This Week

This week has been pretty uneventful. Paul and I have just been hanging out at the house and John has been working late. Paul and I have been taking at least one walk a day around town. He really likes getting out and about. I have done the domestic duties this week. John’s dad sent me the washer manual, because I thought for sure I was doing something wrong with the laundry because one load was taking 2 ½ hours. After reading the manual, that is just how long the washer takes on normal cycle and it is pretty small. I think I got 4 towels in one load. I have discovered the maximum loads you can do a day are 2. That is 5 hours of the washer running and then you have got to have the drying time on the line. The weather has been nice this week (not shorts weather, but not coat weather either) and I have been able to hang the clothes on the line outside. You have to iron everything you wash because they are so hard when they dry even with fabric conditioner.

Our phone went out this week so we only have the pay as you go phone. The company is checking on it for us. If I read the information correct, it cost more to call in the UK than it does to the US on the phone. That sounds strange to me. We finally got enough salt in the dishwasher. It took 3 tries. I still don’t know how to use the oven, but I try to buy things that say what to put both knobs on. I believe it is called a fan assisted oven, but I am not sure how it works and it is in Celsius.

We are still having problems finding Paul baby food that he will eat. Everything is so different with babies here. I guess they start feeding babies baby food at 4 months from the looks of the packages. Most things are mixes of several different items, including meat even in stage 1 food. The baby food is so thick. When I give it to Paul he makes a horrible face and starts to gag and sometimes he throws up. We did manage to find some thinner veggies, but they tend to be the same things like sweet potatoes and carrots. We want him to start eating more things, but it is hard here. For those of you past this stage, did you still feed your child the food even though they gagged? Not sure where to go from here.

Paul is starting to get up on all fours, but not really crawling yet. He can scoot and get to something if he wants is real bad. He has gotten stuck under the chair today and the table. I need to have the camera ready for when he does it again. I have to rescue him. He also has a bump of a tooth poking through his bottom gum. You can faintly see two bumps there. It seems like them breaking through the gums might be a slow process, but thankfully he is not too grumpy yet.

Getting Paul to sleep at nights is a huge challenge. With it not getting dark until 10pm or after and daylight breaking thru at or before 4am is an obstacle. Paul has wanted to get out of bed at 4:45am or 5:00am. I have been putting him to bed later than usual and he still is getting up 2-3 times a night. We do have a neighbor on the wall of the room Paul is sleeping in so I don’t want to let him cry too long. This has been the most challenging since we have been here. Yesterday, John and I put aluminum foil on his windows to make it darker in there. That seemed to help some. He didn’t get up until 6am, but that was after 4 times waking up through the night. Not sure what to do next. Naps during the day have been pretty good, but not for any long periods of time.

In the laundry room there is a sink with a place to drain dishes. I put a towel on the drainer and changed it into a diaper changing area. The other day Paul had a dirty diaper and I wash washing out his outfit. He is fascinated with water and was trying to get to the water. I hadn’t dressed him yet, so I let him play in the sink and he loved it. Here are some cute pictures.

When John gets off today, he is going to take me to a new store people from his work has shown him this week. We need to pick up some things for lunch. Tomorrow we are going to go to a town called “Bath”. It is an old Roman city with hot springs where they bathed. It is out past Stonehenge where we were last weekend. Winchester is out that way too, if we have time we want to see that town someday. Jane Austin is buried at the Cathedral there. She wrote Emma and other similar books. Next week I will take some pictures of in the house to post. The internet is extremely slow with the card I have. John even has problems at work with things being so slow. We are so fortunate in the US to have great, unlimited, and reliable internet. Take it from me…..be thankful for the small things. We did find a McDonalds that had pretty good connection with the internet. We might go there tonight so I can upload this post. I only have 30 minutes there of free internet. Hope you all are enjoying the posts. You can email me at ringlebs@yahoo.com if you don’t want to leave a comment on the blog, but want to contact me.

Have a great weekend and Happy Fathers Day to all the dads!