You Get What You Pay For

Here in Scotland we have socialized medicine.  Great on the wallet, but who cares when you're sick?

I have been sick since last Tuesday (cold, flu, not sure).  Usually I don't stay sick for longer than 3 days.  It's been 8.  I went to the doctor on day four because obviously I had been sick for long enough.

Wrong.

I went in and explained my many symptoms that were keeping me from being able to take care of my 9 month old and causing my husband to play Mr. Mom instead of working on his PhD expecting to be given a Z Pack and start feeling better by the next day.

Instead I got an antibiotic that "probably won't do you any good since it's most likely a virus" and was told to come back Monday if I still felt bad over the weekend.  Monday morning I call and make my appointment, but can't actually see the doctor that saw me Friday.

New doc, after hearing all of my symptoms, proceeds to tell me to come back if I still feel bad at the end of the month. Seriously?  It was April 4th.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I love our apartment complex.

Love. It.

Lots of neighborly love going on around here.  Sometimes too much.

I thought this exchange an apt depiction and hilarious glimpse into our little community:


** Disclaimer: The following is a conversation between two of the kids from our complex to one of their moms.  I'm changing their names to protect the innocent honest.**

Picture Emily : she is a striking 6 year old, first child, extremely articulate, and I am completely jealous of her wardrobe.  She has a mustard color peacoat that is to die for!

Picture Timothy: he is 5 years old, also a first child, full of energy, a born leader.

Picture Timothy's mom: she is from the South, mom of three, and the most hilarious woman in our apartment complex.  Just think of her as a female Taylor - she's that funny.

They happened to be out in the garden on an uncharacteristically quiet day (usually the garden is buzzing with activity the minute school lets out now that it actually stays light past 3 pm).  Emily and Timothy had been playing with another little girl, Holly, who doesn't live in our complex. After awhile, Timothy's mom noticed he and Emily weren't playing with Holly anymore.  She called them over and asked what was going on.

Timothy piped up, "We're having trouble getting along with Holly." This was obvious and the reason Timothy's mom had called them over in the first place, but experienced mom that she is, she replied,

"Oh," cocking her head to the side and solemnly nodding, drawing the kids in for further explanation.  She's a good listener like that.  Makes you want to tell her things.  Experienced Mom Trick that I need to perfect so I'm ready once Seth can say more than "hi", "dada", and "mama."

I digress.

So back to Timothy's mom nodding solemnly...

"But," Emily chimed in with an equally solemn expression, "we decided to do what the Bible says."

Timothy's mom, now on the edge of her seat, asked (keeping her poker face of course), "which part?"

"Treat others how you want to be treated," Emily said matter-of-factly.  Timothy's mom calmly commented, "that is a really good idea," while doing mental fist pumps and singing the Hallelujah Chorus in her head.

Emily continued, "so we tried that.

Twice.

That didn't work.  So we decided to treat Holly the way she was treating us."



Priceless.



Since I can't include a photo of them (though I am sure they will show up on here some other time), here are some photos of some of what we were up to in March.

Talking with Mr. Frog

Hanging out with bff

Hiking the Crags

Playing with our toes

Singing

Trying to grab the camera

Just plain being cute

Lots of cuteness going on here

Baby Mozart?

A typical day at the Ince house:

Desired object in sight...hot pursuit on

Pause for a push up break

Victory!

Happiness

Joy

Maybe this post should've been named Baby Dave Matthews...

But seriously, this is Seth's favorite toy.  Taylor plays it for him when he gets home from school.  The second Seth sees it, he makes a beeline straight for it,  pulls himself up on it, and starts strumming it, banging on the side of it, or crying because his fingers are stuck in the strings only to begin again once daddy frees stuck fingers.

He LOVES the guitar.

He already has pretty good rhythm too.  Taylor wants to buy a ukulele for him because a toy guitar would be colorful plastic, and well, will look like a toy in which case Seth will immediately shun it.

I have to hide the guitar in our room during the day because that is the only thing he wants to play with if he sees it.  If I accidentally leave our bedroom door open, Seth heads straight to it - man this boy is fast!

His second favorite toy...the standing lamp* in our living room...Baby Edison?




*I don't actually let him play with this!

How We Roll

Culture shock.  It's a funny thing.  Everyone is always asking us how we're dealing with it.  Mostly Brits ask which I find humorous.  Americans for the most part assume that since they speak English here, it's basically the same as living in the US, but Brits seem to think it is majorly different.  I'm not sure if I should be offended by this, or if the Brits should be.

