We are on day 5 of our big European adventure, and we are having a great time so far. We didn’t know what to expect of the kids on a 7-hour flight and a 5-hour time change, but they really surprised us. We lucked out and there were two empty seats on the flight, so we were able to bring Roman’s car seat on board. He fell asleep during take-off and didn’t wake up until we landed in London! Harper, on the other hand, watched 4 straight hours of Paddington Bear on her personal TV before taking a 3-hour nap. The extra seats were in the back of the plane and our reserved seats were in the bulkhead row just behind business class, so Portman and Harper moved to the back o’ the bus and we switched off sitting with Roman. It was extremely bright and noisy in the back, so I don’t blame Harper for not sleeping!

We breezed through Immigration at Heathrow since 3 of the 4 of us are British citizens, and after a $150 taxi ride into the city, we settled into our apartment near Buckingham Palace. Harper and I took a 5-hour nap since we hadn’t slept at all on the plane, and Portman and Roman hit up Marks and Spencer for some lunch. The only hiccup in the trip so far was that I didn’t realize until we passed through security at Dulles that I was wearing Crocs, not the running shoes that I planned to bring, so we walked over to Harrods to find some appropriate footwear. We were all pretty tired, so we were in bed by 9 (4 pm EST). Roman, Portman and I slept for 14 hours and we had to wake Harper up after 16 hours of sleep! When I woke her up she said: “Help! Help wif my eyes! Too hot sun!” I feel the same way every morning, kiddo.

We spent our second morning at the Science Museum. The London Science Museum is HUGE and tons of fun. It is mid-term break for students here, so there was a line around the block to get in. Harper really enjoyed the airplanes and the hands-on exhibit, and Roman spent a long time crawling around the George III exhibit since it was completely empty. After a nap we headed down to Piccadilly for dinner and a stroll. We took the Underground, which was quite an adventure with the kids. Most of the Tube stations don’t have wheelchair/stroller access, so Harper had to walk and we put Roman in his carrier. Harper had the following to say about it:

Me: “Harper, isn’t this a big adventure?”
Harper: “No mommy, it’s just a little adventure.”

Harper LOVES the red telephone booths and insists on going in every single one. We let her go in a lot of them at Piccadilly, but we’ve learned to be careful because some of them feature advertisements for, ehem, naked ladies.

Yesterday was warmer and less foggy, so we walked down to Parliament and saw “Little Ben,” as Harper insists on calling it, and rode on the London Eye. Roman was completely hysterical on the Eye and stood up at the railing the entire time banging on the glass. Harper pointed out all of the “big red buses” and entertained our fellow passengers with comments like “Oh my goodness! Another telephone booth!” After an appropriate amount of fish n’ chips, we headed over to Kensington Gardens to play on the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. I’m not even going to attempt to describe how amazing the playground is. Suffice it to say there is nothing even close to it in the States, not even at the best theme park or children’s museum that you can think of. Harper and Roman romped for hours and we had to pry them away when they were so tired they could barely stand. Roman, in fact, fell asleep completely upright in Portman’s arms. He was literally sleeping in mid-air – I’ve never seen anything like it!

Here are a few more Harperisms from our trip thus far:

Upon seeing a picture of the Queen: “Hey, it’s Abie!”
At Kensington Gardens: “I need some swans!”
Everywhere: “How ‘bout we go in that telephone booth?”
”Ooh, a flag! So many flags!”

Since Roman is passed out and I have time time, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about travelling with kids. Our kids travel a LOT, and they are really good about it. We took Harper to the Dominican Republic when she was just 9 weeks old, and Roman was on his first flight at 5 weeks. We’ve learned a lot about travelling with little ones, so I’ll share my top 10:

