Happiness is Eight Hours

Eight hours of sleep is the difference between a fun, happy, spunky mom and a grouchy mom.  I can do anything with sleep.  ANYTHING.

The problem is I don't always get that choice.  My ENTIRE family was sick this past weekend.  Seth was the worst of them all.  It was pathetic and sad.  They were just sprawled out and whining.

Every time the Belgian Flu of 2012 hits our home (ok this is the first time in 2012) I feel the need to sanitize and clean.  The problem was I had gotten four hours of sleep because of Stella's 103 fever and Seth reenacting the final scene of Mozart in Amadeus.  Then of course the almost-recovered Tiger gets up at 6:00.  So, I needed to clean but I had gotten no sleep, I may as well have just been sick.

Oh, woe was me yesterday.

Somehow I found 30 minutes to take a cat nap.

I woke up and felt inclinations of being wonder-wo-mom (trademarked by Sunny), and Stella and I got inspired to make STUFF.

My old friend Sharon who is now the famous blogger at http://nyctaughtme.blogspot.com had her kids make tin foil sculptures. The only rule is it must stand. So I copied her.

Here are our masterpieces:

The Robot Family

A cabin for Robot Daddy

Robot City

103.8 and Spots

This past week was a bit torturous.  The good news: spring came.  It was beautiful.  It looked like this:

Sadly Tiger looked like this:

Ok, this is not from this last week but it is the beginning of the three weeks of him being sick.

After never fully recovering from his ear infection he got a crazy high fever.  103.8 AFTER medicine.  It was scary and sad and he mentioned that it was, "No FAIR" maybe over a 100 times.  My nerves were frazzled having such a sick kid, then he would wake up at 5:00 only to cry in my bed for two hours until his sister would get up for the day.

After three days of crying and whining he broke out into a rash that the pediatrician declared "a virus."

Ok Belgian side note, doctors here have their offices in their houses.  They have no secretaries and usually have one or two rooms for their practice.  I asked her if patients ever bothered her in off hours and she said they do not.  Why don't U.S. doctors have their own offices in their home?  Kate, if you ever read this still what do you think?

The worst part of all of this was his light sensitivity.  It was gorgeous and this gray country finally saw the sun but we had to stay in since his eyes hurt.  So sad.

Things are looking up for little Tiger.  He slept all night again and Stella slept in.  Unfortunately Stella has never slept in just because 99% of the time she is sick and sure enough, she has a fever.  Here's to another three days of sick kids. Wish me luck and forgive me if you saw Stella this morning, we didn't know until noon.

Mommy School Graduation

Over a year ago Stella started sounding words out and showing that she was ready to move beyond simple phonics words and really learn to read.  So I started a program and every day we worked on learning how to read.

At first these times were precious.  We would sit in a tent, eat candy, have a special date and she learned the basics of sight reading and how letter combinations make sounds.  It was great at first.

Then it became a chore.  A major chore.   A big old pain in the butt chore that would result with Stella screaming and me getting frustrated and it was rotten.  In hindsight I think the impending move MAY have had something to do with that, but let's not overanalyze.  Kids can suck sometimes, everyone who has one secretly knows that.   Mommy school had became a major chore.

Then came Belgium and French schooling and mommy school sort of flew out the window.  However, Stella, even without mommy school managed to progress (ALRIGHT unschoolers you may be right SOMETIMES).  She progressed without much teaching on my part and in time I had notes posted all throughout my house that said things like, "No Mommys, Stella and Tiger ONLY" or "Stella's Art MUZEEM" or "Dear Mom, I want to go to WRK with dad not skool."  Oh the other plug I have to give is to an iPad app called Scribblenauts.  It was a game that would make anything appear that you could type, so now she had an impetus to learn how to spell and spelling usually requires reading.

So somehow despite me, or perhaps in spite, of me my daughter has picked up English reading and writing.

So I brought it up again.  The mommy school book.  This time she did it a little more willingly.  Today we were on lesson 73.  She breezed through.  She asked when she could finish.  I told her when she could read the last story in the book.  The pragmatic side of this girl knew what she needed to do.  She flipped to the last page, easily and quickly read the last story and announced she was, "DONE with mommy school."

In further mommy school news, today Tiger was able to sound out the words sad, sat, rat, at, and me.  Yay Tiger! I have learned a few lessons for this round.  Let the games begin.

Playing Hooky While We Can

Today I let Stella stay home.  We all went to the science museum.  It was awesome.

We made pizzas

Stella is showing you how she followed the recipe perfectly.

Cooked in a fire oven.

We made our own marble run.

Learned about European dental hygiene.

Look at those pearly whites.

Caught butterflies.

Jumped on the moon.

I love my days with my kids.  I love it even more when I come home to a clean home, which is what happened today thanks to our Philippine cleaning lady (we pay her as much as we paid our helper in the Philippines for a full six days of work), I am forever ruined as a housekeeper after Asia.

Story of the Week


Stella came home from school yesterday and was so excited.  Her class has been learning about the community and people in the community and their jobs.  To help the children understand and put their studies into action they went to our local patisserie.  Stella was so excited when she came home and told me all about it.  I was happy for her except...  EXCEPT that NO ONE TOLD US they were going on a field trip.

