My sister had a baby

My sister Kristin had a baby yesterday.  Declan Rhys Wurgler O'Brien was born in the morning and is absolutely stunning.

I was able to talk to Kristin shortly after Declan was born and I was completely caught off guard by how emotional I became.  As I was talking to her I heard Declan's squeaky little cry and I lost it.  I started crying so hard.  I got my composure and finished the conversation, but after I hung up I just stood in the middle of my brightly lit kitchen sobbing for quite a long time.  If my neighbours happened to look down into my kitchen windows, I'm sure they would have been quite curious about why I was just standing there crying.

I cried because I am so happy that he is here safe and healthy.  And that my sister is safe and healthy.  I cried because I realised how amazing it is that he is so new and will one day be 5 months like Violet and 3 years like Vivian.  All of that potential and possibility is stored up in his tiny squeaky little self.  I cried because I feel for Kristin and Austin.  They are embarking on the most trying and emotional and difficult and amazing journey of their life.  It is absolutely brutal sometimes and sometimes it's carefree, fun and beautiful.  I also cried a lot because I am so incredibly disappointed to be so incredibly far away from people I love so incredibly much.  It's heart-wrenching.  Truly heart-wrenching.

I'm glad we're here.  I know I'm learning and growing and evolving and improving, but man is it sad to miss out on important things happening to my family!  I keep trying to Seize the Day here.  I try to not dwell on what I'm missing out on but what I'm able to do.  I'm usually quite good at that.  Lately it's been challenging.  And, not only because I'm always exhausted.  It's because I truly, truly, truly wish I was home, holding my new nephew and smelling his gorgeous long, dark hair!

Emily's next.  I hope I recover from this sob session by the time my niece arrives!

Status Update

At the end of my last blog post I said, "I will keep you posted."  Well... it's been almost 3 months since that post and I have obviously not kept you posted.  Sorry!

Violet Elizabeth was born on the 7th of June at St. George's Hospital.  I will write a separate post about the birth experience with the NHS.  It will be revisionist history, but I'll do my best.

Right now I want to record what's going on currently.

First off, Mark got his UK drivers license on Friday!  It was a lot of work and he was really nervous that he wouldn't pass, but he did on his first try!  Prior to taking the practical driving test, he had to pass the theory test and do 5 hours of driving practice with an instructor.  They don't mess around here.

We booked a Zipcar for Saturday so that we could celebrate by driving around... and we did.  The first place I wanted to go was Costco.  I realize how ridiculous this is!  I guess you can take the girl out of America, but you can't take away her love of huge warehouses filled with consumer goods in bulk.  Perhaps I should do some self-examination.

Speaking of self-examination, since Violet's birth I have become quite homesick again.  It makes me sad to be raising my kids far away from our family and friends.  Even in Chicago I missed being close to my family, but at least we could get there relatively easily and without exorbitant cost.  Now in order to come home we have to pay £3,000 minimum and plan for 2-3 weeks for it to make sense.  It's just harder.  I'm really trying to suck the marrow out of life while we're here.  I want to live in the moment and enjoy where we are and all of the things we can access from our home base.  But... it's is really stinking hard to suck the marrow out of life abroad with two small children.  Every time we have a chance to travel, I want to come home to see my family.  When we have free weekends, we enjoy driving to nearby attractions within England, but the thought of packing up all four of us for a few days in a foreign country doesn't really appeal to me all that much.  Don't worry... we're going to do it anyway.  We're making a list of the places we want to see before we move and we're going to do our best to get there... it's just quite challenging.

At this point, we're probably here for about 1-2 more years.  It could definitely be longer if we wanted it to be, but like I've mentioned above, we miss our family and friends!

I'm ready...

When we moved here we kept an open mind because we know of so many people that have come here and loved it so much that they've elected to stay.  I knew that it would have to be amazing, but I have really considered it.  There really is SO MUCH to love about living here.

