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Heidi Chronicles

Life (In London), Medicated

Merry Christmas Eve!

Filed under: Aaron, Bday/Anniv/Holiday, Elena, Liam, Life In London — Heidi at 9:47 am on Thursday, December 25, 2008

2008.12.14 Christmas Eve-35

How it’s going.

Filed under: Aaron, Blah Blah Blah, Elena, Liam, Life In London, Mommyhood — Heidi at 11:22 pm on Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Well, Elena is pretty much back to her old self today.  She got up at 4.30 this morning, pounded on her door for about an hour, and then eventually fell asleep next to the door after I turned up our white noise machine, slid food through a crack in her door and handed her milk and went back to bed.  When I went to get her from her nap this afternoon, I found her in the dark sitting on her knees on her rug with Stinky Pinky over her head.  When she pulled SP off and came out, she proudly informed me that “Eh-nih-nah has bwuud fwom da bike, Mama!” and showed me that she had taken off the bandage covering her cut.

That one has a mind of her own. Yesterday I found her perched on the tall radiator in Liam’s room hiding behind the curtain while she was trying to poop.  The girl likes her privacy.

Liam, on the other hand, came down from his room nekkid yesterday with Avery following close behind in just her underwear.  I have yet to figure out what happened, but when Jenn went up to check on everyone, they were nearly nude and nude and Elena was in the bathroom with a cup leaning over the toilet and water was everywhere.  I did finally get out of Liam that he had to poop and everyone came into the bathroom with him…except Jack. I guess Jack respects other people’s privacy.

Aaron is home for the week now and we went to the grocery store as a family today.  That was quite a trip.  I’m glad we went though, because AJ got me these super cool ceramic pint glasses for my tea.  I’m always stealing his glass pint mugs and they’re never really clean when he wants to use them because I’ve turned British and I drink tea all the time - even if it is herbal (her-bal, not er-bal) and doesn’t count in the eyes of the Brits.

Anyway, the grocery store was crazy, but it’s always crazy here, so I wasn’t sure if it was just crazy or if it was Christmas crazy.  I saw a woman getting hounded about whether or not she had shoplifted, though she swore on her baby boy that she hadn’t stolen anything, and there was a fire truck parked outside when I left the store.  Liam wondered what was going on, but I knew since I’d seen the fire man guy buying milk in the dairy aisle.  I guess they feel like they need to get some use out of the big truck, so off to the grocery store it is.  They actually did ask Liam if he wanted to climb in the truck, and in typical Liam fashion, he said, “no” in his quiet voice and got shy.  Evidently the fire dude was shocked, obviously.

It really doesn’t feel much like the holidays around here.  The weather has been decent (by that I mean grey and not that cold, and no rain) and this morning I didn’t wear a coat when the kids and I went out to walk to Jenn’s.  I haven’t seen snow and I do miss that, but I have to admit that even though it’s my first Christmas season outside of Kansas, I do not miss being there.  I certainly miss people, but I don’t miss the craziness.  It’s really calm here - maybe because we live in a Jewish neighborhood??  We’re planning to get together with friends a couple times during the break and we’re going to take a few day trips to take advantage of the time we have since at this point we don’t know if we’re going to be able to stay a third year (schooling is ridiculously expensive and this subject requires its own post to explain).

At any rate, I’m looking forward to the down time and not having to run from place to place.  And while I’m sad that I’m not going to see everyone in January either, I can’t believe the sense of relief I feel at not having any dates set on which I will be responsible for taking two small children on a plane.

Here’s wishing all of you happy holidays, whatever you celebrate, or just a nice day off if you’re not celebrating anything!

How our visit to the Christmas market today turned into a run-in with NHS.

Filed under: Aaron, Elena, Liam, Life In London, Mommyhood, Ugh — Heidi at 10:08 pm on Saturday, December 20, 2008

Well, our day ended up being rather eventful in a way that one would have difficulty planning.

We drove into the city to go to a Christmas market to get us into the spirit.  The drive was nice.  We drove past Big Ben

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and Buckingham Palace

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so now both the kids have seen them and we don’t actually have to take them there. I thought it was rather nice.

The Christmas market turned out to be better than our outing last year so that was a plus.

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It smelled amazing…lots of crepes, roasted nuts, sausages, and a very proud pig man yelling at everyone who walked by that they needed to try his pork.

“Don’t panic, it’s organic.” and “Have a taste, don’t let it waste.” are a few that come to mind.

Aaron got me a cup of coffee, got himself a crepe, and I got the kids their lunch, and we were on our way again. We were through the market so we were just walking along the Thames - on the LEFT, I might add - when all of the sudden there was a guy on a bike trying to go between the stroller and the fence (like the one above) on the Thames and there wasn’t enough room for him to get by. He tried to slow down, but got a handlebar stuck in the fence. He went flying off the front of the bike and the back of the bike flew around and struck Elena in the forehead.

She cried immediately and was a bloody mess by the time I even thought to do anything. Fortunately I had a diaper handy and used that to stop the blood and put pressure on the wound. The cyclist was ok and as he stood quietly freaking out on the inside, Elena was screaming, Liam was eating his piece of pizza, and Aaron was trying to decide if we should call 999 for an ambulance. I took that moment to look under the diaper, which was a stupid thing to do since I could see Elena’s skull.

The cut wasn’t big, but it was deep.  I think the middle of the end of the pedal or the center of the tire where the bike frame connects to it must have hit her.  I knew it was going to be fine, but the skull thing got to me and I had to sit down.

