taking his first steps in Chicago at the Reeds' house, Tyler has come a long way and can officially walk all over this flat.  Check out his moves:

 

He gets so proud of himself that he is actually moving on his own.  And it's nice for his parents to not have to be led around the house by our pinky fingers because he needs the safety net of our hands while walking.   And now that I have learned to post videos on Blogger, here is the other video from a while ago of him dancing.  A lot of people have already seen this when we were home but it's hilarious so here it is again :) 

We had a busy week meeting with potential babysitters and we ended up hiring the American girl from Philadelphia to start watching Tyler a couple hours a week.  She had a lot of flexibility for us and we immediately had a lot in common just by both being American.  She is super nice and Tyler seemed to like her quite a bit.  And we have a lot of babysitting contacts for the evening now.  JJ and I need to plan our first London date!

In other news we have been busy exploring the neighborhood and going to classes like we do.  We went to Rhyme Time at the library for the first time and it was a bit of a cluster for T and I.  The small room was full of kids, there were toys strewn all over, and no one was really paying attention to the woman leading the "rhymes."  So it turned into a free for all shoving match for the toys on the floor because not many kids were listening to the rhymes.  It was a little stressful for me as I tried to keep Tyler cool.  I think I've had it with "sharing."  Tyler loves toy cars and there were a few of them to play with.  Every time he picked a car up and started playing with it a kid would yank it out of his hands and run away and I would frantically try to find a diversion toy so he wouldn't lose it while mumbling something to him about "sharing."  I didn't want to be the maniac mom who chases after a 2 year old who stole her kid's toy but we both got a little frustrated and I think were both thankful when it was over :)  Maybe since I am only child am not schooled in "sharing" and maybe also that is one class that the babysitter can take him to! 

I'm still experimenting with new dishes (going to try homemade granola bars today!) and I joined a couple women's clubs here so I think we will be busy filling up our social calendars.  Nothing else much new to report here except we are due to get 2-4 inches of snow here tomorrow.  We have heard the city shuts down in the snow so it could be interesting!

At Rhyme Time (before any mean little person took his car)

On one of our outside walks Tyler led me into the local bookstore that has a kids play area with toys and books out to play with

Progress, Progress, Progress!

Can you hear my British accent now pronouncing PRO-gress?  Things are really moving along over here.  We have all our pictures from home up on the walls, we have our February vacation in the Alps almost planned, and I have 6 interviews for babysitters/nannies this week!  We spent the weekend getting this flat to feel more like our home.  I also did a ton of research on vacations and babysitters.  We confirmed our reservations for a little owner run chalet in France in the Morzine area of the Alps for JJ's birthday weekend!  I'm SO excited!  The best part is that it is very common to get daycare for your little ones while the parents ski all day.  The owner of the chalet recommended a nanny service that will come to the chalet and watch over Tyler while we snowboard for 2 days.  The service is run by British folks and they bring over toys, etc and they said that they try to get the kids out in the fresh mountain air for a while during the day.  It all sounds amazing and we are going a month from today!  So that is a nice little vacation to look forward to.

I also got a huge response from my inquiry on babysitters.  I had to take down my ad from the website I posted on because the responses actually became overwhelming.  We basically want to have a couple babysitting options so JJ can go out for a date night once in a while and then I would like some help once a week during the day so I can run errands and perhaps pick up a little project work from a company run in the UK that is owned by the same parent company as Rust-Oleum.  So I'm flooded with babysitter interviews this week.  I met with a nice woman from Brazil today, then I'm meeting one more tonight.  Tomorrow I have an interview with an American girl looking to earn a little extra money.  She is here because of her husband's job and we joked that she should probably work for a real British family and that I should probably get a real British super nanny just for the experience, but it sounds like we might be a really good fit for her.  Then Wednesday I meet with another woman who is looking to nanny share with her 8 month old daughter 1 day a week.  I love the idea of Tyler getting a little social interaction again like he used to back in Chicago with our nanny share and all of our friend's kids. Finally we are meeting with a couple girls from Australia that are interested in babysitting later in the week so we are bound to find someone that works out of that bunch I hope!  Now my mind is wandering to what JJ and I will do on our first night out in London!

