Saturday Random: Breakfasts and Groceries

Breakfast

We stopped eating cereal a few months ago. We used to have Shreddies, bran flakes, or Weetabix.  While these all seem like fine cereals, bran flakes are 15% sugar.  Shreddies are 13% sugar.  Weetabix are 4% sugar, but they are also gross (my opinion) and messy.  

I don't even know if Weetabix is a thing in the US.  It looks like this:

When you add milk it turns into a sort of paste, like an ultra processed porridge with not flavour at all.

Anyways, I digress.  We still need breakfast.  Our current rotation is as follows:

• Crumpets (with peanut butter and/or cream cheese) (The kids like peanut butter & cream cheese and that seems so gross to me)
• Toast (with peanut butter and/or jam.  Or Avocado)
• Eggs (with toast or crumpets or wrapped in tortilla)
• Porridge 
• Baked Oatmeal (this is great!)
• French Toast Casserole (chunks of bread soaked overnight in egg and milk mixture then baked in the oven.  Probably the same as bread pudding)
• Waffles
• Andy usually makes normal waffles but I am excited for pumpkin waffles!
• Pancakes (This recipe is my current fav)

Most of these aren't too much harder than cereal, but whenever I make pancakes I have to prep (ie measure) all the ingredients the night before.  No way am I competent enough to combine both baking soda and baking powder and salt in a morning.  Also, buttermilk recipes call for room temperature buttermilk, which I cannot magically do at 6am.  

It takes me less than 10 minutes to put this pancake prep together, but it means we can actually eat pancakes in the morning:

(That background pumpkin is not long for this world)

We also always have apple or banana or pear with our breakfast.  Sometimes melon, if I'm feeling fancy, and if I've chopped it the night before.

Grocery Delivery

We are figuring our the best day and time for grocery delivery.  We were doing our meal planning on Friday night with a delivery saturday morning, but this had the logistical challenge of needing to get the order in by 9pm.  We also needed to be home to collect, and I am not paying £2 more for a 1 hour delivery but it meant the groceries showed up sometime between 8am and 12, which could be fine or could be chaos.  

This week we tried a friday delivery, again between 8 and 12.  Unfortunately the timing was pretty much the worst - both babies woke up at 10, the delivery came at 10:20, and as he arrived I was halfway downstairs with two babies (we are still working on stairs) when lilah came to the bottom of the stairs holding a beeded necklace (ie massive baby choking hazard) which she proceeded to break and drop all over the bottom of the stairs.  Then she started crying, which caused nora to start crying, and I could neither get down the stairs (because the two babies) or up the stairs (because the two babies).  Thankfully Andy was not in a meeting so he came and helped unpack the groceries.  

This week is half term (week off school).  While the kids only have two days of school lunches a week, I definitely feel we need more food in the house during half term.  More snacks? 

What are your go-to breakfasts? Are you a breakfast person? Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day.  I would love to eat/make hash browns and home fries more if the kids ate them.  I used to make Shakshuka sometimes but I know the kids will give it "a million thumbs down" so it's not worth the effort now either. 

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep, meal plan.

Our nanny was on holiday this week which meant I took annual leave from work to do what our nanny does for a job.  It actually was nice to spend a few days with the twins - on Wednesday we went to baby sign language and on Thursday we went to a friend's house for a play date.  I do have a bit of the Sunday Scaries at the moment as I have a very busy week in work next week - my handover/mat leave return period is over and it's time for me to do the running I intended to hit the ground with (weird sentence structure but it's staying).

While I enjoyed my twin days, I was honestly pretty burnt out on parenting by the weekend (I'm allowed to say this right?) and was definitely not on my best parental behaviour this weekend.  TGIS - Thank God It's Sunday - and I can get some me time (ie work) next week.  

We still packed a lot into the weekend - on Saturday I did a 5k run, we did a split parent and 1 kid 1 baby trip to the park (1 baby and 1 6 year old is so easy!), and I got my hair dyed.  On Sunday I took the kids to a Sukkot party at the Synagogue, then took Isaac to a scouts meetup, and managed to make a chicken and mushroom pie and chips for dinner.  Basically the weekend was busy, we did a lot, and I was mostly grumpy.

How cute is this weekend morning reading?

