Potty training

For the most part, I haven't been taking Abby's potty training too seriously. Basically, she tries to go before baths and occasionally during the day when it seemed she was interested. She usually goes (#1) about half of the time, so we're off to a good start. Anyway, today after church was leaning on the ottoman, assuming her position for pooping. I asked her if she wanted to try the potty chair and she said "Yes" and nodded so we went to the bathroom and I took off her diaper and she sat on the potty chair for a few seconds. She looked down and didn't see anything and I knew she just needed some more time. So I encouraged her to sit down a bit longer, and she sat for about 5 more seconds, then was back up.

I knew she had to go, but just needed a little more time, so I decided to let her go about without a diaper for a bit. I figured that I'd give her a few minutes and see if she'd approach the potty chair on her own, then put a diaper on her. Well, the boys then attacked me with their new library books and we cuddled up in our big leather chair to read about dinosaurs and sharks. Abby was playing near us on the floor and ottoman.

After awhile I noticed something stinky and told Jason that I was quite busy with the boys, so would he please go change Abby's diaper? He really hates changing dirty diapers, but I thought he would maybe do it since the boys and I were so engrossed in our activities. At that point, I asked Abby if she was poopy and if she needed a new diaper. She just kind of whimpered and held our her hand to me. She had something in it..."What is that?" I briefly wondered as I held out my hand. Well, it was...um...her poop. She handed me her poop. "What is that?" Jason asked with complete disgust. Ummm, yeah, it's Abby's poop. He quickly scurried the boys upstairs away from the scene and let me deal with cleaning up myself, Abby and the poop.

I picked her up (with one arm) and carried her to the bathroom (she had, umm, dirtied her foot in the incident...) and dumped my load into the toilet. Then I scrubbed my hand and her's in the sink and cleaned up her foot. She was pretty upset by her poop and I remember Sam being a bit unsettled when he saw what he was able to produce as well (although he didn't try to pick it up). Then I got wipes and wiped up the floor in the area of the incident. Then I got disinfectant spray and wiped up the area again.

All this time I tried to be encouraging while cleaning up the mess and not reveal any disgust so as to not make Abby more fearful of going #2 on the potty in the future. I told her I was happy she made poopy and that next time she should try to potty chair. She basically whimpered throughout the episode and just seemed disgusted by the whole experience. I think this may be a setback in potty training, but I don't have much of a timeline for her anyways. Hopefully I'll have some better potty training stories to report next time, but at least this one was memorable.

London, almost done

Well, on the Thursday of our London week, we were ready to get out of London for awhile and decided to take a trip to Cambridge. We wanted a destination that was relatively close (around a hour or less) and didn't cost too much and was also an interesting place to visit. Cambridge fit that bill, so we made our way to King's Cross railroad station which was a few tube stops from the Great Portland Underground Station (the one near our hotel). Once at King's Cross we were overwhelmed by the size of the station. It really reminded me of an airport with all the white, wide corridors and queuing partitions, except that the final destination was not an airport gate, but a wide, open space where a dozen or so trains were parked, ready to depart at their appointed time. After arriving at the ticket office and purchasing roundtrip tickets to Cambridge for 23 pounds (a one-way ticket was 22 pounds, which we had to have repeated to us like 3 times), we boarded a nice train which headed northeast to Cambridge.

Rapeseed fields viewed from the American Cemetery

Our train ride was an hour and made a few stops along the way. It was nice to see the outskirts of London and some of the hilly countryside. I was surprised to find that overall, the houses remained close together (even in small villages) and yards remained small. We saw lots of horses out to pasture and some flocks of sheep. It was quite quaint and lovely. The fields were often filled with tiny yellow flowers which I later learned were crops of rapeseed (used in cooking oils).

We arrived in Cambridge around 11AM and purchased tickets for an open-top hop on/hop off bus tour right outside the train station. Since we had little idea of how to get around in Cambridge, it seemed like a good way to see a lot of the city and colleges within it. Our tour took us around the city, and pointed out the various historic colleges that together make up the University of Cambridge. We also ended up at the Cambridge American Cemetery on the outskirts of town which is the burial site for a large number of WWII airmen who were based in Cambridge. The memorial building was under construction (see the picture to the right) but it had a beautiful map showing the main air bases in the war and where missions launched from those sites went.

