london: hyde park in the fall.

every time i come to the computer to post about our trip to london i get super overwhelmed and/or distracted and end up watching videos and getting lost in the internet instead. (have you seen this one?! #notmybieberbaby)

it's just that i have 700 pictures to sort through and how do i even begin to talk about this trip? we did so much and saw so much and it's hard for me to sum it all up... "london was amazing. we had fun. i pushed my stroller EVERYWHERE. we ate a lot of pastries" (?!?!).

i'm going to ease into this whole blogging about london thing with pictures from our afternoon at hyde park first. hyde park is incredible and you should definitely put it on your to-do list if you ever find yourself in funky london town (saying that just never gets old. i'm sure you feel the same way).

the highlight of my life visit to hyde park was feeding a squirrel FROM MY HAND. that's right! the squirrels there are so friendly they just eat out of your hand, like "hey! i'll take that sweet potato puff right there! mind if i just sit here for a moment before i scurry back up my tree?". CRAZIEST THING EVER!

hyde park was also evie's favorite outing of the trip, what with the horses, squirrels, ducks, swans, birds and dogs running around everywhere, pretty much it was heaven. if we ever move to london (maybe! someday! right, g?) you better believe we would go there every day.

so, a stroll through hyde park in the fall, how does that sound? let's do this!

there is a napping baby in that stroller, fools!

this was cool, but also what the eff is happening here?

kensington palace like it aint no thing.

 there then. hope you had a nice time.

happy jet lag!

this morning i woke up at 5am, due to the lag of the jet, craving a bagel. my eyes have not seen this side of 7am since evie was a newborn, so i thought i'd get up and see what an early morning in the darkness might have to offer me.

(it's not all it's cracked up to be. these early mornings i've heard so much about. and now you know.)

and in case you are wondering, we made it home! we survived! i took a baby to a country i've never been to and dragged her all around the city like a true tourist and lived to tell the tale! gosh, we had the time of our lives (more later).

yesterday was halloween, one of my favorite holidays in all the land, and boy did we live it up! i've always dreamed about having a baby to dress up on halloween and now that i finally have one, i lived out all my halloween-with-a-baby fantasies.

first evie and i woke up late after what was sure to be the longest day of evie's entire life and had ourselves some breakfast and a morning snuggle. we did the usual. made the bed, vacummed the rugs, took a shower/bath, curled our hairs and i thought to myself, "pshhhh. easy! taking a baby across the world and through a bazillion time zones and on two humongous flights in one day...no big deal! look at her, she's FINE! and i'm supermom!" or something like that.

and then we started getting tired. like face first in your morning cereal kind of tired. the kind of tired that not even a cold diet coke and a nice dose of caffeinated breast milk can fix and that's when i knew both of us had come down with a serious lag of the jet.

i called g to lament, "we're jet-lagged!!" i cried. "it's 8pm in funky london town right now and evie is exhausted but won't take a nap and she's crying! and she never cries! and what do i do??" g didn't know what to do. and i didn't know what to do. and man was it a really terrible day.

by 4pm i had canceled any halloween plans we had and by 5pm i had given up hope that evie would ever give into her exhaustion or allow me to even think about setting her down for even a second, unless i wanted to suffer the wrath of a jet-lagged baby! (don't mess!)

eventually g came home from work and managed to get us to the ward trunk-or-treat party long enough to take a few pictures and procure a sucker for mama and some crackers for the beeb and then we were home to give up the good fight and put our sad little exhausted lady bug to bed.

JET LAG! who knew?!

so yes. totally the halloween i pictured all those years when i was baby-less and dressing up dogs as firemen. totally.

NEXT YEAR!

here for a while.

London smells like cigarette smoke and rain.

The drops drizzle down in waves that come and go like clouds in the atmosphere. The cigarettes glow softly from cold fingertips and warm my face and throat as I enter and leave the toxic bubbles. It Is cold here- colder than I imagined it would be- and we are bundled in coats and scarves with shoes that crush the leaves as we stroll.

