Home sweet home

Ok, so I feel like a bit of a fraud.  The children are currently in Child Watch under the impression that mummy is working hard in the gym doing her exercise.  Mummy is actually sitting in the lobby area drinking coke and eating crisps whilst catching up on emails and writing her blog!  In my defense I did actually go to the gym last night.  On top of this Child Watch at the gym is one of the only free (well free, as in comes included in the gym membership) things around in the hideously expensive Silicon Valley, there to be taken advantage of if you ask me, which of course I am.

So, the trip back home.  Well its been and gone in the blink of an eye which tends to be the way when things are wonderful.  We packed a lot in.  A fantastic party for mums 60^th, back to Cambourne, a trip up North to see Ste's lot and to Nottingham to see my dad (and Leicester for me to visit my uni girls), Chester zoo, Woburn safari.  Was so good to see everyone.  Going back to Cambourne felt as though we’d never been away.  A picnic in the park, an adult bbq accomdanied by a childrens pj party and an after school do were organized by our wonderful friends and it felt so natural to be back and very much that we'd returned home (albeit without a house to return too)

And now we’re back in America and the old homesickness has reared its ugly head again.  Although perhaps its not homesickness as in missing England, just being far away from people that made life what it was. Anyway am trying to take the positives out of things as they are.  At least we are returning to place where we are already established and its really not a bad place to live.  As I look outside I can see the sunshine beating down on the people in the outdoor swimming pool (the people that are actually doing some exercise). Not something you probably be doing in England at the moment.  And this afternoon we are going with our friends to their outdoor community pool to have a splash about in the sunshine.  Today will be a good day!

Lots of fun things coming up too.  Halloween is in full swing.  We’ve been to pick up the pumpkin.  Was a slight ordeal in that the patch itself was a long way south and whilst we have two sat navs in the car we still managed to get lost (‘Why haven’t we got a bloody paper map in the car’ said Mr GPS himself.  Talk about talking yourself out of a career!).  When we got there we discovered that most of California were there also and so queues for train and haycart rides were long.  It was a good day though (although have to admit it would have been a bit more pleasurable had it not been about a million degrees).  Still we came away with an enormous pumpkin which was the objective.  We have 4 Halloween parties to attend.  The kids have their costumes (Phia is Ranpunzel, flashing hair and everything and T is of course Thomas the tank, who else?).  The parties are mainly child oriented apart from the one next Saturday night with Steve’s work colleagues.  I only realised after agreeing to go that Ste and I had to dress up.  So I how have to come up with costumes for us both.  I know we pulled off Beyonce and Jayzee so well the last time we dressed up but I’m not sure Steve’s work people are quite ready for that spectacle!

The kids seem to have settled right back into preschool which I was slightly concerned about but I needn’t have bothered.  The two of them are proving to be a hell of a lot more resilient than me.  I went to Phia parents consultation before we went away.  They basically told us what we know, she's able, quiet but is coming out of her shell.  I’m really impressed with what the preschool are doing learning wise and also in helping her to make friends with other children.  We have playdates next week with a couple of the girls from her class which she’s really excited about.  When I picked her up the other day she was full of a game she been playing that involved them pretending to be people off the tv.  It did occur to me that as we don’t watch any American TV (apart from Jake and the Neverland pirates and Wonderpets on DVD) that Phia probably had no idea who she was pretending to be!  I really think we’re going to have to start switching on the TV if shes going to have any street cred!  Tommy has really settled down from the teary and shaking boy I dropped off a couple of moths ago.  He teachers love him as he’s so ‘cute’ and I get the feeling he spends his time flashing his eyelashes at them and getting them to put plasters on his ‘booboos’!  If you ask him what hes done the answer is always the same, ‘I play with trains and cars and blocks’ which I think for a 2 year old boy is just fine.

So the objective for this month is to get out and see something of California.  My friend has just found herself what seems like a lovely little part time job and I really feel this is something I'd like to be doing but can't (green card has been applied for, obviously by the time we get it the kids will be at school/preschool every day and desire to work will probably have deserted me!) and so am assigning myself the role of family travel agent.  We have, embarrassingly, not even made it to San Francisco yet as we've spent the first few months very locally finding our feet as it were.  Now we've done that its time to start branching out.  Novembers outings will include Napa (Wine country) without the kids (thanks mum!), followed by a trip to San Fran to visit Alcatraz and see the Bridge, finished off nicely by spending Thanksgiving in Yosemite with the bears.  It should be grrrrrr-eat!