However, I've decided that I don't want to stay.  Since reaching this conclusion the only thing I can think is: If we know we're not staying then when can we leave?  It's a terrible perspective and I know that.  I need to stop thinking about this.  I need to stop focusing on it.  There's absolutely nothing that we can do right now.  We're probably here for at least 2 more years, so we need to take advantage of what we can while we can.  I just can't help but think that I'm investing in relationships and communities that I'll just leave again.  It's hard.

I had to say something.  I needed to kind of get it off my chest.  I'll now let go of it and start moving forward again.  Perhaps a visit to the Tower of London will cheer me up.  We still haven't been and I'd really love to go.

Now don't start that again...

Today was a great day!  We went to Little Kickers in the morning with Vivian.  She is so cute "playing football."  It's interesting to see her little character come out in these types of situations.  She always hangs back at first - she seems a bit shy.  When there are directions to do something, she doesn't obey them right away but if I repeat them she usually follows my direction.  When they tell all the kids to do something the kids will all take off and Vivian will be hanging back spinning in circles looking at the ceiling or something.  She seems to be a bit of a dreamer.

The mum that I ran into on the bus, Jenny, invited us to join her, Logan, her friend Kara, and her son, also Logan, for a takeaway coffee and playtime at the sandpit.  It was nice.  The boys weren't quite as enamored with the sandpit as Viv so they kept running off causing their mums to chase them, but we still talked a bit and had a nice time.

When Viv woke up we went for an hour-long bike ride in Wandsworth Common and around the bordering neighbourhoods.  It was quite a nice ride and Vivian loved it.  She even peeped in the forest for the first time without a potty.  Quite a milestone!  She's a true "mountain woman" now! :)

So, why after a day like today, do I feel bummed out?  Well, I have heard from several sources that British people don't really talk about their feelings much.  They don't let on that they have any problems.  I found out on Sunday at church that a woman who is 39 weeks pregnant had a baby who died two weeks later last year, so I "shouldn't ask her about her pregnancy."  That warning made me want to ask her even more.  She probably doesn't have anyone to talk to about how hard that was and everyone just ignores that it happened.  When things are hard for me will people around here think I'm just a whiner if I ask for advice or input?  Will I ever really be able to make good friends here?  Am I destined to have the kind of surface level friendships that I am so excited to have now but which will grow quite boring if they never move on past this stage?

The whole setup of tiny family units where one person works and the other stays home is actually quite unhealthy I think.  Within a supportive and family-like community where you have other moms, dads, friends, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles to support you and share in your ups and downs it makes sense, but in our situation - completely isolated from everyone on the planet that we know - it seems completely insane to me.  Even though I have been hard at work recruiting friends, it's not really enough right now.  I crave the closeness of the friends and family that I left behind!

I made a friend today...

But there was a lot more to my day than that.  I don’t really even know what chronology to use to tell this story.  Maybe I’ll follow my old pattern of telling the story from morning to night (I’m getting a bit bored with that, though, so after this I’m going to switch it up).

On Saturday I ordered sheets, towels and a mattress pad from John Lewis, which is a local department store that delivers anything you order to a local grocery store and you can pick it up the next day.  The only reason I can think of that I did that rather than just have it delivered to my house is novelty.  I was excited that I could get something so quickly and pick it up just “down the street.”  I will never do that again.

This morning I thought that Vivi and I could leave early enough to make it to the post office and Waitrose (the local grocery store where my John Lewis goods were delivered) and home for me to throw our new sheets in the wash so that we could leave again to be back to the library by story time at 11.  I was wrong.  We started on our journey just after 9 a.m. and got to the library (which is literally next door to Waitrose) at 10:55 without going home in between.  The amount of time it takes to do anything right now is just bewildering.  Part of it is my attempt to not relegate Viv to her buggy every time we need to walk anywhere, but part is also just that things take a long time here and places are much farther apart than they seem. 

We had to stop by Royal Mail to pick up a parcel that was unsuccessfully delivered on Saturday.  Then we went to Waitrose to pick up our John Lewis order and a few groceries that I needed for dinner tonight.  When I saw the bags that were waiting for me from John Lewis I thought to myself, “well, this will be interesting.”  There were three huge bags.  I completely underestimated how enormous a mattress pad would be (I guess I ordered a particularly fluffy one). 

