baby's first shiner!!

Poor Em fell off of the armchair today. My fault: I had laid him down on his back with his feet facing out, and he slipped down and then flipped forward at the edge of the chair and did a headplant. Yes, I felt very guilty. Very very guilty. And became hysterical for a brief moment in time ("is his brain all right? are his pupils dilating? do you think he will start throwing up?" I shrieked, as if Travis would automatically and instantly know all of these things). But there has been no vomiting, etc., and as it is now the end of the day I think we can safely say that he is fine. I suspect the whole thing was far more traumatic for us than for him--he cried hard at first, but as soon as I took him to look out the window he was instantly distracted and calmed right down, haha.

Anyway, and the proof!!

a few pictures from my camera phone over the last couple of days

Emrys and dad hanging at the computer...in the background you can see our awesome bulletin board, my favorite thing about the whole house I think!

Emrys doing the wave, haha. As you can see he has finally learned to loooove his soother (they call them "dummies" here, as in "oh no you dropped your dummy!" I don't think I will ever get used to that one...)

Hanging in his new jolly jumper!! I fear he is still too little for it though, as I had to helpfully prop his head up just prior to taking this picture...

...he can hold it up good for a little while...
but inevitably this happens. Poor baby.

I think he will LOVE it though once his neck is a little stronger...already today he was bouncing a little bit on his toes.

Today was the first day that I went to my school campus. It is right in the very heart of central London, on a street called the Strand, and the back of it borders on the river. This is the view walking down the street towards school. SO COOL right??

Across the street from school and a little way down. These are law courts I think. They were called something like "The Halls of Justice" or something equally melodramatic. (Johnny, I feel that if the spirit leads you while you are here to do anything dramatic or involving green paintballs, this might be a suitable location. Ahem.)
View in the other direction from campus.

The courtyard of one of the school libraries. Slightly more impressive than the library in Victoria, I gotta say.

And finally, me and baby chilling. He is looking decidedly less enthused than I, I must say. Also his head is already, like, 3/4 the size of mine. MONSTER BABY!!

XOXO from England.

OK, I just figured out that if you click on any of the smaller pictures within a post, it will load up as MUCH larger. HAHA I am embarrassed I just figured this out. So do that...especially in the one of our street. You can easily see the Tube station that way.

Emrys is beginning to discover his fists--he hasn't quite figured out how to suck his thumb yet (or for that matter figured out that he has a thumb, as distinct from his hand in general), but lately he will sort of lick and slobber all over the side of his fist, so I suspect that thumb-sucking is not that far off.

We took him to the doctor yesterday and then for a follow-up today. He has an upper respiratory tract infection, but it's viral as opposed to bacterial, which I think means he doesn't need antibiotics (help me out here, medical friends/relatives). So they said just watch his temperature, try to keep him eating, etc. Today he seems much more himself--is smiling and laying by himself playing--and the fever seems pretty much gone. The only thing is that he still isn't eating much at ALL. If he still isn't eating by tomorrow, we are supposed to go back again, but I am optimistic that he'll pick up again soon since in every other respect he seems to be improving alot.

The doctor yesterday also said that she is going to refer us to a pediatrician sometime soon to take a look at his eyes--he goes cross-eyed sometimes and doesn't always focus too well, though I don't know how normal that is for his age--so I imagine they just want to rule out any eye problems. Also the doctor thought that his neck control seemed somewhat underdeveloped--he will sometimes let his head loll right back, instead of holding it up--though Trav and I both remember him having used those muscles just fine at certain times, so maybe he is just lazy? In any case I guess it is better to have things checked out, just in case. And at least we can't say that the doctors are being unobservant or not giving a crap.

This morning after we went to the doctor's office (it's about a fifteen minute walk from our house) we went down to Totenham Court Road and bought our cell phones. Mine is definitely the nicest cell phone I have ever had. It is Nokia brand but it is pretty much like a Blackberry in how it operates--I can do email and all kinds of things on it.

We are also starting to figure out how to get places by walking rather than always taking the Tube...it turns out that alot of things are MUCH closer to us than we thought and are actually just as fast to walk to as they would be taking transit. Which is AWESOME for two reasons, a) we will save alot of money on transit costs, and b) London (or at least this part of it) is great to walk around in. I really really enjoy just walking around and seeing everything.

