Lunch with Liv Tyler....

.... okay I suppose technically it wasn't lunch "with" Liv Tyler, more like "lunch in the same place as Liv Tyler at the same time as Liv Tyler"..

Poppy and I went for lunch in central London today, near Regent Street.  I was eating my yummy lunch, Poppy was throwing shit on the floor, as usual, and I glance outside to see Liv Tyler walking up! She apparently just had a baby because she had a teeny tiny one with her. Then Poppy and I finished our lunch and Liv Tyler (presumably) had a nice family meal with her family and we all went our separate ways. I tried to get Poppy to wave and say "hiya!" to her on the way out but OF COURSE she was pretending to be shy. She did say "hiya!" to every homeless person we walked by today though - I think she knows who needs cheering up :)

That is tiny Liv Tyler in the background (I know, I missed my calling as a paparazzi)

Americans, you might be asking - "Allie, it's Monday. Why are you not at work?" Today is a bank holiday. The early May bank holiday to be precise. There are lots of things the Brits do well and one of them is having days off work. There are bank holidays built into the calendar at regular intervals so we all get nice three day weekends. May is especially fun because we get the early May bank holiday AND the spring bank holiday in a few weeks! Whoop whoop! 

Mat and I went on our first proper date night since Poppy was born last night (how pathetic is that? 15 months without a date night!). We went to the Experimental Cocktail Club in Chinatown, then out for magical Chinese soup dumplings, also in Chinatown.  It was a gloriously baby-free couple of hours. Poppy was fast asleep when we got home and the babysitter must have sprinkled fairy dust on her or something because she slept through until 5 am! That is unheard of these days! It was magical.

Not much else to report in the Horvath household. Poppy can say "shoe" and "book" now, which is adorable. She also got some new shoes, which are boy shoes but also adorable.  And that's it! All I got. Here are some photos of our most recent adventures:

I bought Poppy a hair clip. She obviously loves it.

And she still loves swinging and checking out the artwork at the dodgy park.

This is me trying to save her from running in front of a bus. She refuses to hold my hand.

We were going to buy Poppy a tiny baby bike but changed our minds - she's probably a bit young still and she absolutely HATED the little baby helmet.

Date night. This is the Experimental Cocktail Club - no signs, no advertising, just a weird door wedged in between two Chinese restaurants in Chinatown.

Mat "reading" the cocktail menu and me wedged between some strangers.

The only photo we took together. 

And this is Poppy doing her favourite things - watching the ducks in her new kicks and eating cheerios.

The end.

The Burn

As most of you have seen on Facebook/Instagram, Poppy had her first visit to A&E (Accident and Emergency - aka the Emergency Room) for a burn on her hand.

I will tell you the story but let's preface it with I feel so incredibly guilty about this - serious Mom guilt.

I had my hair straightener on the table in our front room. For those of you saying, 'But why wasn't it in the bathroom?' there are no plugs in our bathroom. This is a thing here. Apparently no one plugs things in in the bathroom except for shavers and those have a completely different plug. 

Anywho, I used to keep my straightener on the floor by my bed but I thought it would be safer to put it on the table where Poppy 'can't' reach it.......

Turns out Poppy CAN reach it on the table!

I called 111, which is a non-emergency NHS number for advice and they advised me to go straight to A&E, which was quite alarming but after a few minutes wait for a cab, off we went.

For those of you who are not familiar with the British healthcare system, it may be free but it is NOT fast. We got to the Royal London Hospital (after waiting for the cab, and then driving through almost rush hour traffic in London) around 745 and we were the only people in the waiting room. My silly American thinking at this point was "oh good, this shouldn't take too long!"

Here's a timeline of our visit:

7:45 - Arrival and check in. Poppy plays like there's nothing wrong with her.

8:15ish - See a nurse to assess the injury, takes about 2 seconds then back out to wait for the doctor

8:45ish - Doctor comes out to get us - we're in the bathroom so we miss her

9:00 - Doctor finally comes back to get us and looks at Poppy's hand. Then says "Oh I'm really not an expert on burns so I'll have to get my colleague to look at it"

10:00 - Doctor number 2 finally comes in and decides Poppy's blisters need to be de-roofed (a fancy term for popping them)

10:15 - They move us onto a ward for the actual blister de-roofing - there are two other children on this ward with breathing difficulties being attended to constantly - Poppy just wanted to play with them, bless her.

10:30 - Still waiting for nurse to administer medicine to prepare for blister de-roofing

11:00 - FINALLY medicine is administered, blisters are de-roofed and hand is bandaged (this takes about 5 minutes total). Poppy was a trooper - she didn't even cry!

