First sippy and sleep

Yesterday turned into quite a memorable day! I had been getting a little upset that Marius wouldn't take a bottle or sippy cup, since he's getting to the age where he will need to take in more water than Momma can provide. So, I've been letting him play with his sippy cup every time he's at his high chair for dinner. However, for the last month, he has just bit the sippy part, sucked out small amounts of water and spit it all out on himself. He has gotten quite good at this and I was about to just ditch the sippy cup. Thank goodness I didn't because last night after dinner I actually heard some swallowing and he wasn't biting down on it anymore. I guess I just need to be a bit more patient.
The best moment came last night when I put him down to sleep. He's always fought being put down in his crib for naps or bedtime without first falling asleep on the boob. But last night he wasn't falling asleep, even though I knew he was tired. So, I thought, what the heck.... I put him in his crib (eyes open), turned on his jungle mobile, patted him on the stomach, said "night night," and left the room. I waited by the door thinking I would hear him wailing, but he just made a few small moans and that's all I heard from him until this morning!!!!! SO exciting. I can't wait to try it again tonight! But I won't get my hopes up.
Simon has been calling from the field and is enjoying the area. It's apparently quite beautiful in Inchnadamph . Check it out. He did have to go the doctor though because he came down with an eye infection - not bad. Oh, and apparently the midges really are as horrible as everyone says here.... Yikes, I don't want to ever meet up with a cloud of them!.

Lots of laundry this week

Well, nothing too interesting has happened this week. Like I said before, Simon left on Saturday, and our friends Chase and Sarynna left on Sunday. I think my most exciting/scary moment this week was Sunday evening after I gave Marius some yogurt…. I should preface this by saying that I already knew Marius’s digestive system was a bit stressed by or intolerant of cows milk protein, as when we put him on formula in his third week he had an unpleasant diaper (I won’t go into more detail unless you really want it) that indicated as much. I have subsequently been off of dairy products since then because I guess the protein is not fully metabolized by me and is passed through my milk. I have taken to eating cheese though in recent months and have noticed no problems with the boy. This is where my confidence to give Marius yogurt came from, and also from the health visitor (paediatric nurse for you Americans) who told me to try it. So, I buy baby yogurt and give a serving to Marius in Sunday. He loved the stuff and ate it quite eagerly. This was about 2pm. Then he took a nice long nap from around 3 until 5. At 6 he started getting fussy, and didn’t seem to want the boob. So, I thought he may have some gas from the yogurt. I gave him some gas medicine, which I had given him before with no problems, and within 5 minutes he barfed all over my bed. Well, I thought maybe the gas medicine just made everything come up along with the irritating yogurt. I thought that would be the last of it, and then 20 minutes later my cashmere sweater and I got barfed on. I got a little worried about another barf, so I did what any new mother would do…I called MY mom. I knew that Mike and I both were allergic to milk as babies, so I figured my mom would have jewels of wisdom about the subject. But I guess we didn’t have such showy barfing displays back then. At this point I was a little worried about dehydration for Marius, since he didn’t want the boob, and he does not take the bottle or sippy cup just yet (not for lack of trying). So when I get a third barf an hour later, I start to freak out that this will go on all evening and night. I called the 24 hour national health service hotline and get told that a health visitor will call be back because they’re all busy with other patients. When she calls back, I can barely understand her (thick Scottish accent and colloquialisms and jargon that I don’t know) but get the gist that I should wait another hour or so and see if any more vomits occur before I call back. Luckily that was the end of it and Marius has been fine since then! But it’ll be quite a while before I try yogurt again! We’ll just stick to the butternut squash and bananas. I guess I’ll have to introduce broccoli to get in the calcium that he lacks from the dairy.

