Snowbound part II... the escape

Against the odds, we made it out to DC on Day 2, on one of just a handful of planes to be allowed to fly out of the UK. It's a blessing we were able to do so, as the entire flight schedule is in chaos -- and we'd probably be stuck there on Eton Avenue through Christmas. The scene at the airport was pretty chaotic, here's a few videos we took that day (over a 6 hour period), strung together.

Now of course it's great to be home. As expected we are exhausted and will probably remain so until Parker gets adjusted and stops waking up at 3am. But such a thrill to see Meme, Pepe, Jessica, Peter, Jasper, Josie and so many others. Also Nadya came down for a two-day visit. Sadie's having a blast. As is Parker, despite his lack of sleep.  Karen & I are pretty beat up... but give us a few days.

Snowbound

As I write this, we all should be high in the air, cruising steadily over northeast Canada, gin & tonic in my hand, champagne in Karen's, flight attendants at our beck and call, Sadie & Parker gently sleeping and anticipating the coming reunion with dear ones...

...instead we're back on Eton Avenue, £100 of cab fare poorer and surrounded by snowdrifts. Ok, it doesn't take much to make a "snowdrift" in the UK, and for a Buffalo girl like Karen it is laughable that they cancelled our flight when there was hardly any snow on the ground and not much coming down either. By the time we returned home following a 4 hour odyssey it had picked up a bit, and our street as seen in the photo certainly did have a charming winter wonderland look to it. But the 3cm snow limit for any flight does seem rather absurd.

We were even interviewed and photographed for the Telegraph... now photo made it in although a brief quote made it onto the website...

As did some other remarkable information about just how little it takes to cause transport chaos!

Not quite sure when we'll actually get out of here. Perhaps tomorrow if the Blizzard of 2010 relents a little.

Limping towards year-end

As far as ups and downs go, the last couple of weeks have definitely fallen in the "down" category. For this we have a few culprits to blame.

Culprit #1 has been a nasty little virus (or group of them) which have wreaked havoc on the Howell household for a couple of weeks. Karen has continued to have a nighttime cough which has kept her from sleeping well. This has now lasted nearly a month -- and frustratingly our local NHS clinic has so far refused to refer Karen to a specialist. Sadie had a high fever and upset stomach. In worst shape (as usual!) was poor Parker, who picked up a worse version of Sadie's stomach virus, which gave him diarrhea and daily vomiting for a full week, sending us back to the doctor. I've been in slightly better shape (having recovered not long ago from my own laryngitis) -- but also gradually got worn down with the nighttime sleep disturbances (e.g.  listening out for Parker). It does not end there: our nanny Andrea was also sick for a few days, as were several of the teachers at Sadie's nursery, so we were without childcare help in the midst of it all. System failure! Culprit #2 was my year-end publishing crunch, which had me busy/stressed up until my year-ahead tome was published on Monday. Culprit #3 was -- as mentioned before -- the lack of family/close friends around to help us get through it all. Culprit #4: cold and grey weather. Culprit #5: did I mention the lack of sleep? In all, a serious rough patch.

We are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. As I write (10:04pm) Parker is asleep and has not puked today (first time in 7 days!); b) Karen is feeling a little better thanks in part to some good acupuncture treatments; and c) in three days we fly back to DC, where help is waiting in the form of parents, grandparents, siblings cousins, etc. Just what the doctor ordered. Nevertheless it has been a difficult time... fortunately, despite their ailments the little ones have kept a good attitude throughout and have helped Karen & I do our best to do the same.

Ho ho ho

One benefit of living over here is that the Christmas marketing machine grinds into gear somewhat later, and less aggressively, compared with the American post-Halloween holiday barrage of recent years. So when we went to the Winter Wonderland carnival in Hyde Park this morning, all the holiday stuff really felt fresh and new (at least to me), like the first day of the season.


It was, for example, the first time I heard Bing Crosby's White Christmas this year-- a song whose imagery is not entirely far fetched in London right now, with a few inches of snow having fallen over the city last week. Of course, this being England the snow shut down most of country for a few days -- airports, trains, schools -- which is not accustomed to snowfall especially this early in the year. As a Washington DC native I felt right at home. Our lives were not particularly affected by the chaos, aside from a minor delay to my return flight from Moscow (which made London look balmy by reaching 15 degrees below zero fahrenheit when I was there), some inconvenience dragging the stroller through the slush by Karen, and fun for Sadie learning to make snowballs.


Today's carnival was great fun though. A mild, sunny day following a prolonged cold and gloomy spell. A chance for Sadie & Parker to meet an English-accented Santa Claus (and who seemed to leave both of them with a more positive impression than his American cousin from the Livingston, NJ shopping mall a year ago) -- a blue yo-yo was requested by Sadie, who also mentioned to Santa that her little brother wants a car. A ride up on the Ferris wheel with great views of Hyde Park and central London. And lunch at a Jamie Oliver place that was about the best street food I've ever had.

In other news... yesterday brought Parker's first haircut, which was unfortunately not caught on film due to the extreme difficulty of the task, engaging any potential photographer including Karen, two Turkish barbers and a violently protesting Parker. The first image came a bit later in the day, when I snapped his 15 month picture. Haircuts make me look younger but in Parker's case he looks suddenly older, like he's jumped from being a baby to a little boy in a day. He is also changing super-fast these days, walking more confidently, developing more of a personality as he learns new words and displaying his first "tantrum", from what I can tell, which involved laying on his stomach, pushing himself backwards with his arms and hollering for now apparent reason. Charming as far as  tantrums go... but I'm sure that's just the tip of that iceberg.


Otherwise all (mostly) well. Karen's been battling with a prolonged sore throat and cough -- a lot like what I had for most of November -- that has also made it hard for her to sleep. Despite the sleep deprivation, we called in the sitter last night and had a good time out in Camden listening to live folk music at a cool place called the Forge, a 20 minute walk from our house. Starting to get geared up for heading home in a couple of weeks.

Gotta love the grandparents!

