"My name is Brettandy"

Yesterday after looking at pictures, Tommy announced that his name is "Brettandy." Can any of you guess who was in the pictures? These days he normally goes by "Dozie Ix." Good ol' Doz is a fixer who has a backhoe that goes into outerspace. Typically, after he gets home from outerspace, he digs for a while before eating dinner. He has lots of kittens, five parrots and he used to have two dogs, but yesterday they "deaded." Don't worry, nothing to be sad about apparently (?!).

When I picked him up this afternoon from school, his teacher said, "I don't know how you keep up with him." (As a side note, I do think it's good that he's my first child, because I don't have anything to compare his energy level to.) She said they adore him, but that he is very busy. I figure we are getting our money's worth.

Lizzie is NINE MONTHS OLD TODAY. She is pulling up on things, especially her baskets of toys, and she has some method of moving as well. I'm not sure what it is; I just know she isn't usually where I left her anymore. (My poor second child.) She is mostly busy being totally adorable all the time. She loves bread and makes the biggest messes when we give it to her. She loves her little baby Montessori class and laughs a lot during the singing parts. She is awake now, so I have to go get her. Sorry for the incomplete post...

A few pictures:

Tommy preparing to go to college and the space station:

We had a talk about college being when he will move away from me and Daddy and now college is something of an obsession. The space station is from Curious George.

Lizzie just being cute:

This is what jetlag looks like:

We went to Lizzie's first Montessori class this morning. She just goes for 50 minutes on Tuesdays, and normally her big brother won't come along. But, he starts school tomorrow, so he didn't have anywhere to be except with us. He was a good boy, and Lizzie enjoyed the songs and the big basket full of random objects that she was free to suck on (each baby gets their own basket, and the toys are cleaned each class). One of my friends from the garden is in the class with her baby. And speaking of the garden, we're going back to the garden to play with Leon after naptime...

I hope you all had happy Labor Day weekends.

Imagination

Tommy's all adjusted to being back in London. But he has discovered his imagination, so it's almost like having a different child. Last night, I mentioned that he seemed cross and asked why. He said, "there's a monster." I said, "really?" And he said, "yes, it's out on the roof. It's not a scary monster, it's a nice monster, but it's making me really cross." Oh, well that explains everything. We have multiple conversations like this every day.

Lizzie is having a harder time with the adjustment. But, she feels good enough to practice pulling herself up! Still no teeth and no movement toward crawling. She had a doctor's appointment on Friday and dropped from the 10th percentile to the 9th percentile. The pediatrician isn't worried and I'm not either, but I wish she would eat a little bit more. Tonight she had a piece of garlic bread (and really did eat most of it), so she's on the right track.

We've had a nice weekend. On Saturday we went out to look at wallbeds, but the showroom was closed and we ended up just having lunch. Sunday, we did tons of shopping for the house but didn't get any of the things we needed. And at this point, we are tired of having a house that isn't all set up. Finally, today (a bank holiday!) we went to Regent's Park. There is a fun playground in there and it's pretty easy to get there on the tube. Tommy rode his pink scooter all over which was helpful.

OH! The big exciting news -- and I do mean big -- is that we bought a grill. It's HUGE. Eli's been making delicious dinners on there every night. We had pizza the first night, grilled chicken and vegetables the second, and tapas tonight.

I know, no pictures yet, and I'm sorry. Soon.

We made it.

It's 11:30pm and I'm sitting in our living room with Lizzie who is playing.

We arrived about 12 hours ago. The flight was perfect. Lizzie slept the whole way, with minimal nursing, and Tommy slept about two of the 8 1/2 hours, but he was very good. Tommy is clearly his father's child, as he can skip a night's sleep and still be in a wonderful mood. Our televisions didn't work properly and turned off about every five minutes, so Tommy learned how to turn on "Olivia" all by himself. Once, I woke up and saw him watching sports, but otherwise he did it all by himself. Anyway, it was the best-case scenario, and don't think that I'll count on such good behavior ever again. I know I was LUCKY, as the immigration woman reminded me.

