Happy Halloween!!

Well, it's not nearly as big of a holiday over here as it is in the US. But I did manage to find a little pumpkin hat and mittens for Marius to wear today. We had our regular swimming class and then we went to our breastfeeding support group for the costume competition. Marius was way too underdressed to be a serious contender for the grand prize. That went to the spider outfit that was hand died, hand stitched with a web and extra stuffed black socks for legs! Too cute. I can't believe the mother had the time to make it. But, here are some pics of my boy. He had a little "my first halloween" onsie on earlier, but being a baby... he peed on it before I could get a photo of him in it. Ah well, next year I'll do better.

Pentland Hills and Property

Saturday we took a nice little walk through some farms in the Pentland Hills just south of Edinburgh. It's so nice here that private property in the American sense doesn't really exist. In Scotland, anybody has the right to walk through someone's land, and even camp! Can you imagine walking on some cattle rancher's farm and setting up a tent in the middle of Tennessee? You'd get shot or attacked by dogs. But here they build little fence gates and bridges to make it easier for people to walk through! So, we walked through some cow pasture and then a sheep pasture in these amazing rolling hills. Marius loves being in his backpack and was laughing the whole time. I tried to use our baby sign language to show him the cows and sheep, but I'm not sure he followed what I was doing. Simon is going to try to do some research out here, so he was scoping out the soil and erosion. It's not a bad place for research, since it's so pretty! I am still hoping he'll find some place in Spain or California for research, then Marius and I can go along and enjoy the trip too!!! We can help dig soil pits!
Sunday was mostly spent checking out different neighborhoods in Edinburgh. We're getting a lot closer to really looking for a place to buy. But since we really don't know the city too well, we still need to do a lot of walking around places to get a feel for whether we want to live there or not. There are so many nice options, it really makes things difficult. But our biggest decision is either to stay in town and have a smaller place that's within walking distance to everything we need, or move out of town a bit and have a larger house with a garden, but have to commute into town for work. Six of one half a dozen of the other right? Eventually we'll figure it out!

Swimming

Today was our first swimming class. My biggest worry was the logistic of getting us both changed, into and out of the pool. It will definitely take some getting used to, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Thank goodness he's big enough to stand up and hang on to my leg. I couldn't have imagined doing it with a 3 month old!
Marius really likes being in the bath and splashing, so he was quite happy to have me plopping him in and out of the water (up to his neck only). There were also lots of toys in the pool for Marius to grab on to. At one point we put swimmy arm bands on the babies and give them a little more of a floating sensation. Second timers even had their mothers let go of them! Marius didn't particularly care for the arm floaties and tried to eat them. That didn't help with his "floating" practice and he screamed a little when he was on his back. A the end of the class, we were supposed to blow on their face and then dumk them in heads and all. I was a bit hesitant, but everyone else was doing it... So, Marius had his first big gulp of chlorine baby pee water today! He seemed a bit shocked by the whole experience, so I didn't go for a repeat even though lots of mothers did. I think Marius was old enough to let me know he didn't like it, but the poor little 3 month olds couldn't tell their mommies "NO, don't do that again!"
Afterward most of us mummies had some coffee at the cafe upstairs. That was nice, as it's always good to chat up with other mothers. Inevitably we ended up sharing our labor stories. I must say, after having gone through the whole process at one of the best medical centers in the US and with great MD's checking up on me..... I'm scared out of my mind to have to go through that here! I'll try not to rant on and on, but women here don't have medical doctors supervising their pregnancy or delivery - it's a midwife who does it! Now, I know women have given birth for centuries and it's not exactly brain surgery, but it's also not exactly as simple as donating blood (and let me tell you, I have some horror stories about that too). I've heard of so many women here going through really long and difficult labors, only to find out the the baby was in the wrong position so they have an emergency C-section. If these poor women had trained and licensed doctors using ultrasounds attending to them they would have known this! But is seems like the midwives always think that birth is routine and they can handle any situation without a doctor. That may be true for 4 out of 5 women... but I don't like those odds when it comes to MY baby! I can only imagine how horrible Marius's birth would have been over here. So, I may have to take a trip to the US right before I'm due with the next baby. Not that we're planning another one any time soon!

Two front teeth

Well, Marius's Christmas present came a bit early. He has his two front teeth - both the top ones now and the bottom. I saw the top two, well one and a half, coming in yesterday. Check them out!

