Owen has some new words! He can say Cookie, as in Cookie Monster. It sounds more like Kuh-Kuh, but it's pretty darn close! He also now says "boo" when he covers up his eyes and plays peekaboo. Of course sometimes he covers up his ears, chin, checks, forehead, etc and then says boo, but we go along with it anyway. He's also walking all over the place... sometimes he tries to walk and hold things, which never ends well. It's so fun to see him walking! We love it!
These days, when I have a second to think, I often find myself yearning for London. I tried to make a list of things I miss about London... not comprehensive but top of mind:
- Having tons of friends around - not that we were doing much partying after Owen was born, but it was nice to meet up with people on the weekends, or, for me, meet up with my favo new mom friends for lunch or a coffee during the week (Trish & Hannah - that's you.... miss you girls and your kiddos!)
- So much to do and so many cool things to see - I admit, we weren't frequenting the museums every weekend or anything, but it was so nice to be able to hop on a bus and wander through Harrods, or take a quick train to Westiminster and walk along the Thames, plan great day trips (that we might or might not have taken), etc
- Everything within walking distance - parks, shops, restaurants, coffee, errands, gym, moms club, trains, buses, you get the point. All within an easy walk.
- Endless possibilities of great vacation spots - again, more complicated with a baby, but still possible. I was fantasizing about a beach vacation in Croatia or Greece before we left
- Lots of different people from lots of different places - everyone has a good story for how they ended up living in London. People are so interesting and have done so many cool things!
- Just the general innocent life I was leading there. It was before my Mom got sick, so I have sooooo many great memories of Mom coming to visit in London, including right after Owen was born. It was so magical. Anyone who has kids can probably remember that crazy time right after becoming a parent.... now it's even more special to me because it was my Mom's last healthy few weeks. I think of how young and innocent I was when I moved to London at the tender age of 26, never realizing how dramatically different my life would be when I returned to the US.
- Our big, beautiful house. Shallow? Oh well. It's 5 bedrooms (most of them are empty because we don't have furniture) and so pretty. After living in tiny London flats for 5 years - the space is amazing. I am in the process of setting up a whole room for my photo albums and scrapbooking stuff.
- My job - I am really lucky to be doing the cool stuff I am doing. I work on a great brand with really fun smart people, and I get to do marketing and strategy work that is super interesting and engaging. Seriously, I really like my job.
- Being around my husband's family - one of the reasons we moved here was so Owen could get to know his family better and grow up with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
- Being closer to my family - 700 miles instead of 3500 is a great improvement, although I often wish I was much closer.
And because I'm on my work computer and don't have the recent Owen photo handy that I wanted to include, I'll leave you with a cute picture of Owen one year ago.... the cuteness....
Chris, I still remember you from before you even went to London - talking about Paradise Hotel every day - those were fun times. I guess things always change, the good and the bad as well. Every time we get the urge to move to Europe (pretty much every week) I think of the downsides as well and we decide to stay in the US. But one day maybe :)
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