Time for another obvious assertion: grandparents rock. In the eyes of their grandchildren, sure. But also, equally, in the eyes of their granchildren's tired, overwhelmed parents. I.e. us. Again and again, these blessed individuals -- who at 42 Eton avenue go by the names of Meme, Pepe, Nama, Grandpalicious, Grandpa Pete & Grandma Diane -- have helped Karen & I survive the last few years. The past week was no different as the elder Howells flew to the rescue, injecting a large dose of warmth, storytelling, bathgiving, feeding, bottle-filling, dishwashing and advice-giving into our lives as we tried to make the most of this Thanksgiving-away-from-home. Sadie is of course thrilled to see them again, and Parker is now calling Meme and Pepe each by name. Of course, having them around also serves to remind us -- as Karen put it clearly yesterday morning -- "how much easier our lives would be if we lived in the same place as our parents!". True that. It is surely not happenstance that both of our siblings with kids now live within a 15 minute drive of free babysitting and the "help mom!" phone call. Lucky them.

But such being our geographic fate, we tried to make the most of my parents' visit this week with a mix of neighborhood and central London activities, including a walk through Primrose Hill; a visit to the National Portrait Gallery; Thanksgiving dinner in the theatre district followed by an Oscar Wilde play (An Ideal Husband); a visit to Sadie's ballet class; "Toddler's World" at the leisure centre; a visit to the local pub (me & dad); and high tea at Brown's Hotel (Karen & Mom plus Mom's friend Naomi). We'll get help for anoter couple of days which is great as I am hitting the road again, this time to Moscow (where I am now, having just arrived) and Stockholm.

Until the parents' arrival, the last few weeks had not been particularly easy as the weather has turned cold and various of us have been battling illnesses (me with sore throat/laryngitis, finally doing better; Karen with something similar as well as trouble sleeping and a sore arm; Parker with a cold, stomach bug and more teething). Only Sadie has been reasonably healthy, although she too has issues: we've declared defeat in toilet training, with a resolution to return to the world of underwear and the potty in a few weeks. Perhaps in a related development, Sadie has also taken a new interest in testing boundaries, violating parental requests, seeing what she can get away with, and other such behavious appropriate to two-and-a-half year olds and teenagers. I am hoping we will get some kind of hiatus between those two stages. As for Parker, he turned 15 months old today and is doing great despite his bugs, starting to get focused on talking, with a vocabulary that increases by the day, albeit still limited to single syllables. His walking remains highly unstable but no one told him that, and he has now started trying to run, which invariably ends with a wipe-out.

The next couple of weeks will be busy I try to complete various "year ahead" prognostications at work and we get ready to head off for the holidays... before we know it we'll be on a plane headed back across the pond for a nearly month-long visit to DC, Buffalo and (briefly) New York. That travel will bring its own difficulties... but we're definitely looking forward to it.

Some words about words (and some other stuff).

Parker is about to be 15 months old. It's really hard for me to believe this, yet I know it to be true: Sadie was 15 months and a week when Parker was born. At that point she was stringing two or three words together to communicate her needs. Looking back, she seemed so much older than little Parker does now, and unfortunately we treated her as if she was much older than she actually was. I have a tremendous amount of Mommy guilt over rushing her out of baby-hood and into toddler-hood in preparation for a new baby to join our family. And unfortunately, I think I'm repeating that mistake by rushing her into the land of being a "big girl". This morning after yet another pair of soaked underwear and pants, she looked into my frustrated face and said, "but mommy I'm NOT a big girl." "Oh yeah, " I replied, "than what are you?" "I'm just a toddler." (Said with perfect adult-quality diction and clarity.) She's a toddler all right, but a really darn smart toddler.

In contrast, I'm eking out every last bit of baby Parker before toddler Parker takes over. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to want to move forward too quickly into this next phase of his life either. We tried a few weeks ago to start weaning him from his bottle, replacing his pre-nap "ba-ba" with a sippy cup full of milk. His reaction to this was to repeatedly push it away and shake his adorable oversized head no. Preferring to have him sleep than to have him weaned, we caved and returned to the "ba-ba" once again.

While Sadie was virtually composing poetry at 15 months, Parker's words are few and mostly unintelligible for everyone except me. I had compiled a list of words Sadie said clearly before she was 1, but it seems to have gotten lost in our move. I vaguely remember that list being close to 50 or possibly even more. She had some pretty hysterical sayings too, like "baygies and keem cheeps," for bagels and cream cheese. Parker's list is considerably shorter. And he uses A LOT of homonyms. For example, for a while "da-da" could mean Andrew or the ever-important giraffe we've mentioned in previous posts. Now he only uses it to refer to the giraffe, having replaced Andrew's moniker for "Dot". "Chee" can mean cheese, or teeth. For the most part though the little guy just wanders around the flat (or anywhere else we happen to be) in search of phones or other devices with buttons, saying "boom? boom?", or "butza? butza?" Perhaps it's a bit too early to tell, but I predict he's not likely to be a great orator. Computer programmer in a call center, maybe?

Hitting the road

Here's one clear benefit to being in London: easy access to all kinds of interesting places, "emerging" and otherwise, within a few hours flight. In our household, this benefit has accrued only to me so far, with a trip last week to Istanbul (and, less glamorously, Frankfurt). Hopefully before long all four of us will get a chance to hit the road, and we do hope to make it to a few destinations in Europe and possibly beyond next year (in search of sun, which we haven't seen much of lately).

This time, I spent two days in Istanbul in what is a rather typical work routine for me (unfortunately): dashing around from one meeting to another, lots of time in conference rooms presenting my latest spiel about emerging markets, seeing the city in a rush, through windows (of conference rooms, taxis). But even such a perspective allows for a certain feeling about a place, and there's no escaping the sense that Turkey is doing very well these days. Such a contrast from the mood in most of Europe (or for that matter the US): the economy is bouncing back rapidly, people are generally optimistic about the future, unemployment is falling, the currency is strong (which means Istanbul is no longer the cheap city it was when I first visited as a student in 1991: mojitos at one neighbohood bar cost $18 each!). Visually, Istanbul is a truly stunning city, like no other with dramatic hills, the deep blue Bosphorus separating Europe and Asia, and architecture of many different civilizations piled one next to the other, with each day punctuated by the exotic sounds of the call to prayer emananting from the minarets... wonderful. After these glories came a rainy day Frankfurt which was completely forgettable.

And then back to London, where Karen seems to have held up the fort admirably. One major improvement to our routine occurred yesterday night when we hired our first babysitter (sitters.co.uk) outside of our usual nanny, and it worked out great. The babysitter (from, of all places, Turkey) was excellent, the kids didn't freak out, and Karen and I finally made our first trip to the neighborhood pub and the Indian restaurant around the corner since we arrived. Namaste.