After a short visit at the Cemetery, we rejoined the bus tour for a look at some more of Cambridge. As with London, the it was quite interesting to see the architecture and detail of the buildings which were hundreds of years old. They were just so lovely and picturesque.

 We exited the bus again after viewing some more of the city and proceeded to walk around Cambridge for the duration of our visit. At one point, we ended up within the campus of one of the smaller colleges and found ourselves surrounded by small, but stately looking campus buildings. It was like the buildings on an older US campus, but much smaller, like only a story or two, but faced with roman columns and other aspects of elegant architecture. The bottom picture was taken from the college and is of a nearby cathedral.  

We had a late lunch at a local pub and enjoyed people watching the obviously academic patrons around us. Wow, those people oozed "I am from academia" if anyone ever did. However, the city did not feel like you were on one big campus, as it was quite bustling and full of shops and had a nice sized mall. I was ready for some shopping, and stopped in a few places to look at clothing. I felt much more "at home" in Cambridge than in London. Although there were a lot of people, it had a much less urban feel (for obvious reasons) and I enjoyed the green spaces and trees and the bright blue sky and fresh air.  We walked around a bit more, before heading back to the train station and catching the 4:30 train back to London. That was our visit to the countryside and was a nice way to end our UK trip. After a light dinner, some packing and sleep, we were off the next morning to retrace our steps back to Minnesota. An uneventful ride on the underground to Paddington Station, then a train to Heathrow, some time at the airport, a  9 hour flight back to Minneapolis and we were back where we belonged and glad to be home.

Ahhhh, Summer!

Well, not quite, but at least it feels like summer! Today we set up the pool in the backyard (a new, larger inflatable pool) and had loads of fun playing in it. The boys were outside in the pool for almost 5 hours in the afternoon and Abby enjoyed 2 hours in the pool. Most of their enjoyment was spent in running in and out of the pool rather than sitting in it, but who can blame them when the water is only 6 inches deep? The best part was when I moved our little play structure with a small slide (like a 2 foot slide) over to the pool and for the last hour they took turns going down the slide and splashing into the pool over and over and over. The boys eventually moved on to bypassing the slide, preferring to jump from the platform above the slide directly into the pool. I gave them adequate warning about possibly slipping or stubbing toes or stuff like that, but let them have their fun in their own way and we avoided any major injuries.

Abby had never worn a swimsuit before so she complained "Tight, tight!" when I first put it on, but I finally convinced her that it was supposed to be tight. She didn't have any problems with it after that, until it was time to take it off, then it was "Tight, tight!" again. But she certainly warmed up to "swimming" and ended up being the most soaked despite spending the least amount of time swimming. She doesn't have much of a problem with being splashed or lying down in the water. She doesn't submerge herself completely (thank goodness!), but she is definitely the water baby of the bunch and will need extremely close supervision next to water as she just isn't afraid of it at all!

The boys are also warming up to swimming and getting splashed as they just simply do not like any water in the faces or eyes. Getting water in their eyes is really quite a calamity for those two, although they are improving. Sam's swim lessons this past winter I think helped him become more comfortable with water and Matthew, well, we're still working on it. I think it's probably better having them super afraid than not afraid at all, at least from a safety point, but it sure makes getting their hair and faces washed up a bit difficult. Nevertheless, they still have fun playing in the pool, just keep the water out of their eyes.

I'll finish up my London posts soon in case anyone was wondering what happened to the rest of our trip.

London Part Three

Another London post, although my memory is already fading! Anyway, onto Wednesday of our trip. That morning Jason had a meeting with a hedge fund office on the way to the Museum of Natural History, so we took the underground together part way, he got off at his stop for his meeting while I continued on to the Museum. I decided to go back as I hadn't spent much time there earlier in the week, plus I wanted to get the kids some souvenir dinosaurs from the museum. The museum was quite busy that day and I had to queue for about 15 minutes before getting in, which I guess is not too long of a wait. Fortunately, I already had seen the dinosaur exhibit which was quite busy and instead went to the Earth gallery. The entrance to the Earth gallery is a 3 story escalator which takes you inside of a huge model of the earth (I believe) and then you exit at the top floor of the earth gallery. I meandered my way through the 3 stories of the gallery and looked at exhibits of volcanoes, earthquakes, earth slides and other natural disasters. This area also includes precious metals and gemstones which was quite interesting.  I spent about an hour at the museum before heading back to our hotel to meet Jason after his meeting.