Reading

I am slowly reading The Stand In by Lily Chu.  It's cute.

I am sort of giving up on You Only Die Once because I am not in a headspace for a person with no kids to tell me how to be awesome or how to avoid wasting my life.  Watching four kids this young feels like both a total waste of my own intellect/goals/ambitions and fundamentally important to my own intellect/goals/ambitions and I just can't connect with her premise right now.  However I think it's a good book and I bet I'll enjoy reading it in a few years.

Kendra's book "The Plan" is just as lovely as her podcast, but much like Cal Newport's work I feel like I have listened to the buildup so much that I don't really need to read the book now (which was the same for Slow Productivity).  I am, however, really enjoying her pep talks.

Sports

It was a great week for sports! I managed to get exercise back into my life while on my baby-watching days.  I am also sort of obsessed with getting a Peloton.  The main hindrance at this time is whether we can get a Peloton up two flights of stairs, including skinny loft stairs with a switch back.  There's even someone 3 streets over who I sort of know who is selling a Peloton.  

Monday: 20 Minute Full Body Strength, 10 Minute Postnatal Core, 10 Minute Focus Flow: Back, 10 Minute relaxation (all Peloton)

Wednesday: 15 minute Hip Hop Barre, 10 minute postnatal core, 10 minute full body stretch (all Peloton)

Thursday: 30 minute run/walk.  20 minutes Arms and Shoulders with Callie (my first live class), 5 minute upper body stretch, 5 minutes post run stretch. (all Peloton)

Friday: Gym with gym buddy! Legs.  Fun. Hard.

Saturday: Parkrun 5k (also another 1.5 miles there and back). 10 minute full body stretch (Peloton)

The 5k is somewhere in the middle here.

Sleep

This section probably isn't very interesting anymore, but I've been averaging 7.42 hours of sleep this week.  Twice I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep, which is extra annoying considering how much exercise I've been doing.   The babies are waking up between 5:30 and 6:30am which is causing middling anxiety about whether that means they will be waking up between 4:30 and 5:30am after the clocks go back next week.  I hate hate HATE clock changes.  Also, they are sometimes waking up grumpy and I think getting new teeth and/or learning new skills and/or just being babies which is a whole thing.  I feel very tired, more tired than perhaps 7.42 hours of sleep should indicate.

Food

Monday: Slow Cooker Veggie Spag Bol.

Tuesday: Scrambled Egg Wraps
Wednesday: Nanny makes dinner

Thursday: Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup (& tomato soup for the kids)

Friday: Pizza (maybe.  Or maybe leftovers.  I failed to make Jacket Potatoes last friday because it was too ambitious for a friday so Pizza may be way too ambitious)

Do you like it when the clock changes? Do you get an extra hour of sleep on this one?  Or do you spend a week feeling confused or have small children that negate any joy in time changes?

On Relatability, Twins, Planning and Doing Stuff

Today I went to a baby class with the twins.

In case you are curious, this is the first baby class I have attended with them.  I have been to three play groups with them, and I have taken them to soft play twice.  

For comparison, Isaac had two baby classes a week.  

The babies loved the class.  I was the only parent of twins there.  At the end of the class one of the mums asked me how the twins sleep.

"great" I said.  "because they have to"

Sleep is the number one twin question I get.  A colleague recently told me that he is so exhausted because his 18 month old and 3 year old get up multiple times a night each, and that they both need parents in their room to fall asleep.

I would be exhausted too.

I think, often, when people ask me "how do you do it" they are extrapolating from their situation.  "how do you get up 3 times a night for twins?" is a legit question. The answer is that I don't get up three times a night for twins.

Today a mom asked me how I got them to sleep well and I said "because I had so many kids, I couldn't always always attend to the twins, and sometimes there was crying, and sometimes there was longer crying than I would have liked, and now everyone sleeps really well.  I know that sort of sleep training went out of fashion in the early 2000's but without sleep I wouldn't be able to function"

Anyways, the conversation didn't go on much from there. Because how could it.

I started thinking that one thing which bothers me sometimes is that my current life is so unrelatable.  I have so many small children.  I have a decently big job, and I'm trying to move up quite quickly at the time when most people I know are taking it easy.  I am trying to keep my fitness up and enjoy my job and enjoy my kids.

