EMP in the US

We had a really good weekend.

On Saturday we became membership of the Montshire Museum of Science, which is about 5 minutes in the car from us. A lot of people with kids spend a lot of time here in the winter apparently, and in the summer there is a water park the kids can splash around in outside, so I think we’ll certainly get our money’s worth. It looks like this: Montshire .

Then on Sunday, our next-door-neighbour’s eldest turned 5 so they had a BBQ. We had a really great time, starting around 3pm, and finally breaking off at around 9 to get tired kids to bed. It was good to feel that we’d made some friends, and have a glass of wine in company. Speaking of wine, we thought we may have to switch to Californian wine, as the Rioja is probably a bit pricey, considering the shipping distance, but unbelievably, we can get Riojas here – they even have Marques de RIscal in our local supermarket. In the end though, I went for a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which I got to like a lot on my various dining out trips in Uxbridge. The only drawback was that I could ounly find a 1.5 litre bottle! So, it felt good to be able to take that to the barbeque and share it.

Unfortunately, my laptop just died, so I’m operating on the imac for now, so posting might be a bit erratic!

Here are the photos from the BBQ:

So today we hung around the house partly because it was raining pretty hard, but also we were going to meet the paediatrician at 1pm. It had stopped raining by then, and was hot again, so I put the boys in the buggy and walked. The doctor was quite simply the best doctor I’ve ever met. (in consults obviously – friends and family excepted!) She was so great with the boys, and spent 45 minutes giving Thomas a thorough check up. She checked EVERYTHING! She let Thomas play with all her expensive equipment (my heart was in my throat in case he broke any of it!) She even took his blood pressure, which I’ve never seen before. I was totally impressed, more so when she told me she had her first baby before med school, and subsequently had 3 more! Anyway, she said Thomas was very healthy and well, and smart. I only booked the appointment yesterday, and they had already transcribed the scribbles from the whole of his U.K Child Health Book onto the system, and she had a print-out ready of all his immunisations. Thomas is 99cm tall (about 39inches) and weighs 14.5 kg, about 32 pounds.

The boys had been pretty well behaved actually, so as a treat, we got the paints out.

This post will mostly be about Ollie. He just turned around to me and said, “mummy, be quiet, I’m reading.” Which is strange to hear from your little baby. Still, I have to admit, he really isn’t a baby any more. He’s now climbing out of his cot. Regularly. At 3 in the morning. What’s annoying about this is that after five minutes in our bed, he asks to go back in his cot, which he can’t do by himself. We have a trip to IKEA planned, it’s just not happened yet.

The boys have finally been to something more than once, which I think helped both of them feel better, like there was something more familiar going on. This has improved morale a lot, and along with being able to play with their friends in the street more this week, I think they are settling down. Also, I’ve been taking more time out to actually spend with them. I realised I was trying to get them doing something, so that I could rush around unpacking or phoning people, trying to organise etc. I think that’s why they’ve been fighting with each other more – as it gets my attention. I’ve only made the effort for two days, and already they are getting on better. It’s true that if you can see these faults in others, they are hard to spot in yourself. I remember watching Supernanny, and when she got the family to sit down and play a game with each other, the parents were amazed how much better the kids behaved. It seemed totally obvious to me, and yet here I was doing the same as those parents.

I’ve also been making friends. We tried out a “parent and child” group at a church in Norwich. This was disappointing in that we were the only family that turned up, but great in that we met the associate pastor, who was just what I needed. She got some paints and paper out for the kids, which gave us the opportunity to chat. If she is the ambassador for her church, she is very good at her job, and I hope to keep in touch with her. In all, I had had three intelligent adult conversations yesterday, which have helped to boost my morale too.

The best news so far is that I finally have a proper mobile phone and what’s more, it’s an iPhone. David was right all along. It does outclass every other. Everything is so easy. I’ve added some $0.99 applications which are great for emergency distraction for the boys.

Anyway, that’s all for now, I must dash – promised Thomas a game of connect 4.

Just some things about moving far away, so that I know for next time.

1. there’s a lot of buying and then taking things back
2. there’s a lot of starting and then cancelling.
3. you go through a lot of different coffees…

We opened a U.S HSBC account, thinking that would be more efficient and cheaper, as we already had a U.K one, to move money between countries. Nope.

