Sightseeing in London's Kensington Neighborhood

Even though I am definitely slowing down, my tourism goals continued over the summer. After tackling the West End and South Bank, I directed my attention to the neighborhood of Kensington, which is just to the west of the west end. In general, this part of town reminds me a lot of DC's Georgetown - it's posh, real estate is ridiculously expensive, and if you were Jackie O- this is definitely where you would live. It's also kind of hard to get to - requiring three transfers from our house, so it took quite a while to hit all the major attractions in this part of town. I did some of these by myself during the week, and others over the weekend with the family. 

the downtown neighborhoods for reference

sights in Kensington

Kensington Palace
First up, Kensington Palace is best known as the childhood home of Queen Victoria, but is also the current home of both Prince William and his family, as well as newly-weds Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It's a smaller palace, so it wasn't super crowded and easy to tackle in an hour or so. The house was originally purchased by William and Mary, so part of it is quite old, while other parts are newer and have exhibits on Victoria and some of the more recent inhabitants.

Kensington Palace

Victoria's famous white wedding dress

nice ceilings

Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park
Kensington's front yard is basically a massive public park, that joins with Hyde Park to be a simply massive park in the middle of the city. We visited multiple times over the summer - for a few picnics to watch swans on the pond, and to check out two really fantastic playgrounds that are memorials to Princess Diana - one is a huge sand play ground and the other is a big water fountain you can walk through - which was just critical in the hottest part of the summer.

huge sand area at the Diana Memorial Playground

Museums
So just south of the park is a bunch of museums, which we worked our way through on rainy and cold weekends.

• The Natural History Museum is an amazing building - but it's kind of lame on the inside. Packed to the gills with kids looking at animatronic dinosaurs, so not my favorite. Interestingly, the kiddo told us many, many times that he was not afraid of the huge, moving t-rex, but was too scared to go to the live butterfly exhibit. 
• The Science Museum was pretty cool and not at all crowded, with some neat airplanes that the kiddo enjoyed, a very cool Gaussian math exhibit, and some other random cool things. 
• The Victoria and Albert Museum I visited myself, not super kid-friendly, but a very interesting collection of decorative arts like musical instruments and historical fashion. Apparently it has a kids' section that I missed, so maybe we'll go back together this winter. 

dinosaurs at the natural history museum (definitely not a scared face)

inside of natural history is awesome

lots of airplanes to see at the Science Museum

excited about math at the Science Museum

airplanes

Harrod's
Just to the east of the museums is Harrod's, a massive department store. While my dad was in town, we decided to stop in for lunch to take a break from walking between other stops. Most of the massive building is just a super expensive department store (not much to see), but the food levels are really cool. We had lunch in the tea rooms, which were gorgeous. I've decided tea is my new favorite meal - because it comes with amazing little desserts. Then we wandered down to the food shop level, where there were huge seafood markets and lots of cool things.

dessert display in the tea room

our lovely little desserts

part of the food market

Buckingham Palace
So Buckingham isn't really in Kensington - I'm stretching this a bit - it's really more the West End neighborhood. The reason I didn't visit back when I was touring the West End this spring is because the best parts of Buckingham don't open to the public until the Queen goes on summer vacation. Then they open up all the state rooms, which are simply amazing. Buckingham Palace, of course, is the Queen's residence and main home through the year. It was Victoria's home too, after she became queen and moved out of Kensington Palace, so there are a lot of portraits of her family. No photos allowed, so I borrowed these from the official website to give you an idea - it's just simply over the top.

Buckingham from above

More on Victoria
Between visiting Kensington Palace, the V&A Museum, and Buckingham - I got a bit of Victoria fever. I bought a small biography of her to get more info - and was kind of sucked in. Then I found the tv series "Victoria", and binged through the first two seasons (totally recommend). I also watched the recent movie "Victoria and Abdul", about a friendship she had later in life. She took the throne when she was only 18 - and was constantly fighting off uncles, her mom, and other advisors who wanted to either kill her or control her. She wasn't groomed at all for the job - in fact, no one even told her she was the heir to the throne, she figured it out herself while looking at a family tree. She married her cousin Albert and was almost immediately pregnant - which would've been terrifying at that time because maternal health was pretty awful - and then remained basically constantly pregnant, producing 9 children before Albert tragically died. She lived the rest of of her long reign in mourning for him, insisting that all her staff wear black for years. She reigned for 63 years - setting the record at the time, which was only recently surpassed by Queen Elisabeth II, Victoria's great-great-grandaughter. Anyway - I'm kind of smitten. [Sidenote: Victoria was queen during Dickens lifetime (in fact they even mention reading David Copperfield in the tv show), so this tied in well with my literature project].

So - for London tourism, I have a few more sights I want to see before I am completely immobile and the weather turns. I still need to tackle the City neighborhood, as well as a few things just out of town.