Ketchup

When the DeBoni Family visited us in Maplewood in the summer of 2009, Bruno spent an ENTIRE morning cleaning the old condiments, of which we had many, out of our refrigerator. I kinda feel like it's time for me to do that with some blog entries I've been storing up in my head: it's time for me to catch up.

BALLERAY!

A few weeks ago, Sadie started taking ballet at the local Community Center (not to be confused with the local Leisure Center, which is essentially in the same building.) From what I can tell she is the youngest in the 45 minute class of 2-and-a-half to 4-year-olds. There really isn't much dancing taking place, but there seems to be the basis for some formal ballet moves being woven in. Hysterically, she is required to wear the full get-up: leotard, tights, skirt, slippers. During her first two classes she was befriended by another 2-and-a-half-year-old who fancied herself qualified to assist the instructors in keeping the stragglers (including Sadie) in line. This prompted several chuckles by me and each and every time I would let out said chuckle, Sadie would yell from across the room, "Mommy, what's so funny?" It's hard to know whether she enjoys this new Saturday morning ritual, but this is what people do here. Kids start ballet, or football (soccer), or piano lessons, or yoga, or swimming, or all of the above, at a VERY young age. For your amusement:

POTTY TIME!

As mentioned in a previous post, we started actively potty training Sadie. No one warned me just how stressful and messy this process can be. Almost a full year ago, we started putting her on her potty once she started showing some "readiness signs" - I'll spare you the details of what those were.We took a hiatus from it though because we knew the move would be a difficult enough transition, and because the potty took a nice leisurely journey across the Atlantic with the rest of our belongings. In retrospect it might have been a mistake to have waited. I guess hindsight is 20-20 (there's a REALLY bad pun in there somewhere). So, I bought a book, I took Sadie shopping for some big girl underwear, and the next day - POTTY TIME!

The big girl underwear proved to be a bit of a mistake actually. On day 1 - Sadie very excitedly donned a new pair and like the excited little puppy that she was, peed all over the place within five minutes. No worries - look at all these other new pairs of underwear!!!!! For Sadie, soaking through a pair of underwear simply meant she got to wear ANOTHER pair with some fun cartoon character or flowers or butterflies on it.

OK - Day 2 - change of plan. Sorry Sadie, there's only one pair of underwear here. At this point however, she started to actually say, I have to go to the potty. Unfortunately that usually meant it was too late. I considered this progress - at least she knew she had gone. She spent most of that week with the nanny Andrea - bless her patient soul. She was more than willing to persist with this seemingly monumental task. And Andrea was not deterred from leaving the house with the underwear-clad Sadie AND Parker while this process was going on. Which meant dragging poor Parker along to the loo with Sadie every 15 minutes when out in public. It also meant returning home with a wet Sadie and at least one extra pair of wet pants. For about a week Sadie wore almost every pair of pants and every pair of underwear daily.

So I resorted to bribery. A piece of candy every time she went pee-pee in the potty (thankfully Halloween had passed and we had lots of smarties, gummi bears and lollipops lying around) and a LOLLIPOP for a successful poop. Not surprisingly things suddenly seemed to have clicked with her. She started going to the potty herself (sometimes) and on more than one occasion has perched on the pot for more than an hour waiting for something to happen.

It's been about 3 or 4 weeks and we're by no means done with this, but dryer days await. Now, if only it would stop raining....

NURSERY SCHOOL!

Perhaps foolishly, I started potty training Sadie at roughly the same time she started "school" at the Belsize Square Synagogue. That's right, Synangogue. Sadie just came home from a playgroup one day and declared, "Mom, Dad, you never had me baptized, so I've decided to become Jewish." Not really, but had she done so, I might have been a little surprised about her knowledge of religion, but I wouldn't have minded. Thus far her only exposure to religion has been a few passes through a church here and there - where she points to various statues and exclaims, "Look! It's Grandpa Pete!"; and our nightly attempt to say grace before dinner. So her exposure to any sort of religion is just fine by me.

There were a lot of emotionally difficult things about leaving the life we had built in Maplewood, but perhaps the most difficult thing was having to pull Sadie out of her "school", Buzzing Bees. This was a delightful in-home daycare run by a Guyanese woman Sandy, and her 20-something daughter, Ginny. Sadie absolutely LOVED Sandy and Ginny and very much looked forward to going there every day, for 8 or 9 hours a day. She never once cried when I dropped her off there. Oftentimes, I felt that she was better cared for there than at home.

I didn't expect that she would have a problem attending a nursery school daily for only 3 hours a day. When we went to visit the school, they insisted that I stay or an hour or so at drop-off during Sadie's first week while she "settled in" to the routine of nursery school. I knew immediately that this was a bad idea. After the first day it was clear that Sadie believed this nursery was MY school as well. I tried to explain to the head teacher that this gentle settling-in period was not going to work on Sadie and she looked aghast when I told her that I had never even set foot in Buzzing Bees: Sadie and I said a quick goodbye at the door and that was it. As expected, extricating myself from Sadie's grasp on days 2 and 3 was EXTREMELY difficult and I could hear her screaming and crying from down the street.

Since I had already had some success with bribery,

I thought I'd give it another chance. I promised Sadie that if she didn't cry on Monday morning when I dropped her at school, she could have "pink milk" (a la "Charlie and Lola" - a British cartoon) when I picked her up. We also developed a goodbye ritual whereby she chooses the type of kiss I give her when I drop her off (monster kisses, tiger kisses, a certain number of kisses: usually 40...) Well, lo and behold - this WORKED! Come Monday morning, we arrived there...took off hat, gloves, coat...put our fruit for snack time in the communal fruit basket...and Sadie looked up at me with a huge grin and said, "Look Mommy! I'm HAPPY!!!" We did our monster kiss (to the horror and disbelief of some of the other mothers and the head teacher), I promised her the pink milk (again - looks of horror and disbelief), and she was off to go play with the train set that had been laid out. For those of you wondering, monsters give each other raspberries on the nose...

More sleep issues...

This was taken the day Parker was born. From the looks of him you'd think he'd be quite good at sleeping. We were recently telling a friend who just had her second baby about how Parker slept 22 or 23 hours a day for the first 2 or 3 months of his life. He must be a sleep camel. The day after Andrew posted his sleep post Parker decided to boycott sleep again. It's really true that we often take one step forward and two steps back with these kids. The sleep seems to have leveled off a bit - helped in part by having turned the clocks back. For some reason I think he just prefers this to daylight savings. He still gets up WAY to early, but it's manageable.

