We've known it was coming. Jan Term. The shortest course period for the university we work for. We planned, we prepared, we laid out 48 fitted sheets, 48 flat sheets, 48 towels. The house was ready but were we? I have been thinking about Jan Term since the day we agreed to be a resident managers of this property in London. I would be 33 weeks pregnant with twins and 48 people would come to stay in a 6 story Victorian with us for four weeks. They descended on the house in two huge bus loads blocking off the narrow street we live off of in Central London. Everyone (except the hugely pregnant woman who carried the heavy driver tips only) grabbed the loads of luggage and threw them into the house fast soon as possible. Within two hours we had all the luggage distributed to rooms, all the baggage being stored at the house for a group who was leaving to travel for two weeks before coming to the next session checked, all the students fed, oriented and out to roam the city with their professors. It was a whirlwind.
The first night I managed to sleep as well as I have been considering the two babies kicking and pushing around. I woke up about every hour to every hour and a half and finally got up at 4:30. The whole night one group of students or another was up and about. The last time I heard the front door close was 6:30 AM. We had breakfast for the whole group in rotations from 7:30 to 8:45 then everyone was gone again for class from 9 to 5. The house actually doesn't feel that crowded most of the time other than the middle of the night and the morning because the students are gone all day and only have time to move around London in the evenings. We'll see if they keep up that pace of go, go, go for the rest of the month. Trey and I actually cooked and ate dinner tonight with only about four interruptions. One thing I can say is that I am very glad we finished preparations for the babies before this group arrived. Everything is ready to go other than a few things to pack in my hospital bag and those are at least on a list that both Trey and I know about so we can grab as needed.
I am still a little apprehensive about being able to keep up this pace for the next four weeks, however, it is fun to have several faculty and excited students around. I'm enjoying hearing about their adventures and it is nice to have Americans around.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas Eve
We are having a pretty low key Christmas. It is our only few days alone in the house. For those of you who don't know our living situation, Trey and I are kind of a dorm Mom and Dad. We have our own bedroom but we share all other common areas of the house with students including a bathroom and, sometimes, shower. During the semesters so far the crowd hasn't been too bad and even when there are a few guests staying in the house between groups of students it isn't too bad because the house is 6 stories and they are usually here to visit London so are out and about a lot.
Tonight we made blueberry pancakes (got the Bisquick batter mix from the American grocery store) then headed to our church's midnight Christmas Eve service. It was a nice service but smaller than I expected. I was happy that most of the carols were almost exactly the same as ones we sing in the States. Other than waiting on the bus in the freezing cold it was a perfect Christmas Eve. Now we're back at home, changed into P.J.s (the poor elastic of my biggest pair of P.J. pants is now stretched almost to full capacity) and sipping hot chocolate. The only thing missing is our family and friends. We love and miss you!
Tonight we made blueberry pancakes (got the Bisquick batter mix from the American grocery store) then headed to our church's midnight Christmas Eve service. It was a nice service but smaller than I expected. I was happy that most of the carols were almost exactly the same as ones we sing in the States. Other than waiting on the bus in the freezing cold it was a perfect Christmas Eve. Now we're back at home, changed into P.J.s (the poor elastic of my biggest pair of P.J. pants is now stretched almost to full capacity) and sipping hot chocolate. The only thing missing is our family and friends. We love and miss you!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
31 Weeks
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December 17, 2009
First of all, I forgot to mention in my last post that Trey's Dad got to go to an ultrasound with us! We just happened to have one scheduled the day he arrived and we were so excited to get to share a part of the pregnancy directly with our family as we have felt the strain of being far away from them through this amazing time in our lives. The technician was really kind this time and answered all of our questions. At that point (Dec. 11) the babies both weighed a little over 3 pounds which made me feel a bit more validated about being so sluggish. After all, I am carrying the weight of a normal full term baby plus all of the extra fluid and goodies that go along with having two babies.