A Big Boy Room, Part 2

So earlier this summer I mentioned that our first kid was switching rooms so that the new kid could have his room, which is closer to ours. We bought the big stuff over the summer, just in time for some of our guests to use his new twin bed and trundle. After they had all gone and the house had settled back down, we started finishing things up so he could move in.

new bed and bedding ready to go

Furniture
The last of the furniture finally arrived. Once the bookcase arrived, we loaded it up with all his books, which meant that bedtime stories started happening up there. This was actually a nice way to slowly transition into using the room, before he was quite ready to sleep there. Then we moved in his old dresser and filled it up with his clothes, which forced him to start sleeping in there. Lastly, his new couch arrived. It has legs, but they were proving a little difficult to put on- so we just left them off for now. He loves it - and it's the perfect size and height for him to flop on - so perhaps the legs will remain off for a few years.

the new bookcase - tall enough for his tall books and a few toys

the new couch - no legs

just the right size

Curtain
Meanwhile, I started working on the curtain. I hated the original one, which was ugly and beige and boring, and way too big to squeeze behind the bed. I ordered some fabric from Amazon (incidentally, this is apparently the material used to make the scrubs for National Health Service midwives), and then found a really cheap sewing machine, since mine is in storage back in DC. I simply made a huge lined sheet, and then sewed a tape across the back that creates the pleats. It turned out to be much easier than I expected, and allowed me to use the hardware that was already installed. Then I ordered a fun elephant guy that can hold it open.

new curtain up

closeup of the elephant curtain holder thing

Wall Art
Once the furniture had all been moved in and the curtain was up, it was functional, but not homey. I asked him to pick anything from his old room that he wanted to bring with him - which ended up being almost everything. But there was still lots of blank wall space, so I turned to etsy, of course, and ordered some new stuff.

new wall art behind the couch

a new bunny to go with his owl and squirrel and a new nightlight

So, now he's sleeping up here every night and pretty much settled in. We still have a few things to work out, and maybe a few more things to pick up, but I'm calling this pretty much done.

couch area - feeling cozy for bedtime stories

pretty much done

Another Big Transition
We obviously wanted to get this process started long before the baby arrives so that he could feel settled and not squeezed out, and to help minimize transition and chaos when the baby arrives. However, moving him up to his new room ended up happening during a bunch of other transitions, just by coincidence. First, we ended up moving him in just after returning from a long summer vacation, which is always tricky just because it's hard to switch from full-time vacation mode to the normal work/school schedule. Because it was the end of summer though, he didn't go back to his usual class, he switched to a new class - which is also always difficult because it means new teachers, some new friends, new routines, etc. This transition was even more difficult because he switched from a typical daycare class that he's used to, to a much more intense one, known as "pre-reception" here. All the sudden there is an academic requirement (meaning that they're trying to get him to learn his letters), complete with homework, "intense learning periods", uniforms, and really rigid schedules. The biggest issue has been that they no longer have naps, which he still needs, so he comes home absolutely exhausted every night.  We're trying to strike the right balance of advocating for his needs, while getting on board and helping him meet these new expectations.

Parenting Books and Grains of Salt
Meanwhile, I read a few chapters of "What to Expect While You're Expecting", a popular pregnancy book that I absolutely hate, but that has some useful info about what's happening at each stage of the pregnancy. It reminded me that a lot is going on right now, and that I should take it easy. It suggests letting husbands take over all the housework and chores, while you basically sit around and get a back massage all day (clearly written for first-time moms). So I made a conscious decision to step back a bit and let the spouso pick up some parenting slack, sleeping in a bit on weekends, and skipping out on bedtime routines to give my back a break. Almost immediately, the kiddo freaked out - having ridiculous tantrums over every little thing. With all this transition - it was hard to tell what the problem was - the new room? the new class?

So I picked up another parenting book, "Gentle Parenting", which turns out to be pretty far to the snuggle side of the attachment parenting spectrum. Like the other books I've read, it talked about the importance of building a strong connection with lots of quality time to help avoid the tantrums in the first place. So we made a new "no yelling" rule, and I re-upped my effort to spend more time with him. I'm trying harder to wake up early and spend time on the floor playing every morning, as well as snuggling on the couch after school while dinner finishes up. I'm also trying to take back more of the bedtime routine - bath time in particular, because I can just sit and let him soak himself clean. It seems to be helping a lot - the tantrums have almost completely stopped and the yelling has disappeared.  I just have to find the right balance of taking it easy while spending as much quality time with him as I can.

[Sidenote: this book also covered pregnancy and encouraged drug-free childbirth. It went as far as saying that you don't need drugs because childbirth won't hurt if you do it right - meaning having a very calm and relaxing birth environment. Having done this once already without drugs - I can say there are not enough scented candles in the world to make it anything but the most painful thing I've ever experienced. For the moms who want to feel the pain of childbirth -  I don't understand, but support your choice - but I find it downright wrong to suggest to anyone that it won't hurt. That's just setting women up for a horrible horrible surprise. I am very much looking forward to getting the drugs this time around.]

snuggling on the tube

Anyway - so the kiddo is settled in his new room. He's getting used to his new class and teachers. I'm doing my best to help him with his homework every weekend and spending as much quality time with him as I can. We've got a bit of a groove going, so I'm hoping we can spend the rest of the fall just settling into it before 2nd kid shows up. And with that -  it's time to turn my attention to the baby's room and getting all the baby stuff.