[Ste's bit]

I have to confess I changed the last word of the last paragraph. I don't think Sian will notice...

It certainly was great to go back and see all our friends and family. We said goodbye to Uncle Dave and Auntie Rebecca who emigrated to New Zealand (good luck!). Spending time with family seems all the more important given the distance - Chester Zoo with my mum, dad and Dave and Woburn Abbey with Bobby and Rich were most definitely great.

Having come back, it's like never having been away. Apart from the kids getting up at 4am to 'have a breakfast' and finding myself driving too quickly that is. Tommy's going through the two-year-old stage at the moment - he's different every day. We find ourselves having long, in-depth conversations about things now rather than little 'I want' sentences. Sophia is continuing to amaze us with her reading, too. We encourage her to read as much as possible and she huffs and puffs about it but secretly (I think) enjoys it loads. Watching her read the letters and take an educated guess is truly amazing. I think we taught her how to do it but I'm not sure. It is amazing too how quickly both Sophia and Tommy settled back into life here. Maybe we should all be more child-like! I'm sure though that Sian would point out that I will struggle to get any more child-like.

I don't want to bang on about the weather but although it's still nice and warm the sunsets are getting earlier and autumn is coming. In some ways, it gives us the opportunity to do a bit more exploring. The area is quite spectacular so the chance to go and see it is fab, even if we have to blackmail Sophia and Tommy a bit. I'm about 50/50 looking forward to and dreading Halloween here - I'm pretty sure it's a 'big deal' but I've no idea what it actually entails. Also, if anyone has any idea what Sian and I should dress up as for Halloween, I'd love to know. Clearly, Sian should be the Wicked Witch of the West (ow!) but I'm not sure I can pull off being a giant pumpkin. Talking of which, we all loved going to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin and do all sorts of pumpkin-related activities (no, really). It was crazily busy but I really do wonder what they do for the rest of the year. I imagine pumpkin sales must be fairly slow in the middle of April.

Cause baby you're a firework

The best one yet.  We are at the doctors (again).  The kids are running round like wild animals, under desks, through peoples legs, pressing buttons that they shouldn’t be.  I am only trying to pick up a couple of forms but already we’ve been here for about a million years.  A woman approaches us with a clipboard, she obviously works here.  The familiar routine starts, “omg they are so cute, they are so adorable etc” (even though they are behaving worse than chimpanzees in the zoo).  She finishes with, “I love your accent, what is it?  French?  Parlez vous Francais?”  Urrr, no.  Given that we are speaking in English I’d say we are unlikely to be French!

 It was on this same trip that we met the woman who claimed that God must have been in the lift with us (as it took us to a different floor than she apparently pressed the button for).  As she walked away Phia shouted loudly ‘why did that lady say God was in the elevator?  I didn’t see him!’ (I blame Dora for use of the word elevator not living in America!).  This trip unfortunately for Phia, ended up with her having yet another injection.  When she found out what was going to happen she crawled under a chair like a frightened kitten and I had to coax her out with bribes of toys and stickers.  Our bank balance can’t cope with many more of these injections.  Hopefully that’s the last of it for Phia, so just T to go!

Life is continuing to take on its regular pattern.  The new preschool has been started, not entirely smoothly it has to be admitted.  

First day at pre-cool August 25th 2011

T went willingly the first time but absolutely screamed the place down on day 2.  He’s now at the point where he tells you, ‘I a big boy, I don’t cry at pre-cool’ but he’s fighting back the tears and shaking when he’s dropped off.  He’s really trying to be a brave boy though it still breaks my heart to leave him there.  I know he’s fine when I’ve gone and has a nice time but children certainly know how to tug on your heart strings.  Phia has settled in amazing well, especially given that this is her 3^rd preschool this year.  She comes home full of the phonic sound she is learning (am very pleased that this sounds exactly like school at home) and whatever painting style or country she’s been learning about that day.  She’s even started to talk about a couple of children she plays with which is great.  We’ve started on trying to teach her to read at home but it appears she has already memorised every children’s book we have and so can seemingly read them wonderfully, without actually being able to read a word.  Going to be hard work I think!

I have, probably very stupidly, decided to take on the role of president of the preschool PTA.  I wanted to get involved at some level but when it was offered to me thought I may as well throw myself in at the deep end!  Have also got involved with a company who offer Literacy skills lessons to children from 0-5 and so may well put back on my teaching hat for this too.  So these along with preschool and playdates with our lovely friends out here are making for busy weeks which if I’m honest is exactly how I like it!  Have also started my writing course which I’m really enjoying and am making tentative steps to get my novel together, am not looking to get it published but just to have it finished would be great!