1. Bring car seats on the plane. Even if you don’t pay for a ticket for a child under 2, if there is room on the airplane most airlines will let you bring on a car seat. Kids do so much better on the plane if they are in their own seat and not squirming around on your lap. We’ve lucked out and had an extra seat on most of our long flights, but I can tell you that it’s pretty frustrating to have a wiggly kid on your lap for several hours trying to steal food from the guy next to you! We really like the Go Go Kidz car seat wheels. We usually check our stroller and put each kid in a rolling car seat. If there isn’t room on the plane, the car seats often fit in the overhead compartment, or the stewardesses will put them in a closet for you.
2. Split up if necessary. This goes along with (1). If there is an extra seat on the plane, you often have to split up (especially if you have more than one kid). This isn’t the end of the world, and I think you’ll be much happier with your kids strapped in no matter where you’re sitting.
3. Consider drugging them. We talked to our pediatrician about giving the kids something on the plane, and they recommended Benadryl. We tested it out two weeks before the trip because it makes some kids hyper. Both of them become very sedated with it, but it doesn’t put them to sleep. I think it definitely helped Roman sleep on the plane, and it at least made Harper very calm.
4. Don’t bring a bag full of toys. I used to pack a big bag of books and toys for the plane, but I’ve learned that being on the plane is interesting enough that they don’t use the toys. Now I usually pack a few books and something for Roman to chew on in my diaper bag and jettison the extra toy bag. We always end up with souvenirs to play with, so I’d rather not bring one more thing for them to lose.
5. Do bring lots of snacks. If all else fails, give them a snack. Some of our worst moments have been solved with a little bag of Goldfish crackers. This is especially important if you are going somewhere with unfamiliar snack foods (like England). My kids love digestive crackers, but prefer Goldfish or Cheerios any day of the week.
6. Bring double the amount of wipes that you think you need. I’m sure you already know that wet wipes will get anything out. Anything. My kids are particularly messy and I’m always running out of wipes.
7. Do your research. Did you know that most of the Underground stations don’t have elevators? Or that you can’t bring a stroller in any of the buildings at Disney? Or that the elevators in the D.C. Metro stations are a huge pain to use? Make sure you’re familiar with the handicapped/stroller access where you’re going in case you need an alternative form of baby transportation. We were so thankful that we brought a backpack to Disney and actually put Harper in it quite a bit. Here we are using a baby carrier for Roman and Harper is spending time on her Daddy’s shoulders.
8. Don’t try to do everything. Sure, you could try to cram in every site-seeing opportunity, but the kids would be overwhelmed and exhausted and you would need a vacation from your vacation. We don’t stop for every single nap, but we do make sure that we get one nap a day and we take lots of little breaks. Harper can handle about one museum a day and lots of little activities. We also try to work in a park so that they have a chance to run around and get some fresh air. If you miss something, there’s always next time.
9. Find acceptable accommodations. We’ve learned that we need two hotel rooms, or at least a suite, in order to stay sane. Our kids are great nappers and sleepers, but not if they are in our room. We travel by the mantra: “if we can’t afford two rooms, we should probably hold off on the trip.” For this trip, we learned that a small apartment was cheaper than two hotel rooms. Who knew?
10. Get them excited about the little things. We bought Harper a London sticker book before this trip, and she has been very excited about the “stickers” that she sees. For example, the first time she saw a phone booth she said “dats yike my sticker book!” It has been really fun to see her notice “stickers” around the city.

Last night was our turn to host our moms dinner group / play group / whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Ellie, Jack and Harper played HARD in the sandbox and Roman perched on the edge of it desperately wanting to be a big kid. I’m not sure about the other kids, but mine were exhausted and were practically fell asleep in the bathtub!

We were all amazed that’s it’s been almost a year since we started doing these dinners. When we first got together there were 3 kids, now there are 6. It’s so much fun to have friends to share dinner with since the daddy’s are all at work. Oh, and not eating mac ‘n cheese or chicken fingers for dinner is nice too!

