So as you already know I’d decided to have the baby privately. To Americans reading this – this may seem an odd statement, so do please refer to my past post about this. In deciding to have the baby privately in London I had pretty much narrowed down my choices between the Portland Hospital and the Kensington Wing at Chelsea and Westminster. My Consultant would deliver at either. I read as much info and talked to people who had been at both and for me the Kensington Wing won out due to it’s proximity and that they had a NICU…
Tags: birth, chelsea westminster, delivery, hospital, kensington wing, private maternity, UK
One of the challenges of being a “transatlantic” family is that our extended family – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc are overseas. While we miss free family babysitters, we miss sharing special family moments even more. When we knew we were expecting we began searching around for the perfect baby monitor. When I was a first-time Mother, I had one of those monitors with an under-mattress breathing sensor. At the time, it gave me peace of mind knowing baby was breathing. For my second child, I no longer needed that extra piece of mind to allay my crazy first time…
Tags: babyping, review, video monitor
Whilst originally due around Feb 19th, our babygirl aka “Tinkerbell” was scheduled to be delivered by c-section, originally Feb 13th, then moved up to Feb 8th. With Chinese New Year falling Feb 10th 2013, we managed to just squeak in to the Year of the Dragon. Specifically the Water Dragon. For those of you who follow the Chinese lunar calendar, the Year of the Dragon is considered the luckiest of the Chinese lunar years. But our little girl wasn’t just satisfied to be born a bit early, into the year of the Dragon (who wants to be a 2013 Rabbit anyways?)…
So I was MIA for a bit. As you may already know I’m a full time working Mom, with a demanding job and even more demanding children and hubs :0) On a normal week I do about 65 hours of work in my office and some in the evenings from home – and then shuttle the kids around, do the cooking etc and try and squeeze in some time for blogging and perhaps a moment for myself. Once I reached the 3rd trimester – it was all I could do to just stay awake and make it through my workday…
Whilst Indian food might be the second national cuisine of England, the same could be said for Mexican food in America. Mexican, or even Tex-Mex (an Americanized version of Mexican food incl Fajitas) can be found on most menus of “American” style restaurants. Salsa and guacamole are regular table condiments – and the heat from chiles are a customary addition to many a dish. When I lived in London 10 years ago – there was absolutely no Mexican food available. I couldn’t find restaurants and stores were empty of salsa, taco mix or even tortillas. This time around – 10…
Tags: Discovery Foods, London Foodie, Mexican, Supper Club
I love to cook (and even more so love to eat!) but as a working Mom I often don’t have as much time as I’d like to have for planning and cooking meals. So, one of the tricks I’ve developed over time is to keep ready to use ingredients, so the prep-time of cooking is shortened, without a loss of flavor. I’ve found one of the easiest ways to be prepared for whipping together a quick dinner is to have ready to use herbs in a tube. They are handy – and you don’t have to worry about a big…
Tags: chicken, cooking, garlic, Gourmet Garden, quick
The boys have been excitedly making plans for Christmas. They’ve made their wishlist’s and told Santa all about what they want for Christmas. It took explaining multiple times before “Captain Hook” and “Peter Pan” understood the list was more a guideline for Santa, the Elves and assorted family members to understand what they wanted, not a list of everything they’d for sure be receiving for Christmas. When I had suggested putting the list on the fridge – they insisted on taping it to the window facing out so Santa and the Elves could peek in at it. It’s been on…
Tags: christmas gift santa
Last night my son, “Captain Hook,” came up to me to ask “Is Karma real?” That’s a tricky question when trying to answer a 6 year old, and a lot comes down to personal belief and context. I told him, yes, I believe Karma is real – but not everyone does so. For example, your Father doesn’t believe in Karma, but I do believe it’s real. I believe that if you do good things, and your put good thoughts, deeds and actions out there – then it’s not instantaneous or measured 1 for 1, but good things do come back…
Tags: karma, karmic retribution, morals
When we first learned we were expecting we waiting until after the first trimester to tell our boys. Upon hearing the news they were pretty excited and immediately wanted to feel the baby through my belly. (My SIL is a few months ahead of me pregnant so they already understand the concept of the baby in the belly) Of course they couldn’t feel anything at that point – but it did lead us to a discussion of whether they thought they’d have a new baby brother or sister. “Captain Hook” thought about it for a moment, and said “Well, we’ll…
Tags: baby, gender, new baby, pregnancy
This being my third baby I pretty much thought I had the drill down by now. But having this 3rd baby in a different country than the previous 2 has really thrown me some curveballs. I’ve previously mentioned my surprise about the differences in maternity wards in the US and UK. I thought I’d figured out all of differences and either planned around them and or made peace with them. That is until yesterday…. Ok UK Mums, please humor my naivety for a moment – it’s not based on a feeling of entitlement, rather, in my experience of having babies to date –…
Tags: baby, cotton wool, hospital, muslin, packing list, receiving blankets, swaddling, the essential one