Andrew is off on his first multi-day jaunt across Europe since we've been in London. It was always difficult for me when he was away when we lived in Maplewood. Usually his traveling coincided with some phase of an ongoing construction project - and I was pretty much ALWAYS pregnant while he was away. Thank god for the kindness of neighbors, where I had to take shelter from floods or gas leaks or other such construction mishaps.

Luckily there are no construction projects planned for the next four days. But boy, I'll tell you - I need a whole crew just to get these kids in bed at night. It took me a full hour and a half from bathtime to sleepy-time for both of them. Andrew does it every Thursday night on his own, often with the help of Sadie's favorite show, "Super Why", played on my laptop for her while he gives Parker his bottle and sends him off to Ja-Ja the aforementioned giraffe. I'd have adopted the same tactic but for the fact that Sadie was banging on my laptop earlier in the day and as punishment I withdrew the promise of watching the show. During the bottle she kept shoving toys in Parker's face and planting "kisses" on the top of his head - behavior that he was not too fond of, understandably so. When he was nearly asleep she fell off the chair she was perched on next to us and started howling, which sent poor Parker into a panic. I had to toss Sadie into her new "big-girl" bed (which is really just the mattress on the floor since the real bed has not yet arrived) and spend the next 45 minutes trying to calm Parker out of his hysterics. For now, all is quiet, at least until 2 am when Sadie will inevitably start screaming for her bunny who will have fallen out of bed.

Boo!

Let's face it: when it comes to autumn, the northeast United States is tough to beat. Clear sunny days, vivid foliage, crisp apples, pumpkin patches, roast turkeys. While I'm sure parts of Britain are pretty this time of year too, London not so much. Lots of rain. Leaves mostly turning brown and falling off. Darkness before 5pm already. Fewer holidays and traditions (at least that we know of). We miss fall back home.

Having said that... we've managed to have a few season-appropriate escapades. This weekend we celebrated Halloween with our friends the De Bonis, visiting from Belgium, in a pretty impressive costume display involving all 9 of us. It was a tight competition for best dressed between Count Dracula (Bruno), an evil monk (Luka), two rather un-sinister witches (Karen and Ilona), a carnivorous cat (Katya), an itsy bitsy spider (Sadie), a bat (Parker), a chef (Artemy) and a pirate (me - but only briefly as Parker got very upset whenever I put on my mask. I have since been chastised for my age-inapropriate costume selection). The trick-or-treating itself was fun, as the kids had a blast, but it felt a bit like hunting late in the season. Not so many treats out there. A lot of unanswered doorbells. Halloween is a Celtic word, and according to Wikipedia many of its traditions originate from the British Isles, but it is only halfheartedly embraced in northwest London. Part of that is probably city living anywhere; trick-or-treating to a multi-family appartment, when someone has to buzz you in, does not work all that well. But this may be for the best, as it leaves fewer Mars bars to consume. In all it was good fun, and it was great to see the De Boni gang -- we are looking forward to visiting them on the other side of the English Channel soon.

In other activities, we tried out Zipcar once again for a trip to the northern outskirts of London to visit a children's farm/petting zoo (Belmont Farms), which made for an enjoyable morning (especially for Sadie) and nice for us all to get out of the city -- although it wasn't quite far enough away to feel like countryside. For that we'll need to plan something a bit further away, for a full day, which is still not too easy given the various nap requirements. (The tyranny of the nap!)

Otherwise life moves forward, and some important things have been happening. Karen spent much of last week training for an interesting volunteer opportunity involving the criminal justice system here, which she may spend a day or two a week doing. Sadie started nursery school at the local synagogue this week. And ballet class. And she is also deep in the throes of potty training (and making good progress, although the combination with a new school is a little tricky)-- these all topics that Karen (hopefully) will be blogging about as she's more on top of the details. Actually given how busy we are, we don't get to talk all that much so I am looking forward to seeing what she has to say. (Ok that's a joke, although not all that far from the truth.)

Parker is doing great, walking more and more confidently -- and can now pretty much make it from one side of the flat ot another without falling over, which is making him much harder to keep track of. He is also starting to give speech a try, tentatively, with a vocabulary at our count of 30 words or so. Some favorites: "goo" (hot beverage), "gmm" (give me that / read this); "boom" (phone/blackberry/ipod); "butz" (buttons).

As for me I've been battling a virus which got into my throat and took out my voice for a few days, although I seem to be on the mend. Heading to Turkey for a few days next week. Feeling behind at work and struggling to keep up with everything. But such a condition seems pretty unavoidable these days, for the forseeable future anyway!

To sleep, perchance to dream...

Few parents of young kids are likely to disagree with the following statement: It's all about the sleep. As much as the other elements of early parenthood can "bust your hustle" -- the dirty nappies (translation: diapers), the spit up, the food throwing, the arm-flailing tantrums -- nothing quite compares with sleep deprivation in its ability to mess with your quality of life.  I am really aware of this at this moment: a Sunday afternoon, Karen & I sitting in our office/bedroom reading, both children napping peacefully, and all 4 of us having both slept a full night, through to 7am this morning. Ah, the sleep groove. When a family manages to find its sleep groove, the haze momentarily lifts, the white noise in the background dims, the Hubble telescope of life gets a few adjustments and we can see again.

We have not had many Sunday afternoons like this -- or any moments at all -- in quite a while. Partially because of the upheaval with the move and all the associated change of routine. But partially because we have struggled to our sleep groove, really since Parker was born. I hate to blame anything on the affable little guy... but I do blame him for this: Parker seems to need about as much sleep as Margaret Thatcher (who, it is said, was good to go on 4 hours a night) and for much of his life has been difficult to get to fall asleep and equally difficult to prevent from waking up early. And as someone who works stockbroker's hours, I don't use the word "early" lightly; I am talking about a waking time starting with a "5" or, during one unfortunate period in the summer that happened to coincide with my birthday week, a "4". He is also a very light sleeper, such that if someone on the third floor of the house across the street flushes their toilet at the wrong moment, he's up, wide awake and poised for action. 

Sadie has been a better sleeper for a while now, thank heavens, for a year now going down easily at 7:30pm and sleeping solidly to 7:30 the next morning (only occasionally interrupted when she can't find her bunny and starts hollering). However unlike Parker, she turns into a monstrous character if denied her 14 hours of Zs per day. 

