Wacky Weather, Twin Sleep, Solo Parenting, House Goals, and a Weird Social Thing

Wacky Weather

Last monday the high temp was 9c/50f.  We turned on the heat.  On Wednesday, the kids sports day was cancelled due to rain and lightning.  The internet said it was going to get warm but I didn't believe it.  And then... it got warm.  Today it's 90f.

It is commonly known that British people talk about the weather all the time, and it feels like a cliche, but also I think it's a very rational approach to living in a place with truly insane weather.  How can it go from 50f to 90f in 5 days??!  If we all lived inside a monkey enclosure and then we talked about monkeys all the time it wouldn't seem odd... because why would anyone live in a monkey enclosure? And by the same token, why would anyone build a major civilization in this climate? And then why would I decide to move here 16 years ago?  

I am baffled by past humans and past me.

Twin Sleep

Twin sleep has gotten better.  I made some pretty fundamental mistakes last week during my "how to handle sleep transition".  My primary mistake was Googling it.  Never google! The internet was filled with people who said "my twins slept great until beds and now my life is a nightmare and has been for months" and I just gave up and figured it was all over forever.    I did not handle it gracefully or optimistically and basically nosedived into a pit of despair. 

But in my defence, I am a trend person.  I like life to trend upward.  There was an interesting BBC article recently about a person born in 1962 titled "Am I the luckiest Generation in History".  In it the author concludes

"Even though the baby boomers are not the richest of cohorts, some of us have been blessed to have lived and worked in a country that seemed to be on a growth trajectory - things were getting better. It's odd to say, but I'd wager that most of us would rather live in a poor country where things are improving, than a richer one where everything seems to be in decline."

This is a roundabout way of me realizing that I would rather be experiencing a crap time but thinking things are improving, then experiencing an unexpectedly crap time after a while of improvement, even if the current crap time is way less crap than crap times of recent memory.  The short and sharp halt to my sports routine after just restarting exercise was particularly hard for me to take.   

Sleep has improved.  The twins have been napping again.  Bedtimes are getting easier.  I am not in fear of the next bedtime/morning time.

Nora has been waking up once a night, but she goes back to sleep fairly easily.  It's all OK, and trending upwards again. Maybe I'll do exercise again soon.

Solo Parenting

Counterintuitively, many things are currently easier because I am solo parenting right now.  Andy has taken the big kids to Austria to meet a uni friend and play in mountains, and I get 5 days of twin only life.  I have currently finished my first 24 hours of twin life and I think it's going well!

Yesterday after nap we went to a local Model Train show for the last hour, and got on the trains with no queues because it was almost closed

It was very hot.

This morning we went to a park at 8am because it was already 70 degrees and I knew we wouldn't get out later and everyone had been awake since 5:30am.

Then we went for a smoothie and a tea cake at a local cafe

And then it was still only 10:30am so we drove to our local open air museum to sit on the indoor tractor and spent 5 minutes on the outdoor trampoline

No idea why Aubrey likes to lie down

After lunch (cereal and milk and blueberries because I am holiday-at-home mom!) they went down for a nap and I listened to a podcast and tidied up and in 5 minutes it will be time to get up and maybe go to the Cardiff Museum because it is big and old and has no windows so hopefully won't be too hot.

House Goals and Tidying Stuff

Last night I spent 2 hours sorting the house out because it had become chaos and I really enjoyed listening to The Girl Next Door Podcast about routines.  Why do I enjoy tidying my house while listening to someone else talk about tidying their house?  I'm not sure, but it was nice.

Maybe tonight I can get through this pile of art

Or maybe I can even do some planning, because the last thing I wrote down was train times for a work trip I didn't end up taking.  Yes, this was a failed daily plan for Thursday Msy 21st, and nothing has been planned/written since.

Weird Social Things

Okay I'm going to end this very long post with a weird social thing that happened today.  A few weeks ago I was chatting with a mom in the park who I sort of know but haven't hung out with outside seeing in the park and I mentioned my solo parenting week and she said "oh we should hang out!" and I gave a vague "yes" but then she picked a day, and then I saw her last week at the park and she suggested a place and a time.  It was supposed to be today so I texted yesterday to confirm and she said "oh sorry can we do afternoon actually, I'll text you tomorrow to make a plan" and now it's 2:30 and I haven't heard from her.  