We self catered a birthday party for 26 four year olds when the twins were 9 months old.

We went to the pumpkin patch with 4 kids.

We cook all our meals at home.

We recently redecorated and moved 4 of the 5 bedrooms in our house around.

We have a 5 bedroom house

Everything on this list isn't rocket science.  I am not a rocket scientist.  But I am also more and more aware that this is not how many people live, and especially not in my suburban enclave of South Wales.  I've found a small community of awesome blogging and podcasting people doing awesome blogging things which make me feel like it's OK to continue trying to be awesome.  But the more I do, the more I realize how disjointed I am from the local people I spend time with on a daily basis.

And also, my goal is not to make other people feel bad about their lives.  Having kids is hard! Having two kids is hard! Having a job is hard! Having a less flexible job than mine is hard! Trying to do sport is hard.  Working from home is hard.  Working in an office is hard.

And then there are things we don't do.  We live by our routines.  We don't stay out late. We don't go out in the evenings.  We don't do kids activities in the evenings.  We don't travel.

Even these decisions can be unrelatable.  Everyone in the UK travels.  This is a tiny rainy island and people were not meant to stay here 365 days of the year.  There's no reason we would have 5 weeks of holiday if it wasn't intended for us to leave this small rainy island.

I don't really have a great answer to this.  My life is ridiculous now.  The amount of planning it takes to function well is... a lot.  I also don't think there's an option for us to do less or take it easier.  We can either plan every meal... or we can not eat? There isn't any moderate parenting with so many young kids.  There is only 100% attention, 100% of the time.  I can see why even people with four kids often don't have them in five years.  

I don't have some grand point to end this, except that I guess it's okay to not be relatable, and I probably shouldn't worry about it.  And maybe I should try and figure out a better way to answer people when I'm asked about baby sleep habits.

Sunday Update: That Was a Weekend (also Reading, Sports, Sleep & Meal Plan)

Today we went to the pumpkin patch: 

I am so happy to not be so pregnant like I was last year:

Immediately on entering the pumpkin patch the kids started crying and fighting over a wheelbarrow.  Both kids were tired.  I didn't want to buy pumpkins here (they are so expensive!) so we said each kid could pick out the best small pumpkin (£2 each).  Even that was tricky.  There were meltdowns and chaos.  I wondered if it was even worth it.

But then this evening I already forgot the meltdowns and remember this:

Perfect Pumpkin Hunting

Pumpkin Catapult.  £2 for 3 pumpkins

We made it to the corn maze for the first time ever!

This weekend was mostly about Isaac's turning SIX:

On Saturday morning (Isaac's birthday!) both kids had swim lessons.  When they got home our friends came over for tea and cupcakes and a short play date.  They left at 12 as more friends came over for lunch, and then those friends and other friends went to the climbing wall with Isaac for a birthday climbing adventure.

I stayed at home with babies and a friend who also had a baby.  When climbing was over some other friends came back to our house for more tea, and eventually Isaac had one friend who stayed for a sleepover while Lilah went over to Grandma's.  Luckily the parent of the friend that stayed for a sleepover is a great friend of our as well, so we hung out until late in the evening chatting.  The boys even stayed up until 8:30pm.  Unfortunately on Sunday they woke up at 5am... which means we woke up at 5am... which means we are tired.

But there is no time for tired on an adventure weekend!  At 10am we said goodbye to friends and drove to the pumpkin patch.  Fun fact, pumpkin patch pricing is £9 per car.  This is a bargain when we bring 7 people.  We did a quick circuit and were home by 1pm.  Everyone was tired so we did film Sunday and watched Tangled.  

In the mid afternoon the other grandparents came over for more tea and cake (are you sensing a theme??) and then when they went home it was dinner and bed.  And now blog.  And soon adult bed (not in a *wink wink* way.  In a OMG that was exhausting way).

Reading

I finished Ghosts by Dolly Alderton.  Now I'm reading The Plan by Kendra Adachi and You Only Die Once which I am reading super slowly.  I also have a kindle copy of The Stand In by Lily Chu which I haven't started.  I'm trying to get a little more high brow than women fiction... but also I like women's fiction.

Sports

Sports are getting better.