The result is a logistical dilemma. Our original plan to have the two share a room in London failed disastrously on Day 1 following our move here, with Parker waking Sadie up two hours before she was ready to do so, and naps during the day constantly disrupted, tempers flaring throughout. We quickly realized that would not work, so we moved Sadie out of that room to various temporary accomodations, first in a pack n play in the living room, and then into a Phil & Ted's tent in our bedroom (pushing us into the office/guest bedroom).  As spacious as this appartment is, there is no obvious place to put poor Sadie on a permanent basis. She has not complained much about her frequent moves, but any time we mention anything about "your room" to her, she responds with a request for clarification ("you mean my room that is Parker's room? or my room that is in the living room?"). Poor little nomad.

So this is all to say that we are excited about any intimation that we have found our sleep groove. Having recovered from the shots/bug that send us back to the A&E earlier this week, Parker has recovered his appetite, dropped his morning nap and seems to have figured out how to fall asleep more easily as well as sleep a bit later. Perhaps it is not be so unrealistic to get them back in the same room before long. Of course, we know by now that life is constantly in flux, so perhaps it's better not to count our chickens before they start sleeping poorly again.

Otherwise... both Karen & I are feeling a bit better, thanks largely to this unexpected sleep windfall and the healthier state of the kids. And we have had a fun weekend, with some sunny weather (but cold!) and some interesting excursions around town. Events of days past include Sadie's first ballet class; a visit to the Camden Market which is quite a lively place and within walking distance of our house; and a walk up to Hampstead Heath and its magnificent playground in the clear chilly air this morning.

More downs than ups....

It's been a difficult few weeks....and that's really putting it mildly. On any given day I feel like we're all just squeaking by, with complete disaster lurking around the next corner. From youngest to oldest: Little Parker started walking (YAY!) but with that has come even more bumps and bruises to his already over-sized noggin (BOO!). In addition to the growing pains associated with that, he has a billion teeth coming in at once and is constantly damp from all the drool-soaked clothes. So, that seems like a good time to go get some immunizations, right? For his third run-in with the NHS, I took him over to get his MMR shot and Hep A. According to the American immunization schedule he should have been immunized for these things and chicken pox at 12 months, but we missed that date by a long shot as a result of the glacial speed at which it took us to get registered at the local surgery. Side effects of these shots are: irritability (check), fever (check), sleeplessness (check), loss of appetite (check). But WAIT, why does Sadie have all the same symptoms? Sympathy for her brother, perhaps? If only. No, Sadie started sporting a fever last week and didn't really verbalize anything other than a headache until Thursday night when she finally admitted her ear hurt. So for Sadie's first run-in with the NHS she saw an actual doctor (although, I'm not entirely convinced he deserved that title - shouldn't all doctors be older than me?)

As a result of their various maladies we've decided to continue having them sleep in separate rooms. Which means that we now have a dedicated "Parker wing" and a "Sadie wing" of our flat, with Sadie occupying OUR bedroom, Andrew and I in the office/guest room and Parker way down at the other end of the house.

In general though, the kids have been great - especially on a one-on-one basis. Sadie continues to amaze us with her observations and her budding wit, and Parker is starting to develop a very easy-going personality, seemingly not minding very much when Sadie steals his toys, sits on him, or pushes him over. When he's not feeling lousy, he really has fun! Here he is in "Toddler's World" in our local gym:

Together the kids conspire to make life very difficult when there's only one caretaker (usually me). Hopefully this conspiracy will come to an end when Sadie starts nursery school at the Belsize Square Synagogue - the only nursery within a walkable radius that's able to take her before January. I had heard good things about the place and obviously they don't require the child to be of Jewish heritage to attend. In fact when we visited the school - two other families were visitingas well - transplants from Australia and Korea - both of them non-Jewish. Sadie and I attended the school yesterday morning for a visit. She seemed to enjoy it, however she's cognitively more advanced than the other two and a half year olds in what will be her class starting November 2. All the other kids seemed to be potty trained though, so we're starting operation use-the-potty-full-time as of Friday. Sadie also has started taking ballet - more on that later when I can get some good pictures of her in her "yet to be purchased" uniform.

As for me, I've been intermittently very depressed. More so than I can remember in about 10 years. The isolation from family and friends is sometimes more than I can bear in the face of all these challenges. Couple that with my feelings of inadequacy as a mother and the constant pain I have in both feet and I feel quite debilitated. My efforts to carve out my own life are often thwarted by one sickness, tantrum or another. I count my blessings that Andrew is so supportive, willing to leave work, stay up all hours with Parker and back me up when needed.

As I write this, Andrew and Parker are back at the A and E (emergency room) for the third time in two months. Parker's fever just won't quit and the poor thing can't seem to fall and/or stay asleep (which incidentally means, neither can we). The fever has persisted for about three days and now we're really starting to worry. Andrew's just texted me to say that "old faithful has erupted," a reference to the fact that the A and E requires you to "catch" some urine from your baby so that they can run some tests. We experienced this absurdity on our first trip to the A and E with Parker. The nurse very matter-of-factly said, "we'll need a urine sample" and handed us a grapefruit-sized aluminum bowl, which Parker understandably thought to be a hat or chew toy or anything other than a receptacle for his pee-pee. Surprisingly we were able to catch it, but I can't begin to imagine how Andrew has accomplished this ridiculous task on his own. I'm sure one or both of them are now damp with something other than just drool.

So, now I wait for news of little P....

The ups and the downs

So it has now been two months since we set our feet on English soil, and we're all in one piece, living in a nice place, in a nice neighborhood, slowly getting to know the lay of the land. I have a job I like. Nothing has gone wrong. And yet... it's been a tough time these last few days. Karen & I have both been feeling pretty down, exhausted, disoriented. Part of this has been the kids, who in addition to being their usual 1-2 year old handfuls have also been under the weather (Sadie=ear infection, Parker=teething+shots).

Part of our funk has to do with the "two month trough"... I can recall something like this in previous relocations I've done. Basically after two months, the novelty has worn off, adrenaline is gone, the romance of discovering a new culture has started to fade (such that you stop noticing charming little differences between here and home like "wow, aren't oat cakes cool, why don't they eat these back home" ). The basic "survival" mentality of getting everyone fed and clothed has passed. But we haven't yet had time to replace that agenda with anything new and more lasting: we are lacking a daily rhythm of life, weekend routines, a sense of community, connections to others, and -- for Karen more than for me -- a sense of purpose beyond simply raising our wonderful little munchkins. We also are feeling the distance from friends and family more acutely.

