Last night was pretty awful. Christopher really fought sleep and after two hours, I finally got him to settle down and sleep. Then, just before 2am, Nathan woke up screaming. Jeff tried rocking Nathan, then giving him milk, and then decided to try to get Nathan to sleep in his “new” bed (rather than the pack 'n play - he's always been in a crib up to this point), which was interesting. I went in to check on them and Jeff was laying in bed with Nathan. Then I laid down as well and held Nathan’s hand. Nathan was facing me and so I smiled at him. Then he got a HUGE smile on his face and I couldn’t help but laugh (probably out of sheer exhaustion) and Nathan started laughing too, which made me laugh again. I always laugh at inopportune times! Jeff decided that if we were just going to sit and laugh, then he was going to bed. I stayed with Nathan until he settled down to sleep. He just kept staring at me, so I kept closing my eyes to rest, but I was cold without a blanket and uncomfortable without a pillow. It was kind of sweet lying there holding my sweet boy’s hand, but I was excited when I was finally able to sneak off to bed!
A little while later, Nathan woke up screaming. I jumped awake realizing that he was probably terrified waking up in a strange bed without me there. He has seemed a bit frightened of the new bed for sleeping. I ran toward his room with my arms open just as he was walking out of his room screaming. I calmed him down and then put him into his pack ‘n play to sleep. Then around 3:30 (?), he woke up crying again because he had wet the bed THROUGH his diaper! This time Jeff was up with him for who knows how long. Needless to say the thought of getting up early to get ready for church was not appealing!
We originally had the alarm set for 7:20am, but I think Jeff turned it off. I woke up with a start at 8:10 and then freaked out because we had to leave our house at 9 to catch the bus. I was worried that we wouldn’t make it because it always seems to take a long time to get out of the house with kiddos. Also, neither Jeff nor I got much sleep and neither did Nathan, which worried us the most. Still, we decided to rush to get ready and go. We left the house around 9:15 and still managed to catch the 9:30 bus without trouble. On a side note, our only “watches” in the past were our cell phones so it is really hard not having them anymore because we never know what time it is! In our home, our only clock is in our bedroom and runs on batteries since it has a US adapter. That has been interesting too!
The walk to the bus stop wasn’t too bad except that we were worried about getting there late and so we were rushing along. The bus ride was quite pleasant and took us through some pretty English countryside. One of the nice things about the buses is that they don’t have stairs and so it is quite easy to just push the stroller onto the bus. Nathan seemed to enjoy riding on the big red bus as well, which was nice. The bus stops more or less in front of the church and so we were there about 15 minutes early. When we walked up, we were met with a huge, warm welcome. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming to have so many people rushing to welcome us, kiss us in greeting, and know our names already. I am still jet lagged and in a daze, so I felt like I wasn’t very friendly. I’m pretty sure I don’t remember any of their names either! The church building itself is fairly small. It has a small chapel and cultural hall and then a hallway on one side and along the back of the building, which isn’t very long. The pews are not like our normal pews in the states. They are on wheels and move around! Also, the building is only for our small ward, no other wards meet there, which is quite different from what I have been used to. We had four other wards (congregations), plus stake offices in our building in Austin and the Utah ward building for my parent’s ward was also bursting at its seems.
The bishop asked me to say the closing prayer as a way of “welcoming” me to the ward. The bishop also welcomed me specifically from the pulpit. The ward is extremely friendly and once I got over the initial shock of a million people trying to talk to us, I realized that I feel quite comfortable here. I must say it was interesting to be in a ward where they don’t have people stand up when they are called and released because the ward is so small that everyone knows each other! (At least that was my first impression!)
EY was from Nigeria because it helps me understand the African accented English better. I must say that some versions of the British accent take me a little longer to understand still. Plus some of the words are slightly different, which makes me nervous. I’m always afraid I’ll use the wrong word, even though I know that is silly! My visiting teachers already asked if they could come visit and they are a mother and daughter who are British. She asked for my "surname" and it really threw me off! I'm just not used to hearing that word, but they use it all the time here! We have also been invited over for dinner (once we are settled) to the Bishop’s home and several people said they want to come visit us. I am so grateful for the church to help me make friends and feel like I have a “family” out here.
Nathan did surprisingly well at church considering his lack of sleep. He was a bit rough in sacrament meeting, especially because it was SOOOO quiet in there! I was really pleased with how well he did in nursery though. The other members were surprised how well he did and how quickly he settled in. He was hesitant to me leaving at first, but after a few minutes and after seeing all of the “new toys,” he got distracted enough for me to leave. There are about six children in nursery, which makes me very excited! I was talking with one of the members after Sunday School and she said that there used to only be two or three children, but they’ve had some new people move in and one that just became 18 months old. Two of the women have already talked about getting together for a “park date.” I am not sure if they work or not (many of the mothers do) and have no idea where they live. There is a British couple that just moved into the ward that has a little boy just a few months older than Nathan and they were interested in getting to know us better. The mother’s name is Mary and the little boy is Finn (not sure if that is spelled right). Also, they are having a temple trip on Saturday (the Stake goes once a month because the temple is so close. It’s not as close as Utah, but I think it is closer than our temple in Texas was), a munch and mingle next Sunday after church (they have one every month), and a ward barbecue at the church on the 30th (since August 30th is a bank holiday).
We got home from church around 2:00 and then all four of us took a long nap. I peeled myself out of bed around 6:00 so that I could start dinner – meatloaf! I also made salads, but when we sat down to eat, we realized that Jeff forgot to buy salad dressing at the store yesterday. Oops! It will be nice when we have a more fully stocked kitchen. Slowly we are getting the things we need here and there. We only have one pyrex casserole dish we bought yesterday, one small pot, and our nice, big sauce pan that we brought over from the states to cook with. That is all! We realized today that we don’t even have hot pads or any aluminum foil. We finally have salt and pepper though! Our kitchen is a mess right now because I haven’t had time to clean out all of the cupboards, so most things are all over the counter top. One day at a time, I guess!
I think I am doing pretty well jet-lag-wise except that getting myself out of bed is really hard. If it wasn’t for the kids having such a rough time at night, I don’t think it would be bad at all. Tonight Nathan really fought sleep hard. We put him down around 10 and after quietly playing for a while, he screamed and screamed and screamed until he finally went to sleep around 11. I got him up once to rock him, but he wasn’t interested. I sure hope we get on a good schedule again soon. I also hope that he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night tonight! That would be heavenly!!! But I’m not crossing my fingers… It will also be nice when we can get Christopher to sleep in his crib all of the time. Right now it is just so much easier to keep him in our bed, so that is mostly what we are doing. He sleeps in the crib some too.
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