I was expecting some culture shock when we moved to the UK, but it's been fairly minimal.  What I didn't count on was the "culture stress."  You see, culture shock is getting used to the major differences between your culture and the one you are living in (this is not as noticeable when moving from one 1st world country to another especially when they speak the same language).  Culture stress, however, can happen even when you move within the same country.  I experienced some of this when we moved to Charlotte in 2007.  Here are a few examples:

What?!  There isn't a Starbucks on my drive to work?!


or

Man this tea is sweet!  Why didn't you tell me not to add sugar?!

or

You call your grocery store what?!

(For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of living in Charlotte and are curious, they call the grocery store by our old house Taj Ma-teeter.  You just have to see it.)


In Edinburgh, my biggest culture stressor is related to the last one.  Grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping without a car.

(American friends please pause for a moment and try to imagine this. )

It is such a pain having to "learn" a new grocery store.  Anyone with me?  We recently got a new HEB in Houston, but I purposefully avoided it (I know heresy, right?) because it was gigantic, and I didn't want to spend the time figuring it out.  And has anyone else noticed that they put stuff in random places there?  I know they do this so that I'll impulse buy - I am so on to them.  Anyway, learning a new grocery store in a new place especially with brand names that you're not used to = stressor.

Long side note:

Our first visit to the local grocery store happened on our first night in the UK.

Bad idea jeans.

I was adamant to go because we had access to a vehicle, we would need food in the morning, and we happened to drive by what looked to be a super market.  Who knew if we could easily find one again in this foreign city!  So armed with our list of basics and foggy sleep-deprived brains, we started shopping.  We fairly easily located baby formula, toilet paper, spring water, but were coming up empty on laundry detergent.

I'm laughing as I think back to this story because laundry detergent?  That was seriously a must have for our first run to the grocery store at 10 o'clock at night going on 36 hours of no sleep?  Like I said, bad idea jeans.

We eventually found a lady who worked at the store and enquired about the missing necessity.  Laundry detergent, not sleep.  Blankly she stared at us, and in a thick Scottish brogue said,

I don't know what that is.

Great.

Talk about culture shock.  They don't wash their clothes in Scotland?!

We tried to explain as best we could in our sleep deprived state.  I am about to lose it and start crying when all of a sudden, she lights up.

Do you mean clothes powder?


Umm, sure.


Oh!  We carry that!


And she proceeded to pick out the best one for baby and thoroughly explained to us how to use it.

Thanks and gig 'em grocery store lady.

OK, back to the point of this post.

Americans are known for buying lots of food at once.  This is frowned upon in several indirect ways in the UK.

First, everything comes in ridiculously small quantities.

Exhibit A:

The jar on the right is from a local grocery store, Sainsburys.  The one on the left is from Costco.  Notice how the Costco sized jar is the same size as a normal jar of PB that you would buy at say HEB or Taj Ma-teeter.  For any Brits out there in case you are wondering, in America, Costco sized PB jars are twice this size and are wrapped together with cellophane in a twin pack.  What can I say? Americans love PB.


Second, they don't sack your groceries for you.  You do it yourself.  Though I have to say, I have mastered making them feel sorry for me since I still buy my food like an American and have a small child.  Inevitably, the help me sack.  Thank you kind Scots.

Third, they make you pay for said grocery sacks.  This may have an environmental reason too which is actually related to an aspect of culture shock I've experienced that I'm sure I will write about eventually.  They are obssessed with recycling over here.

Last, most people don't drive to the grocery store, so you have to be able to carry what you buy.

Thanks to my compact car, I mean stroller, I have managed to beat the system.

Exhibit B, C,& D:

Poor Seth

What a trooper!

This Will Hurt Me More Than it Hurts You

**Sorry - wrote this post a million years ago and by million I mean 4 months.  Anyway, Seth recently had his next round of immunizations which reminded me that I had written this post but never published it.  Mommy Brain.**

Last week the dreaded 4 month "jabs" were upon us.  The term jabs or as our health visitor calls them, "jags" is apparently slang for shots according to my trustworthy and academic research on Wikipedia. "Jags," however, is Glaswegian (how someone from Glasgow would say it).  Boy I am getting quite the education over here - Taylor is getting a PhD, and I am learning English.  

Funny being that I am an English teacher.  But that's worth a whole post to itself.

Our first experience in getting Seth immunised was at 2 months (did you catch that British touch?  I recently asked a Brit why they hated "Zs" so much to which I was promptly corrected, "it's pronounced 'zed.'" Ahem.) Having heard lots of controversy over them (immunisations not zeds), I did my research (not on Wikipedia), we prayed a lot, and we ultimately felt it was more responsible to go ahead and get all of them seeing that Seth would be on many trans-Atlantic flights for the first 4 years of his life (if not his whole life - sorry Mom.)

Going into that 2 month appointment I experienced for the first time as a parent the reality of . . .

