Happy Halloween

Halloween is not a British holiday. Our neighborhood is so filled with expats, however, that it is catching on. Margot was Cinderella for Halloween. This was quite easy as she dresses in her gown most afternoons anyway.

We attended a Halloween parade two weeks ago, where all the American kiddies marched up and down the High Street in costume. Moms, American Moms, dressed as witches were stationed at key spots to distribute candy. As it was October 13, we got a lot of confused looks from the locals. Then, we all marched to the local cinema where they had a screening of Monsters, Inc. Margot loved the event, but any holiday that involves chocolate is a sure-fire hit.

Margot, Owen & I went trick-or-treating on Wednesday night after tea (translation: tea=dinner for kiddies at 5pm). We finally got a glimpse inside the gorgeous house on the corner of our street. Now I can stop peeking through the fence wondering how the other half lives. Very nicely, apparently.

We heard scoop of which streets actually “do” Halloween. We wandered over and joined the masses of Americans and “new adopters” of our spooky holiday. Margot had been practicing saying “trick-or-treat” but didn’t get up the nerve at any of the homes. “I’ll just smile at them,” she told me. That worked.

We collected about 10 pieces of candy when Margot became aware of kids in masks, followed by a freak-out. The timing was perfect. We went home. It was all over in about 30 minutes.

Oh, and Owen was a dragon. Margot collected candy for Owen, and decided she could eat it for him. So thoughtful.

Enjoy some photos.

God Save the Queen and the NY Giants

So the NFL came to London last week. Granted, I generally run in American expat circles, but there was quite a bit of buzz about the game from both locals and foreigners. True American football fans go to great lengths to follow their teams back home.

Andy has ransomed his life to Yahoo! to watch the Jets game each week. He gets the game on the PC, then connects the laptop to the big-screen TV to watch the action. He’ll put up with pixelated images, screen-saver interruptions and full-on crashes just to glimpse Chad throwing another too-short pass. The games run late into the evenings for us. Most Sunday nights he stumbles into bed in the wee hours, cursing another fourth-quarter debacle.

Occasionally, our preferred team will be on Sky Sports, which syndicates games from the US networks. They don’t show American commercials, but fill that time with horrible montages of cheerleaders and highlight reels from past seasons. Inevitably, one highlight shows the Jets blowing some play. The announcers are British, which is odd, or former players-turned-broadcasters who were rejected by the American networks for good reason.

Thousands of Americans flew into London for the big game, including Grandma and Papa and Mary S. When Grandma and Papa passed through customs, the agents were still buzzing about the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders who arrived en masse the day before. I imagine them wearing their sparkly, midriff-bearing outfits and bouncing their way through the line (the cheerleaders, not Grandma and Papa).

On Sunday, we took the tube to the “new” Wembley, only one stop from our home station. There was great excitement as we approached the stadium. People were talking of “history in the making” and flashes were going off as everyone was taking pictures of the stadium, the crowd, the football banners and the giant animatronic Miami Dolphin player.

We split into two groups. I was fortunate to be in the group with Grandma and Papa. As I sat down, I couldn’t help but notice that the 50-yard line literally ran through my seat. Nice. We met some entertaining folks from New Jersey and New York around us, all bemoaning the horrible state of food in London. The place smelled like a KFC as everyone was eating fish-and-chips.

The game opened with the typical fanfare. We realized how many Brits were there when the crowd sang a rousing rendition of God Save the Queen, much louder than The Star-Spangled Banner (but honestly, who can sing that song anyway?)

The football game itself wasn’t all that great. The Miami Dolphins have yet to win a game this season. Our biggest concern was that the NY Giants not lose. The highlight, for many, was the streaker who stole the spotlight during halftime. I missed his performance but Grandma managed to catch him with her digital camera. Good work.

In the end, the Giants won. Grandma collected the names of people in our section who wanted a copy of the streaker photo. A good time was had by all.

Get a better view of the streaker here.

Would You Like Some Fairy Dust with That?