When I was able to get back up, the conversation was over, Liam was still eating, and it sounded like the hospital was about a 15-minute walk away, so we called and eventually we had a security guy come over and he helped us with minor first aid

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while we waited for the ambulance, which took far longer than 15 minutes to get to where we were under the Millennium Bridge.

Elena was calm by the time we got in the ambulance and Liam was scared to death that they were going to turn on the sirens so he wouldn’t stop asking while we were trying to answer the EMT’s questions along with the police officer’s. Poor kid. The EMT finally promised him no siren and he just looked around with a piece of pizza in one hand and a clementine in the other. He was so enamored with the inner workings of the ambulance that he completely forgot to eat.

Both kids enjoyed the ride and I was glad we’d called for an ambulance so that they had some excitement because when we got to the A&E centre (Accident & Emergency, also known as Casualty) I had never seen an emergency waiting room that big or that full.

I was shaken and exhausted and I just wanted to get the hell out of there and get home, but I had absolutely no expectation about the amount of time it would take since everything is slow here anyway.

It was a good thing I was mentally prepared because it was basically a little over four hours between the the time we called for an ambulance and when we left the hospital.

Elena got hit around 11.20. The motorcycle EMT arrived around 11.40.  The ambulance arrived around 11.50.  We arrived at the hospital around 12.15. She was seen for assessment around 12.40 and at 1 they came into the waiting area to give her some pain medication. She fell asleep around 1.45 and they called us back around 2.45. There was an emergency, so the pediatric nurse had to leave. She sent in someone from regular emergency and he finally came in around 3.30. He cleaned Elena up and glued her head around 3.40. We walked out around 3.45.

That’s a long-ass time for a two and four year old to sit still and be patient. They were both so good.  I was so proud of them!

As much as it sucked, it was an interesting experience and I can’t complain too much about the facility because there weren’t any charges (though it’s certainly wasn’t free since we pay taxes in the UK).

As far as the facilities go, let’s just say it wasn’t the most technologically advanced location, and we were only in the eye exam room.  I’d hate to see the operating room.

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Also, I saw that the drug cabinet had a note that if it was left unlocked one more time it would be cleaned out and they would have to go and get the drugs from Team C, whatever that means.  It was open and cleaned out, so I guess they had another incidence.  And it looked like it had been pried open on several occasions.

But, like I said, I’m not complaining (too much).

So, we’re home, we’re tired, and we will not be attending any more Christmas markets in London.  I’m done.

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And for those of you who, like my sister, aren’t freaked out by things of this nature, you can see what it looked like before they glued it here.  It really didn’t look too bad once they cleaned it up.  I’ll put some Mederma on it once it’s healed and she’ll be right as rain in no time.

Clearly I will be famous for this.

Filed under: Blah Blah Blah — Heidi at 11:40 pm on Friday, December 19, 2008

Here it is.  My first published photograph:  Lovely Dublin.

Yeah, go take a look.  I have no idea what Schmap is all about, but they found my picture on Flickr and they asked really nicely and told me they’d credit me so I gave them permission.

That’s what nice-talk will get ya, people.  Now, if only it worked on service people in England.

It’s no sugar cookie.

Filed under: Blah Blah Blah, Elena, Friends, Liam, Life In London, Mommyhood — Heidi at 10:58 pm on Friday, December 19, 2008

Since I’ve been sugar free for a little over four months now, I decided that I it would be best if I didn’t do my normal crazy holiday baking this year.  It actually doesn’t sound good now that I know how bad it really does make me feel, and we don’t need it anyway, so I decided that we’d try our hand at making ornaments out of salt dough using all of the cookie cutters.  Then, just to make it interesting, I invited some other moms over and we all bellied up to the table and helped the kids (ages 19 months to 4 years) make a complete mess with the overly sticky dough.

I didn’t get any pics of the actual mess since my hands were covered in it as well, but here’s who was here.

Grace, Avery, Baby-To-Be, Ava, and Cheryl,

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Jack, Jenn, Avery, Elena, Liam,

2008.12.19 Making dough ornaments

and Hannah.  (Liam and Avery’s friend Gracie was here for awhile as well.)

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And here’s what we actually accomplished. Our friends made these before they got tired of messing in the goo.  Purple tree with lights and blue tree belong to Hannah (I’m guessing, but pretty sure on most of these.), the two orange ones belong to Gracie, The star and the light belong to Ava.  Plain purple tree?  Haven’t the slightest.

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Then, Liam and I made the following, which are separate because he wanted me to take a picture of just he ones we did.

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It was AWESOME until Elena nearly killed the snowman I was working on.  Everyone thought she had grabbed a knife the way I came sailing across the room to get her before she touched it.  I did manage to save Mr. Snowman (see bottom picture, top row), but I made Elena cry.  (It was worth it.)

Speaking of Elena, she’s been a little under the weather the last day.  I don’t know if it’s just getting her molars or if she’s actually sick.  Liam has been acting a little weird too, but Elena took the cake when she asked if she could go to bed at 12.15 this afternoon when everyone was still here running around like Diego’s wild animal friends.  She slept three hours, so she must have needed it.

This afternoon Liam and I made some of the ornaments above and I cleaned up the kitchen and cleaned up toys.  And I listened to U2 for hours thanks to my ipod and my friends who taught me to shuffle.  Was marvelous and felt great to do something creative today.

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