We know that, with time, things will get easier, but getting there is a very slow process. Kids+work+shopping+laundry+fixing things when they break simply does not leave room for much else at this point. And things seem to be breaking quite a lot (most recently our washing machine). Most of all looking forward to that time when the kids start sleeping more reliably (and a bit later; Parker if you're reading this I'm referring to you).

Having said all that, some good things to report this week. Our little boy started walking. The long-anticipated first unassisted step finally came a few days ago (Andrea the nanny got the first good look) and the little guy has been on a tear ever since. He can go about one step farther each day... meaning he's currently at about 7 or 8.

Meanwhile Sadie, despite her ear infection, has been generally doing great and attended her first day of "school" today (which will begin in earnest next month). And Karen and I managed to have a fun night out on Sunday, hearing bluesman Joe Louis Walker at the jazz club Ronny Scott's. That was hot!

That London weather

So time for a little weather talk. We've been here nearly two months and are starting to feel a little less like visitors and a little more like locals; and one thing the locals like to do around here is talk (mostly complain) about the weather.

When we first started thinking about moving to the UK, one of the obvious "cons" that came to mind was those rainy, grey, blustery days; the lack of summer heat or autumn color; much of the year spent in dull twilight, deprived of sun and blue sky.

Now a couple of months into it -- early days for sure -- here are a few quick observations:

1) Ok the weather sucks -- but it has not been quite as awful as I had remembered or Karen had been expecting. Much of the time it is indeed cloudy, cool and wet, as described above. Mid-August feels how you'd expect mid-October to feel in New Jersey, and September was really rainy. But there have been some really good days here and there -- such as today (see photo), brilliant sunshine, no wind, t-shirt weather. And it is true that you enjoy those days a lot more when they're sandwiched on either side by many days of bluster.

2) Although Mark Twain was talking about New England when he wrote that if you don't like the weather just wait a few minutes, his observation is all the more applicable to "old" England. You simply can't say "yesterday was ___", because the odds were that it was indeed "___" for part of the day but something very different from "___" for other parts of the day. Clouds come rolling in and roll out again. Fog descends and then burns off (as it did today). Impenetrable rain clouds suddenly disperse, dissected by brilliant rays of light. Empty blue sky fills in a moment with small speckled white clouds, and then turns to dull shimmering grey in a few moments more.

3) Partially because of point #2, weather forecasts are useless here -- absolutely useless. The BBC description of "current conditions" often makes for a good laugh with basic facts like sun/rain completely off, and current temperature differing by as much as 20 degrees from our own thermometer. When it comes to tomorrow's forecast, forget it, this bears even less relation to reality. (In fact it's probably not a good thing that they are calling for 5 uninterrupted days of sun, as they certainly won't be right.)

So this all goes to say that although London is no San Diego or Barcelona, the weather hasn't proven to be quite as much of a negative as expected. The rules are simple. Always bring rain gear. Always be ready to shed or add layers. Keep expectations low. Fortunately the kids don't seem to have developed an appreciation for sunshine yet.

I write all this knowing full well that we are still headed into the eye of the storm: many months ahead of gray, chill and darkness. Which is why we're already starting to think about winter weekend escapes to warmer, sunnier shores.

Mountains to climb.

You didn't know there were mountains in London, did you? This particular one is in the local library. Sadie and Parker delight in going up, up, up, up and down, down, down, down for long periods of time. In fact anyone within a few miles of the library can probably hear Sadie shrieking these words at the top of her lungs. Generally such behavior is not looked upon too favorably in a library. Usually spotted at the bottom of this mountain is some worn-out looking mother trying to gather a few precious moments with a book or magazine while her toddlers occupy themselves above her head. I'm afraid I've become one of those mothers.

I feel as though there are endless mountains to climb on this road to resettlement. And I don't have my climbing gear. Well, ok - not really mountains, but sizable hills. It took me three days to mail a letter. I still can't figure out what we're supposed to do with the piles of recyclables at our front stoop. I've only just begun to feel confident in Mount Underground. And grocery shopping - *sigh* - were it not for the nanny, the kids would eat peanut butter and jelly everyday for lunch. The pile of dirty laundry has become a mountain of its own, despite my effort to do a load daily; there are boxes that have yet to be unpacked. But to be fair, there are boxes in our red, reggie home (as Sadie calls the Maplewood abode) that still haven't been unpacked from when we moved from Jersey City.

My most insurmountable task at the moment however is deciding what to do with myself for the next two years. Do I work towards a career change? Follow a long-dormant desire to study alternative medicine? Learn an instrument? Spend every kid-free moment in one of London's many free museums? Become a certified yoga instructor? Work on satisfying that New Year's resolution of 2004 to learn French? Perhaps the answer to all of those questions is Oui.

Getting to know the A&Es of London

About three hours ago, kids were in bed, dishes were done, and I was just sidling up to our iMac for a quick recap of our relatively uneventful weekend on this blog... when a piercing shriek erupted from Parker's room. Although we've gotten quite good at ignoring the sound of crying moaning/complaining/children at night, this one sounded a little different. Parker rarely gets too fussed about anything, and in his hollering we started to think something might really be wrong. As he writhed and convulsed in Karen's arms, we agreed that it was unusual/scary enough to merit a visit to our local emergency room. Which required finding finding out where our local ER ('A&E' in the local lingo) actually is located (Hampstead, not far), calling a taxi, strapping the howling baby Howell into the Ergo (forward facing) and hopping in. It all happened quite quickly...

...and what do you know, in highly predictable manner, Parker screamed his head off for about 30 seconds in the cab, then got quiet for a minute or so, then started looking around with a fascinated look of 'hold on, this is kind of cool, I'm out on the town with Dad' expression, and showed no signs of any discomfort or distress. From then on, and throughout our 45 minute wait at the A&E, he was back to his normal smiley self, cooing, looking around, reaching for buttons to push (which is not really a good idea in a hospital). When the nurse told me there was a 3 hour wait to be seen by a pediatrician and that my son did indeed seem to be pretty ok, I shrugged my shoulders, hopped back into another minicab, came home and put Parker to bed. Go figure. Since I can't ask him what that was all about -- and indeed the guy is showing no signs of a desire to speak anytime soon outside of grunts and a few spare words ('mama', 'dada', 'dadie' (Sadie), 'baba' (bottle), 'brush') -- it will remain a mystery. In any case given that this was his second visit, he seems eager to get to know the A&Es of London.