Harper showing off her yoga skills (thanks to all the hours of WiiFit she and I have been logging), and Jack bathing in the sandbox:

Harper examining the mosquito on baby Courtney. She wore the panda hat almost all day:

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I am not a baby-book/scrapbook person. I bought baby books for both of the kids because I feel like I should fill them out, but they just sit there on the counter staring me down day after day and make me feel more guilty for leaving them blank. Each kid has a big storage box that I put memorabilia in, but that’s about it. Anyway, I view this blog as my baby book for the kids, and I hope I can keep up with it until they are much older. I think it will be neat to one day print all of the posts and bind them for the kids – maybe on their wedding days or something. So in the spirit of saving things for posterity, here are Harper’s most recent words-of-wisdom…

Roman: (stands up at piano and starts banging on it)
Harper: “That’s beautiful, Woah-man!”

Harper’s favorite phrase as of late has been “same time,” which she thinks means “same kind.” We assume she is combining “same type” with “same kind,” but she could just very well be confused. Here are some examples:

“Look, Woah-man and Harper are wearing same time PJ’s!” (I put them in their matching Christmas PJ’s)
“We are bowf eating da same time!” (they were eating spinach quiche)
“No, I want da same time as Daddy.” (demanding some of his cereal)

We had Georgetown Cupcake (the best establishment on Planet Earth) a few weeks ago and mid-cupcake Harper all of a sudden became very frustrated:

Harper: “I need his outfit!”
Portman: “His outfit? Whose outfit?”
Harper: “I just need his outfit!” (louder)
(says it repeatedly, louder and louder)
(finally wiggles onto the table and reaches for the cupcake/muffin paper thing that we had torn off before giving her the cupcake)
Harper: “See dares da cupcake’s outfit!”
(proceeds to put the paper back on the cupcake and keep eating)

Clearly this is from an episode of Little Einsteins that I haven’t seen, because I have no idea what she’s talking about:

Harper: “It was a Aztec”
Me: “An Aztec?”
Harper: “Uh-huh a Aztec for da snake.”

And some other gems:

Me: “Harper, are you going to eat that grape?”
(tilts her head to the side and looks at me thoughtfully)
Harper: “No, it’s probably just yucky.”

Me: “Harper, do you want to have dinner with Ellie tonight?”
Harper: “Yeah, and we gonna eat wif mommy Ellie too.”
Me: “You mean Ellie’s mommy?”
Harper: “Mmm-hmm, mommy Ellie.”

Our bathroom was finally finished a little after Easter, but it took me a while to do the finishing touches (mirror, shower curtain, etc). We are SO pleased with how it turned out and have decided that we are never moving. We bought our house as a fixer-upper, and now we’ve “fixed-up” 99.99% of it. It’s pretty much perfect (for us), so we don’t want to leave… kids, I hope you’re okay with sharing rooms!

Before (50 years old) & After (it’s beige, not yellow tile – the lighting turned out weird in the photo):

I pretty much let Portman do what he wanted with this bathroom. My only requirements were the niches in the shower (to hold shampoo, etc). He said he wanted it to be like an Asian spa, and I think he did a  pretty great job!

Today is a GORGEOUS Spring day in DC, so we celebrated by heading down to the Museum of American History with Trish and Colin. The museum has an awesome kids area on the ground floor, with a special section just for kids under 5. Harper and Colin got lots of stern looks from the old ladies manning the kids’ area because they were climbing into displays and redistributing toys from one section to another. Roman loved getting out of the stroller and tasting all of the toys and blocks – usually he just has to sit and watch his sister enjoy the museums.

Can you tell they’re ready for lunch and a nap? They found the reading station and decided to have some quiet time. Colin on the left, Harper and Roman in the middle, and Kate (we met at the museum) on the right:

Daddy met us for a quick lunch and a ride on the carousel. We are now at the point where Harper expects a carousel ride (“horsies up and down”) every time we go to the Natn’l Mall. Last week when I took the kids to Natural History I didn’t have any cash, so I had to rummage around in my car to find $2.40 in change (10 cents short, but they were nice about it), and I convinced them that Harper was under the age of one so that I could take her on it without paying for two people.

