Exploring the Free Museums

So after our first week of all the playgrounds, I was starting to get a little bored. I decided that we should try out a bit of sight seeing, starting with the free museums. It is cold and rainy still, so being inside sounded good. And as long as they were free - it kept expectations low, since I wasn't expecting the kiddo to last long.

The British Museum
First up was the British Museum, which was the closest to our house and roughly walkable with the stroller. I was able to check the stroller for free, which was helpful - until he got tired and I was carrying him and all our stuff. We got there as soon as it opened, which meant that we briefly had a whole room to ourselves - which was super cool. He was excited about everything - and loudly asking "What is that?" while trying to touch everything. Mostly - he did pretty well, convincing me that taking him to museums isn't a terrible idea.

all to ourselves

I thought these guys were cool - but the kiddo thought they were pretty scary

The National Gallery

Next up, we tried the National Gallery one weekend. Because there were two of us, we skipped the stroller. This wasn't our best trip, as we spent most of the time in the restroom trying to convince him to go. It was pretty packed - so we took turns carrying him and trying to show him the art, while the other person had a quick minute by themselves to try to look at things. He was actually pretty happy to look at the paintings - particularly if there were any boats in them. 

the only picture I have from this trip. 

Tate Modern

Next up, one very cold and rainy day the boy and I tried the Tate Modern Art museum. We had to take a bus to get down there, and then walk across the river, which was his favorite part. There is a huge swinging ball that he really wanted to touch, and then a whole exhibit of swings that he oddly didn't want to touch. We breezed through the free parts of the museum quickly, had our snack break, and then went back home to dry off. I asked him every few minutes if he wanted to stop at the potty - to which he clearly said no - so we made it all the way home without any accidents.  

trying to touch the huge ball

swing exhibit - the only thing in the museum he didn't want to touch

snack break. I don't know what these cheesy smiles are about. 

The Get Out of House Game
So I've been feeling like I'm playing this video game lately, called Get Out of the House. As I learned during maternity leave, it is really critical to get outside every day, or he gets cranky and I go insane, but it seems ridiculously hard to get outside.  As soon as I get the hang of things, suddenly it gets more difficult.  Inevitably, I am physically exhausted and completely stressed out, but this is still much better than staying inside all day.

• Level 1: 2 adults and a stroller
• So the easiest approach was when we were both home in the beginning and could use the stroller. We would take turns pushing the stroller, with the other person navigating and holding doors or blocking traffic as needed.  Anything we needed to carry could fit under the stroller.

• Level 2: 1 adult and a stroller
• Then he started work, and I was on my own. I still took the stroller out, which was helpful to hold all my stuff, but difficult because I would have my phone out to navigate while I was pushing and trying to dodge all the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks. The sidewalks are not stroller-friendly - there are very few ramps, often stairs, and lots of cobblestones to bump over. 

• Level 3: No stroller
• Then things got harder when the boy decided he wouldn't sit in the stroller anymore - he wanted to walk. Inevitably, he would get tired out quickly, or the sidewalk would get too crowded,  and he would need to be picked up.  If there are two adults, then we can take turns carrying him and carrying the bag, but when I'm on my own I have to carry everything - which is super exhausting. When he does walk, it's a relief to not be carrying him, but even more stressful because he's not great at listening and will suddenly decide to run or skip near busy streets, or veer off randomly in crowded areas, or walk straight into other people. Everyday when we go to the grocery store is a desperate effort to make him stand still and wait for the checkout. 

• Level 4: No Diapers
• Then we started potty training, which I thought would make things easier. I failed to appreciate how easy things were with the diapers - now we have to keep constant track of how long it's been since he went last and where the nearest restrooms are. Instead of carrying the changing pad, I now carry an entire change of clothes for him - giving me constantly more stuff to carry. 

• Level 5: Take the bus or train
• All of this was working pretty well for short trips and errands, but then that started getting boring too. So to get further away from the house, it was time to embrace some mass transit. We started with the Tube, which feels easier to me but is much more limited and involves a 15 minute walk to get to the station, which is super crowded all day long. Then we switched to buses, which are much easier once you get the app that tells you which line you need and when it's coming. 

So- now I'm feeling fairly comfortable getting him out of the house by myself and across town - it's probably time for things to get more difficult again. I'm hoping that we can start to get out of town and try some short day trips or weekend trips - which will no doubt involve me carrying more stuff. I'm also hoping that he starts daycare soon, which would allow me to skip the stress on weekdays and maybe just do some easy sight seeing by myself. Having only breezed through each of the museums in 30-45 minutes - I'm sure I could go back and spend some real time in them, maybe even reading the placards. That would be nice. 

