March - Looking forward (let's pretend it's not the 12th)

Can I do a "looking forward' post when we are 40% of the way through the month already? Why not - I make the rules!

In March I am excited about...

Date night Okay, this one already happened.  We had our nanny come babysit on a Saturday and she did twin bedtime AND one big kid bedtime and another big kid stayed with my mom and it was amazing to not do bedtime.  Andy and I had Wine and Pizza and stayed out until 10:30.  It was fun.

Book Club A friend of mine started a book club and I love it.  We read The Women for this month's book club (which also already happened because I am so late posting this).  I enjoyed the book and the discussion.  Is it really about friendship? I'm not too sure.

Massage I have a massage person I adore.  She lives around the corner and she is always booked up and I started booking myself a massage ever 6 weeks or so.  I know this is super 1%er but also, it's the same price as drinks or dinner out and I enjoy it so much and rarely ever go out for drinks or dinner.  

Dinner with ex-colleagues I still meet up with some of my colleagues from the job I left in 2022 and we are going out to dinner this month and I'm looking forward to catching up with them

Theatre For Mothers Day (which is this Sunday in the UK) I am going to London to see The Lion King with my mom and Ezra and Lily! It is going to be a BIG day - London is 2.5 hours by train from me - but I think it will be memorable and fun.  The kids are going to ride on a double decker bus! And see London things! They have only ever been to the train stations before in transit so it will be awesome to walk around London with them for a few minutes.

Going to the Office I haven't been to the Bath office since January and I have two Office days this month and I'm looking forward to seeing people (and wearing my new blazer!)

Holiday adventure It's Easter Half Term soon and I'm off to Portugal! That's really the highlight of course.  More details soon - exciting times!

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There are a lot of exciting things happening in March.  I am feeling very out of routine, even though part of what put me out of routine is awesome fun things that I want to do.  Like going on date night, or out to dinner, or to London. I know these are far more memorable than whether I ate decent food and did decent sport.  And I also know that going to london for a day does not preclude me from doing sport for two weeks.  But... I get out of routine easy, and then I am out of routine.

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Also, there's some media stuff I'm excited about.  For instance, I really enjoyed Writers and Lovers 

Now I'm reading The Witches Guide to Magical Inkeeping. I have read one other book by Sangu Mandanna and I think her writing style is supposed to be magical and cute but I find it cute and boring.  I'm still reading it though

I am totally stalled reading both Rest and Best Laid Plans.  I think with Rest it's because I don't really see myself as a creative person right now.  I basically feel like a number cruncher in work.  I'm not sure a nap or a walk will improve my ability to write a good =sumifs equation in excel.

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I started watching the Scrubs reboot.  It's so cute.  I miss watching TV.

Is March getting away from you? Is it chaos or is it just me?

Re-entry report, but for reals this time! (ie the crash and burn chaos part of re-entry, it wasn't avoided, it was just delayed)

We got home from France last Tuesday.  We left Arles at 7:30am, took a train to from Arles to Marseille, and then flew from Marseille to Heathrow.  We landed at Heathrow at 12:30, got food from Marks and Spencer, and then caught the tube to Paddington and the train to Cardiff and the bus home and arrived at 5pm

Some of us were very tired.

On Wednesday everyone went back to school and life and work.  I was surprised my brain functioned OK but I had some big projects to finish because on Thursday I had to go to London for some work meetings.

On Thursday I caught the 6:18am train to London and got back at just after 8pm.  I was very tired.

And then... Clara didn't sleep.  I'm not sure if she missed me or she was teething or what, but my normally great sleeping 2.5 year old was just... awake.  From 1am to 3:30am.

I woke up on Friday and enjoyed my mom coffee (it's what I call 2 cups of coffee and 2-3 ibuprofen, consumed quickly)  

Everyone made it to school (barely) and twins made it to nursery (they go to a 2.5 hour nursery on Fridays) so I could help the school PTA with some event set up for a school bingo and film night that night.  I helped count out money to get ready for the event.

I had signed up to attend with Ezra and Lily, but the film was The Minecraft Movie and I looked it up and it didn't really look appropriate for a 5 year old.  It didn't look appropriate for a 7 year old either, so I had the awful parenting decision of "do I let me kid watch a movie".  Both kids wanted to go.

Oh, also, My sister came to visit! She joined us in france then flew to Wales on Friday.  Lily went to see a film at my mom's with my sister and decided that was OK instead of Minecraft Movie (they watched Nanny McPhee).

I told Andy that Minecraft did not look kid appropriate and that I didn't like the language and he made the astute observation that all the kids in Ezra's class were going to the film so if Ezra didn't hear the language in the film then he would hear it on Monday.  So Ezra went to the film and I went to bingo.

At Bingo I had major "mean girls" fears because I didn't really know any other parents going.  I saw someone I sort of knew and asked if I could sit with them because I had no friends and they said yes, so that was nice.

At the end of the night I helped clean up, because I've apparently decided to become a PTA person.  Oops.

Then... the weekend. 

Saturday - big kids went to tennis in the morning, then had a double play date in the afternoon

The girl play date was so flipping cute! The boy one... not as much.

Then I took the twins and my mom and sister for a walk, and we came home and had grown up dinner after kid bedtime.

On Sunday the big kids had swim lessons in the morning.  I took Aubrey and Lily to the grocery store with my sister.  Andy to Ezra to kidical mass.  It's like Critical Mass, except all those people are old and with kids, so it was a bunch of kids on bikes being cute instead

Ezra rocking a safety high viz.

I stayed home with sleeping twins, and watched K-Pop Demon Hunters with my sister and Lily.  I wasn't sure that move was appropriate for a 5 year old but she loves the music and sometimes you just give in.  I actually kind of liked the film, and I definitely like the music.

In the afternoon it was finally not raining so I took twins and sister to a local open air museum to look at old welsh stuff:

And then the weekend was over! Sister headed back to the USA today.  I went to work, kids went to school, and my brain was completely fried and unproductive and unfocused in work because OMG it was too many things.

Also, laundry is piled up, house is a mess, and I ate cold pancakes at 10am because my life is chaos.  I also lost my Peloton week streak (I think it was 50?) because I did no Peloton last week.  I know those things sound rather inconsequential, and they are, but the line between "woo fun life adventure" and "Chaos life very tired" is... small.

On the plus side, I booked a quick holiday to France in May because I enjoyed the last one too much and it turns out I want a European adventure with my kids EVERY MONTH (this is not sustainable financially or environmentally but it's fun for now)