Easter is for Chocolate Eggs!

We've been celebrating Easter with an assortment of chocolate eggs.  Cadbury's are a classic favorite, and Teddy seems interested in them, perhaps more interested in the box than the eggs, but the box is quite fun and colorful.

Teddy and Rose have a cold, so we are recovering over the long holiday weekend.  The weather has been rainy so it is nice to stay indoors and enjoy some chocolate eggs!

Happy Easter everyone, hard to believe that last year I looked like this.

1 week to go!

Hi All,

It is one week until my due date, no baby yet but maybe this weekend? Perhaps if we make plans it will be more likely to happen.  

There is a full moon this weekend, but I've heard that only matters if I am giving birth to a werewolf. Team Jacob anyone?

Thanks to everyone for the notes, cards, and gifts, it has been really amazing feeling all your support and Dan or I will post to the blog once there is news about the baby.

love!
Rose

Pregnancy Productivity

There is towards the end of pregnancy a 'nesting' period.  During this period the mother to be and father to be begin to prepare the house for the baby, this can include decorating and cleaning.

Everyone has a funny story about how they cleaned the ceiling or floor with a toothbrush in preparation.  I have found that I have been finishing a lot of craft projects I had been meaning to do, so I call this period of time 'pregnancy productivity' because I seem to be quite productive.

A few examples:

Curtains - a good use of a lot of fabric and hopefully will let me 'sleep when the baby sleeps' which sounds like good advice

Headboard - may have a bit more tweaking, perhaps I will be adding some filler to make it softer. 

Floor cushion - I only realized later that this is burnt orange, we have a small living area so our dining table is a coffee table height, we sit on floor cushions to eat and I am sitting on this cushion right now writing this blog post :) 

British -> American Translations for Baby Terms

Cheerio!

Cheerios? Dan, what are you talking about?

Well Rose, we use different terms in the UK compared to the USA, interestingly some of the USA terms are the old English that was brought over when American was colonized and some of the UK terms are older versions of words that have been replaced by new words in the USA.

Ah, like for example:


  UK English                                                                  USA English
Anaesthetist                                                             Anaesthesiologist
Antenatal                                                                 Prenatal
Chemist                                                                   Pharmacy or Drug Store
Cot                                                                          Crib
Dummy                                                                   Pacifier
Flat                                                                          Apartment
Homely                                                                   Home-like*
'in hospital'                                                              'in the hospital'
Jumper                                                                     Sweater
Mum                                                                        Mom
Nappy                                                                      Diaper**
Polo neck, Roll neck                                                Turtle neck
Pram, Push Chair                                                     Baby stroller
Trolley                                                                     Shopping Cart
'sorry'                                                                       'excuse me' or 'pardon me'
'tucked up' as 'the baby was tucked up'                    'tucked in'
Vest                                                                         Undershirt, Tank top
Waistcoat                                                                 Vest


* In the USA 'Homely' means plain or ugly, Dan refers to the flat as homely often, even after I told him the American meaning of the word.

**Diaper is one case where the original word (from middle English, one of the earliest uses was "Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper" —Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew). Diaper was replaced by Nappy, probably a shortened form of Napkin, in the UK, Ireland, and South Africa.  Diaper continues to be used in the USA. 

There are also a few things to consider when naming a child, for example, 'Randy' is a popular name for a boy in the USA, but in the UK it would be like naming your child 'Horney'. 

It is also worth mentioning that like American English, English in the UK can be very regional.  Londoner's and Southerners in general speak differently than people from the North.  Similarly, in the USA someone from Louisiana uses more words of french origin while someone from Pennsylvania would use more words of german origin.  

There are also totally different languages spoken in different regions of the USA and the UK, but that is a different post. 

Deptford Wives

A bit about our new neighborhood.

We moved in January to an apartment in SouthEast London.  Our neighborhood is called Deptford, in the council of Lewisham, south of the river Thames.  The neighborhood is more residential then where we previously lived, which is nice, and there is a large Vietnamese population so we are really close to a good Pho shop, which makes me happy because it reminds me of Houston.  The neighborhood is quirky, but not too trendy, and we live close to: a park, pharmacy, library, doctor, grocery stores, and a McDonald's (sometimes you just need a McFlurry ;).

If anyone is thinking of visiting, Greenwich is the closest neighborhood that has hotels, and probably the nicest close place to stay.  Our apartment is tiny, but has a large garden so I am really looking forward to summer when I can sit outside and enjoy the late summer sunlight.

I will post more about the little man as he begins to come on the scene, and thanks to everyone who has stopped by the blog for a visit, I am really looking forward to keeping all my friends and family around the world up to date as we build our nest in London. xoxo Rose

House Wives Cash & Carry - Classic

Mrs. and Mr. smokestacks in Deptford

Sales, Sales, Sales....

Hello all.... it's Daniel here.... Rose left her computer open, so I'm taking a minute to say "hello" from me! And so I thought I'd take a second to share something about one of the activities that has been filling up our last couple of weekends: NCT Nearly New Sales!

The Nearly New Sale is like a Black Friday sale for baby swag. The NCT, or National Childbirth Trust, is a charity (that we're members of) offering information and support during pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenthood. We're currently attending their ante-natal classes - which are very well taught. One of their initiatives is the "Nearly New Sale" that allows parents/to-be to shop for second hand, but barely if-at-all used, equipment and clothes at quite excellent prices. The sales are also a fundraising opportunity for the charity; who take a cut of the sales while the parents/sellers keep the lion share. For the last weekends we've headed out early (to beat the rush), shopping list in hand, to see what bargains we could find...

As you can see above our first outing was quite successful, in that we bought a fair amount, and probably spent more on a cup of tea on the way home than we did at the sale! However, the careful observer will notice from the haphazard way everything is strewn out on the table when we returned home that we were a little shell shocked! 

Next time we knew what we were going to be in for... and so planned accordingly, even studying up on which room equipment would be in, versus clothing, books, etc. 

Even better, and despite taking the bus in the wrong direction for a couple of stops, we managed to arrive before the sale started, and were within the first 100 people to enter the sale and thus received a "goody bag", the wonderful bag above full of magazines and flyers for various products and such like.

We were on form and managed to grab up most of our "wish list" items, a baby bath insert, a changing mat, a couple of books and a pile of assorted designer clothing - so the little man has some stylish clobber already.

Just to let you all know our preparations are well under way, and all is well with us... we're really looking forward to the little one arriving, and thank you for all your support, and we look forward to introducing the little one to everyone soon.

All best wishes for now...

Cheers, Dan