Greenwich

So this weekend we went to Greenwich, a southeastern burough of London. It wasn't exactly the plan - we were planning to go on a boat cruise of the Thames, but were running late (as usual), so by the time we got to the dock, the only boat was heading east not west. We jumped on quickly without being completely clear on what we were getting - slowly realizing we had bought a ticket to see Greenwich not the river tour we were hoping for. Nevertheless - we had nice boat-themed day.

map of the river tour - we went East instead of West

On the Boat
Heading east from London Bridge dock, we went under the bridge and along the river until arriving at Greenwich. It was about a half hour trip with some nice views of the city.

passing by the Tower of London

London Bridge

on the boat

really really on the boat

At the Naval College

So Greenwich is either known for being a naval hospital, a naval college, or the site of Thor's battle with his brother (I'll let you decide which was most famous). We toured the beautifully symmetrical grounds for a while. 

scone break

so bad at group selfies

so symmetrical

At the Naval Museum
Then we went to the Naval Museum which was free and on the way to the Observatory. There were a lot of nice boats and a great kids' area to play in.

cheesy smiles in front of a boat

Frederick's barge

fishing in the kids' area

raising the sails

Climbing the Hill for the Observatory

Then we started a slow climb to the top of the hill, where the observatory is located. The observatory is where the location of the Prime Meridian was set - the 0 degree line that separates the East and West hemispheres and also sets Greenwich mean time. Apparently there's a big red ball on top that drops at exactly 1pm every day to set the time zone, from which the phrase "keep your eye on the ball" is apparently derived. The views were great, but the observatory turned out to not be free. So we walked around briefly and headed back down.  

view from the top of the hill

getting tired after climbing to the top of the hill

other people who were willing to pay 10 pounds to take a picture on the prime meridian (not us). 

Heading back to the Boat
On our way back down the hill, we swung by the Cutty Sark - a famous clipper ship from the tea trade era (also not free). And then we jumped back on our boat to head back home.

The Cutty Sark. 

lunch break on the boat

Mulled wine turns out to be the most amazing thing. 

So our first touristy adventure was a success. Not what we were planing on - but a nice boat-themed day anyway. Maybe next time we'll take the boat going the other way where all the sites are located. 

Potty Training

Despite all the chaos in our lives right now, we just finished a week of dedicated potty training and now it looks like we're over the worst of it.  Even though it was really only a couple of days, we've been building up to this for quite a while. 

About a Year Ago

When the kiddo was about 1 1/2, he started to get really interested in the potty. I panicked and bought a bunch of stuff - the potty, the books for him, and the books for us. I read the super popular 3-day method one, which was super preachy and judgey. The basic premise is that when they're ready, you just dedicate 3 days to doing nothing other than learning the potty, and by the end they're trained. One point that stuck with me was that it didn't make sense to try to potty train at home if the daycare provider wasn't on board too - so we waited until he would switch to the daycare class that had access to potties. We continued to read him the books and try to get him to sit occasionally, but mostly we were just waiting. 

A Couple Months Ago

When he switched to the next daycare class, it turned out they had a different approach. They subscribed to the 'sit on the potty every 20 minutes' method, and wanted to wait until he was interested and asking to use it. He tried once or twice and was terrified, and then had no interest despite considerable peer pressure. I wanted to help him get over the fear by just doing the 3 day thing, but another thing the book said was not to try this during a period of other stress -which has been basically every day since the end of the summer for us, between the renovation, the holidays, and the move. So, we waited. I talked up the upcoming goodbye to diapers, but mostly we waited. 

About a Week Ago

The potty was one of the things we packed in our air-ship boxes, that arrived about a week ago during the midst of our intense house hunting. After the long day of seeing lots and lots of places, it was rainy and cold, and everyone was happy to have an inside day. I casually mentioned to him that he should try out the potty, which he hadn't seen in almost a month. He asked "why?", as he does constantly now, and I said something about it being time to say goodbye to diapers. I really didn't intend to do this now at all. 

Well, he completely grabbed onto the idea. He resisted for an hour or two, and then finally gave in and used it. For the rest of the day, we kept the potty in the living room near where he was playing so he didn't have to go too far. The book says you should keep them naked at first, but it's January and he was not having any of that. By the end of the day he had gone a couple times and said loudly that the potty isn't scary, "it's my friend."

We had a short regression when I put diapers back on him the next two days to go see houses. It really confused him, so I decided we just need to go all in. 