We had my favorite ultrasound moment during this scan. I was asking about the position of the babies. The tech said one (the girl who is lower) was breech and the boy (who is up by my ribs) was mostly transverse. He did have his head angled down so that both babies were face to face. She zoomed out and it looked like they were looking right at each other. ADORABLE! She said she couldn't get a picture because the babies were getting too big. I don't exactly understand that but I guess they just don't have the equipment they do at home.
The weekend prior to this picture Trey's Dad was in town. I had started to feel a little tickle in my throat and throughout the week it turned into a full blown cold. I felt awful and could only sleep sitting up. It was strange because normally when I'm sick I feel better when I sleep but I awoke every hour through the night and when I would get up in the morning I felt much worse than when I had gone to bed. On this day I had to get dressed to go to the doctor and it happened to be on the day I turned 32 weeks so I sucked it up and took a picture to document this moment in my pregnancy. Hopefully I won't be sick the rest of the pregnancy. I am sad to say, I gave Trey my cold.
28 Weeks!
November 30, 2009
I can't believe I am in my third trimester! As soon as I hit that mark, I relaxed a lot. With a twin pregnancy you hear so much about complications. Between that and all the change we had experienced over the past few months, it had been hard to really relax and enjoy the pregnancy. I definitely wasn't super obsessive but the load, figuratively only, felt a little lighter passing that mark.
On this evening we had our Thanksgiving friends in town and we went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad. It was a great performance!
Tourists Again
While our friends were in town for Thanksgiving we got to be tourists for the week again. Trey took most of the week off and I tried to walk around like I wasn't 28 weeks pregnant with twins. I think I did pretty well but I am officially done with that! I am glad I was still up for the challenge but it was definitely the last week I was up for adventures such as 6 hours of shopping down Oxford Street or touring the Tower of London and St. Paul's.
That look on Trey's face means "I'm freezing." I didn't really notice. Babies are good heaters.
About this far from St, Paul's (which is where we were heading)...
is Tiffinbites. My new favorite restaurant in London. You can get a DELISH Indian rice, veggie and meat for £8.50. Here is the site for any tourists interested: http://www.tiffinbites.com/
That look on Trey's face means "I'm freezing." I didn't really notice. Babies are good heaters.
About this far from St, Paul's (which is where we were heading)...
is Tiffinbites. My new favorite restaurant in London. You can get a DELISH Indian rice, veggie and meat for £8.50. Here is the site for any tourists interested: http://www.tiffinbites.com/
Thanksgiving
Whoa, I am really late putting this up.
We were blessed to have friends visit us this Thanksgiving. We were really excited to have been able to find all the necessary ingredients for a full, traditional Thanksgiving spread. Here are a few pictures...
That's a lot of food for four people! Don't worry we managed to eat most of it over the following week.
We were blessed to have friends visit us this Thanksgiving. We were really excited to have been able to find all the necessary ingredients for a full, traditional Thanksgiving spread. Here are a few pictures...
That's a lot of food for four people! Don't worry we managed to eat most of it over the following week.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Frozen Dinners
One of the things on my long list of to dos has been to find a way to prepare six weeks of frozen dinners for after the babies are born. Basically, Trey only gets 5 days of paternity leave from school and gets no leave from work so we have been trying to figure out ways to streamline parts of life that are somewhat controllable.
Cooking here in general has been an adjustment. When a recipe calls for a stick of butter, I have to think: “let’s see… that’s half a cup, where’s my conversion chart… OK, half a cup of butter is 110 grams… butter here comes in a package of 250 grams… I guess I can just eyeball it… what is the next ingredient?” I know I could get a scale and if I didn’t have to share the kitchen with college students, I might invest in some more useful kitchen equipment. That is the case with a good recipe which contains items available in the grocery stores here. (For those interested in the conversion chart I have been using: http://www.veg-world.com/articles/cups.htm)
Finally, I had decided to start from scratch. It just seemed easier. Buy cooking magazines that actually call the ingredients by the names they use here and give measurements in metric units. That made life so much easier for a few weeks. Then I began hunting for cookbooks geared towards making dinners ready to freeze such as those featured on http://www.savingdinner.com/. I didn’t have much luck.