11:30 - The nurse told us to wait 10 minutes after they finished to make sure poppy didn't have an adverse reaction to the medicine.. and then she disappeared so we asked someone else if we had to stay and they said no so we just left. No after care instructions, nothing! 

At this point, Poppy was so tired, hungry, and overwhelmed we just had to go home. Some lunch and a three hour nap later, she was in a much better mood!

This was on Tuesday. Auntie Emma, Evie and Finley came up to hang out with Poppy for the day on Wednesday so Mat and I could both go to work (Thank you Emma!).  

We were back in on Thursday morning for a follow-up appointment (again at A&E). The follow-up was a much more streamlined process. We were seen at our appointment time, had to have a consultation with a plastic surgeon (which happened immediately), then more blister popping and a new dressing. The plastic surgeon is pretty sure we won't need his services as Poppy had feeling in her fingers when he poked her in her burns (pleasant, I know).

Mat is taking her back in tomorrow for a dressing change and another look at the burns. Hopefully we don't have to have the dressing on for much longer because it's seriously hard to give a baby a bath without getting one hand wet! Plus Poppy is getting annoyed with not being able to pick things up with both hands.

And I have learned a valuable lesson - bad things happen when you try to do your hair so my new plan is to never do my hair :)

In all seriousness, I feel supremely guilty about Poppy's burns. I suppose accidents happen but it doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Anywho, here are some photos:

Checking out her new hand.

Playing outside with her new hand.

Royal London Hospital.

The damage two days later - you can't see her little finger but that has a blister on it as well :(

That's it! I have more photos of Poppy doing fun things like swinging but I think they're on Mat's phone and he's at work so they will have to wait for another post.

Commuting with Poppy

I had a hard day at work today. My deputy is on holiday this week and running that huge nursery by myself is a serious struggle. But we survived! And there's nothing better to cheer me up after a long hard day than making my commute home with my adorable child. She is hilarious in public now. She thinks everyone is her friend and insists on waving and saying "buh bye" to every single person who walks by (I live in a city of 8.6 million people - its a lot of waving!). "Buh bye" also happens to sound like "da da" in Poppy language - we get a lot of awkward stares from passing men. 

On our commute home, we also have to take the tube. We get on the train at East India and have to take the DLR one stop, then change trains to get on the Jubilee Line. The Jubilee Line goes through Canary Wharf, where all the high-rise buildings are and all the bankers work. This means when the train stops at Canary Wharf, it is completely jam-packed with commuting bankers on their way home. If you've ever ridden on the tube, you know it is eerily silent, even when jam-packed. Insert Poppy, my little attention loving baby. She looks around until someone makes eye contact with her and then shouts at them, usually some variation of "BA BA BA BA" or "DA DA!" or "UH OH" until they smile at her. It is so funny. 

Then we walk home from the station and she waves at the ducks the whole time we walk by the water (which is most of the walk). She is obsessed with 'ducks' - which includes geese, swans, pigeons and actual ducks. 

Mat works most Sundays now so Poppy and I have the day to ourselves. We've started going to feed the ducks most days and Poppy does NOT understand the concept.

Poor ducks!

We've also been making her walk more to break in her new kicks - she told us how she felt about that by throwing her new kicks in the toilet yesterday! But she is so cute toddling along the river. 

We also make frequent trips to the library on our Sundays together. Poppy loves the library, not so much for reading books but for carrying them around and handing them to strangers or leaving them various places on the floor.

And we rounded out our Sunday with a little swinging action. 

There we go, a day in the life of Poppy and Mommy when Mat is working, and an insight into my daily commute.

A Grandma Caryl Guest Blog!

Grandma Caryl guest blogging again.  Finally rested up after our trip to London to celebrate Poppy’s first birthday.  Can’t believe she is a year old already! Our flight was uneventful, and upon arrival at Heathrow we gathered our luggage and found the train that would take us into London.  Allie and Poppy met us at the station.  (I was NOT greeted with “hi Mom, I think I am in labor” this time). Poppy seemed happy to see us!  I think she recognized our faces and our voices, but seemed a little perplexed at seeing us in a 3-dimensional form instead of on Mummy’s phone screen. 

We stashed our luggage, freshened up  a bit, then headed to Borough Market, one of the largest and oldest food markets in London.  I LOVE this place!  We found the stall that does the raclette and got a gooey toasted cheese sandwich.  Tasted especially heavenly after the mystery chicken we were served on our flight.  (Really could not figure out what was on that piece of poultry).  Managed to power through our exhaustion until it was a reasonable time to go to bed. 

