Well, hi there!

We spent the weekend in Knokke, Belgium.  Now that it's horrible weather, we decided to go to the beach.  Here are a few photos with a longer, more descriptive post to follow at some point.

We've been very busy around here -- we had the long weekend trip, we're getting ready for Halloween (Harry Potter and a bunny, I promise to post photos), and work is crazy again (in a sort of good way this time).

I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately and on a personal note sorry that October is shaping up to be a month without ten posts for the first time since I made my New Year resolution.  Sigh.

Rainy Friday

Hi friends.  I hope you've had lovely weeks.  Mine has been a bit difficult and I'd love to tell you why but I'm not completely sure.  A little bit work, a little bit stress, a little bit reading about how one of my favorite bloggers has broken up with her husband (that's right, not somebody I know in real life)...You know, just a random assortment of stuff.

But today was nice.  I didn't go to work.  For the past three weeks I've dropped Tommy off and then dropped Lulu off and done a long (okay, six mile? seven mile?) run which has felt great because Eli and I have been doing so much P90X that I've stopped running as much as I used to.  It's also great because when you roll out of bed and into workout clothes it means you have a lot more time.  (Never mind that I don't shower until ten-thirty and I always have to blow dry my hair, too.  Blah, blah.)  This morning while I ran I listened to a This American Life and one of the stories was about a thirteen year old girl who was attacked by a shark and what happened afterward.  These types of stories are good for one's perspective.

Anyway, the kids and I played for an hour before dinner and Tommy told me how he won house points (yes, like Harry Potter, and Tommy LOVES his house and actually asked me to treat his house shirt as he'd gotten a stain on it and I've never known him to notice a stain before, ever) at school for singing in front of his entire house.  (Yes, clearly my child.)  

Tuesday's happy surprise

I know many of you love autumn but you know what? I do not.  I like summer.  I prefer to be outdoors and the prospect of dark, chilly, rainy weather bums me out.

Luckily, it was a beautiful autumn weekend here and I am happy to say that it was impossible to be bummed out with great weather and Eli home!  And, I've blinked and it's Wednesday.

But the best part of my week is that Eli announced that Season 3 of Downton Abbey had started and that we are five episodes behind.  As we had dinner with Em's sister in law last night (it was so lovely to meet Shobana!), we only had time for one episode.  But tonight I plan to watch at least two.

Eli's a tiny bit sad because we had been watching Homeland and now we have to wait to find out if the one guy is a terrorist (actually, I already know because I looked it up on the internet, but I have NOT told Eli and do not plan to so I get some gold stars for that).

For those of you disgusted that I just wrote a post about television, you must not have small children who are on strict (and early) schedules.  I am trapped at home most evenings and Eli does not like to play cards.  (Last night on our way home, the bridge club on the corner of our street was hopping and I asked Eli what he thought all the dummies did and he had to admit that he had no idea what I was talking about. !!!)

Not Quite Christmas Photos

 Practising his high kicks:

 Practising scooting ('tooting'):

Both have shown LOTS of improvement in their respective activities thanks to MANDY.  (What will we do without her??)

A New Favorite Band

So I can't remember if I posted about all the little four and five year olds singing 'Nowhere Man' at Tommy's spring performance.  But his music teacher actually invited all of us to sing, and sing we did.  (The English are a reserved sort of people, but they like to sing and most of them have learned to do it well.)  So when Tommy was humming 'Hey Jude' on Friday, it wasn't such a surprise to me.  I remembered that the Eridge House music teacher likes the Beatles.  (For all I know, learning the Beatles when you're four and five is part of the national curriculum.  It really could be.)  So I downloaded a few of my favorites (it stings to pay for songs that you own on CDs packed away in storage) and then played them for Tommy.

And you guys.  He loved them.  He loved them so bad that he announced last night that his new favorite band is the Beatles.  (Sorry, Bruce.)

This morning he woke up, put on his new Harry Potter cape and collected the wand we found sitting in someone's trash on our way to the park (it's actually a pointed stick that is very dangerous) and said, 'let's go downstairs and eat breakfast and listen to the Beatles."  I wish you could all here him singing along to 'Hey Jude' so much that I will try to take a little movie and post it...

(Lulu still prefers 'Lady DaDa'.)

And the sun comes out again.

Feeling better.  We all are, except for Lulu who has a new cold before she ever got over the one she caught -- as best as I can tell -- the very second she stepped into her classroom.  But, she's sleeping alright so things are fine, and she's getting more juice than usual which is a pretty big deal in her world.