Front of the British Museum

Whitehall Garden

Jason and I both returned about lunch time and got lunch at the same pub we ate at on our first evening in London, The Albany. Then we walked to the British Museum which was about a 20 minute walk to the southeast. The day was beautiful, sunny and around 65 which was pretty much what the weather was like all week. The museum was quite impressive and it was amazing to see huge sculptures from ancient Egyptian and Greek cultures which were thousands of years old. We also got to see the Rosetta Stone and wandered through the European History wing before heading to the courtyard at the entrance to the museum for some afternoon coffee. We were there for maybe an hour and a half and barely scratched the surface of what was there, but we were ready for some fresh air and time outside, so we moved on.

We then took the underground south to the River with plans to see the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace. Our tube stop was about a half mile from Big Ben, so we walked through Whitehall Gardens on our way there and got to see a tree with crutches. It must be an important tree.

Taking a break at the garden

After a short 5 minute walk, we made it to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I was completely shocked by how large the building was, and how high Big Ben is. I had  no idea it was so tall! I was just shocked. We had to take a picture with Big Ben in the background as I had told Sam we were going to visit and he knows what "Big Bently" is as that was in the Cars 2 movie. The building is beautiful and very impressive and really just difficult to describe. It is definitely a must see if one ever goes to London.

We walked past the Houses of Parliament, then passed Westminster Abbey and walked through St James Park which leads to Buckingham Palace. We were quite hot and tired from all of our walking during the day, so we just briefly paused outside the palace gates for a picture before moving on. Surprisingly, Buckingham Palace was not nearly as impressive as the Houses of Parliament or St Paul's Cathedral. It was incredible to think of it as a royal residence, but it simply did not have the same aura as the other areas we'd/I'd seen in London.

We then made our way to the nearest tube station and headed north. When we got off the tube, we were just south of an antiques market I had read about online, Alfie's Antique Market, so we headed north a few blocks in search of the market. We walked through an interesting neighborhood where a food market with many stalls of fresh fish on ice was just finishing up. By food market, I mean that stalls/tables were set up on the street and food was for sale. Once we got to Alfies, Jason and I were quite surprised to find that the antiques were more of the mid-century type (mid-20th century) and were mostly furniture and fixtures, with some other artifacts mixed in. They were quite pricey and nice, but I think we were both expecting older antiques.  

West end of the Houses of Parliament, with Big Ben in the background

As it was nearly 6PM, we were both quite hungry and walked straight east back toward our hotel. We were about 20 minutes from it. We passed Baker Street (did not run into Sherlock Holmes) and Jason wanted to take the tube from Baker Street back to our stop (which was just one stop away from Baker Street). I tried telling him it would just be better to walk as my journeys over the past few days had led me to believe that unless a destination is more than 3 stops away, it's generally faster to just walk. But we went to Baker Street Station, found it extremely crowded as it was rush hour, found the trains extremely crowded, and left Baker Street Station on foot and walked toward our hotel.

Outside Buckingham Palace

Near our hotel, we stopped at Pizza Express for a pizza dinner. I had seen some Pizza Express restaurants around London earlier in the week and thought it sounded, um, cheap, but had read it was really quite good pizza. And it really was quite good. I think that even if I wasn't extremely hungry, it still would have been quite good. We then went back to our hotel, deciding to skip Ukulele night at the Albany which our server had told us about during lunch. Apparently it's open Ukulele night and people just bring their Ukulele's and play together. I'm sure it would have been a great experience, but we were just exhausted from our day.  

London Part Two

So onto the Tower of London. The Tower of London is a former royal residence/prison/fortress probably best known for as a site of a multitude of executions including Anne Boleyn. Today it is the site of the crown jewels. The Tower is actually kind of a village enclosed in thick walls as there is a palace and numerous other buildings on the site. There are tours led by "beefeaters" every half hour and one was starting momentarily when I arrived at the Tower entrance. The tour guide was quite humorous, and joked about the US's youth quite often (the tour was about 1/3 Americans according to a show of hands). We first walked through the gate into the site and were shown where hot oil was poured out of openings on the heads of would-be invaders. Other notorious sites were pointed out during the tour (such as where particular "traitors" entered the site, were tortured and imprisoned and where certain executions were as well as where kings like Henry VIII lived when at the Tower). It was a beautiful day for a tour and ended with a visit to the chapel on the site. I then went to the building which housed the crown jewels and perused the crowns and other royal jewels worn by British royalty for many hundreds of years.