So, we arrived at story time with a buggy so weighed down with bags and groceries that I kept getting stares from people we passed on the way in.  Story time was a great success in that I made a friend, but weird in that the librarian insists on reading books about monsters scaring the crap out of little kids.  The books actually all ended with the monsters being real and the kids in the books being terrified.  Why, oh why, would you read books like that at a story time?  Vivi doesn’t know what monsters are yet, but all of 4 year olds did and I felt so bad for their parents!

Anyways…

Adults aren’t supposed to talk during story time but I broke the rules today.  The woman next to me had cute boots so I gave her a compliment and then we chatted periodically when there were breaks between books.  Afterwards we talked for about an hour while Vivian sat looking at books and her little boy ran around the library like a wild animal. Once a dad actually walked up to her and asked her if this little chap was hers because he had stolen his daughters drawing and was running around and wouldn’t give it back. Pretty funny and also not that cool, but we’ll deal with that later when I’m not so desperate for a human connection.

She gave me all kinds of advice about finding schools and why that’s important, which toddler/preschool activities are good and bad and what it’s been like for her since she’s moved to London (she’s also an expat – from Poland). 

After our conversation we said that we hoped we would see each other at another story time and then awkwardly said goodbye while we rounded up our stuff and kids.  I kind of just got brave and asked her if she would ever like to come over to our house and play.  I said that I don’t know if people do that here, but I would love to have them come over some time.  She got all smiley and said she would love it.  We exchanged numbers and then went our separate ways.  I was so excited! 

It made the incredibly uncomfortable walk home bearable.  Vivian had to walk and hold my hand, despite being hungry and exhausted, because the buggy was full of our recent acquisitions.  She was so tired that she kept falling down and hurting her knees.  It was raining that really misty kind of rain that gets in your face no matter which direction you face.  By the time we got to our street muscles in my arm that I’d never felt before were cramping up from trying to steer the heavy-laden buggy one-handed while steering Vivian with the other. 

I got home and felt frustrated but laughed it off because that seems to be my most familiar emotion these days. 

As soon as Vivi was in bed I sat down to eat the rest of her lunch and read a deliciously long email from one of my best friends.  I spent the next hour or so sobbing.  I don’t know that I’ve cried that thoroughly in 3 years.  Cheryl lived overseas for 7 or 8 years so she has lots of experience with international adjustments and the emotional roller coaster involved.  Her email detailed some of the things that I’ve been mentioning in my blog and how she can relate or appreciate where I’m coming from.  She told me about what’s going on in her life.  It was wonderful.  It made me feel understood.  It made me feel loved.  It made me feel desperately lonely. 

I sat at the table in our kitchen shaking with sobs during almost all of Vivi’s nap.  When she woke up I had done nothing on my to do list.  I have always hated when people say that there are just not enough hours in a day.  It makes me think that they a) manage their time poorly b) take on too much or c) just say that to get attention.  Well, I said that today.  I’m really trying to be a good mom in the midst of all of this too.  It’s hard.  My mom encouraged me and gave me some ideas of what to do with Viv, so this afternoon we made a cardboard house/fort (we have an overwhelming plethora of cardboard).  She loved it!  I am really going to try to do activities like this every day.  I at least want to try to make the tasks that I’m doing fun for her. 

The dinner I made tonight was supposed to be quick and easy but ended up taking forever.  At one point I spilled garlic powder into the new dish that I was trying.  I had thought that after having a good cry this afternoon I would feel all of the frustration and anger about little things lift or even evaporate.  Not so.  It's still very frustrating trying to dry King Sized (Queen in the US is called King here) sheets on a drying rack.  It's also still frustrating to cook dinner with a 2-year-old begging to be picked up and sticking her head in between your legs.  

I keep saying this type of thing, but maybe, just maybe things will get easier when...