During the day Tyler and I are settling into a nice little routine.  One of the things I was really looking forward to when we left Chicago was having the time to sit down and have breakfast with Tyler.  I was rushing around so much in the morning back in Chicago trying to get to work and get on the road before traffic and I used to have breakfast in the car (if I had breakfast at all).  So the morning time is precious to me now and this morning reminded me of how much I love it.   Tyler and I sat down this morning and shared blueberry pancakes and watched the birds outside while I had a glass of tea :)  Lovely!  Then after his morning nap we usually go out for an activity before lunch.  We go to the park, or we go to a class, or we just walk up and down the High Street.  Right now Tyler's favorite activity is to stand up, grab your hand and lead you around while he walks like a big boy.  Our flat is tiny and I got tired of walking around in circles so I decided to take him on the street and walk with him outside.  He loves it!  He toddles around, stopping to say hi to the city cats and say hi to just about everyone that walks by.  It's pretty adorable, whenever someone passes he looks at them and starts shaking is little hand and shouting "Haaaa, haaaa" (he can't really say hi yet).  Some people walk right by without noticing him but a lot of people stop and smile at him and say hi and wave back.  The people that work in the outdoor cafes are starting to get to know us.  He seems to be liking his surroundings here and is opening up a bit at the classes we go to.  Yesterday we went to a little "open gym" for toddlers and he actually enjoyed the bounce house and some of the soft toys.

It's really snowing here today.  It's not cold enough to stick to the ground but there is a nice little dusting on the trees and rooftops and it's just beautiful!  Here are some pictures of our activities.

Floating balls at Toddler's World

Having lots of fun in the bounce house

Weeeeee!

Twins.... Tyler helping Dad hang pictures.

Tyler watching the birds at breakfast this morning

The picture couldn't quite capture how beautiful it is outside.  This is the scene down our little street this morning.

Homemade Goodness

We are trying to settle back in here in London.  Tyler's schedule is still off and he is sleeping in until about 8am and having a really hard time going to bed at night.  The extra time in the morning is nice though.  I'm about 2/3 through a great book and am enjoying the extra time in the morning to read.   JJ and I are now pretty much fully adjusted to the time and I'm sure Tyler will be waking up at 6am in no time so we will enjoy it while we can. 

Now I'm trying to tie up loose ends to really start life here.  We are getting the flat a little more organized, putting pictures up and getting the final things unpacked.  I'm also trying to find a babysitter around here so JJ and I can finally experience London post 7pm.  That will be exciting!  And we are signing up for local activities.  JJ is inquiring about local soccer teams to play on and I found a yoga class, "buggy" workout called Pushy Mothers, and a potential gym that we are going to check out this weekend.  As part of the gym deal I get 1 session/week of free use of the creche (daycare) and we also get access to Toddler World, an open gym for the toddlers.  As for Tyler, we went to a Gymboree class today and have our first music class tomorrow. 

We are also adjusting to the English food.  As those of you know who we stayed with over the holidays, Tyler developed a love for waffles.  He eats a whole Eggo sized waffle along with his fruit and oatmeal every day for breakfast.  I was disappointed to find they don't have frozen waffles here - only these potato waffles that looked like they had a lot of sodium and other bad stuff.  So then I looked into pancake mix and found that they only had Aunt Jemima and it cost a small fortune.  That prompted me to look into making pancakes from scratch.  In fact I'm learning how to make a lot of things from scratch that I usually bought in a box.  So far I've made delicious whole wheat pancakes and macaroni and cheese that Tyler couldn't get enough of.  The ingredients are so simple and I'm loving that I'm forced to make these things from scratch here both because there isn't processed food option and because I want to control the ingredients that Tyler eats.  Tonight I'm making homemade sloppy joes.  The funny thing is that the recipes I find for babies are usually the best tasting for us too because they are simple and are good for you.  I feel like my whole dinner playbook has transformed and hope to keep this up even when we return to the states!

The last thing we are transitioning to this week is cows milk for Tyler.  I thought he was going to be a tough baby to wean because he loves nursing.  Yesterday I tried giving him "semi-skimmed" milk in a sippy cup instead of a nursing session for the first time.  The kid pounded the sippy cup (there was milk dripping from the corners of his mouth).  Guess this won't be so hard after all...  We are going to give up one nursing session per week so my body will be completely mine again around the first week in February!  Won't that be nice!

Now here are some pictures that we took recently and also that I found still on the camera from our trip back to the states. 

Serious conversation with Auntie Kris

Fun with Auntie Kris

Here kitty, kitty, kitty....

Wait come back Juno, I'll be gentle, I promise!!!

Thanks Auntie Kris for giving this singing monkey back to my mommy at the white elephant gift exchange.  I love it and I hate it...

Dang it's good to be 11 months old.

Thanks Adrianne, Mike and Melanie for giving my mom the gift card to buy this nice warm stroller blanket that I can't kick off!