We had such a nice trip, and I promise to post some photos and stories at some point. Tommy got to ride on Robie Pruden's tractor which was fitted like a backhoe, and he got to dig with it. He couldn't believe how lucky he was and kept looking at me with an incredulous expression. We also got to see his friend Margaret's farm, which has chickens and geese and ducks and pigs and sheep as well as all manner of vegetables. My favorite part was the blackberries. It was lots of fun. Anyway, more stories and photos, and house photos will come soon, too, as Eli got lots of work done while we were gone and we're getting close to being photo-ready.

Vacation...

I'm such a bad blogger. But I'm here now, and that's what matters.

We've been busy! On July 20, we flew to Seattle for vacation.

But it is not vacation when your jetlagged children wake up at one am. It just isn't. And if my children didn't exist, I could've taken an ambien to guarantee my own sleep. But after a few rough nights (and days, who am I kidding) we all settled into to my parents' house and started sleeping fairly normally.

We began our vacation with my family. The highlight was seeing Auntie Em and Sid who came from Melbourne. We all went to Jane and John's cabin at Lake Roessiger and had a very good time. One of the best parts was playing Apples to Apples, and if you don't know that game, you should get it and play it because it's fun. We also had fun celebrating Auntie Em's birthday and eating her cake.

Then, we packed the car up and drove to Newman Lake, which is near Spokane. We spent three days there with Eli's family, which was very fun. Tommy loved swimming in Newman Lake (it was much warmer than Lake Roessiger) and he also loved playing with his cousins and Adeline and Claire. He is a tiny bit scary in water because he is relatively fearless and we never know what he's going to do next. I know what I'm going to do next, though: sign him up for some swimming lessons.

Eli had to leave when we returned from Newman Lake, which has been very sad for all of us but especially for Tommy, who cried the whole way home from the airport. "I really need my daddy, mama! I need to go to London now, mama!"

We've been in Seattle this week, mostly working on wearing out my dad. He has been brave, but I think he's pretty exhausted. This was proven today when he managed to take a nap on the living room couch while Tommy, Lizzie and I all played about 10 feet from his head. You have to be pretty tired to nap through Lizzie's shrieking.

He'll get a good chance to rest next week though. On Monday, we are going on a quick trip to Laramie and Lander to spend a little more time with Eli's family. I am excited about the trip but dreading the actual travel -- it will be a lot of car and plane time for these little kids. The secret for Tommy is episodes of Sesame Street on the computer (who knew you could buy Sesame Street on iTunes? Eli, that's who), but for Lizzie it's a tiny bit harder...

I promise to post picture next time or to update our Picasa site. It's embarrassing how behind we are on these things.

Lizzie update

Lizzie had some immunizations yesterday, so she was weighed and measured. She is 15 lbs, 5 oz, and 26.5". She is staying at the tenth percentile (or "centile" as they say here) for weight and the 50th for height. Her pediatrician thinks she's doing fine. She did not care for the shots, but she didn't cry for long. (Though her brother was much, much tougher about shots than she is. When Lizzie hurts, she wants the whole world to hurt with her.)

We had a playdate on Thursday with Julie, Angus and Heidi. Angus and Tommy were delighted to see each other. They disappeared to Tommy's room and I just listened to the monitor to make sure that the sharing was going well (Tommy had decided before Angus arrived that Angus would not be able to play with Tommy's toys; luckily Tommy changed his mind). It was nice to have a grown up to talk to during the day.

Then yesterday, Alina came in the morning (yay!) and Lizzie and I went to get shots and go shopping. Tommy and Alina went to the pirate ship playground in Kensington Gardens. They took his scooter and we came home at the same time, but arrived from different directions, so I saw him scooting down the sidewalk and it was so adorable. His head just looks ginormous in his helmet ("like an orange on a spring") and it's almost hard to understand how he balances on it. Anyway, super cute. Then, after naptime, we went down to Gatwick to see Daddy's office and watch some planes land. The trip was a success (the kids were really good) and the highlight was a pink cupcake. (My child eats so much more junk food than I ever imagined possible, but can I tell all of you that he devours steamed broccoli now? He asks for more! "Mom, can I have more pizza and more broccoli please?" I do serve it with ketchup, but I figure a tablespoon of ketchup for 1/2 cup of broccoli is worth the price.)