Margot was on term break from nursery this week so we were looking for some activities to fill our days. When Margot was staring into the window of the local Mystical Fairies store (again), we noticed a flyer for Fairy School: two hours of learning to be a fairy, with crafts, cupcakes (aka fairy cakes here), dancing and general fairy-ness. It all sounded like a nightmare to me, but perfect for Margot. So we signed on.

Inside, the fairy store is a floor-to-ceiling pink, sparkly, girly world. To Margot, it's pure magic. It looks to me like someone vomited Pepto-Bismol. The sales people are dressed as fairies. When you buy something, they ask cheerily, "Would you like some fairy dust with that?" It's all I can do to say, "uh, no thank you" and not run screaming.

Anyway, we descended into the cellar, Fairy World. The walls are murals of flowers, stars, fairies and such things. Giant flowers emerge from the walls. It's not a large room and they pack in 20 wannabe fairies and their carers. It was suffocating. My head started to throb. We signed up with two friends: one a potty-training no-show and the other bailed early claiming a pending fever. Cowards!

Each little girl borrows a fairy dress, unless her mom already shelled out 60GBP for one upstairs. Margot elbowed out some other girls for her selection. We soldiered on with sparkly crafts, disco dancing, singing, story-telling, hand-painting (Margot doesn't do face-painting) and fairy-cake decorating. The three fairies who run the event are either great actresses or take some sort of mind-altering drugs. They kept the little ones enthralled and completely believing they were fairies.

Margot had a fabulous time. I didn't deck anyone. We even managed to leave the store without any fairy dust.

Owen is Nine Months: Help Us

At nine months, Owen is a one-man wrecking crew. I’d put him in a playpen if I didn’t think he’d plow right through it.

He is now cruising, pulling himself up on anything, whether it can bear his weight or not. He thinks he can walk which causes considerable problems. He finds himself standing alone and then drops like Marie Osmond in Dancing with the Stars. (Yes, they have it here and I watch it religiously.)

He has sustained his first major head wound, a good bleeder on the eyebrow, crashing into his sister’s closet. Actually, it fits him in some way: The Brooklyn Bleeder.

He recently crawled into my bathroom, pulled himself up on the bidet, lifted the drain out and stuck it in his mouth. His mother screamed. This is a typical moment with Owen.

Luckily, he’s a very happy kid for the most part. He is fighting constant colds, mostly derived from his sister’s germ incubator (aka: nursery). So, he’s not sleeping well which means no one is sleeping well.

Owen constantly pesters his big sister, who is learning the old “shove-and-run.” He appreciates any attention from her, even if it is a kick in the side. He can take it.

Here are a few photos.

Chalk and Cheese

As in, when a British friend of mine saw Owen she said, "Wow! Your kids are chalk and cheese." (Translation: They couldn't be more different.)

Owen is eight months old today. He's officially speed-crawling. If there's some overlooked crumb, choking hazard or Margot toy, he's on it in a flash. He stalks Margot, chasing her around, trying to play with her. Occasionally, she obliges. Mostly she bellows. Fortunately, she's at nursery for three hours every morning so I let Owen play with her stuff then. I'm fully aware that will cause me trouble later.

When Margot does acknowledge his existence, Owen beams. He flashes his four teeth and giggles uncontrollably. It's just hysterical when they both get the sillies.

We think Owen is approaching 22 pounds and Margot is nearly 26 pounds. We might need to start a pool to see when he overtakes her. They've started wrestling. Margot sits on him, and I panic. "Be careful. He's just a baby." Owen just cracks up and gives her the straight-arm. He's not exactly delicate.

We're just entering the clingy, Mommy stage. When I leave the room, he freaks out. As he's generally pretty social, I'm hoping this phase will pass quickly.

Here are a few slice of life photos.

The Harvest Festival

Margot's nursery held their annual Harvest Festival today in the Anglican Church within which school is held.

