Cute Cubby

I know I'm the proud mom, but if this isn't adorable, I really just don't know what is...

The Mummy Bus

When I'm out with all three kiddos, I get comments ALL the time about having my hands full, look at all those little ones, etc. I was on my way to Primrose the other day when someone exclaimed as I walked by, "Wow! Now THAT is a mummy bus!" This is what they saw:

What I’ll Miss About London, Part 2: Ocado

It didn’t take long after moving to London to discover that hauling groceries home was a lot of work when you don’t have a car. No more going to Target or Publix and loading up a big trunkload of heavy cans, bulky toilet paper, and cumbersome cases of Coke. Which explains why Londoners visit their local Tesco or corner grocer nearly every day, and why grocery delivery has been a raging success.

I quickly adapted to this way of life. Grocery delivery for the weekly “big shop” and then a walk around the corner to get fresh stuff or things that I just couldn’t quite manage to fit into my pantry-less and desperately-lacking-in-cupboard-space kitchen.

And oh how I fell in love with Ocado. This place rocks. An easy-to-use website, one-hour delivery time slots, happy drivers, plentiful amounts of fresh organic produce, color coordinated bags for frozen or cupboard foods, good customer service that is otherwise so noticeably lacking in this country, and even excellent turn-around times on complaint emails (not that I had any, just a few times I had to report a punctured tub of Alpro or blueberries spilled and thus squished in one of the bags).

Even my kids fully embraced the experience of the grocery man coming. Did we run out of fish sticks? “Email the grocery man,” Tadpole would say. Is the Ocado truck here? “Yeah!!!” they would yell and watch him unload his lorry. And then, unpacking the groceries was always a highlight of the week, as the kids would hurriedly open up the bags as if they were birthday presents, and ferry them into the kitchen for me to put away (hey, saved me lots of bending and squatting).

The excitement! The ease! The experience! The event!

Oh, if they only delivered to Florida…

Tigger's Disneyland

It was a chilly, rainy Friday afternoon and the kids were restless, as was I, having had an entire day in the house with no playdates, activities, or time with our nanny extraordinaire, Michelle. So I spent the requisite 34 minutes it takes to get everyone bundled up and out the door, and we were off.

After some brief toddler debate, we settled on going to the library and headed north on the high street. Walking through the zebra crossing, Tigger suddenly yelled out from the front seat of the e3: “STARBUCKS!” in a very clear, extremely enthusiastic tone of voice. (Yes, he got smiles from several amazed and humored fellow pedestrians.)

There are two things that are surprising about this joyous declaration from Tigger. One is that he is just 16 months old, and kids his age are typically working on clear pronunciations of words such as “food” and “brother,” not STARBUCKS. The other is that I rarely visit the fine coffee establishment, and if I do it’s not usually with the kids, so the excitement the sighting generated is quite curious. You would think that I had just announced that we were going to spend a week at Disneyworld!

Pictured: The main intersection on our high street, with Starbucks distantly in view beyond the phone booths.