I think it is funny that my kids have “early riser” as part of their self identity. We think sleeping till 7am is sleeping in and my kids refer to themselves as slug-a-beds on days they sleep that late. “Whoo. I was so tired. Maybe I’m not feeling well or I’m growing.” It’s funny because so many of our friends are night owls.

I feel so much gratitude for getting to have three kids. I don’t have to sit around waiting on other people wanting to pay attention to me anymore. I have a lot of work and attention I have to provide every day. I go to bed tired and I wake up knowing that even if I don’t talk to other people I have a full day. I mean, I still desperately want connection with my friends… but it’s different.

Today we are not going ice skating with Jenny’s family because my kids don’t enjoy it and that’s ok. I don’t feel anxious or bad or like I am missing out on time with my friend. We will see each other a bunch and it’s ok to skip events that won’t be much fun for us. When I was younger I would go do things I hated (I don’t hate ice skating, for the record) just because I didn’t want to be alone. Now I can fill a day with my family and have fun without extra people.

Eldest Child asked if we could please go out to breakfast as a treat. Then we will go grocery shopping. Then we will go to the park because it’s their last day of spring break before academics start up again.

That sounds fun to me.

The park down the hill from us is awesome. It’s huge and set up for running and there’s lots to climb and spin on. Parks in the US look so boring compared to this. There are trampolines in the ground and a bunch of merry go round stuff and huge climbing walls and standard bars (like for gymnastics) for spinning and a zip line and good swings and…. It’s a really great park. It’s like all the best part of all the parks in the bay area put in one huge place where all the kids were yelling and being loud.

That’s so fucking cool.

Not to mention that we are loving the food in Scotland so far. I’m cooking a bunch and every meal I make the kids are like “Oh my goodness this is so good.”

But I hear that Brexit is going to fuck the food situation because the UK hasn’t been able to grow enough food for their folk in 100 years. Maybe we should be building a Brexit box too… there is the possibility that food will become a problem starting two weeks before we plan to leave this country. Cheers. I would donate my storage stuff to Jenny’s family upon leaving.

I really hope that Scotland votes to leave the UK. But, it’s none of my nevermind. My country is fucking itself.

Keeping this apartment tidy is feeling easy. There aren’t enough dishes or space in the washing machine to put things off, I have to keep on top of it. But that also means there is never that much work at a time. It’s feeling like a nice sweet spot. With how much cooking I’m doing it is constant small scale tidying, but the kids are helping and it’s going well.

I have some of that white-guy anxiety here. I can feel it. But I feel enough like an outsider that I don’t feel like much of a potential target. I have that whole veil-of-white-motherhood thing. Nobody is going to touch me. I have such mixed feelings about that. I feel comforted and upset that this isn’t available to everyone.

It is weird only seeing white faces at the park. After Japan where we saw something like 20 white people the whole time… this is odd.

Heh. We barely feel like we are visiting an English speaking country. We can’t understand a lot of the talk here. That’s hilarious.They speak Scottish and we speak US-English. Then there is English-English that is divided into like eight accents.

Night weaning has not regressed this time. I’m just flippin done. Both younger kids are sleeping with me. Middle Child loves this. He wishes that we could have two queen mattresses on the floor so that I could have him in bed with me once Noah comes back. It’s a little frustrating that he likes to get a leg out of the blanket by ripping the blanket off of me and throwing it on the floor. Luckily that mostly feels funny.

I’m feeling really happy. The only thing missing is Noah.

Oh gloriousness. Yesterday Jenny brought over the last box I shipped to Scotland. We have so many books now! A bunch of things we set aside for school. Mostly religion study, but also Spanish and math. The math… we may or may not do. But the religion study books we enjoy and my kids are feeling motivated to study Spanish more after the night in Bar Corazon. Maybe I can catch them up to where I am. That would be really fun.

I am having a lot of mixed feeling about my hair. It is solidly to my waist now; it’s as long as it was when I shaved my hair when MC was a baby. I can understand why I did that then out of frustration. It’s gorgeous but so much work. I also don’t know what to do about my wispy fly-aways. I always have a halo of frizzy hair around my face. I could do Regency hairstyles so easily with my new-growth. Mostly I just let the hairs stick straight up and move on with my life. I feel almost Helena Bonham Carter with the wild hairs.

Speaking of which, I should start braiding my hair for the day. Toodles.