Meooooow

A few weeks ago, there was a free little kid's festival at St. Pancras International Train Station. I thought that it might be fun, and so I took the kids. I know, the line to hand me the award for Most Fun Mom forms to the left. A festival at a train station? I'm sure my children feel so lucky.

We saw a Punch and Judy show, which is Britain's oldest puppet show. It was not really appropriate material for children but I figured Kate didn't really get the dry British humor, so we hung around for a bit.



But the big hit of the day was the face painting. She told the lady that she wanted "a flower, a butterfly, and a cat". When pressed to choose just one, she decided on the cat. She was so enamoured with herself. She kept looking in shop windows, and came home and just stared at herself in the mirror for a solid 10 minutes.

Casa de Saeva, part 1

I realized I've not posted any pictures of our house.

We live in a Georgian house, which means it was built while Georges I-IV were King (duh), from 1720-1840. It has obviously been updated since then, but there are clear signs of its age in places. It hasn't been taken care of, and if someone invested in it and updated and renovated, it would be a really nice house. But as it is, it's just OK. It has a typical layout of central London homes, in that it is a very vertical build.

It has 4 floors, which means 52 stairs. Which means that there is a lot of up and down with a 20lb baby on my hip. It stinks. It is really hard on Dexter too. He has really bad hips and it is difficult for him to get up and down all the stairs. The cool damp weather here seems to exacerbate his condition, and I think he is really having a hard time. I don't know how many square feet it is, I would guess around 1500-1800? Houses here are thought of in terms of number of bedrooms, not square footage.


The outside of our house:


You walk into this narrow hallway, which is where we keep the buggy (aka Stroller).



Turn left into the reception rooms.
We use this one as a playroom:




and this one as our den.




The room at the back is another reception room where we keep coat racks with our coats , Kate's scooter and a shelving unit with baskets of hats & scarves.
The house has no closets so we have to be very creative with storage and use of space. All 7 of the fireplaces are non-functioning. The floors on the top three levels are all wooden. They are creaky, uneven and unfinished. There are wide gaps in them, and you can actually see the lights below through the floor. If you drop an earring on the floor, it is gone into the gaps and cracks!

At the end of the front hall, you go down two steps into Michaels closet, er, room. This is actually considered a bedroom!



That changing table on the left is up against the wall. It just fits his crib and the changing table. It's fine, because he doesn't need space, but it is teeny tiny!

From Michael's room, you go down this flight of stairs into the basement.


There is another reception room, which we also use as a playroom.




This is our kitchen. It is HUGE by London standards. We are extremely fortunate to have almost an "American sized" fridge. Most houses have small dorm sized fridges.


The silver appliance on the back left is our freezer. It has three drawers inside, so you can't really fit much into it.



We also don't have a garbage disposal. We have to scrape all our food into a special bin that is collected for composting. At first, this really grossed me out, but I've gotten used to it.




To the right of the kitchen is our laundry room and how you get out to the garden.
Again, this is extremely lucky for us, as most London homes have the washing machine in the kitchen. We have a combo washing machine and dryer, and it is tiny. I have to wash our sheets separately, as it won't fit both the fitted and flat sheet. It is a combo unit, but I rarely use the dryer since it literally takes 5 hours to dry above sheets. I hang everything to dry, just like Grandma used to do! Also, those cabinets are the only ones in the entire house (save one in our bathroom)!

Next, she's going to try skydiving

While in Eastbourne, Kate got in touch with her inner daredevil. http://thesaevas.com/

God's Waiting Room

Yesterday we ventured out of the city to the English Seaside. I was yearning for some sunshine and warm weather, and we thought it would be fun to go to the beach.
We decided to go to Eastbourne, which is in Sussex, South East England.

It was a quick 90 minute train journey, and when we arrived, I immediately felt like we were in Tampa. Wheelchairs, canes, and blue hair everywhere. We laughed and called it "God's Waiting Room".
But of course, wheelchair friendly also means it is buggy friendly, so we were quite comfortable. (Amazingly, London is an extremely unaccessible city for disabled. There are no provisions for wheelchairs or those who have difficulty walking. Apparently, they all moved to Eastbourne!).

The beaches are all rocks, which made for painful walking. It was still quite chilly, and the channel was too cold for us to swim. But Kate had fun looking for seashells (every rock she found was "OOOO, look at this pretty seashell!") and Michael had fun eating the rocks. And the sun was shining, so that made me quite happy.


Michael is ready to get there:



Walking along the promenade. The cliff in the background is a chalk cliff, for which the area is well known.




The rocky shore made for some tough going.




The swimsuit lasted for about 15 minutes, before she was covered in goosebumps and shivering:



Back to the jeans & a sweater:




Kate was really sad here and refusing to pose because she had lost her hat. We were on the pier and the wind blew it off her head into the water. Five minutes of crocodile tears, and hours of repeatedly asking "What happened to my hat? Where did my hat go?".



The final moments of the hat's life:



A moment of silence for Kate's favorite butterfly hat, please.

All the way to Somerset just to take a Bath?

Ok, so we really didn't take a bath while we were in Bath, but it sure had Kate confused.

Bath is about a hour away by train, and we had a lovely day out there.


We first toured the ancient Roman baths. This picture is important because it is the FIRST time ever, in 3.5 years and 2 children, that Danny has ever worn a baby. There was a small amount of huffing, puffing and protesting involved, I assure you. He also didn't want photographic evidence take of the event. I'm sure he'll be most pleased that I am posting it on the internet too.


Kate was thrilled that the audio tours were free and therefore, she got one too.


Michael, however, found it difficult to stay awake.



In front of the ancient Roman Bath:



Royal Crescent


They had these pigs all over the city, and Kate wanted her photo taken with every.single.one.of.them.


She was also really excited at the ice cream cone that was bigger than she was. Until she got up close and realized it was fake.

Bad Blogger

I realize I've been a bad blogger lately, but you see, Michael has started crawling. And Michael gets into.everything. And we have 3.5 flights of stairs in our house with only one baby gate so I have to follow him everywhere. (yes, we're buying more!)

He is such a different child than his sister was!



So I'll just throw those two pictures at you for now. And now I must run, as I think Michael is about to take a header down the stairs.

Me & my shadow..

...wherever he goes, I go.



Michael is crawling now!! Hooray. But we still share the same shadow as he is most definitely still a momma's boy and wants lots of cuddles and holding. I'm trying to remember that once he turns 15, he will want nothing to do with me so I should enjoy it while I can.