Oh, Mom, before I forget: remember we were talking about which area we live in? Here's a map of all the boroughs (districts) of London, and we are in Camden--as you can see it is right next to Westminster, which is the part I was talking about on the phone and which is one of the oldest parts of the city.

The very oldest part--like, where the Romans built Londinium, and where the early medieval city was--I'm pretty sure is around the tiny green part, just called The City. If I remember right, early on Westminster was actually a separate city and then later joined. But I need to refresh on all of this cause I don't totally recall.

OK, finally, here are a few pictures from yesterday and today:

This is a cute one I think!

Just chilling in his diaper...

From our walk today--this is one of the buildings down the street from us, I think it's a hotel. Very beautiful brickwork though, and it's got those old chimneys on top.

Looking down Bernard Street towards home. Basically if you go to the end of this street (can't quite see to the end in this picture, but I think that the last roof you can see on the right hand of the street--you can just see a corner of a tan roof, jutting up from the grey building--is our building) and turn right, we live right on that corner. Also on the right hand side of the street, if you look really closely, you can see the Tube station that we use (sorry the picture is so small...it's the shorter building just past the green awning).

Russell Square, a couple of blocks from us. Apparently London is 40% green space! which I find hard to believe. But is cool if true.

Emrys sleeping in his snuggli.

Me and Em just around the corner from the British Museum (which is like a ten minute walk from us!). The row of bikes are part of a city-wide program that they are doing to try to get people to bike more--there are "bike stations" all over the place, and you can rent a bike at one station and drop it at another, and if you take less than 30 minutes it only costs a pound! Travis thinks he may get in on it. It's a cool idea anyway.

OK all for now! Love, Becky

[[for mom. when you check this]]

He totally stopped crying, like, two minutes after I hung up. Just in case you were sitting there picturing him screaming for hours (as I would clearly do in your shoes). XO.

Feeling tired tonight, so just a few pictures. Alot of these are stolen from Jocelyn, who has been a far more diligent picture-taker than I so far:

Jo and Emrys hanging out in the Vancouver airport

These next three were taken at the Tower of London--Jo had never been, so we went there with her on Friday. The little toque that Samantha's mom knit Emrys fits him perfectly and makes him look like a little sailor of the merchant marines (am I right, Alice??).

Emrys posing with one of the Tower guards!! He was super nice and a pro at posing. (The guard, I mean, not Emrys, though perhaps in time this will be true of him as well, haha.) I imagine it comes with the job. Also, Travis noticed that he is wearing decorations, which makes us think that all the guards there must be actual military. Which is cool.
Me and baby inside the Tower. He was super upset earlier in the day and I ended up hanging out in the baby washroom with him for like half an hour (again, I am super impressed that the Tower has a baby room! who would have guessed), but apparently had calmed down by this point.

And a few pictures from the last few days we were in SK. These are Emrys and his cousin Makayla. She LOVES babies and likes to pet his head and kiss him. I like his concerned look in the first one.

These last ones are of where we are living now--International Hall. Outside of the building:

Inside in the building's courtyard; our flat entrance is off of the courtyard, through one of the doors like the white one in the background of the picture. You enter into a hall and go up a curving stairwell, and we are on the third floor.

Kitchen.

Living room, right after we arrived.

Courtyard again--this is the view looking straight ahead when you come out of the door from our staircase. That's me and Em in the distance.

And that's all for now. I'll try to be more newsy next time.

Today was a long but pretty productive day. First thing this morning Travis and Jocelyn (who is a TROOPER--she just ran a half marathon two days before coming over here and has pulled muscles and also a bad cold, but she has been hauling stuff all over the place for us!!) went back to Heathrow to get the rest of our luggage. That took about three hours. After they got back we went downtown to pick up a power cord for the computer and also some paperwork from a company Travis found that helps you out with arranging things when you move here--setting up bank accounts, etc. (I suppose it is not technically called "downtown", but my sense of which area is called by which name is still pretty foggy. I think it was Oxford Street, but that's a long street and I am not entirely sure where we were on it.)