It's fine on a personal logistics level because I didn't make a plan around her and decided to plan my day anyways, but I am mildly annoyed because I could have planned to see someone else today instead of being stood up by park mom.  And all the weirder to me because I did not instigate this play date or even really push it forward ever, except to confirm it was happening.  Anyways, people are weird.  Luckily I have full time twins and a full time job so I'm not on the friend hunt now, but I can see how making friends is not as easy as... well... an easy thing.

5 on a Friday - Oven Update, Wacky Weather, WhatsApp & Phones, and a Reading Update

I am currently posting from Friday twin naptime. I have a list of things to do and the house is chaos and also... it's time to write a blog post.  All the other stuff can be done later (probably).  So here's some random Friday updates for you all

Oven Update:

Start with the most exciting - we got our oven cleaned!  I loved all the replies about my cleaning adventures.  I am so curious why my oven gets so so gross, or whether everyone's oven is gross and other people just aren't bothered by gross ovens.   I've never been bothered by anyone else's oven so maybe I need to lower my oven cleanliness standards.

Either way, a clean oven is nice.  Here is before:

And After:

It turns out the glass window can be see through. Who knew??!

May Weather

I almost wrote March weather because yesterday it HAILED!  It's been so cold recently that we've started turning our heat on again, overnight temperatures around 40f/5c and the house is 60f/16c.  It really feels like February and I am not cool with it. (I mean, I'm literally cold with it)

The kids were very intrigued by the hail though:

Whatsapp

Well after 4 years of not using WhatsApp I decided to sign up again.  No major reason why...  I think primarily I felt like it would be easier to batch my texting if I could use the web to send texts.  I basically feel Whatsapp is a new iteration of email threads, which is why I think everyone hates email and then just uses email adjacent things and kind of hates those too.

I probably should write a bigger reflection post on what 4 years of no whatsapp has taught me, but like my travel blog posts and recipe posts this may never happen.  The main thing I realized is that I like seeing people and hanging out with people and the rest of the stuff that happens on phones is just... stuff.  I didn't lose anything social by not being on it, and I'm hoping I won't lose anything social by actually being on it either.

If you want to read lots of thoughts on my complicated relationship with WhatsApp, I've got a lot of posts here

Phone Stuff

I still feel like my use of phone is too interrupting.  As in, I don't spend a lot of time on the phone, but I use it frequently during the day as a distraction device.  I've been at about 2 hours a day for a while now.  I know sometimes that's google maps or taking videos or facetime... but I also pick up my phone 70 times a day. That's 4 times an hour, every 15 minutes of my waking life.  Not ideal.  It will be interesting to see if the addition of whatsapp increases or decreases this or has no impact at all.

Reading Life

I just realized that the Modern Mrs Darcy Summer reading guide is out soon! And then I checked and it's out today! I am excited to flip through it and start crafting my summer reading life.  I have slowed down a bit on my reading recently, however I've really enjoyed some recent reads.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

I felt this had mixed reviews but I LOVED it.  I loved the characters. I loved the smarts. I feel like this was written specifically for me, and also Rachel who comments on this blog, and also anyone who went to Reed College.  I mean, it's a book about smart people thinking that being smart is the best, while also generally being unhappy about their entire lives, and especially the bits related directly to being smart.  It's a book about social awkwardness.  In my opinion, it's a book about neurodiversity.  I loved it and I also feel all the criticism I read about it is valid and I can see why many people would not love it.

How To Read A Book by Monica Wood

This was a Lisa recommendation and I loved it.  Very different than what I normally read, but I super enjoyed reading perspectives of multiple characters in lives very different than mine.  

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is for book club and I am really enjoying it.  It would probably be even better on Audio.  Plus the main character is a blogger! So that's extra fun.

Have you had any great reads recently?  Is it annoyingly cold where you are? Is being overly interested in our phone use still a thing or is that something of the bygone 2024 era?