Me and the buddy

Marius never really got too sick, thank goodness. He had a fever for two days, his cough mostly subsided in a day, and he has only had a minor runny nose. I guess the power of boob juice is pretty strong! Thank god for breastfeeding! I'm going to be in for a shock when he's weaned and in day care. Because then the germs will be flying all over the place and his immune system won't have my boost. But I won't think about that just yet.
Chase and Sarynna just left to go back to Berlin this morning. It was nice to have company and adult conversation! Simon left yesterday for a week long field trip he's helping to lead, so now it's just Marius and me. I might venture out with the boy in the car sometime this week. I drove Simon to his office yesterday, and so that boosted my self confidence a bit in the car. But I will have to make it an early morning or late evening trip, since I am still a little scared of accidentally driving on the right side and getting in some horrible head on collision. More likely I'll just get honked at and see a few choice hand gestures from the other cars!
We started our today by going to church (yes mom, it's true!). I had been meaning to go, but could never get up early enough for the mass. But today we got up early to say good-bye to Chase and Sary, and I must say it was pretty nice. There were tons of kids there and babies too, so I didn't feel really bad when Marius got fussy towards the end, since everyone else was already screaming in the back.

Yesterday was so amazing here. It was finally summer! Really, not a cloud all day and it got up to at least 72 degrees! Sarynna and Chase are here visiting from Berlin, so we decided to make the most of it and climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat. Here are some photos of our day. It was such a pretty day. I still can't believe it. Simon babysat last night and then I got to go out to a Fringe show with Chase and Sary. We went to "One Man Star Wars Trilogy." It was just that... One man jumping around on stage performing a condensed (one hour!) version of the three original movies. Good stuff. Once Marius gets older, we're going to have to get babysitters more often during the festivals to see more stuff. I could do that every night!
The bad news is that Marius is sick..... I know, kids get sick all the time, but this is his first cold/fever so I'm really trying hard not to freak out. He started coughing this morning, so I decided not to go to the castle with Chase and Sary. It's a good thing because after a while he started getting fussy, so I took his temperature and sure enough he had a fever of 101.4. So, I gave him Tylenol and he's sleeping at the moment. Poor kid. I hope it doesn't get any worse and goes away quickly. If he ends up getting all congested, I'm going to be really unhappy. I don't have a humidifier, nor do I know if they even have them in this country... They don't even have Tylenol. I'm just lucky I brought it with me.
Well, baby's awake and crying...

My big day out

Yesterday was supposed to be a pretty interesting day for me. The Scottish Executive (the government) was hosting a climate change and carbon budgeting presentation, and I had emailed to register and attend. So, Simon had agreed to stay home with Marius so that I could go be a grownup for a few hours. I was getting ready in the morning, all excited to be able to wear a suit again... then I double checked my email to make sure I knew were I was going and how to get there. Then I read the bit about government building and security badge blah blah blah. So, I thought to myself, when I emailed my RSVP, I was never asked to supply any more pertinent information that might be required for a security badge. Hmm... Well, long story short, I was not on their list and could not attend. After waiting in anticipation all week and planning to make a side stop to walk the Royal Mile (a mile long stretch of super old roads leading from the Castle to the Scottish Parliament) to see the street performers from the Fringe Festival, I was pretty bummed.
But, since I had already lined up Daddy to baby-sit and had put on make up, I just took a little walk down there anyhow. I have to say it was very pretty. The road is cobble stoned, and the buildings are all hundreds of years old. The bottom stores lining the street are for the most part pretty kitschy, what with lots of teddy bears wearing kilts, Scottish flag t-shirts, and key chains with your family clan crest or tartan (that‘s your special and unique family plaid design- which it seems every family, school, team has). But the architecture is amazing. Of course it was raining, like it does just about everyday, and of course I forgot my umbrella. But that just forced me to walk into lots of shops and get familiar with all the kitschy Scottish items that I can buy my family for Christmas.
Today the family is going to drive out to Dunbar to check out the town. It's a little beach community about 20 miles outside of the city, and we're contemplating buying a house out there instead of the city. But, we'll see. Simon has a colleague who lived out there and, we're going to visit him for tea and a tour of the high and low points of the town. It should be interesting. I'll take photos and post them later.