Finally, I figured I better just start asking because I, apparently, was not putting the ideal search terms into Google. First I tried the dietitian at the hospital. She said that sounded like a fabulous thing for them to know about and she would look into it. The next day we had a meeting with our Pastorate (what they call Sunday School here except it is more like what we call cell groups in the States.) There was a lady who had made a delicious key lime banana pie. The previous meeting she had made these cupcakes that I swear could have come from a store. I asked her if she liked to cook and we started talking. It turns out she had some American recipes which called for “a stick of butter” and was thrilled that I could reveal that a stick of butter was a half a cup. She said she had all of her recipes scanned in and would be happy to email me the ones which were her favorite for freezing. I could have hugged her but we’re in Brittan so I didn’t.
Finally, today I had coffee with two women from the twins club I joined. One was about to pop at 36 weeks pregnant and one was 20 weeks. One of them mentioned they had ordered homemade dinners which were ready to freeze from somewhere called Cooks. Everything went into slow motion. I turned to her and asked her to repeat that information. She said there was a shop where you could place your order online and either have meals delivered or run in and pick them up. They were made with fresh ingredients and you just popped them in the oven for 40 minutes. THIS was the answer. It had to be. We simply do not have the freezer space for six weeks worth of meals anyway. I immediately went home and looked it up and it looks perfect! The website is http://www.cookfood.net/ and it seems like my prayers are answered.
I can't help adding that after our coffee I walked out of the apartment and across the street to Harrods to drool over the handbags from Vogue in person. Even though a diaper bag is the only new handbag in my foreseeable future, a girl can still dream right?
Cooking here in general has been an adjustment. When a recipe calls for a stick of butter, I have to think: “let’s see… that’s half a cup, where’s my conversion chart… OK, half a cup of butter is 110 grams… butter here comes in a package of 250 grams… I guess I can just eyeball it… what is the next ingredient?” I know I could get a scale and if I didn’t have to share the kitchen with college students, I might invest in some more useful kitchen equipment. That is the case with a good recipe which contains items available in the grocery stores here. (For those interested in the conversion chart I have been using: http://www.veg-world.com/articles/cups.htm)
Finally, I had decided to start from scratch. It just seemed easier. Buy cooking magazines that actually call the ingredients by the names they use here and give measurements in metric units. That made life so much easier for a few weeks. Then I began hunting for cookbooks geared towards making dinners ready to freeze such as those featured on http://www.savingdinner.com/. I didn’t have much luck.
Finally, I figured I better just start asking because I, apparently, was not putting the ideal search terms into Google. First I tried the dietitian at the hospital. She said that sounded like a fabulous thing for them to know about and she would look into it. The next day we had a meeting with our Pastorate (what they call Sunday School here except it is more like what we call cell groups in the States.) There was a lady who had made a delicious key lime banana pie. The previous meeting she had made these cupcakes that I swear could have come from a store. I asked her if she liked to cook and we started talking. It turns out she had some American recipes which called for “a stick of butter” and was thrilled that I could reveal that a stick of butter was a half a cup. She said she had all of her recipes scanned in and would be happy to email me the ones which were her favorite for freezing. I could have hugged her but we’re in Brittan so I didn’t.
Finally, today I had coffee with two women from the twins club I joined. One was about to pop at 36 weeks pregnant and one was 20 weeks. One of them mentioned they had ordered homemade dinners which were ready to freeze from somewhere called Cooks. Everything went into slow motion. I turned to her and asked her to repeat that information. She said there was a shop where you could place your order online and either have meals delivered or run in and pick them up. They were made with fresh ingredients and you just popped them in the oven for 40 minutes. THIS was the answer. It had to be. We simply do not have the freezer space for six weeks worth of meals anyway. I immediately went home and looked it up and it looks perfect! The website is http://www.cookfood.net/ and it seems like my prayers are answered.
I can't help adding that after our coffee I walked out of the apartment and across the street to Harrods to drool over the handbags from Vogue in person. Even though a diaper bag is the only new handbag in my foreseeable future, a girl can still dream right?
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