A Day at the Playground

Eleanor LOVES the swings. She was squealing in delight!

She also loved being spun on this silver saucer.

I REALLY want her to start standing alone and walking around
so she can burn off some of her energy.

Do you see the awesome pirate ship behind her?!
I wish she could climb all over it.

Eleanor seemed very confused that she
couldn't hold onto the sand.

Once Upon a Time...

...there was a baby who didn't require 2 hours of attention
in the middle of each night.

Ladies Who Lunch

Eleanor and I set out this afternoon to have lunch and a tour of the Chelsea Physic Gardens. I packed us each a lunch and a snack (it is a 30 minute walk just to get there, so I thought it would be a long afternoon) and we were on our way. Except that on Mondays and Tuesdays, they are only open to "Friends of the Gardens" (meaning you have to give them a lot of $$ to get into the Garden on a Monday).

So, we had our lunch in front of a local church:

Eleanor didn't seem to mind the change in plans:

When we got home, she even indulged in a little dessert:

British Food

British food has a reputation for being, um, what is the nice way to say this? Simple? Hearty? The kind of cuisine that makes it easy to buy "meaty pies" with stomach in them at the local Sainsbury? Ryan and I actually quite like typically British food; there is nothing not to like about a lot of pastry wrapped sausage. But Eleanor has NOT been enjoying the British baby foods. You can't simply buy "green beans" or "sweet potatoes." The baby food is stuff like "venison with parsnips and cilantro jelly." That is a lot of new flavor for a baby to try at once, and she just can't do it; we've tried. So now I have to buy the fancy schmancy organic baby food that is simply "sweet potatoes with squash and quinoa." Quinoa though. Seriously. We don't even eat that super healthy grain and our baby does. But she likes the expensive food, which is the simplest food I can find, and we want to make her happy don't we? Oh, and they also don't sell any good "biter biscuits" - the little dissolve-in-your-mouth things that she's snacking on below (brought from home). They also don't sell PLAIN CHEERIOS. WHO DOESN'T HAVE PLAIN CHEERIOS? I mean, "pip pip cheerio" and all that and they don't sell PLAIN CHEERIOS - just honey nut, and babies aren't supposed to eat honey, right? Well, we are out of biter biscuits and can't find plain cheerios. Any good 7+month snack suggestions?

I tried to get a picture of her two little teeth coming in on the bottom - IMPOSSIBLE.

Funny Face

Daily Constitutional

Eleanor and I took a walk over to and around Hyde Park today.

The weather was nice - cool, but sunny and a bit breeeeeeezy:

She spent the walk dog and bird watching. The swans were pretty:

and the pigeons were close. Very close.

And she got a puppy kiss from a miniature airedale named Linus. It made her miss her puppies (and Sammy for that matter) very, very much.

Where To Begin?

So, we are here, though there was initially a big question around IF we'd able to stay. I'll get to that in a minute.

First, the flight. We were sooooo excited when, approximately 5 minutes after finishing her bottle and 10 minutes before take-off, Eleanor fell right asleep with no fussing whatsoever. The adventure of getting to and through the airport was enough to exhaust anyone. (Oh, and for anyone traveling with a 7-month old soon, baby food is considered a liquid, so if you don't put it in a baggie, they have to test it to make sure you aren't going to make a sweet potato bomb.) So Ellie's asleep, we take off, she stays fast asleep, they set up our baby cot, and we lie her in it. Within 5 minutes, she was awake. Any time we tried to put her in the cot, she'd wake up. I spent 7 hours holding that baby to keep her asleep. Needless to say I did not sleep for longer than 10 seconds at a time and am still struggling to fully straighten my left arm.

Once we arrived in London, Eleanor was in a good mood, even though she only slept for about 6 hours compared with her usual 11 1/2, and we even got to skip the 2 hour immigration line as a reward for traveling with a small baby and head straight toward the biggest English jerk one has ever encountered. Our immigration officer must have been on some sort of power trip that day because he decided that Ryan surely needed a work visa in order to travel for business. Um? Ryan does this ALL THE TIME. His office has people come over and work for a few days to a few months ALL THE TIME. NO ONE EVER HAS A WORK VISA. He told us he wouldn't have let us into the country if it weren't for the fact that we were traveling with a baby, put some stamp in all of our passports to warn future immigration officials that we are all suspect and clearly trying to pull a fast one, and said we could enter the country but that Ryan was not allowed to work at all. Oh, and he was going to sent immigration down to the Economist to see who else is working here illegally. Ryan's office was shocked and appalled, and they are all working with an immigration lawyer to make sure Ryan is able to start working, though they did say the worse case scenario is that we'd have to "do this another time" and figure out a day to go back home. No one thinks that is really going to happen, but let's just say I still haven't unpacked my suitcase.

But the place we are staying is nice, looks very much like the pictures, though it is extremely LOUD. It is a charming old English rowhouse with all the charming squeaky doors and floors and those fabulously thin walls. As for Eleanor, let's just say she is "taking her time to adjust."

The following photo series is called In Pursuit of Plant.