We go to Seattle on Tuesday, so the focus of the weekend is trip preparation...Why does it feel like all I do is pack?

Here are some cute things that Tommy says:

"I have two thumbs!" (Then he holds them both up for you to see.)

"Did you know that sometimes lizards' tails come off their bodies? (I'm assuming he saw a lizard without a tail on his school field trip.)

"Ladybugs eat aphids." (Grandma Nancy taught him that.)

"Ketchup is made out of tomatoes and sugar."

My favorite:

Me: "We have to leave [the playground] soon because I'm really cold."

Tommy: "Let's just sit down and have a snack and talk about our lives for a while."

My second favorite:

Tommy: "Mom, I like your dress."

Me: "Thanks, honey."

Tommy: "I like your painted toenails, too."

Me: "Thanks!"

Tommy: "You're kinda like a ballerina."

We're all moved.

The move out of our temporary apartment was fairly stressful, in part because I had ordered loads of things to be delivered to the house on the same day that we moved in. (Because we had to camp in the house and I wanted to be sure we had the essentials, like a bed for Tommy and a bed for Lizzie and a bed for Eli and me.) Anyway, we rushed over to meet the inventory guy so we could go through the house bit by bit and that took a long time because he was chatty and so am I. Afterward, Eli and I jumped into the car and headed back to the apartment but I got a call from the delivery guys for Tommy's bed that they were on the way, so Eli pulled over and I jumped out of the car and ran home. So poor Eli had to finish moving us out of that place alone. After he returned, Eli had to go down to Gatwick to take some sort of test, so the kids and I just sort of hung out.

Then, on Monday, after a weekend of camping but with running water (although not hot water until we figured out how to set the boiler), three men arrived with our container and unloaded it. They also unpacked -- which means they took everything out of the boxes and put it anywhere they could find for it. So I've spent my freetime the last two weeks walking through the house moving things from place to place. It's all sorted out now, but there is still lots to do to get unpacked properly.

Tommy really likes the new house. We're still working on the proper response to the question "where are you?" He thinks it's, "I'm here!" Which is not very helpful. I'm looking for something like, "I'm in my room!"

Tommy had has last day of preschool last week. They put on a little show and I regret to inform all of you that Tommy did not do a great job. The kids sang probably ten songs, and I'm absolutely certain that he knew each of them perfectly, but he didn't sing AT ALL. Instead, he took off his party hat, folded it up, and then actually ate some of it. Really? Yes, really. He got his first report card and you'll be pleased to know that he's doing fine in preschool. Obviously, there are no grades, just a bunch of cute comments about his Montessori skills. He has mastered, for example, pouring and sticking.

Lizzie is doing very well. She is adorable and smiles at anybody but especially Tommy. He can be having a fit, and she leans over and gives him a huge grin. She absolutely loves her new crib. I shouldn't be shocked, as cribs are obviously more comfortable than pack n plays, but somehow, we were both surprised at how much better she's sleeping. She is also eating a lot of solid food these days. She loves teething biscuits, which she isn't supposed to have until she's seven months old, but I figured they're better than pretzels, which is what she seems to lunge for most frequently. She is still rather high-maintenance, but nobody reading this finds that surprising, I'm sure. Lizzie also loves having the double jogger here almost as much as I do, because she takes great naps in there. Yay. (Double joggers are not common here and so I receive a lot of feedback as I wheeze down the street pushing fifty pounds.)

We are still figuring out how to do everything. Renter's insurance has been very difficult to get, but registering to pay taxes to our council was very easy (I know, you're shocked). We still don't have the internet. Right now, I'm stealing someone else's broadband and the network is called "PRIVATE DO NOT USE." I feel guilty, but also wonder why the owner doesn't just password protect it. We have our phone NUMBER, but no phone line, and a letter from the company that they are coming to install it while we are on vacation. So that's nice. The booster thing we got to make our cellphones work in our house (a Kent family curse, apparently) needs both the broadband and phone line to work. Another impossible thing is getting a bank card for moi. Don't worry, I just use Eli's, but you would not believe what I have to do to get a bank card here (on step involved a three-way phone call with me, Eli and our utility company).