My next order of business is to start getting organized for our trip. We leave for London and Copenhagen in just a few days and I haven’t begun to get ready! We are trying to pack as light as possible, but with two little kids that’s tough. My mental packing list is going something like this:

• 1 car seat on wheels (Harper’s for the airplane, maybe 2 if our flight is pretty empty and we can bring Roman’s)
• 1 double stroller
• 1 portable crib (hopefully we can rent a second one when we get there)
• 1 booster seat (folds flat)
• 1 baby carrier
• Clothes for 6 days or so (we’ll do laundry), double for Roman because he’s a mess
• Roman’s formula
• Bottles and sippy cups

And so on… it’s going to be quite a scene traipsing through the airport with all of this crap! We are extremely excited about the trip and not that worried about packing – it’s not like we’re going to a developing nation, so if we forget something important we can just pick it up there. It’s “museum month” in London, so all of the museums are free (score!). We have our “London with Kids” book and are prepared to hit every toddler-size attraction that our schedule (and attitudes) permit. Yesterday Harper turned a flat-topped chair upside down, sat on it and said “It’s like a throne! I’m like a queen!” so I think she’ll be excited about the castles!

We had yet another rainy weekend here in the Mid Atlantic, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. On Saturday our friends Christine and London and their baby, Maui, came over for dinner. Christine volunteered for DDD with us in Cambodia and she and her husband London moved to DC last year. We were thrilled to meet baby Maui and finally have a chance to catch up with them – it’s been tough to get together with all these babies! After dinner we were playing with the boys in the living room and we realized after a while that Harper had disappeared. We found her in the kitchen where she had pulled her stool (“sfool”) up to the counter and was gnawing on a mango! “I just eating a mango, Mommy!”

A word on Harper’s lack of clothing in…well, pretty much every picture that I’ve taken recently. Harper either loves to be naked, or hates to be dressed. Either way, she is constantly taking her clothes off. Yesterday I went in her room to get her up in the morning and she was sleeping completely naked. No pajamas, no diaper. I’m amazed that she made it through the night with the A/C on! We’re hoping she outgrows this before middle school, or we will all be in trouble.

On Saturday while the kids were napping I got distracted by the mess in Portman’s office and decided to do a little cleaning. I just about peed my pants when I found his “box.” Since I’ve known Portman (over 8 years now), he’s always had what I call his “box.” When he straightens up his office and finds things he’s not sure what to do with, he puts them all in a box and tries to hide it from me. It used to make me crazy, but now I just think it’s funny. I haven’t found a box in a while, but boy did I find one on Saturday:

Included in this box are: a Chinese instant camera belonging to our friend Ryann (in our possession since 2002); 3 or 4 keychains; a broken watch; eye drops that expired in June 2003; 2 CVS Extra-Care cards; dozens of paperclips, twist ties and 3M things; bike lock key to a bike we gave away 2 years ago; 63 cents; 4 Subway Club stamps.

I also found several amazingly outdated pieces of technology. The first is a pocket-size digital camera that we had in Cambodia. I took a photo of it next to Portman’s phone so you can see how ridiculous the LCD is:

The second is a camera for a cell phone that I had in Cambodia. You actually had to attach the camera TO the phone to take pictures – like anyone would bother to do that:

On to better things… on Sunday we took the kids to Udvar-Hazy to look at airplanes. Harper LOVES the museum and has her favorites: the flight-simulator ride and the “yellow air-pain.” After lunch at the McD’s in the museum, we ran around and looked at the airplanes. Portman bought Harper a little $3 toy space shuttle Enterprise, and she immediately ran over to the real space shuttle, placed the toy on the ground next to it and said “he need to be wif his mommy.” It was so sweet!

Harper doesn’t follow rules (like “stay on this side of the bar”) very well:

I always tell people that my kids like to wear their meals, and well, they really do:

I am lucky to have kids who eat things like edamame, hummus, fish, blackberries, avocado and sushi, but no matter what I feed them we always head straight to the bath afterwards. Roman actually had two baths today because he decided to brush his hair with his eggs at breakfast. Harper has gotten much better about it but still has a talent for getting food in unimaginable places. My favorite thing is when I change one of their diapers and find cheerios or pieces of chicken in there. I’m not even sure how that happens!