Three Dedicated Days

So then we took another stab at the intense day where we stay inside and basically do nothing but try to get to the potty in time. The second day we took a few short trips outside to run errands - nothing that took longer than an hour to get back to the house. And the third day we took a longer trip that took about 3 hours to get back. I was panicked the whole time and carrying an arsenal of wipes and changes, but he didn't have any accidents at all. He seems to completely get the concept and have the ability to hold it until we get back to his potty - which I think counts as a huge success. 

playing in the living room with the potty very close by

Not Quite There Yet

He's refusing to use public potties right now, so we still don't feel ready to make longer trips yet. Over the weekend, we took two longer trips and immediately found the restrooms when we arrived. It worked one time, and he proudly ran into the museum screaming  "Mommy, I peed in the potty!!", for everyone to hear. The other time it didn't work at all- it turned into a huge battle of stubbornness that took all the time we had to see the museum, ultimately kind of ruining the day. We're hoping to start making weekend trips soon, so this will be our new challenge. Maybe if we just carry the little potty seat with us? Is that weird? 

The book says you can do sleep later and put them in pull ups for naptime and bedtime, but he refuses. He keeps pointing out that we said goodbye to diapers, and we're losing the argument. Trying to use other words to try to make a differentiation between diapers and pull ups doesn't seem to work. So far, he's making it through nap time without a diaper, and almost making bedtime. 

The other issue we have is that we've been using TV shows as a treat to encourage him to go - and now we need to ween that back off. I think he's purposefully going to the potty when he wants to watch a show now, so I'll have to find a way to back off of that. 

Conclusion?

I guess I'm a big advocate for the 3 day method now, against my better wishes. The sitting every 20 minutes thing wasn't working for him, and he needed a push to just do it. Since I'm home with him now anyway, it seemed like a good use of my time at least. I feel a little bad pushing him through this when there's so much going on in his life right now - but frankly he seems fine. He's super proud of himself. This is yet another thing that I've been stressing out about for a year now, I guess, so I'm happy to be mostly past it. I know we're not quite all the way there and still have a risk of backsliding - but he's come a long way. 

House Hunting

We started talking about moving to London almost 2 years ago now. Both of us were excited generally about the idea of living abroad, but didn't know much at all about the city itself. We had each visited as tourists- me in middle school and him a few years ago on a work trip - but we'd barely left the touristy areas, so we had no idea where we would want to live.

Summer Trip
So over the summer, we dropped off the kiddo at my mother in law's and hopped a plane to come explore London for a few days. The idea was to see the city and decide if we actually wanted to live here before committing to a job - but also to check out the neighborhoods and get a sense of where we would want to live.

these are just the boroughs - there are dozens of neighborhoods in each borough. 

London has hundreds of neighborhoods and is spread across a huge area, so picking one was really daunting. We googled for best neighborhoods to live in, best restaurants, and best places for families, etc - to start a list of neighborhood suggestions. Then using rightmove.com - the website that lists everything for rent - we could get a good idea of what we could afford in each of the neighborhoods. We had a plan to see a couple each day for three days - enough to get a decent sense of what kind of options there would be.

a running tour of some of the neighborhoods

one of many really nice markets

After the quick trip this summer, we learned a lot, even though we didn't see any actual houses:

• Firstly, the Tube is much narrower and older than the metro we're used to, so motion sickness was a big problem for me. That meant a short, direct commute was very important, and a walking commute would be ideal. 
• Secondly - the parks are amazing here. There are a few huge ones, and then smaller ones scattered everywhere. Trying to be near one of the big ones would be great for running for us and for playgrounds for the kiddo.
• Thirdly - every neighborhood has a "high street", meaning the strip where all the businesses and restaurants are, some are absolutely charming, others are gross. 

Computer Searches
Once we were back home in DC, I started mapping out the important factors to figure out what our target areas were. We knew the location of Spouso's job, so I could figure out what the average commute would be in general radii away from that location. Since I don't have a job yet, it was trickier for me - but I found that the organizations I would like to work for are all clustered in two locations - so I used them to figure out general commute times. Shooting for a 30 min commute for each of us, and the recommendations we already had - that helped  narrow it down to 3 different areas - Islington, Hampstead, and Clapham. 

my commuting map and target neighborhoods

One thing I noticed from all my online searches was that a lot of the houses were tall and narrow. I assumed it was because they were larger homes that had been chopped up recently, but then read that this is how they were originally built in the late 1600s after the great London fire. At that time, land was already pricey, but labor was cheap - so many families had live-in servants. The houses were built 4 stories tall -  with the basement having the kitchen and a bedroom for the cook, and the top floor having another bedroom for the kids and one for the nanny. The middle 2 floors were for the family's living space, so they tend to be nicer - with hardwoods and fireplaces, while the basement and top floor are sparse. So we hoped in our house hunt to get a house that had a workable layout, but still had some of the original features like molding and fireplaces. 

Viewing Day
One of the moving benefits was a consultant to help us find a place. The deal was that they would arrange one long day of lots and lots of viewings, with the expectation that we would pick one at the end of the day. We had high hopes that were quickly dashed, as it became clear this person wouldn't be very helpful. Instead of offering any feedback on our neighborhood ideas, they just booked appointments in each of them- setting us up for a lot of travel time but no reassurance that we were on the right track. They pulled together a schedule of 11 viewings for the next day. Some were clearly horrible and just not us - we are not modern glass-wall kind of people - so we cancelled a bunch of them. Then we went back online to find other houses we wanted to add to the list, scheduled those directly, and those realtors added on a bunch more. 