Still one of the best things about living in California is the beautiful weather.  September has arrived and it’s still glorious.  It takes a little longer to warm up in the morning and nights draw in a little quicker but the majority of the daytime is beautiful, (as long as you don’t go near San Fran or the coast!).  Bizarrely last night we had a ten minute thunder storm.  The sound of rain is now so alien we had no idea what it was until the lightning started to flash.  Have to admit it was quite nice and did remind me of home, in a lovely way, as there’s something very comforting about the rain.   Was something and nothing though as the blue skies are back today.  Which is good really as I’ll soon start my gold medal Olympic moaning when they’re gone!

Anyway not much else to report seeing as we will be touching down in England in a little over 2 weeks, really cannot wait although am dreading how bad the jetlag for the kids in particular might be.  Still, the last 6 months have been very emotional and can’t wait to touch back with base and see everyone again (although that will possibly be emotional too!).  Also wanted to say I’m really pleased that this blog is in some way entertaining and to anyone who asked if I bullied Steve into writing his part, well of course I did, and here he is again!:

Bullied? Nagged is closer to the mark. Well actually Strictly Come Dancing series 93 has just started so I’m quite happy to be away from the telly for as long as it takes. We’re still at the stage of having interesting things to do at the weekend – I can’t remember the last time we had a normal weekend. Sophia seems to feel similarly too – when she looks at the calendar while we’re having breakfast, asks which day today is and discovers with some excitement there’s nothing written in that space. ‘Is today going to be a quiet day, Daddy?’ she says with a big smile on her face. ‘Can I do some drawing?’ Tommy’s not bothered of course – he just runs round in circles and then trips over the edge of the rug or something.

Can’t complain of course – it’s been utterly brilliant to have Bobby, Rich, Mum and Dad over to visit (not all at once) and also to spend lovely days meeting people for BBQs, by the beach, zoo, park, or whatever. We stayed at a proper old fashioned US of A motel last weekend to make the most of the long weekend. Labor (took real effort to drop the ‘u’ then) Day officially marks the end of summer. Which is nice because it’s still 30 degrees and, in my humble opinion, nice and hot. The motel was like you see in the movies – two storey building built round a courtyard/carpark. I remember staying in one the first time I came over here. I’m no Christian church-goer but there were two charming people in the next room who spoke LOUDLY, used expletives like others use punctuation and apparently had a soft spot for .45s over smaller caliber weapons. Anyway it was much better this time and Tommy went to sleep without his dummy. I’ll be honest, we forgot it and then blackmailed him (big boys don’t have dummies; big boys eat chocolate. Are you a big boy?) into a dummy-less sleep. Having returned home we decided to continue this unforeseen good fortune by keeping the dummy-less sleeping going at home. Admittedly we’re still keeping up the encouragement/blackmail but he’s keeping his part of the deal too. He’s a good boy isn’t he?

God, Jason Donovan is on Strictly??

Work threw a 20-year birthday party yesterday which was very interesting. I’m not sure if it’s something that European companies don’t do or whether it’s just the companies I worked for. The company basically hired a farm and got a few bouncy castles, zip wire type entertainment items for the kids and a big catering/barbecue tent type thing. It was a great gesture but something I’d never witnessed before.

You’ve got to be kidding me – that fat astrology bloke??

Actually, I should be grateful just to have the sense of hearing really. I don’t know who in the family leaves it like this but whenever I get into one of the cars and key the ignition, there’s a short delay as the shock wave travels between the speakers and my defenceless ears and then I wake up upside-down on the parcel shelf with Take That being played at a volume that causes earthquakes. Apparently the kids ‘like it’. Which brings me nicely on to Sophia and Tommy’s latest musical interests. Sophia always had a fondness for Ian Brown which I duly encouraged. She now seems to like Katy Perry since Sian adopted ‘Fireworks’ as her ringtone. Tommy however prefers the next track on the album, called ‘Peacock’. Needless to say, this song isn’t about Pavo cristatus or anything to do with pretty tail feathers. I’m not sure I think this is a great idea so I was thinking of adopting something by NWA or Ice T but Sian says this isn’t appropriate! I’m just waiting for the inquisitive questions: Daddy what does …… mean?

Holly Valance is in it? Surely she’ll walk it…

Right, that’s it from me. I need another beer to get through the nonsense on the telly.

See ya soon!