We have some weekend plans to see our friend Miss Vivian (she is polling very well among all current residents of our house, as she always-without-fail comes with presents for the kids and last week's were perfect, and because last week she came over for Saturday bedtime and like an old pro chased the post-bath Lulu around and got her nighttime diaper and jammies on her which is much harder than it actually sounds).  We are also seeing one of my coworkers who is young, has no kids but expressed an interest in meeting mine.  We are having lunch and I have warned her that (1) it will be no longer than an hour and (2) we will probably not be able to get down more than one glass of wine.  (Did you know that everybody gets drunk on Sunday afternoon here? My best work friend calls it 'Sunday Fun Day' and she and her husband start drinking at two and stop at eight.  She's very funny so tells the story like even if they're in the middle of a glass of wine, they put it down the drain and switch to water.  I sort of doubt it because she's very sensible and I just can't imagine her wasting wine.)

Work is still feeling sort of bad, but I did get an email from a client last night telling me that I'm perfect.  No matter what, only eight more weeks in this office.  I keep reading -- seeking out if you must know -- articles about working out of the home.  I clearly like working on a part time schedule, at least, outside of the home. But the only way I know that is from a retrospective assessment of the last chunk of time.  On a daily basis, things are not so clear especially if work is feeling hard as it has for the last two weeks.  Before I had kids, I had no doubt that balance would be clear:  I would know definitely whether I wanted to work outside the home and how much (if I could negotiate a part time schedule). But this is not true.  I'll never be absolutely certain, especially with Lulu's new daily ritual of looking up at me with big (somewhat manipulative if we're honest) eyes and asking, "take me to school today mommy?"  It's like childcare, one of my other important post-children realizations, and it's never actually settled.  It's always changing.

So my challenge to myself is to be as happy as I possibly can for the next eight weeks (and beyond, but baby steps, right?).  To that end, I'm reading a book called 'Happiness at Home'.  It's astonishing because the woman who wrote it and I are exactly the same (except that she went to law school at Yale and clerked for Justice O'Connor, huh) and I love her book best because she makes me feel less crazy for thinking so much about happiness and what strategies I can implement to make myself and my family happier.  I haven't finished the book yet, but I do find it insightful and somewhat inspiring (though, I must admit that I don't have the energy to do all the things she does as it's her fulltime job to try this stuff and then write about it).

I was looking at these yesterday, so thought I'd post them today even if they are a year old!

The wonkiest wonk in the world

Some people use the word 'wonky' differently than I do.  To me, it refers to an undesirable mood that can't otherwise be defined.  Not exactly grumpy, and not sad either, just out of sorts.  And today I am WONKY. With a side of anxious.  Partially, this is because things at work could be going better.  (I am a very, very, very bad loser.  And that's all I'll say about that.)  Partially, this is because Eli is still in Oman and so I go home from my (this week) stressful job and I don't have anybody to talk to except Mandy and she wants to go home not listen to me go on and on about crazy things.

But my kids are super cute.  Tommy went on a trip to the zoo with his class yesterday.  I asked what animals he saw and the first thing he said was tapirs.  I think that's an odd one to start out with, as he's shown no interest in them before.  He had a great time, but was disappointed that (1) the parrots didn't talk back to him, and (2) the tigers were unavailable.  When I dropped him off at school this morning the kids were getting ready for their dance class, which means they change from their school shoes into plimsoles (which are little keds-like shoes, or maybe we have those in the US and I had just never heard of them and this explanation makes me seem stupid).  Anyway, they were all getting their plimsoles off their pegs and randomly sitting down and taking their school shoes off and just leaving them in the center of the floor.  I mean, not one child made an effort to put their shoes out of the way.  As I stepped carefully through the shoes, I noticed that all children had their names in their shoes, without exception.  But do you know who does not have his name in his shoes?  TOMMY.  And I had a little moment of panic and then decided that he'd be able to figure it out and left.  But now you all know what I'll be doing right after I get home tonight.  School shoes are expensive.

Lulu has asked for her daddy two mornings in a row.  Both times I have told her he is still away, but she may want to consider being a bit nicer to him when he returns. We've started a new daily ritual wherein she asks if I will take her to school and I have to say no, not until Friday and then she fake cries for a little while.  It's not very fun to have someone crying -- real or fake -- before 8am so I am working on a strategy to stop this routine. She also has a new motto:   "Tommy never shares with me!"  It's completely untrue and is starting to wear on me a bit.  While I was showering this morning they were playing on my bed taking turns yelling to me about the injustice the other was inflicting upon the child yelling.  So I pretended I couldn't hear.

Yes, I am a great parent.