However, the place was quite crowded (although it must not have been too crowded based on the enormous, but completely empty, space for queuing to see the crown jewels) and I didn't spend too much time after the tour browsing around. I then headed north of the Tower and made my way to Spitalfield's Market which was about a 15 minute walk. The Market is supposed to be quite good and I was hoping to find some fabric, but Tuesday is not a big market day, so there wasn't a lot to look at and I ended up just getting lunch at a burger place (and it was a fabulous burger). Given the lack of stuff at the market, I had more time than I anticipated, so I decided to head further north to a museum I had read about in my London book. It was The Geffrye--Museum of the Home and was another 15 minute walk to the north. The neighborhood I walked through was not as nice and touristy as the other areas I had been in, but nevertheless, there were always people around and the streets were busy so I felt quite safe.

I really enjoyed the Geffrye Museum. It has a series of "rooms" decorated and furnished according to different time periods starting in the 1600s. The exhibits with each period room had information about what architecture was like at the time, and how homes were managed (like what women's roles were and so on). The outside of the museum had a series of gardens arranged and planted according to what was common during different time periods. It was quite lovely and interesting to see the different functions and forms that gardens and landscaping took over the past 400 years. In addition to the period gardens, there was a large, quiet  garden space with benches and I relished the quiet (although, of course, there were a number of other people in the park as well) and read a bit before I headed back in the way I had came, toward the Liverpool underground station, which was near Spitalfields. I got on the underground back to Great Portland Street station which is right by our hotel and it was around 5 PM. I estimate that I walked around 5 miles during my travels that day.

Jason was back from his conference, so we then decided to go to a pub Jason had read about, “The Green Man”, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. After sitting at our table at the pub for quite some time, we discovered that ordering at a pub is done at the counter. However, we finally placed our order and tried some more local beers and ciders and enjoyed the ambiance of a local pub. Jason again tried some traditional fare (fish and chips) and I ordered, um, chicken strips. But they were really good chicken strips! It was also interesting that outside the pub there were just a bunch of people standing around within a roped off area drinking their drinks. Sidewalk space (and patios for that matter) is hard to come by in London, so people just stand outside pubs with their beers. It’s treated like an extension of the pub, but there just aren’t tables.

We again retired rather early, around 9PM, but then Jason woke up around 11AM and watched some TV for a few hours before falling asleep again.    

London, Part one

Last week the kids were in Iowa and Jason and I went to London. Jason got an invitation to attend a conference in London and my parents generously offered to watch the kids if I wanted to go with, so we booked a six day trip . Jason attended the conference for two days and had a morning meeting another day, so I was on my own sightseeing for part of the time. I'm just going to write a synopsis of what I/we did more for my own memory than anything else.

On Saturday, June 1, we drove to Iowa, got the kids' rooms arranged, had lunch, said goodbye to the folks and kids, wished them well and drove back to MN. The goodbye was not too teary, Sam was a little sad, but quickly moved on to playing when we were driving out. Abby and Matthew were both napping so there were no outbursts from them (not that Matthew would have made a scene, but Abby surely would have). Our flight wasn't until 9:30PM, so when we got home Jason mowed the lawn and I cleaned, then we finished packing. After an uneventful, 8 hour, overnight (in which I slept maybe 2 hours max, and Jason slept maybe 4 hours) flight, we arrived in London at 11:15AM local time. We managed to get out of Heathrow which involved two train rides, then got to Paddington Station and got on the underground to the station near our hotel.

We stayed at the Melia White House in the Bloomsbury area of London, which is on the north central edge of the main center of London. After freshening up, we took a 20 minute walk north to the Camden area to explore the Camden markets. The markets were crazy. Stall after stall after stall on street after street in building after building. People everywhere. Welcome to London. Busy, bustling. After talking to a vendor we learned that this wasn't even a very busy market day. I sure wouldn't want to be there then as it was plenty busy for me.

We walked back toward our hotel after about an hour or so of madness and went to a local pub for dinner. Jason had bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes) and I had a potpie. Both were  "traditional British fare" and very good as were the local beers and ciders which we tried. At around 7PM we went back to our room and feel asleep pretty much right away. We both slept for a few hours, then woke up at 11PM and were up for a couple of hours watching tv and movies before falling asleep again, then getting up at 7AM. Our sleep was all out of whack from the lack of sleep on the flight, then the 6-hour time change.