Britishisms

So, despite living here for over three months, I am still learning lots of new words. I went on a walk to the Botanic Garden today with a friend and her son, and we started talking about cars. She had just bought an "estate" car and was trying to explain the type of car to me. I thought the estate was the make/model of the car, so I said, "no, I have no clue what kind of car that is." It wasn't until we saw one of these driving around the corner that she said, "look, it has a large boot that opens up," that I realized it just means a station wagon and not a particular model. She got quite a kick out of us calling them station wagons. If you think about it, I guess it's pretty strange that we call them that, I mean how many people use a big trunk to pick up people or things from stations in the US. Really, nobody even goes to stations in the US. And I guess people here who live in the county or on an estate would use the big trunk, or boot, to haul dogs, garden equipment or the like. Since pick up trucks are non existent here, an estate car would be the next best vehicle to have. That being said, I did just see a Mazda pick-up (about the size of Simon's old Ford Ranger) this week driving down the road and I though to myself "that's a HUGE and MONSTEROUS vehicle, what could they possible use it for?" Oh, how my ideas of car sizes have changed! That'll happen when you drive around in a golf cart for three months!
Oh, and get these other funny English to American translations...
to hoover = to vacuum
plasters = band-aids
gaffer tape = duct tape
gaffer = boss or manager
sello tape = scotch tape
cling wrap = plastic wrap or Saran wrap
buggy or push chair = stroller
courgette = zucchini
jab = shot (as in a vaccination)
skip = garbage dumpster
tea = tea the drink but also dinner
nappy = diaper
biscuit = cookie (I love this one! I don't feel guilty about eating a whole box of buscuits!!! tee hee hee)
dado level = I'm still trying to figure this one out, but from what I can tell it's approximately waist to chest height.... It's used in real estate when they say that a room has wood panelling or is tiled to that particular "dado" level on the wall.

The English Riviera

Simon gave a talk at the University of Exeter on Wednesday, so we took the opportunity to make it an extended stay until Saturday. As soon as we got off the plane, we could tell that we weren't in Scotland anymore.... It was at least 2 degrees C hotter than Edinburgh. It was down right sweltering! Marius behaved pretty well on the plane, but all of the traveling does throw him off of his napping schedule, so he had several crying spells every day of our trip. A screaming baby is not my favorite thing to hear, so I was a little stressed out at times. But it really was a great trip.

The weather was wonderful, the scenery quintessential UK - complete with lots of sheep and one lane roads with ten foot tall hedges, and the company was superb. On Friday we drove around Dartmouth and south Devon, which is also known as the English Riviera. The coastline did remind me a little of Santa Barbara, the California Riviera, with the cliffs and fog. The little towns in Devon were all really cute. But perhaps better than getting to wear a t-shirt without a jacket, was getting to have lots of adult conversation - such an under appreciated thing until you stop having it! It was really nice to meet and talk with Fiona and Katie, two women whose husbands work at the University. We stayed with Fiona, her husband and two lovely children. They have such a beautiful house and garden. It made me long for our yard in Tallahassee, and a bit depressed that we'll never be able to afford that much land in Edinburgh. Unless I win the lotto, which I keep meaning to start playing!!
Today was supposed to be our day to just walk around Exeter and see the cathedral before we headed back to Edinburgh. The plan was to go to Katie and her husband's place and use that as a home base while they were off with the kids on a fun field trip with Fiona and her family. We were supposed to just lock the door and put the key in her mail slot. Sounds easy enough right? Well..... Perhaps we were just dim and couldn't figure out how to use the key? But our front door has a crazy lock (you have to twist the key while pulling up on the lever handle at a 45 degree angle) and we figured that out by ourselves, so you'd think we could handle this one... We didn't have anyone's cell phone numbers, so I pulled a MacGyver and put two hairbands together to keep the door from swinging open. We still have not heard from Katie or her hubby, so we're hoping that their place is OK. Yikes! How hard is it to figure out a door lock? Perhaps it just broke? That's all we could figure out, because we both spent about an hour fiddling with the thing. So, needless to say we didn't go out and see Exeter. Oh well, next time right?

Gardens and Grandma

Monika came for a nice little visit to see the boy. She left yesterday, but we had a bit of a whirlwind of a time going from one place to another. We took some nice drives down south to the Borders, up north to Perhshire, and east to East Lothian. My favorite trip was the one to Perthsire because it's the southern tip of the Scottish Highlands, a grand swath of mountain that have been beautifully carved out by glaciers. There are scenic rivers and lakes (lochs as they say here, yes as in Loch Ness!) and lots of cute sheep everywhere! You'd think that the whole country is eating lamb daily and wearing nothing but wool sweaters with all the sheep.
We also went to just about every botanic garden in a 40 mile radius of Edinburgh too! Monika in a garden is just like a kid in a candy shop! Plus she knows tons about plants, so it's nice to hear all about this plant and that. Let's see, we went to the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, its arboratum in Dawyck, Drummond Castle Garden (wow, what a grand one that is!), and Dirleton Castle Garden which happens to be home to the longest herbaceous border in the world!
Tomorrow we're off to Exeter, in the far southwest corner of the UK. Simon has to give a talk at the university there, so Marius and I are tagging along for the ride. We'll stay at one of the professor's houses. I hope Marius travels well..... He was brilliant coming over here and going to Spain, but these days he's quite the wiggle worm! At least daddy will be along and can absorb some of the energy.

Busy busy piggies

Yeah, I know I have neglected the blog.... Simon's mom is in town and I have had no time to upload photos or sit down to type.... Today Marius and I am feeling a bit under the weather with colds so we are staying home while Monika explores Edinburgh a bit. I've taken my "day off" to catch up on some cleaning and will promptly get back to work taking care of the little one now! I've got to read his favorite book, Busy Busy Piggies, another 20 or so more times today!!!
I'll upload photos early next week.