Before I had kids I was a neat-freak (okay, obsessively clean), but with each addition to the family I’ve grown less and less neurotic about cleaning. I realize that (1) kids are really messy, (2) I could literally clean up after them all day long and it would still be a mess, and (3) it’s not that big a deal. Now I count myself in the “neat but definitely not clean” camp. I try to pick things up for the most part, but the toys are rarely wiped down and I don’t have a problem with the kids eating food off the floor.

Meals in our house are usually a 3-ring circus. Portman doesn’t get home from work until 8:30 at the earliest, so it’s just me and the kids for dinner. I have a strict “you eat what I’m making” policy and it works out well. Since it’s just the three of us I usually don’t make anything too weird, but occasionally Harper will have nothing but milk for dinner. I have to tell myself that if she’s really hungry, she will eat what I give her! Tonight I made my signature chicken fingers (they are downright outstanding, if you ask me) and Harper told me: “dis is delicious, Mommy!” I don’t know where she learns this stuff, but I love it.

I’m sure this comes as no surprise to those who have seen him, but Roman is a huge eater. He eats as much as I do at dinner, and easily eats twice as much as Harper. I actually have to cut him off at most meals because he will just keep on going!

In other news, Roman figured out how to clap about a week ago and has been entertaining us with his enthusiastic clapping non-stop. I remember when Harper really figured out clapping (she was older than him), she did the same thing. He claps at everything… every time he takes a bite of food, every time he sees me, randomly during the season finale of LOST (he and I watched it during one of Harper’s epic naps), you name it. It is so darn cute I hope he never stops!

Roman is almost 10 months old and is making progress towards walking. He cruises a lot and has started pushing toys around while taking steps (mostly a ride-on fire truck), but no real steps yet. He has gotten so active and wiggly that trying to dress him is like trying to dress an octopus on speed. He still loves to be held and cuddled and I certainly don’t have a problem with that! Harper is getting closer to two-and-a-half and is SO ready for potty training. She talks about poop non-stop, hides when she needs to do her business, and refuses to sit down until someone changes her. I started potty training a few months ago and got frustrated and stopped, then we decided to hold off until after our trip to Europe. We thought it wouldn’t be fun to spend our vacation looking for the nearest potty. I can assure you, as soon as we get back the diaper is coming off!

We’ve been enjoying some real Spring weather this week. Yesterday I took the kids to the Museum of Natural History because Harper is really into dinosaurs right now. I don’t think she expected the dinosaurs to be that big, and she held on to me for dear life! We had a long discussion about how the dinosaurs can’t move and they are in cages, but she would say things like “no dares a door and he gonna get out.” Nevertheless, she has been talking about them ever since and insists that “Daddy want to see doze dinosaurs too.” I think we’ll be going back soon.

We’ve spent a lot of time on the patio. Our patio is directly off of the kitchen, which we didn’t think much of when we bought the house. It has turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise because I can be in the kitchen cooking dinner and the kids can play out there by themselves – I can watch them and hear them and it’s fully enclosed so no one can get in or out. I also love to feed them out there because I can hose everyone off after dinner and we can keep on playing!

Reading “Goodnight Washington D.C.”:

“Dat’s da Washington Mom-ument! And dat’s da Lincoln Da-morial!”

Me (handing her a bowl of crackers): “Please share these with your brother.”

Harper: “Woah-man, come here honey! We gonna eat a snack!”

Harper has started showing definite signs of the terrible two’s. When she gets really mad about something, she typically with throw whatever is closest to her, like ALL of the fridge magnets.

YaYa: “No Harper, we’re not going to play with that right now.”

Harper (gives her a threatening look): “I gonna frow fings!” (translation: throw things)

Feeding birds on a Starbucks breakfast-date with Daddy (we thought this was brilliant):

Harper: “I am feeding dis bird and not dat other bird and dat other bird watching me so I give him a piece too.”

At Chipotle:

Cashier: “Do you want this for here or to go?”

Portman: “To go.”