Monday: 35 minutes swimming (swimming is awesome and I slept so well after)

Tuesday: Gym with gym buddy

Wednesday: 15 Minute Peloton Yoga

I haven't yet figured out how to incorporate exercise into my kid days (Fri/Sat/Sun) but I am sure it will come.  Next week I might try to do a gym session during the kids saturday swim lessons, which would give me 25 minutes of exercise on a Saturday.

Also, I signed up for the Cardiff half Marathon next year.  It sold out in 24 hours.  It's in October. I am excited.

Sleep

I slept through the night every night last week, so even with my 6 hour Saturday sleep my average is still 7.42 hours.  Yay.  I know that literally every aspect of my life only functions because I get sleep.

Meal Plan:

Monday: Risotto

Tuesday: Salmon Burgers / Fish Fingers & rice & veg

Wednesday: Chicken Gyros (the ones I meant to make last week but didn't)

Thursday: Toad in the hole (sausages in yorkshire pudding)

Friday: Jacket Potatoes & Tuna or beans or freezer chili.

Saturday: Chicken Pot Pie (the one I meant to make last week bu didn't

Sunday: Slow Cooker lentil spag bol.

How was your weekend?  Have you eaten anything pumpkin-y yet this year?  I made a sweet potato and bean stew last week.  It was very autumnal.

5 on a Friday

Lilah has full autonomy on her clothing. Exhibit 1.

1. I am so into Taylor Swift's "I can do it with a broken heart" right now.  I've been listening to it with Lilah and we like jumping up and down in the chorus, except I don't want to explain what "I cry a lot but I am so productive, it's an art" means.  Anyways, I also think a lot about LagLiv's awesome post on of this song.  I love finding new Taylor Swift songs I like.  Maybe soon I will actually watch all of the Eras tour.  Maybe I should watch the Eras tour video with the kids?

2. In other emotions news, I saw Inside Out for the first time last week.  That's a mildly intense film for a kid! But then when Lilah was having a meltdown one night I asked her if Anger was in her head and controlling her and she said YES! And then we were able to actually calm down, which was kind of cool, because I've never really understood the "name and validate" feelings thing, but maybe a Disney movie can get me there (or Pixar?)

3. There is a really awful story out of France right now about Gisèle Pelicot. As far as a summary, A guy did something terrible, and invited other men to be terrible, and the other men were terrible, and now they're all on trial saying "but I was told by that guy that I could be terrible so it's not a crime!" even though being terrible is a crime.  I know that's a simple view, and if you don't know the full extent of the story be warned it is a terrible terrible story.

4. I read the news too much.  It is always terrible.  Where does compulsive news reading come from? Why? I need to put together a no news strategy or something.  During Covid I didn't read the news and then would buy a paper on a Sunday.  Then we realized even Sunday papers aren't great.

5.  I finally completed my idea week template, which was actually a fun exercise! It took more thinking than I... thought.  But I did realize it should be possible to do lunch exercise once or twice a week.  And also that although I have a lot of standing evening dates, I need to have alternate evening dates for when standing dates cancel.  For instance, on Monday Andy goes cycling.  His cycling was cancelled, so instead I went swimming! It was great and I slept so well.  Thursday is writing night, but if not writing then.... ?  Basically my plan is to have a backup for my standing dates so I don't just spend the night on the internet if plans fall through

5a. Speaking of standing nights, we have moved Family Logistics and Operational Meeting from Friday to Wednesday.  It's a bit tricky since we are now planning a week out - on Wednesday we plan the following Saturday-Friday.  But neither Andy or I have brain power for Friday FLOM.  It's Friday now and Andy just said "you know what I'm glad we're not doing tonight? FLOM".  It's true.

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep, Food Plan

Audrey (L) Nora (R) now 11 months old

My epiphany of this week was that I have added 27 hours of childcare to my week and 30 hours of work and I am fairly sure that time for exercise = the delta.  Is that how people use "the delta"?  I don't use that word but I've realized certain people in my work do.  Either way, the math of my return to work isn't ideal, but I am fairly sure I can be more strategic soon.  I am also *finally* almost over COLDZILLA.  Basically, things are looking up.