And while we're on the topic... I must say I have been impressed by Britain's National Health Service in these two experiences, where in both cases the hospitals seemed to be reasonably well run and the doctors professional. The main thing that strikes an American is the lack of any attempt to charge you for visiting (no billing info taken, they do not even ask for ID, just a name and address). There is something that seems 'right' about such a system, although I know NHS has plenty of its own financial problems. In any case... here's hoping they guy sleeps till morning. 

So any other news will be omitted, except to say that we're feeling rather exhausted with it all, but little by little are making some inroads into feeling at home here. The local Swiss Cottage leisure centre, which we joined this week, has a great gym (with drop off daycare!) that we plan on making a regular part of our weekend routine. And we still love our place: here's a little video tour of our digs.

The bagel and the meatball

This is not referring to new names for Sadie and Parker (although it's not a bad idea) but rather to our triple mission yesterday: obtain bagels, consume meatballs and buy some flatpack furniture. Achieving this involved a complex set of tasks: a) ride foldable bicycle to where Zipcar is parked; b) drive Zipcar home (with bike in the back); c) pile family into car; d) try not to damage car backing out of driveway (only possible thanks to intervention by Karen); e) brave the narrow, poorly-signed, opposite-side-of-the-road London streets with the help of an iPhone navigator that regularly lost contact; g) drive north through Hampstead Heath and look for bagel store with Italian name. And onward.

It started out badly when we hit a street closure in Hampstead Village and headed into a series of exceptionally narrow two-way streets barely wide enough for a single car, involving several high-stress games of chicken (which we tended to win, because other drivers seemed to sense I can't drive in reverse). But somehow we avoided scratches... and the iPhone always seemed to kick into action when it was truly needed. We finally got to a neighborhood called Golders Green and knew we were in luck when we spotted a few yarmulkas. I can't say that Carmelli's bagels blew us New Yorkers away (no everything bagels? and no cream cheese??), but they certainly weren't bad and they managed to quiet the unruly passengers in the back of the car.

Next stop was a certain Swedish furniture chain. Amazingly, we got there in one piece, and unlike bagel shopping, Ikea shopping truly is identical everywhere on the planet, down to the Swedish meatballs and potatoes. Kids had fun it and we emerged, victorious, with a changing table. Mission accomplished.

The fact that we were able to hop into a car at all and attempt this is thanks to one of two innovations that have swept into London since I lived here, the impact of can't be exaggerated for vagabonds like us. The first is the above-mentioned Zipcar, which more or less eliminates the need to own a car. This is an inexpensive, high tech, very well managed alternative. Admittedly, it would be nice it there were one parked a little closer (although there are several within a 10m bike ride), but we're hoping that will change. The second innovation is the Boris Bike -- the brilliant new cycle hire scheme that I'll write about later.

Holy cr@p we have a lot of stuff

So yesterday our container cheerfully showed up on Eton Avenue, London about 6 weeks after pulling away from our driveway in Maplewood, New Jersey. Six weeks seems a long time to be at sea, and it's interesting to speculate what exotic locales our sofa, bicycles and books may have passed on their journey. The Northwest Passage, perhaps? Or maybe Tahiti, Singapore and Dubai? Or just stacked up in the Port of Newark for a month before shooting over. Anyway its all here now: sofa, bicycles, books, various bits and bobs that might possibly come in handy (squash racquet, teepee) as well as a number of items that definitely won't (110volt waffle iron; spice rack; 4 strainers). It's good this stuff is now here, because that takes us one step closer towards feeling settled.

However settled is something we're definitely not yet... for the time being the house is in full state of chaos, boxes everywhere, kids shoes, cutlery and Financial Times piled in various corners... and for whatever reason -- perhaps she's finally getting overwhelmed by all the changes -- Sadie has chosen this moment to unleash her inner demons and become a fulblown "terrible two" again. We're calling her "Naushon Sadie" because she last acted like this at my summer birthday party on Naushon Island: think the girl in the Exorcist, minus the deep voice, 360 head rotation and pea soup. Not a fun companion. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I've had them both most of the day (Karen was out learning about acupuncture) and am ready to drop. Ok, admittedly we did have some fun walking around our neighborhood in the sunny (but cold!) morning, taking us to the great vista at Primrose Hill looking out over London.

Mind the Gap

For those of you following along, you may remember our last attempt at blogging. It was not a heralded success. http://sedonarosehowell.blogspot.com/ I tried. I really did. But frankly, I'm not the best writer, and I agree with Andrew that waxing poetic about the mundane aspects of our daily life seems a little silly. In retrospect, I wish I had been a little more committed to it. Because as mundane as our day-to-day routine may be, there are some pretty interesting and humorous things that happen from time to time. I don't expect to be the main contributor here. I view my role as being the one to fill in the gaps, and perhaps correct Andrew's sometimes overly optimistic view of things.

We interrupt this blog for some breaking news: The truck with our shipment from the states has broken down. I HAD orchestrated the day such that the kids will return from their morning out with the nanny in time to nap in their cribs for the first time in a month and a half. With the truck delayed, napping will not happen. And for all who had witnessed our July with the terrible 2-year-old Sadie, you'll remember that an underslept child is no fun. TWO underslept children is a disaster.

New digs

So we're here, in northwest London... in a charming, spacious and slightly strange residence that will be our home for the next 12 months. Here's our location: we're near the Swiss Cottage tube stop, about halfway between Regent's Park and Hampstead Heath in a neighborhood known as Belsize Park and close to another called St. John's Wood. Our street is lovely, a long row of old world, red brick Victorian fancy mansions (dotted with the occasional post-war modern ugly structure, in a typical London juxtaposition). Our house, like most of these, was long ago converted into flats -- one for each of the 3 floors -- and we have the "garden flat", in this case an appropriate name because there is in fact a very nice garden in the back: a bit too steep for Sadie & Parker to run around back there, but very nice to look at, and in those 3 weeks of summery weather per year, great to sit in! It's a 3-bedroom place with two receptions (living rooms) and really is quite roomy. We're definitely still getting used to the place, and there are some unusual features: a very large number of mirrors, covering most of the closet and bathroom surfaces; elaborate bathtubs with jets that take several hours to fill because of the lack of water pressure; a tremendous capacity for storing shoes; numerous timers that control various outdoor and indoor lighting systems that have never been explained to us. The biggest issue has been a paint smell (the place was repainted and recarpeted before we arrived) that gave us both headaches the first night and seemed to keep Parker from sleeping; hopefully this won't last. In all, we like it and are looking forward to getting settled in.