Harper: “No! Not to go! Let’s eat it here! Yook! Dare’s a table right over dare!”

Harper: “I wanna watch Rocket on Mommy’s bed”

Portman: “We can’t watch Rocket because Roman is awake. We need to get him.”

Harper (thinks for a moment): “Woah-man want to watch Rocket on Mommy’s bed.”

Harper puts a block on a rocking horse’s head: “Yook! A unicorn!”

It’s been quite a while since my last post, but we have been camped out indoors during monsoon season, so there isn’t much to report. It seriously has been raining for about two weeks straight, so we have only had a few moments of outdoor time. We did have a chance last week to walk down to Lake Accotink Park. We are so lucky to have fabulous FREE parks in Fairfax County, and even luckier that one of them is in our neighborhood! Lake Accotink Park features a toddler-size playground with infant swings for Roman, a lake with paddle-boats, ducks, and a beach area, a carousel and putt-putt. On top of that it has a fabulous walking trail around the lake with a bridge over the choo-choo tracks (the VRE tracks). The day we walked there we were very lucky to see the VRE not once, but twice, and it “choo-choo’d” at us both times. The kids were very excited! We missed the carousel opening by one day, but the kids were happy to watch the ducks and play on the playground. We did have to talk to a park ranger at the end because Harper insisted that the “horsies wake up.” He assured us that they were sleeping but would “wake up” the next time we visit. 

Last Wednesday I drove the kids down to Charlottesville for a weekend visit with Yaya and Pop Pop. Portman and I had a wedding to attend over the weekend, and it had been a while since the kids were in Cville. It was nice to have a break (and a full night’s sleep), but it always feels so strange to have a quiet house. Portman and I vowed that the next time we are kid-free we will go somewhere else instead of sitting here and saying over and over again “wow, this is weird!” I did get a fair amount done around the house, including removing the chair rail in the dining room and repainting, painting the kitchen, cleaning out the utility room, throwing away/donating most of the contents of Portman’s office, and sort-of fixing the squeaky floor outside of the kids’ bedrooms. Whew!

On Saturday we had the honor of attending our dear friends Ryann and Eric’s wedding. Ryann graduated with us from UVA (where she knew Portman), but ironically I didn’t meet her until we lived in Cambodia of all places. Ryann was the one who convinced Portman and I to move there and volunteer. The bride and the wedding were absolutely gorgeous and we had a fabulous time dancing and catching up with old friends. Portman and I LOVE to dance, and we are pretty terrible at it. What we lack in skill, we make up for in enthusiasm. I’m pretty sure everyone there assumed that we were drunk, but neither of us had anything but Gingerale the whole night!

We were thrilled that our friend Nirav, whom we also met in Cambodia, was there with his girlfriend. The last time we saw Nirav was in 2005 – he just happened to be back in Cambodia during the 4 days that we spent there on our honeymoon. We had so much to talk about and it felt just like “old times.” Portman and I are still friends with a lot of the people we met while living in Cambodia. On the way home from the wedding we couldn’t stop talking about how lucky we are to have such brilliant, accomplished friends who are not only passionate about saving the world, but who are funny and unpretentious and so much fun to be around. Living in Cambodia was one of the best times in our lives and we can’t wait to share the experience with our kids one day.

After a late Saturday night, we woke up on Sunday and drove down to Cville to retrieve the kids and attend Uncle Kevin’s Eagle Court of Honor. Kevin has worked his tail off to become an Eagle Scout, and while most Scouts don’t achieve Eagle until their Senior year, Kevin did it as a Sophmore! The coolest part was that Portman’s brother Jonathan was a part of Kevin’s ceremony. Kevin was in Jonathan’s Eagle Scout ceremony in 2004, and yesterday Jonathan was there to honor Kevin. Who knows, maybe they will both be in Roman’s ceremony 16 years from now…

After a fun family dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day, we hopped back in the car to drive home with two very sleep kids. They were excited to sleep in their own beds and both slept until past 8 this morning… the best Mother’s Day gift yet!