Reading

Someone on the blog-o-sphere read this recently and recommended it and I cannot remember who because why do I never write things down??  Anyways, I am enjoying it.  I was also reading an early copy of The Plan on Kindle but I have decided it will be a much better read on a real book.  And I'm really really slowly reading You Only Die Once but it has interesting excercises that I should probably actually do.

Sub question - if you are reading a book with excercises (like "rank your life on a scale of 1 to 10 on the following") do you actually do these things? Or do you just read the book as an interesting how-to guide?

Sports

Monday: 10 minute breathing meditation.  Does that even count as sport? At least it means I used the Peloton app for 10 minutes

Thursday: 1 hour gym with gym buddy (leg day, always)

Saturday: 20 minute "run" and 10 minute yoga.  amazed I can be so inflexible and sore while basically not exercising.

I've decided Saturday morning is going to be my sports day going forward.  Andy can watch 4 kids by himself.  I'll need to get out for 7:30am but it does mean I should get almost 2 hours of exercise on a Saturday before commencing my 9 hours of childcare. 

Also, my home office/gym situation is improving.  I should be able to schedule in a 20-30 minute weights workout during my lunch breaks this week.  Midweek exercise is the goal.

Sleep

Still averaging 7.5 hours of sleep a night, which includes waking up once or twice a night and reading for about half an hour. I think I would sleep better if I did exercise.  I think everyone would probably sleep better if they did exercise.

Food Plan

Monday: Macaroni and Cheese

Tuesday: Chicken Gyros

Wednesday: Slow Cooker Butternut Squash Chili and Jacket Potatoes

Thursday: Stuffed Shells Pasta

Friday: Turkey Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries

Saturday: Pizza

Sunday: Salmon & Potatoes

That's an ambitious food plan.  The stuffed shells are not made by me.  I do not have time to stuff food things in other things.  I barely have time to stuff food in my mouth.

Hello October

Hello October! I am so glad to see you!  October is possibly my FAVOURITE MONTH OF THE YEAR. 

Who is this Angry gnome from Halloween 2020? It's 6 week old Lilah and 2 year old Isaac:

Or what about windswept Isaac & Lilah (3 and 1), late to the almost empty patch in 2021:

Oh what about this super casual lean from four year old Isaac and two year old Lilah in 2022?

Or how about that time in 2023 (5 year old Isaac, 3 year old Lilah) when I was 36 weeks pregnant with twins:

Anyways, I love October, and I especially love going to the pumpkin patch.

I also especially love not being heavily pregnant with twins anymore.

October is hopefully going to be a FUN and COSY month.  

Big things in October:

• Isaac turns 6! He is having a small birthday party and a SLEEPOVER with a friend he likes, a friend whose parents we like, which means I am very excited for them all to come sleep over.
• Twins turn 1 year old.  
• Pumpkin Carving Party.  We just like having people over and we like carving pumpkins and so we are going to host a drop in pumpkin carving party.
• My Aunt visiting from the states
• Our nanny has a week of holiday, so I will have 3 days off work with twins again (and other kids not in school)
• School holiday at the end of October
• Registration opens for Cardiff Half Marathon 2025  

October Goals

• Finish room moves and get house in normal sane shape.  We are currently midway through room moves but should have the final room (MY OFFICE!) done by the end of October
• Continue to purge clothes I don't wear.  Buy a replacement long sleeve shirt for the one that doesn't fit and the other one with the really big stain.
• Find my lipstick, organize makeup drawer.  I had on my yearly goals to buy a good lipstick for everyday use.  I swear I bought one from Ilia and now I can't find it.  So I literally now just need to find it.  It would probably help if I didn't have a drawer that looks like this:

• 1 Rachel thing.  October seems like a good month for a facial.  I have never had a facial, and I have a voucher for a facial, so I will try to plan in a facial.
• Continue to progress in career by making new connections and re-establishing old ones (vague goal online but less vague IRL)
• Visit the pumpkin patch with the family! And a local halloween event, ideally in a castle and not scary.
• Paint my nails a halloween color. Can I pull off yellow?  
  
  
  

October feels a bit like we are over the hump of all the transitions we needed to get through for school/work/house/life.  There are obviously lots of transitions still coming but I am keeping my fingers crossed that the groundwork of planning and logistics and changes will all pay off with a fun and easier October.

Are you excited for October?  Do you visit a pumpkin patch?