Whether it was the paint smell, or more generally the new smells and sounds of being in a new place, our very first night here on Saturday was a bust. We'd spend the afternoon at my friend Joe Proctor's (American I knew from Moscow days who's been in London for years) and since he kindly lent us an air mattress we decided to spend the night at our new place, to which we had the keys and nearby but was pretty empty. We had places for the kids to sleep (tent for Sadie, borrowed cot for Parker)... but were missing two key objects: Parker's fuzzy giraffe that he sleeps with, and Karen's ipad, a source of his beloved "ranky tank" music. To make a long story short, the little guy refused to sleep, despite our vigrous efforts, and by 3am we declared defeat and called a cab for Karen & Parker to return to our temporary place. Second night here was also rough as we've put the two kids in the same room to sleep for the first time. But third night, just past, seems to have worked a bit better.

A month into it... and we're still alive

So it's Monday night, and tomorrow we hand over the keys to this temporary place on Kensington High Street, and head over to our "reggie" (regular) new home, as Sadie calls it, up in a neighborhood called Belsize Park, near the Swiss Cottage underground station. We're excited about finally unpacking, albeit a little daunted by the prospect of keeping house without daily maid service and full furnishings. This new place will be decidedly unfurnished, especially for the next couple of weeks until our big load o' stuff arrives from across the sea. Actually, I am told that our container has just landed on the English shores, but is in customs for an indeterminate amount of time. Given the various difficulties we've had with aspects of getting set up here (3 weeks for a bank account -- which seems ridiculous given I work at the place) -- I am not optimistic that we will see our stuff soon. And as Karen just reminded me, we have some contraband oregano and thyme that we shipped over that could technically get us into trouble. So we shall see. In the meantime, we'll be camping.

Will write more about the new place, but for now here's a few words about our old place -- Fraser Residence on the Prince of Wales Terrace in W8 -- on our parting evening. It's been pretty great. Decent size three bedroom with very high ceilings. Downside is that it's not exactly child proofed (it's been a constant struggle to prevent Parker from cliff diving off various pieces of architecture) and some ungainly steps to enter the building that are not easy to navigate solo. But positive points are many: great location just next to Hyde Park (actually Kensington Gardens, which we can see from our balcony), proximity to a couple of awesome boulangeries that seem to have been airlifted from Paris in one piece and dropped into South Kensington; also, the world's most elaborate Whole Foods (and probably most expensive) is nearby; a nice, helpful doorman; and lots of other great stuff nearby. And the maid service. Daily. Did I mention the maid service?

Can't really say it's been an easy month but we have made it and had quite a lot of fun along the way. The first two weeks were the toughest. Frankly, if it weren't for Karen's mother Fran it's hard to say how we would have survived the jetlag, the fussy kids, the sick kid (Parker, with diarrhea and very bad diaper rash that landed us in the ER, or A&E as it's called here), the chilly cool weather, and generally the feeling of dislocation. Karen can chime in about how she felt but I think she was going through a bout of culture shock. (Not that it's all that different, but little differences in how things work, as well as separation from family and friends, can cumulatively wear you down.) It was easier on me... I had work, which I have really enjoyed returning to over here, and I also feel much more at home, having lived in London in 2002-5. But it was a rough period.

Then sometime during the third week, the sun came out. Literally and figuratively. It's hard to say how significant this meteorological development was, but somehow during that week of sunshine and warm weather, we all snapped out of it. Parker's tummy turned it around. We all started sleeping. Fran got to do a little sightseeing. And it dawned on all of us that actually London is a pretty neat place to be. Lots to do, easy enough to get around (esp. if your willing to bleed cash and take taxis), and quite a lot of kids activities.

We suffered another shock with the departure of Fran after week 3, but fortunately we found another saviour: we have really lucked out with our au pair Andrea, from Hungary, who is fantastic with the kids and has really helped us get oriented. She works 30 hours a week and both Sadie and Parker seem very comfortable with her. And Andrea seems capable of managing them both, which is more than Karen or I feel up to much of the time!

In any case... the major hurdle that remains is to get moved and settled into our real place. Which begins tomorrow. More on that to come.

A little background

So here's the quick background: following the repeated 'requests' of Andrew's employers, Andrew, Karen, Sadie (2 1/2) and Parker (1) moved from Maplewood, New Jersey to London, UK in mid August of 2010. We plan on staying for 2 years.

The initial decision to come over was made reluctantly. We had bought a house in Maplewood three years ago and were just starting to feel settled in. The kids are young, and not exactly at a stage in life where travel, or frankly any disruption from routine, is all that easy. Karen had reached the stage where she was ready to go back to work, which won't be possible over here. As for London, it is surely a world class city but also one with several well-publicized negatives: cool and wet weather, expensive, far away from family and friends. I've lived here before (2002-5) but had not exactly pined away for a chance to return. There was, in sum, a lot to be said for staying put.

And yet, there were positive things to be said for doing it. For me the career pull was unambiguous and the move means greater job security, proximity to colleagues, a bump up in pay. For Karen, the chance to experience a new city and culture. For the kids, a opportunity to acquire an English accent for free. Once over the jetlag and an initial case of stomach flu (Parker), they have not seemed to mind being here.  I guess you can say that if we didn't do this now, it would become a lot harder later on. So here we go.

The blogging begins

Having wondered out loud, repeatedly, over the past few years why anyone would want to keep a blog -- not to mention find the time to write one or, for that matter, read one written by other people -- lo and behold, here I am starting one, adding to the verbal flotsam and jetsam in cyberspace... and perhaps, even if neither Karen nor I produce great literature, we'll manage to answer the above questions along the way.

I used to feel that it's a little presumptive for ordinary people to soliloquize about their lives on the assumption that others in cyberspace will find it interesting. But then I started reading my sister's Ellisit blog a few years ago, I realized that (although she's hardly an ordinary person to me anyway) seemingly mundane topics like the challenges of raising kids, balancing life and work, getting through the day, can all become great, entertaining yarns if told right.

Not sure if we'll tell our own mundane tale right... but we do have in our favor a twist: a move to a new country, on a new continent, for a couple of years... with two small children. Heck, there must be some material in there, if not for a novel, then for an occasional persual on a Sunday evening.

So here's to keeping fingers crossed that this works and we'll keep this up.