The kids decorated shoe boxes and we went to Tesco and found some non-perishables to put in them. I explained to Margot that we were going to have a ceremony and offer thanks for the food and donate it to the needy. I went on about how there are people without Mommies and Daddies to make them nice meals and they go hungry. I talked about how nice it is to have a home where we can stay warm and dry. And, I reminded her that they were going to sing songs to make some needy people happy and know that they're loved. She thought about that for a minute. Then, she turns to me and says, "What do you wear to something like that?" She decided a dress might be appropriate. She thought some more. "Will there be clowns?"

So, the parents arrived at the church today and waited for the entrance of the students. They marched into the church carrying their decorated boxes with food, and they each placed their gifts on the church altar. Then, they sat in their seats lined up in front of the altar. The minister welcomed everyone and talked to the kids about food and the harvest, and the importance of saying thank you and sharing food. They fidgeted a lot. Then, the wee ones sang a bunch of food-related songs. Some yelled. Some, like Margot, sat like statues. But it was very cute.

The parents were all standing around taking photos and videos, myself included. Afterwards, one of the parents (a Brit) chastised another Mom (an American) for taking too many photos and using her Flash. He told her it was inappropriate and couldn't she just have waited at the end for a proper group shot (which never would have happened, by the way.) If his tone hadn't been so pompous, she might have let it go. Instead, she turned to him and said, "F*** you."

Ahh, so glad we're celebrating the Harvest together.

Rites of Passage: First Day of Nursery

Margot had her first day of nursery today. She's been in a frenzy all week about starting school. Every morning she burst into our bedroom at 6:30am asking, "Is today the day I start school?" Finally, the day arrived and she almost spontaneously combusted.

Nursery starts at 9:15am so we still had nearly three hours to go. I filled her with a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon and fruit. She fretted about her outfit, finally settling on hot pink t-shirt under a sundress with hot pink socks and hot pink sparkle shoes. She wore her monkey backpack and a purple sparkly headband (because the hot pink sparkle headband broke).

We took some pictures in front of our building and embarked on our 4-minute walk to school, with Owen in the buggy, oblivious to the major milestone. We arrived at school - the Crypt Room of the local Anglican Church - and waited for the doors to open. We were the first, but gradually a bunch of munchkins showed up - some confident alums and some nervous first-timers. The moms looked just as anxious as the kids.

The doors opened and the kids stampeded in. Margot found her hook and hung up her shoe-bag with a change of clothes, her jumper and her monkey backpack. She ran into the room and dove into all the activities - playdough, painting, legos, etc. She was frantically trying to experience everything in the first ten minutes.

A number of the new parents stayed for some transition time, including me. There are four teachers - three women and one man - for 24 students. Strangely, they never introduced themselves to the new students. Neither did they explain procedures like what to do if you have to go potty or that you have to find your nametag and drop it in the mailbox for keeping attendance. I mentioned this to some people, and they felt that was just typically British, fostering self-reliance. They are all kind and excellent caregivers, I just found that lack of structure a little disconcerting on the first day.

After about 20 minutes, I told Margot I was going to leave. She got a bit forlorn and her lips started to quiver. One of the teachers, Lizzie, immediately brought her to the reading corner and started reading her some stories. Margot was engrossed so I made my exit. I lingered outside a bit with some other Moms of new students, then we wandered away not sure what to do with ourselves. We went out for coffee and waited, checking our mobile phones for panic calls from the nursery. Nothing came.

We returned at 11:30am - school goes until 12:15pm but they had us come back early just in case. Margot spotted me through the window and made a break for it. As soon as she saw me, the tears started and we decided to call it a day. She was already clutching an invitation to a birthday party - a wizards and fairies party - in a few weeks.

When we got home, Margot tossed her shoes and backpack aside and threw herself on the floor. She looked like a hostage who, upon release and return to her home country, kneels on the tarmac and kisses the ground, shocked to ever be home again.

She seems to realize that she's going back to school on Monday and everyday. It's going to be a long week.

See more photos here.