Oh, we also went to what must be one of the world's most upscale McDonald's (not surprising since it is just off Leicester Square, tourist central). It's all done in cream colours and dark wood, and the workers are all dressed to the nines (well, for McDonalds--the girls, for instance, wear dark skirts and tights and button-down shirts). Travis said after going to the washroom "this is the only place I've been to that has managed to make a urinal trough look classy". So. There you go. Surely that is the ultimate test of any fine dining establishment...

From running errends we went to IKEA, which was a long and laborious process but worth it since we now have a) linens and blankets b) plates and cups c) towels. In order to get there we had to make a couple of different tube connections, then connect to an above-ground train (called, with great heights of originality, the London Overground), and THEN catch a shuttle which took you to the IKEA store itself. The store is really close to Wembley stadium, which is where some of the professional soccer clubs play (right? Samantha? help me out--is it just Arsenal that plays here? clearly I don't actually know). It was super cool to see, even though I am not much of a soccer fan (though I feel that I could be). The stadium has a really great skyline, anyway, I will say that much for it. I will try to find a picture.

We didn't get home till, oh, about 8.30. In retrospect I can't even believe that Emrys did as good as he did. At one point it seemed like he was going to freak out, but we got him calmed down, and overall he was a super baby today. Slept most of the time except for when we were at IKEA, when Trav had him in the carrier facing out, so that he could see--he LOVED looking around, I assume at all the lights and colours.

(Let me mention in an aside that IKEA has surprisingly awesome childcare rooms, with chairs for nursing in and DIAPER VENDING MACHINES on the walls. I was impressed.)

Emrys is still congested and I am feeling so bad for him hearing him snort and wheeze. We even went and got some Vicks rub this evening, but the small print said not to use for babies under 6 months, so I am now officially at my wits end. We are still giving him saline drops occasionally, but I don't know what to do other than that. As far as I know there aren't many options. I really really hope it will clear up quickly on its own. On the upside though his fever hasn't come back, so that's a relief (massive understatement).

Finally, here are some cute pictures I took today when I tried on the sailor suit that Samantha knit for him. It won't fit him for long but it doesn't even matter--look how cute it is!! Painfully so. Obviously I am biased, but still...

Handsome little sailor man!!

Showing off the bib at the back...

Dancing boy!

Mr. Serious for the camera...

All for now. Love,

Becky

well, we're here

So it's 10 here but our inner clocks have not adjusted (AT. ALL.) so instead of going to bed I thought I'd write a bit here. It's also FREEZING in our apartment, like, really freezing. The heating seems to be by radiators, which is fine, but we've turned them all up and nothing is happening. So I don't know if they haven't turned them on for the winter yet, or what...will ask tomorrow, but in the meantime we are cold as death. This is due in very large part to the fact that we haven't retrieved most of our luggage from Heathrow yet. We very quickly realized (before even leaving Saskatoon airport, I think) that we were definitely not going to be able to get it all from the airport to our apartment in a single trip. Seriously, we could barely manage with the carry-on luggage that we had. So we left our big bags with left luggage at Heathrow (you pay like ten bucks a day and they hold it for you there), intending to go back later today, but then that didn't end up happening. Mostly because we were all so tired. SO. Travis and Jocelyn are going to retrieve them first thing tomorrow morning, but in the meantime we don't have any changes of clothes. We were also going to buy sheets and blankets today. This, also, did not end up happening. There is apparently a shuttle bus that leaves from a tube station and goes to IKEA several times daily, and so we are going to try to catch that tomorrow. But in the meantime we are in a cold apartment with no blankets. LAME. Oh well. At least (and this is what I really would have freaked about in any case) I think Em will be warm enough because we happened to have along two of his baby blankets. One of which he puked all over very vigorously on the plane ride, to the extent that I had bundled it into a plastic bag to wash before he used it again--but in the face of Cold Apartments, Day-Old Puke just doesn't carry quite the same threat level. So I guess he will be semi-warm but smelly for tonight.