We ended up seeing a total of 8 places in a super long day. It was exhausting, but much better than expected.  The kiddo skipped his nap but carried on like a trouper. He ran around each of them trying to find his bedroom. He also liked to pretend he had the key in his pocket while we waited for someone to come unlock the door and let us in. This was one of the days I had been dreading for months, so I was thrilled it went better than expected. 

a typical small basement galley kitchen

checking out the fireplaces

rare closet storage - about as good as it gets

my white whale - a fireplace in the bathroom

fun features by the front door

damage from a broken pipe

storage in the eaves

fun crown molding

Of the 8 houses we saw, we learned a lot, but didn't find any clear winner. It became apparent that we were going to have to look at much bigger houses than we expected in order to fit our large American furniture (mostly just the dining table and buffet). It was also clear that most houses didn't have closets or extra storage, which would be a problem. Not surprisingly, we were still torn on neighborhoods. There was one place that was really nice in a great location in the Islington neighborhood, where we would have much shorter commutes. There was another place further south that's bigger and cheaper, closer to big parks but further outside of the city. We went back for a second trip to see each of them again, and ended up seeing another 4 over the next few days. After viewing 12 total and dozens more online - we knew we had good sense of the market, and were ready to start making offers. 

Putting in Offers

Renting housing here is much more like buying a house in the US. The list price is completely negotiable, so there's a chance you can get it for way less, but also a chance you'll have to pay way more if there are other offers. Things also move very quickly, so there's not a lot of time to mull it over.

• The first one we tried to put an offer on turned out to already have another offer. Since it was already over our budget and we were hoping to get a deal, we just gave up. 
• The first one we actually put an offer on was quickly rejected because it was had a better offer. They didn't even give us a chance to up our bid. 
• The second offer took a little longer, since they seemed to be waiting for a better offer to come in. Thankfully it didn't, and they eventually gave it to us! 

We Got One!

Ironically, I took hundreds of photos of all the houses we didn't get, and none of the one we did. It's 4 bedroom, big enough for our furniture and with some closet space and extra storage areas. It has a small yard and kitchen, hardwood floors, and a few fireplaces and older features, but thankfully only 3 floors. It's south of the river near a park in the area of town known as "Nappy Valley," so lots of other young families and kid-friendly stuff. The commute is longer than I was hoping, but I think I was finally worn down and came to understand that we weren't going to be able to afford anything much closer. 

Now we're in the process of finalizing everything, so we can move in next week. We have a deposit down, but until everyone's actually signed the lease, there's a chance it could still fall apart. Fingers are crossed that this all comes together, since we are really running out of time in our temporary apartment and our boxes and furniture will arrive soon. 

Using Playgrounds to Explore the City

So we landed Saturday morning, had that afternoon and the next day to unpack and find some groceries - and then Spouso was off to work and I was home with the kiddo. The goal was to explore the city to find the neighborhood where we will live - but doing that with a toddler turns out to be difficult. So - instead we fell into a little groove of seeking out a different playground every day in a different part of town and snapping pictures of whatever I could on the way. We started out with the closest option, and slowly moved further out each day until we hit the limit of his willingness to sit in a stroller by the end of the week.

skeptically playing in Barnard Park

really nice row houses in Islington

trying out a boat in Shoreditch

Regent's Park

more Regent's Park 

Passing by King's Cross Station

Passing by a pub in Islington

up to a big green park in Highbury

a train playground in Highbury

back to Barnard Park 

Finally - the weekend arrived. With an extra pair of hands - we could easily explore further, using the bus and trains to extend our reach. We still had to stay close to playgrounds, but snuck in some touristy stops on the way. 

starting out with St. Paul's Cathedral

adventure playground in Barnard

catching a pub for lunch

Tower of London

an evening tour of the Tower of London

Tower Bridge and checking out boats on the river

Tower Bridge

exhausted snack break

so tired after a solid 2 days of walking

first tube ride

 Quick Thoughts:
- English playgrounds are different than American ones - there aren't any rubber floors or plastic bars - things are rough and real.
- There are a million neighborhoods here. We've seen a good dozen or so - but it's frustrating to think about all the other options we haven't even thought of.
- We're getting really caught between the age-old question of being close where there are lots of great restaurants and stuff, or being further out where things are cheaper and bigger.
- This is exhausting. We're covering 20,000 steps a day - everyone wants a nap and a break.

- There is no ADA here - the tubes are not handicapped or stroller accessible - which makes everything much more difficult.
- We need to finalize ASAP and start looking at houses this week. Yikes!