Now, I realize, I am foreign, I am from the land of helicopter parents, things are different here.  The schools are in no way transparent.  I have reluctantly accepted that as I part of my no tuition deal with this place.  If I could just make one small simple request: just a note, please just a note.  I would have gladly said yes to this excursion but I really wish they had told me in advance.

Sigh.

She Wants to Ride Her Bicycle

My baby girl is no longer a baby.

Everyday this is manifest more and more.  The little things: notes written with messages from my four year old ("No Moms, Stella and Tiger Only"), cooking her own omlet when she comes home for lunch break, reading books to Tiger, sewing her own doll clothes creations, the faintest wiggle of a tooth, and now... she can drive.

Yes it is true my Stella can ride a bike without training wheels.

I am exhausted chasing after her.  I think I found my new jogging partner.

She just got on a friend's bike and took off.  I suspect this must have to do with her Razor Scootering all winter.  Either way, she is mobile and it is exciting.

Tiger, on the other hand, has been sick.  I could tell something was wrong last week when he begged to leave the park and sit in the car.  This is what he looked like:

Can you tell what is wrong with this little guy?

Yup, ear infection.  We gave him drops all week and when they didn't work we started him on antibiotics.  Today he was bouncing without a care in the world and cute as a button.

London Hilton Metropole Saga

Sometimes the only power you have in this world is your voice.  So it is, that I write a full review the London Hilton Metropole hotel.  We stayed there February 17-20, 2012.  In tow were two large bags, a stroller, and two young children.  We got two adjoining rooms.

So many things we loved about the hotel.  The concierge were darling with Stella and Tiger and every night they got a balloon which just sent the kids to the moon.  They had a small pool that the kids loved (although it was pretty gross by Monday and I suspect the reason for Tiger's terrible ear infection since).

We checked in on Friday and all was well.  Sunday we were awoken to a fire alarm at 4:00 pm.  A very loud and terrifying series of fire alarmish sounds that went on for fifteen minutes.  We gathered ourselves and our children and like most people who grew up with fire alarms proceeded to the fire exit and the thirteen flights of stairs with terrified kids in tow.

When we got to the lobby we realized it was a DRILL.  A DRILL.  I am very happy that Battleship Gallactica size hotels like this one has drills, it is a smart idea.  But you know what else is a smart idea?  Telling your guests.  There were a variety of ways they could have done this: note in the room that they visited three times before the drill, at check in, a voicemail on my phone, a large notice placed in front of the elevators with flashing signs.  Did they do any of those?  Nope.  What did they do?  A small sign in the lift.  We are talking 14 pt font and three paragraphs.  Someone needs to go back to Marketing School and review their font lessons (I want to go to that school).

If I told them I was going to be staying for an extra two weeks would a paper taped up onto the lift be sufficient?  Of course not, because that is silly, and so is this.

Now I hate to remind people but some pretty crappy things have happened in the 12 years in the US and in London.  I believe both countries have been on an orange terror alert level for OVER A DECADE.  So, it is not smart to make people think that there is a fire in a high rise.

I took my fury to Hilton on the day it happened and got a dumbfounded response.  I felt unsettled.  So I took it further.  I wrote Hilton.

This is their response:

Hilton's Guest Assistance team have passed us your feedback from your recent stay at the Hilton London Metropole.  Naturally, we are always concerned when a guest is given cause for complaint and I very much regret the disappointment you have expressed.

We conduct a weekly test of our fire alarm bells, in accordance with our Health & Safety obligations.  These always take place on a Sunday afternoon and involve short bursts of our alarm bells, rather than one continous alarm, and are an opportunity for us to identify any faults in the system. 

I was sorry to read that you were disturbed by the sound, although I must say that over the many years we have had this arrangement, we have received very few similar reports.   We try our best to notify any guests who may be in the hotel at the time by placing signage in the lifts and other public areas of the hotel.  I have, however, certainly taken your suggestions on board and will discuss the feasability of us infoming individual rooms with my team.

Thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experience.  It is through such constructive feedback that we are best able to monitor the standards we are providing.  I very much hope that we will have an opportunity to welcome you back to the Hilton London Metropole in the not too distant future and if I can be of further assistance in the meantime, please do contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Meredith Bevan

Director of Operations

Hilton London Metropole

Translation:  Apparently I am the only person in the history of this over 1000s room hotel to be royally (appropriate considering the location) pissed off that I didn't get a better notice about a fire alarm.  I find this really hard to believe but since I am the ONLY person to ever think this is ridiculous I must be loud about it.

So here is my review, London Hilton Metropole has potential to be a great hotel.  However, they are large so large that they find the small things to personalize your stay impossible.  Small things such as informing you that burning flames will not be charring your body, it is just a test.  And when you are frustrated with such threats they will maybe consider what you said, maybe.  

Don't stay at this hotel.  Go to a smaller one that can tell its guests the safety schedule.  

PS London Hilton Metropole, please if you ever change this policy to become more personalized please let me know so I can update my blog.