Anyway. Clearly, this is the matter dominating my mind at the moment, BUT I will try to give a quick picture of the whole day. The flight over from Vancouver was kind of stressful, but that was probably inevitable given all the factors. Emrys had gotten sick the night before we left, as some of you know already--a pretty high fever and general listlessness and crying. But he was noticeably better during the layover in Vancouver and by yesterday/today (stupid time zones) his fever has been pretty much gone entirely. He's still congested but I'm hoping that will pass on its own. Anyway, the point is that he was very fussy on the way over--not screaming very much, just fitful and moving around all the time and fussing. I suspect it was partly being still sick and partly having sat around all day in Vancouver so not really being tired out at all. Anyways, it was a VERY long flight, punctuated by the afore-mentioned episode when he threw up a massive amount of gunk all over Travis. Wah wah.

Anyway. We got in about 10 am local time this morning (about 3 am back in SK) and got checked in to our place here by about 3. What else we've done today: got a wireless router, got the internet mostly working in the apartment, bought some groceries, and rode the tube with Emrys crying his eyes out (this last was awful and totally my fault for not bringing food along with us when we went out walking--I thought we'd only be gone a few minutes, we weren't, he got hungry).

Once we get our luggage tomorrow I will try to post some pictures of the place. It is actually not as small as I had expected. The furniture is pretty ugly and there is a weird amount of it (like, we really do not need two dressers plus two wardrobes, plus two beds in the same room (!)), but overall it is fine. It has two armchairs but no couch, which kind of sucks, but I don't know if it's worth it for us to buy a couch for the year that we will be here. Oh, and it's at the top of 77 steps. Can I tell you, I will be one fit lady by the end of this year. Every time I get to the top, I can feel the burn. RIDICULOUS.

OK, more tomorrow. Going to crawl into bed and attempt to generate heat, now.

p.s. Mom, do not worry about the baby, he is totally warm enough and sleeping like a rock at the moment. It is just your daughter who will freeze her patootie off. :)

Just realized that the default settings on here didn't allow commenting unless you sign up for a blogger account--I have changed them, so you should now be able to comment without having to sign up. Sorry for the hassle (I'm looking at you, Sarah)!

Here's Em this morning, in fine spirits as you can see, and wearing his polo shirt that matches Trav's (and which he will very soon be too big for). On a side note, boy is my voice annoying. Must attempt to take all videos without talking from now on. Hahaha.

Goodbyes with most of my family yesterday, and an attempt at (extended) family pictures. We'll see how they turn out. Not our collective strong point, as a family. Pictures. We tend to adopt expressions of a) stricken horror b) unimpressed boredom or c) manic happiness whenever a camera makes its appearance. Add to this my little brother's penchant for giving the photographer unprompted military salutes (I'm not joking) and my mother's inexplicable and odds-defying tendency to have her eyes closed in 93% of all pictures. Suffice it to say that our highest hopes are for a shot in which all persons concerned look somewhat sane and have their eyes open.

Today we are off to try to buy a Babybjorn, since I suspect that being able to carry baby hands-free will greatly help my peace of mind [read: will make me slightly less wild-eyed and frenzied--it's not like any actual peace of mind is going to be happening, let's be serious now] whilst going through airports and public transport.

And that's it for now--gotta pack.

three days and counting...

Good news item of the day: it so far seems that I was just being paranoid last night and that Em is not in fact sick. Either that, or a) a fever came, broke, and departed in the space of a few hours last night (possible, but seems unlikely), or b) he is biding his time and will break out in the full manifestation of sickness as we are waiting to board the plane. Probably I should attempt to prepare myself for that possibility. At the moment though his temperature is normal and he seems much more himself than yesterday.

Bad news item of the day: still lots of packing to do. Included in this is deciding what to do with a pile of clothing that I shall call the "I don't quite fit these yet post-pregnancy and to be honest I never quite fit them, ever, except on my skinny days, but they are such great clothes that I can't bear to throw them out and will instead live in hope/denial" pile. It is all fine and good to have such a pile when one has, you know, a basement, and lots of closet space into which such clothes can quietly disappear. But when one is trying to get all worldly possessions down to four duffel bags and a suitcase, it becomes decidedly harder to justify.

But. They are such great clothes! And maybe in London I'll be seized by a fit of exercise mania. What? It could happen.

Almost time to move!

Dad and Emrys hanging on the couch...four more days to go!