Across the street is the river. Down the road is the London eye. Last night Greg took me to dinner in the city and then made me walk 25 minutes back to the hotel in four inch boots just so he could feel the night sky on his face. Maybe it is impractical to wear heels to dinner in the city, but tonight, on a date with my busy husband, I decide I just don't care.

We pay 4 pounds 40 to ride the bus across the bridge every day. We sit next to tired souls on their way to work or home or nowhere, maybe. They don't speak to us and we don't ask. Through the window the parliament building and big ben and men in tweed suits carrying briefcases blur by. We hold Evie on our laps, blow kisses on her cheeks, sing songs to keep her occupied as time pulses on.

Everyone calls me "madam" and marvels over the tiny toe-head of a baby on my hip. I am pushing a "buggy". I am looking for a "lift". I am feeding the baby "crips" with my fish at lunch time.

The city is thick with with tourists walking sideways and londoners walking with eyed fixed steadfastly ahead. The ground clicks under my feet as we walk towards the park, towards the palace, towards somewhere to sit down and nurse the baby for a while.

I decide that I like it here. I decide I like the smoggy night sky and the still of the river as it sways. I decide I like the street lamps and the iron gates and the tiny taxis we hail when it rains. I like spending the days wandering and exploring and watching life through the lens of the camera around my neck. I decide I like the tiny grocery store on the corner and the map in my back pocket and the feel of the sky in my lungs as we step onto the street in the morning.

I decide this is the perfect place to get lost in for while.

be back soon.

we're off on an adventure! 

see you on halloween!

baby's first plane ride. mama's first panic attack?

the truth is, i don't get nervous all that often.

i think i might even have the guts to call myself brave. i remember when i found out i would be having a c-section, i went home and you-tubed myself up a few procedures to watch and as they demonstrated the slicing and pulling and destroying they were planning to do, i should have been terrified, but what i really felt when i left the computer was "meh".

thanks to my dad, i will ride any roller coaster you want to take me on. no problem. i actually have a really hard time being understanding towards those who won't (i know, i know, i'm sorry). i mean, it's a roller coaster. you aren't going to fall out and you certainly aren't going to die, so what's the big deal? don't even get me started on roller coasters that happened to be located at a little old place called lagoon, because i have some strong opinions.

the other day i was watching "18 kids and counting" (or is it "20 kids or counting" now?) (21 kids and counting?)...

the other day i was watching "we have a ton of kids and counting" and it was an episode where two of the older girls have to go in to get their wisdom teeth out. the oldest girl takes it like a champ. sure, she's nervous, but overall her attitude is a whole lot of "well, i'll be under the entire time so?"

the younger daughter, though. the younger daughter was a wreck. and i know she's only 15 or 16 or whatever (and i was more afraid of my wisdom teeth extraction at that age, too) but she was crying and shaking and sobbing and terrified of being put under and terrified of the shot and terrified of everything, and (here is my insensitivity about to come through) the whole time i just wanted to shout "pull yourself together, girl!" because wisdom teeth? no big deal. c-section? you can't feel a thing (granted recovery was a beast!). root canal? a little bit of pain, but also, exciting!

if you want to talk about something that's truly scary, let's talk about taking a 9 month old on a 12 hour red-eye and then expecting her to re-adjust to a new time zone and take all of her naps in a stroller for the next ten days, because HELLO! I AM TERRIFIED!!

i've been having nightmares and lock-jaw episodes (from clenching my jaw in nervousness while i sleep) and even the sickly stomach butterflies i used to get as a kid, because friends, i've never done anything like this before!

we leave later today and before i gussy up the living room for my house guest and wash the dishes that are in the sink, i thought i'd come here to ask you for your wisdom.

what's your best plane ride with a baby tip? what's your best traveling with a baby tip? do i change her diaper at my seat, or in the bathroom? is there a changing table in the bathroom? if she doesn't feel like nursing during takeoff and landing, will her ears explode with pain, or will she be fine?

will i annoy everyone to death if i let her play with her toys in the isle? what if she needs to watch an episode of mickey mouse clubhouse on the ipad...can i leave the volume on? what if she won't sleep? what if it's 2am and she is screaming and the other passengers are threatening to throw her out the window?

i mean, really you guys, WHAT THEN?!