Saturday was spent party planning, shopping, decorating, cleaning, and cooking in preparation for Poppy’s 1^st birthday party! Poppy’s friends, family, lots of buggies, and a plumber installing a new washing machine filled up the Horvath flat on Sunday.  While it might not seem like too much of an inconvenience to have a washing machine installed in the middle of a party, keep in mind said washing machine is located in the tiny kitchen.  Fortunately, most of the food prep and cooking was done ahead of time, and the plumber was quite speedy, so it wasn’t too much of a distraction. 

Poppy had a great time and received lots of fun presents (toys, clothes, books, puzzles, etc). In spite of having all these new things to play with, throughout the rest of our stay she continued going back to her old favorites – two water bottles (one filled with rice, one filled with pens, both noisy when shaken) and her medicine dropper.  Seriously, don’t take her medicine dropper away from her.  You quickly become her least favorite person on the planet!  She did enjoy playing Duplos with Grandpa Randy.  She also managed to face plant on a Duplo tower while we were there, the result of which was her first fat lip.  Lots of crying and a bit of bleeding ensued.

We headed to Scotland bright and early Monday morning, with Edinburgh as our final destination.  While there we toured Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse (official residence of Her Majesty the Queen in Scotland).  All that whisky research Randy and Mat did before our travels culminated in a tour of Glenkinchie Distillery which Mat arranged (the girls opted out of this tour).  Poppy got to have a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa one night.  We use the term ‘sleep’ loosely here.  Not much of it happened.  She was a little unhappy not having Mummy and Daddy around, but we managed to keep her calm and lull her to sleep by reading Postman Bear a thousand times! It’s a good read the first ten times, but I found myself questioning the plot later on (why does Postman Bear have to throw his own party and bake his own cake?  Do bears really have moles for friends?)

Poppy is very good-natured and has such a fun little personality.  She didn’t seem to mind all the buggy-riding she had to do while we were there.  She seemed to have a good time on the train to and from Edinburgh.  I believe it was during this trip that Mat taught her the fun ‘uh oh’ game.  We spent the rest of our vacation picking things up off the floor after Poppy would drop them and say ‘uh oh’.  In her mind, that game just never gets old! Our aching backs thank you, Mat.  (We really stashed her on the luggage rack just to get a little break from playing this game!)

We returned from Scotland on Wednesday evening.  The highlights of the next few days were antiquing at Spitafields Market, a spectacular lunch at Bread Street Kitchen (Mat’s place of employment – left there stuffed to the gills!), Poppy went to another birthday party (social butterfly, that one), the British Museum for Randy (I turned him loose for a day so he could take his time perusing the exhibits), shopping at W. Rouleaux (a ribbon shop – if I ever live in London and start making fascinators, this is where I will get my supplies), a hardware store (not sure how Randy spotted this hole-in-the-wall place, but they had what we needed), a kitchen supply store, Liberty of London (all this time I thought they only sold fantastic fabric!) and lunch at Bone Daddies Ramen Bar in Soho (awesome food).

Our last full day in London (Sunday) was spent hanging out with Poppy and Allie.  It was a nice sunny day, so we took advantage of it and did a lot of walking around (surprise!). We went into Chinatown and had what are supposed to be the best dumplings in London.  They were really good.  Played the "uh oh" game while waiting for our food and tried to keep my dishes on the table while Poppy attempted ripping the tablecloths off.  Really relaxing sitting at Poppy’s table!!

We tried celebrity spotting, to no avail, in front of the Ritz (the BAFTA’s were in town – British version of The Oscars) on our way to the iconic Fortnum & Mason.  This store has been in existence since 1707 and is a favorite of Poppy and Grandma!  The first time we visited the store, Poppy was a wee baby.  Shopping was much more pleasant this time around.  Think we will make it an annual Poppy and Grandma outing!  She had the giggles and was doing her wobbly walking all around the store.  She was so funny!

Alas, our day of departure arrived.  Had one last crumpet (Allie’s description of a crumpet is spot on – like an English muffin and a pancake had a baby), and played with Poppy while trying to figure out how to sneak out before the waterworks started.  Couldn’t quite manage it.  Really hard saying good-bye, as I knew it would be.  Facetime and Skype are all well and good, but there is nothing like getting hugs and holding hands with my grandbabies in person. 

Thanks Allie & Mat for your hospitality!  Stay cool, Poppy!