Thankfully, all our experiences so far have been very good ones, even refunding swimming lessons over the phone, and emailing me the receipt!

I was feeling a bit low today, partly as I felt a lot like an outsider. I tried out the swimming pool at White River Junction, a town about 5 miles away. It wasn’t as great as I’d expected – I think I imagined aqua pools to be just like in the U.K but enormous. Of course there are those here, and there are also some of those in the U.K too. Anyway, this one wasn’t. It was small. It started badly in that most of it was closed off for lessons, so there was barely anywhere for us to go. It was also expensive – $15 for me and 7 for Thomas, so considering we had to choose between an ankle-deep pool or the rapids, I felt a bit cheated. When I went to put Thomas’ armbands on, I was told they weren’t allowed in the pool. Only coastguard-approved life vests were allowed. The chap was very nice about it, but I was a bit embarrassed. Then when we took refuge from the rapids in a tiny rectangular offshoot, some chap said, “excuse me, ma’am, but we’re in the middle of a lesson here”. Again, he was nice about it, but I felt bad. In the end we sailed round the rapids about 10 times and got out. That was another thing. The changing rooms were nice, though communal, and there had been a sign on the door saying, “no children this side”. I had no idea what they were talking about – I mean, where were you supposed to put them? It’s only when we were dressed and out the door, that I noticed another door, and another sign that said “Ladies and children – please don’t take children to the adults only side”. No one had complained or anything, but again I felt a little bad for getting it wrong.

I think this is why I was feeling so miserable. I hate getting things wrong, and I hate not knowing stuff. This is fine in the cosy world of academia, where you get time and equipment to find things out, but in the big bad world, you sometimes have to actually get it wrong to find out. That makes me uneasy. Still, I always complain that I’m too timid and worry too much about what other people think, so this is total immersion therapy for me. I don’t like it, but it’s probably doing me a world of good. Maybe when I get back to England, I’ll be a bit less mousy and stand up for myself, without the fear of “GETTING IT WRONG!”

I think the general stress of this has been getting to me, as I’ve been shouting at the kids a lot and their behaviour seems to have deteriorated because of it. I’ve had to stop smacking them on the hand, as Ollie takes a swipe at whoever is closest when he’s annoyed, and he’s only copying. I think if I make a concerted effort from now on, he won’t do that any more, and if I shout less, the kids will calm down again too – I’m sure they are just reflecting what they see. I’ve told them I won’t be smacking them any more, and I’ll also try not to shout, and in return they have to be good (hah).

Thankfully we went out for dinner to a quasi-mexican restaurant called “Margaritas”. This was perfect for what we needed. Tasty, spicy and fun for the kids. A mojito was thrust upon me, and it did actually make me feel a little better – that “what the hey!” Caribbean feeling rather than the stress and worry of “fitting in”.

In case you are interested I had a “taco salad” it looked like this:

Needless to say, I didn’t finish it.

As we were leaving David pointed out the beautiful sun setting over the mountains – he’s always the one reminding me to smell the roses along the way…

You are not going to believe this…

Did I mention I’d booked swimming lessons for Thomas in the next town called Lebanon? Did I mention how cheap they were? Can you please picture in your mind just how excited Thomas is that he’s going for his first swimming lesson tomorrow?

So, I couldn’t understand why I was having such trouble finding it on the map. Finally, with building dread, I went to the website, copied and pasted the address, and BINGO! I did find it. However, it turns out that it’s actually in OREGON. I booked Thomas swimming lessons in the state of OREGON, in a town called Lebanon. Just to give you an idea of how far away that is:

In my defence, the address given said 1800 South 5th Street, Lebanon, OR 97355. My untrained eye took the OR to be a conjunction, not a state, still, I’m going to spend the rest of my waking hours, of which I suspect there will be many, working out exactly how to tell Thomas why he doesn’t have a swimming lesson tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after…

We are getting into the consumer feeling. That, or we are still trying to stock our lives with all the things we feel we need to live comfortably. Like Buy N’ Large from Wall-E, Walmart fills all the holes in our souls. We were suffering from the lack of sound. The imac speakers are ok, but we like moosic with a large dynamic range, so we bought an amp with speakers. It’s 5.1, has a subwoofer, and the brand is RCA, but ultimately it’s Walmart and it cost $150. It’s not as loud as we’d like, but it’ll do for now, and at least we can get the kids bopping again!

