I’m back with a guest blog about my latest
trip to London. I had mostly uneventful
flights from Madison to London. Sat on
the runway for awhile in Minneapolis waiting for a mechanical problem to be
fixed (always comforting to hear that there is a mechanical problem right
before you fly across the ocean), so ended up getting there a little bit later
than planned. That gave Mat a little
more time to frantically clean their flat before my arrival. I think my kids all think I am going to walk
in and do a white-glove inspection before I take up residence.
We then took a harrowing car ride to
Allie’s nursery to pick Poppy up. I am
guessing Mat didn’t think it was harrowing, but it is just in my nature to be
in full panic mode when riding in a car with my son-in-laws. (Andrew can attest to that). Spent a little time with Allie before
whisking Poppy away to the grocery store.
Mat should NEVER go grocery shopping without a list and a menu
plan! We had many bags to carry, didn’t
have Poppy’s buggy, and couldn’t figure out how to get back to the parking
garage! Also, Poppy was shunning me by
this time and would not hang on to my hand.
We wandered around, going up and down escalators, for quite some time
before finally navigating our way to the car.
To say I was relieved is a huge understatement. I am still having flashbacks. I was pretty sure we would be stuck on the
wrong side of the station for eternity with me saying “Mat, let’s just look at
a map” and Poppy screaming at me every time I tried to grab her hand. I felt like a kidnapper (albeit a stupid one
who didn’t think to bring her groceries home before setting out to snatch a
kid)! When we relayed our adventure
story to Allie, she was very perplexed as to how Mat could get lost in a place
he has been to a hundred times. Feel
like he will be hearing that every time they go to Canary Wharf!
Poppy was a little hot and cold with
Grandma for those first two weeks (haha, not really. Just the first few days). I don’t hold it against her since she also
had Daddy home during her awake hours. On her fun meter, Daddy will win out over Mummy
and Grandma every time. He jumps in
puddles and is teaching her how to jump and click her heels – need I say
more?! She doesn’t quite have it down,
but Mat is awesome at it. Hopefully,
that will turn up in a video at some point.
So Barcelona happened…4:30 a.m. wake-up to
catch a 5:30 a.m. taxi to the train station.
(Poppy made sure we were all up in plenty of time)! Got on the Gatwick Express to the
airport. Keep in mind, Poppy is not
feeling amazing, so guilt all around at dragging her on this trip to
Spain. Had time at the airport for
breakfast with the tiniest adult cutlery I have ever seen. It was really foggy, so our plane was
delayed. I am talking pea-soup
foggy. When we were finally able to
board, it was still pea-soup foggy, then we were told we were going to sit
there for 2+ hours. Why did we board
when it was obvious that we were not taking off any time soon? Unclear.
Nothing a sick 20-month old likes better than being cooped up on an
airplane. Thankfully, Allie and Mat are
really good at entertaining Poppy. Not
sure the flight attendants were thrilled to have them going up and down the
aisles and lounging on the floor at the front of the plane, but I think they
sensed it was not a good time to be enforcing the rules. We finally took off and Poppy handled the
flight well. At least I think she did –
she was still choosing Mummy and Daddy over Grandma, so I was able to cat nap
(sorry you’re so popular, Allie and Mat)!
We departed the plane in the midst of wind
and rain and had to take a shuttle to the actual airport. A man face planted behind me walking in and
managed to injure me with what was apparently a box filled with lead bricks
judging by my bruises. The trip just
gets more magical with every minute, right?!!
Poppy did make friends with Francisco the cab driver (she insisted Allie
include him in the ‘friend’ song they were singing on our way to the Air B
& B. Allie went through the rest of
us in the car twice, but Poppy kept pointing to Francisco). In spite of the bad start to our trip, Poppy
not sleeping pretty much our entire time there, our paper thin walls at our
accommodations (this is apparently the city that never sleeps), and me getting
lost on the streets of Barcelona, we did enjoy the sunshine and SOME of the
food! We were, however, happy to get
back to London on Thursday.
Upon our return, I set about organizing
Allie’s life a little bit (trying to make room for baby’s things)! One of my brilliant
ideas was to get a plastic drawer storage thing for Poppy’s tiny wardrobe. You know, Americans, the Rubbermaid or
Sterilite things you can get at just about every store in America. Sounds easy, right? I never thought I would
hear the words ‘you could really use a Wal-Mart here’ come out of my
mouth. After visiting about ten stores we finally
found a B & Q. As we drove in the
parking lot I thought, ‘Hello, Home Depot, it’s me, Caryl’! I cannot describe how happy Allie and I were
when we walked into this store! They had
our drawer thing, along with many other storage things. We did have to limit our buying since their
car is tiny and we had Mat and Poppy taking up valuable cargo space : )
I did, of course, manage to hang out with
Poppy quite a bit (really the whole purpose of my visit). We made many creations with Play-Doh (she
liked my snails and snowmen). Halfway
through my visit her parents bought her Play-Doh with glitter in it. I was very impressed with whoever makes this
stuff since there didn’t seem to be glitter on every surface … except Mat’s
face and it was always on his way out the door to go to work! Did I say anything? Nah. Just a nice reminder that he has a life
outside of work.
One of my goals on this visit was to get a Grandma
holiday activity into the agenda. We
decided to make gingerbread cookies, not knowing that molasses would be as
elusive as plastic storage. Mat found some at a health food store, so he was
briefly my hero. However, when I went to
use it I realized it was probably the blackstrap variety – looked like tar and
was really bitter. Had we just googled it, we would have discovered that we
could have used treacle as a substitute (plenty of that at the grocery
store). The show must go on, though, so we went ahead
and used it. The cookies tasted pretty
gross, but Poppy had a great time rolling the dough (we found her a little
rolling pin at the charity shop) and she was a pro at sprinkling her bench
flour! We decorated the cookies with the odd assortment of candy I picked up
(lips and teeth, anyone? No, they were not left over from Halloween). While Poppy didn’t actually try to eat the
cookies, she definitely was sampling the candy (the lips were her favourite).
Other fun things I did with Poppy (and
Allie and Mat) – built Duplo towers, went to the park (she loves to swing),
watched her scooter along the Thames, played with Baby and Bunny (or Munny, as
she says), read her lots of books, let her play with the zipper on my vest (she
loved that), did some coloring, went to the library, established a snack drawer
for her in their kitchen (she also loved that), went to Bread Street Kitchen
for lunch, Borough Market, and the city farm.
A Poppy observation – She is super
British! While I know that sounds like
it should be obvious (she was born there and lives there), now that she is
talking it is really obvious! It’s
really cute when she says ‘oh dear, Mummy’ or ‘hallo ducks’ or really just
about anything! Maybe the British side
of her family thinks she sounds American?
Probably not. We haven’t taught
her to say ‘you guys’ or ‘y’all’ yet.
After taking up valuable floor space in
their living room for two weeks, I had to pack my bags and say my farewells to
the Horvath family. I always dread this
moment, but it’s so much worse when there is a grandbaby thrown into the
mix! Can someone please invent
teleporting already!
Until next time.