Breakfast on Monday of our trip, as most days, consisted for Jason heading out to Pret a Manger (translated "ready to eat" in French ) and picking up yogurt parfaits, fruit and a pastry to share. The food at Pret was very good and it was conveniently located just across the street from our hotel (but there are Pret's everywhere, so it's not unusual that we were just minutes from one). Jason headed off to his conference a little before 9 and I ventured out for the morning around 10.

After about 20 minutes on the tube (the London Underground or subway), I made it to the Museum of Natural History. It wasn't too busy that day (meaning I didn't have to wait or "queue" at all to get in) and I perused the dinosaur exhibit and mammals exhibit before heading out. The dinosaur exhibit included an animated T-rex which was pretty scary looking and there was a little girl screaming as she didn't want to walk by it (it was on a one-way walkway) and I knew my little kids would be doing the same thing if they were there. Although I wanted to see more of the museum, I was rather hungry by that time (11ish) and wanted to head to my next destination before eating as it was reported to be a good place to get coffee and good food. So then I moved on to the Victoria and Albert Museum of Decorative Arts which was right next door. I spent a few hours there, wandering through the exhibits displaying jewelry, fashion, pottery, furniture, table ware, portraits, sculpture and so on from ancient times to today. I really enjoyed the museum and enjoyed getting a latte and lunch and eating it in the garden space in the middle of the museum.


I then ventured away from the museums and walked half a mile to a fabric shop which I read about online. Navigating London isn't always too easy as the streets aren't always easily marked (meaning there weren't always street signs) and often the streets names change every few blocks. In main touristy/historical areas there are signs with maps of the area on them located on nearly every block, but this was not the case where I was at. However, I found my shop with little problem, purchased enough Liberty of London fabric to make something for myself and Abby and made my way back to the nearby underground station for the return trip to our hotel.

I returned around 3:30, then Jason returned from his conference around 4. We decided to go to Trafalger Square (which is often the location of large demonstrations and there was a demonstration there that night in support of the uprising in Turkey) and the National Portrait Gallery. After another short trip on the tube we arrived at the gallery, spent some time looking at the lovely art and sitting by the fountains in Trafalger. We then wandered around the area and found a Mexican restaurant off of Oxford Street (which is known for high-end fashion stores) and had an excellent fajita dinner. After a short stint on the tube which ended with our train being held at a station due to a medical emergency of a passenger, we exited and walked about 20 minutes back to our hotel.  We again fell asleep rather early, only to wake in the middle of the night, and be up for a few hours before getting back to sleep.

St Paul's front entrance

On Tuesday Jason again attended the conference while I started my day at St. Paul's Cathedral, which was about a 10 minute tube ride and a 10 minute walk away.  The 300 year old cathedral is quite spectacular and pictures of it simply don't convey its immensity and splendor. While it's not a skyscraper, it is 75 feet taller than the US capitol building. I arrived just after opening (around 9AM) and wandered around it for about 45 minutes. Before leaving, I climbed 257 steps up a wide spiral staircase to the balcony of the interior dome of the cathedral (called the "Whispering Gallery"). The balcony was probably around 3 feet wide and encircled the interior dome. Although I'm not afraid of heights, it was a bit unsettling to be so high, plus the balcony slanted slightly down and I didn't spend too much time there. Instead, I went about 1/3 of the way around the balcony to a small doorway which led to a very narrow and steep spiral staircase which after another 100 or so steps, led to the "stone gallery" which encircles the outside dome of the cathedral. The gallery provides excellent views of London and was quite breathtaking.

View of London from the Stone Gallery. The "Shard" is on the left, Tate Modern is the column on the far right, the Thames in the middle

St Paul's dome from across the Thames. 

After leaving the cathedral, I crossed the Thames on the Millennium foot bridge which can be seen in the right side of the picture to the right and made my way to the Tate Modern. Once there I enjoyed an excellent latte on their patio on the river and then looked at some modern art which wasn't quite to my liking.

Tower Bridge

I then walked along the south side of the Thames for just about a mile until I reached the Tower Bridge which leads to the Tower of London. By this time it was about noon, and although I was hungry, I didn't want to stop for lunch as the area was rather crowded and I wanted to find a quieter place for a break. So I decided to go to the Tower of London first, then find somewhere for lunch.

I'll write more about the Tower of London and our other travels in future posts.