Also while there we furnished the boys with some wheels. No longer will they have to sadly watch the other kids all whizzing past them spokes flashing in the evening sun. They can join in too:

Also, I thought I’d show you what the walk to the playpark looks like:

The playpark itself is amazing. It’s part of the school playground, but when school’s out anyone can use it. I could barely capture it all in one picture! There is also a smaller one next to it, for younger kids. And best of all, Ollie can manage the walk there and back without a buggy – that’s how close it is!

So I’m just messing about with the meta data with the blog, and I need to edit my own home page to link to this blog. I was just checking what google brings up about me.  If you type “elise chohan” into google, you get my website – I’ve had this ages – almost 10 years probably!  This has a link to my old blog, and hopefully (in a minute) to my new blog.  BUT if you search “Elise Plans” in google, you do get my twitter account and my facebook account, but not my blog.  I suspect this is because it’s too new, and there are not many pages linking to it.   What was also interesting is that someone has a wordpress blog called “Elise Travels”.  It is some student at Niagra College planning to visit Europe, and document her travels.  Well, good for her.  Her homepage brings up the words “Elise Plans a Trip” – of course!  I might make contact with her.  Her blog is here: Elise Travels .

Just a quick post for today.  We went to the Hanover Streetfest, which was really good fun.  We got free sombraros, lots of freshly-made lemonade, and a look at the fire trucks – though I think I was the only one really interested in those!  There was lots of music and dancing, a really good atmosphere.  Noticeably, no one was drunk, or trying to be.   It was all very quaint.  One of the stalls in the side street was selling ski-boots and sallopettes. Another was selling skiis and snowboards.  Now, unless the locals all know something we don’t, I hope they were just getting in early to avoid the rush!

Can you guess what “Ped Xing” is? Well, obviously, it means pedestrian crossing.

I’m just about getting the hang of turning right on red lights, unless there is a “walk” sign on a ped xing.

Unbelievably, I’m having trouble getting any sort of nappy soak, or milton, or napisan, or the like.  I’m astonished, as this part of the U.S is pretty hot on “being green”.  Still, I’ve found out that this isn’t necessarily because there are no washable-nappy users here, but that the people that are feel that nappy soaks, such as I’ve mentioned above, are just too bad for the environment, and the nappies themselves, and their babies’ bottoms.  I’ve bought something from a website in the end, which is quite expensive, but I think it will be better than the cheapest Wallmart washing liquid.

I’m getting my bearings a bit now, and managed to drive to the big stores without the GPS, and then home again, avoiding the highway.   Another americanism, which made me smile:  on some roadworks, I wondered why they would pay some poor guy to stand there holding a sign saying “slow”. I mean, surely they could find a pole and some sandbags to hold up the sign.   It was only later, on some other roadworks that I actually saw the sign on the other side, which says “stop”.  This is obviously the stop-go signs we also have in the UK, but with “slow” substituting “GO!”

“GOOD JOB!” is what they say to kids here instead of “well done”.  It’s actually a clever thing to say, as if you want to say “good boy/girl” you sort of need to know which it is, and it’s not always obvious.

I gave in and bought an iron today.  It’s still in the boot of the car, mind, but it turns out that if you have a tumble dryer, you have to take the stuff out straight away, otherwise it’s all crumpled.  I’d almost rather brave the basement stairs with a heavy laundry basket and hang it outside, if it wasn’t for the fact that we’ve had pretty much 99% humidity every day so far!

I am going to leave you with a picture of what I made myself for lunch today.  I’m not really a salad person, but I’m DEFINITELY a salad-dressing person, which means I can eat the healthy stuff as long as it’s smothered in some sort of oil-based loveliness!  We have ranch dressing in the fridge at the moment. The chicken is some marinated chicken breast which was supposed to be the kids’ dinner the other day, but the marinade was “Buffalo” which was spicier than I expected, so the boys would have complained too much!

I must go and play with my new phone…