Pix from the UK

To swim or not to swim

Well, I had planned on getting more savvy with this whole blog thing before emailing it out, but that never happened so it's either now or never I suppose.... Anyhow, so I'm still wandering around trying to meet some other mommies in Edinburgh. I was so excited to find out that there is a really nice pool near the flat where I could enroll in baby and parent swim classes. So, the first thing I did here was walk over and ask about signing up for classes. I spoke with this young girl at the front desk about how to sign up, and she told me to just show up on the first day of classes. Then she said that since it was holidays, they wouldn't start up until August. So, I waited several weeks and then went in last week to double check on the classes. Well, this time I spoke to the member services lady and she told me that the classes were all booked up! Can you believe it? I was so mad! Here I was waiting for a freaking month with total excitement that I would finally be able to meet some other parents, and I had lost my opportunity! So, needless to say I asked to be put on the waiting list for every class. But I had forgotten the home phone number, so I gave them the only one I know in this country - Simon's work number. His office mate and her phone answering skills leave a lot to be desired, so I decided to go back today and update my contact info with the home phone. I spoke to another person this time, and you know what the saying goes.... ask 3 Royal Commonwealth Pool employees the same question and get 3 different answers....
This woman told me that there was a Wednesday class with open slots! Well, hot diggity - my prayers have been answered! I told her to sign me up, so she swiped my Bank of Scotland debit card (It's nice to show people that no, I'm not on holiday, I actually live here!) and enrolled us. Then I take a look at the receipt and noticed that it said "baby and parent swim class 2-3." I asked here if that meant 2-3 year olds. Well, apparently taking toddlers to the pool isn't as popular as taking infants, and the RCP lady didn't notice it on her computer. So, after nearly having a heart attack with excitement, I'm back to waiting on the stupid list. The crappy thing is that they can't even let me in the class on stand-by if nobody shows up. The people actually have to call and cancel to get a refund if they don't want to take the class. So, it sounds like the waiting list is more of a formality than an actual tool to let people in the class. I'm thinking about just showing up and talking to the instructor and schoozing a bit to see if she'll let me hop in the pool if people don't come and don't formally drop the class.
So, we'll see if I get a call when classes start up in a week and a half....

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3!

So here it is, my first blog.... I hope I don't bore ya'll too much. So, it's been an interesting month to put it mildly. Lets see, I started Marius on solid foods, traveled half-way across the globe with him by myself, and moved us to Scotland.
I felt like Dorothy stepping outside after the tornado when I arrived in Scotland. It hit me as soon as I saw a man in a plaid skirt (technically a kilt, but a skirt non-the-less) outside of the airport. The feeling persisted as I clutched my sweater, which barely kept me warm at midday in the July gloom that apparently lasts year-round. I still get Dorothy moments when I see the munchkin size cars on the road, look the opposite direction when crossing the street, unscrew a light bulb (don’t even get me started on the light bulbs here!), turn on the stove (I risked life and limb to bake a B-day cake for Simon, but we're still alive!), bag my own groceries at the market, or try to decipher the words coming out of our neighbour’s mouth (I swear she speaks Portuguese, but Simon insists it‘s English…). But then I also get moments were I am totally enamoured with this fantasy (a.k.a Harry Potter-like ) land , like when I see the castle downtown, stop and think that many of the buildings in my neighbourhood existed before the California Missions were even conceived of, hear a beautiful Scottish accent that I actually do understand, bite into a chocolate McVitie, and when I see bunnies hopping around on the greenest and unirrigated grass I’ve ever seen in my life (think Teletubbies).
So, my first two weeks in Scotland were spent waiting for our luggage and stroller (called a push chair here) to arrive, getting over my jetlag , getting over Marius’s jetlag, unpacking boxes and boxes from the move, then packing for a much needed trip to Spain, then waiting for British Telecom to hook up our phone and finally internet.
But now we're all settled in. Great, now all I need to do is find some things to do outside of the apartment and meet some people. No matter how much you love your kid, a mommy still needs some adult conversation other than the checkout guy at the grocery store to keep her sanity. And unfortunately mine is running a bit thin these days! But once the "holidays" (aka summer vacation) are over Marius and I will be enrolled in just about every mother-baby class in the city! We're taking swimming, shiatsu, and sing and sign classes! Too fun! I can't wait.