This will hurt me more than it hurts you.

This phrase used to make me mad as child when about to receive a spanking.  How could this possibly hurt you, Dad? I would wonder incredulously. Or I would sassily respond, "then don't do it!"  Needless to say, I got lots of spankings growing up. Spare the rod spoil the child, right?  Good thing we got out of California by the time I was 2.

But I really was overwhelmed and pained by the sense of this is going to hurt him, and he is going to wonder why I am letting someone hurt him.  I couldn't explain to him why it had to be done.  It just had to be done. For his good.  And so we went ahead with it.

The actual injections rendered some tears, but nothing too traumatic for baby or momma.  Hours later proved a much different story.  Disaster.  Nightmare.  Worst experience in parenting to date.  Our pediatrician had advised us not to give him Baby Tylenol*, so being the rule follower that I am, we didn't give him Baby Tylenol.

Said disaster ensued.

He shrieked uncontrollably for what seemed like an eternity (so yeah, like 45 minutes).  My blood pressure was off of the charts, our good friends, Kimy and Richmond, who were over for dinner were probably scarred for life (good thing Kimy was already pregnant at this point! :)), and Taylor was driving all over town to get Baby Tylenol.

10 minutes after Seth's first dose (and yes, we called the doctor first - who heartily agreed it was a necessary measure after hearing the screaming in the background), he had calmed down and resumed his normal placid self.  Crisis averted.   Well at least until his next round.

Fast forward 2 months (actually 3 months. Socialized medicine much?)  The morning of his 4 month jabs, I awoke to happy baby gurgling noises.  I went to get Seth out of his crib, and he beamed up at me with that adorable toothless grin seeming to convey with those bright wide eyes, This is going to be a great day!

Little did he know that round two of his immunisations were scheduled for a few short hours away.  

Seth is normally a happy baby, but this morning he was extra delightful.  Dagger to my heart.  I kept looking at him looking at me with such love and trust in his eyes and feeling guilty about what I was about to subject him to.  After talking it over with Taylor, who reassured me that this is what's best for him even though it involves pain and confusion since he is too young to understand why, it dawned on me of how this is a picture of a greater Truth.  This newest lesson the Lord was teaching me (for the millionth time) is life here on Earth.  It hurts, but that hurt is not wasted by Him.  I am constantly praying that the Lord would reveal Himself to me more, that I would never stop getting to know Him better and better.  And He answered that prayer through this dreaded responsibility I have as a parent.  How often does the Lord use pain in our lives for good?  Every time.  Even though we don't always see it right away.  He uses the pain to cut away the sin in our lives and that hurts like heck, but without it we remain the same. 

We can trust Him because we serve a God that lived,

this will hurt me more than it hurts you

on the cross.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

Seth came out great from this last round.  He didn't even cry during the injections.  10 pm - different story, but the Baby Tylenol was on hand so the crying only lasted 15 minutes this time.

*We realize that Baby Tylenol was recalled.  We actually used the Walgreens version instead.  Please restrain yourself from commenting on the evils of modern day medicine; I mean Baby Tylenol and immunizing children.

{Recipes} Heaven in a Pie Dish

OK, so I wasn't planning on writing a post today, but after clicking over to my friend, Christi's, blog, I'd be remiss not to send you there.  She posted the recipe for Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Pie.

Uhh, yum.

Too bad I can't find a deep pie dish over here.  Thanks for sharing Christi!

{image via Bakerella}

Like I said, Heaven in a pie dish.

{Recipes} Salsa - the food not the dance

Eagerly I watched Taylor as he poured over my new blog format.

Me: Do you like it?

Tay: It's great!  I love how the "nest" looks twiggy.  And that effect on our picture looks so cool, but what's up with your "recipes" button?  That is just sad.

Fair enough.  I guess one recipe doesn't quite cut it for a whole button, so let's beef it up.

This weekend we had dinner with some new friends from the States, so naturally Tex-Mex was on the menu -  Chicken Enchiladas to be exact, so chips and salsa was basically a mandate.

Now I figured out really quickly back when we lived in North Carolina that nobody knows how to make salsa like they do in Texas.  Well I guess they probably do in Mexico too since that is the sole reason Tex-Mex exists in the first place - on that note:

Gracias Mexico, for seeing tomatoes, jalapeno, onion, and cilantro as a sufficient vegetable side for a meal. Now if only you could convince my husband...

I had to remedy this lack of edible salsa by making my own.  Mind you this was back when it took me hours to complete a 30 Minute Meal by Rachael Ray, so I wasn't too confident in my ability to make up a recipe by myself. For this, I turned to our good family friend and amazing cook, Kathe Baker. I flipped through her cookbook born out of cooking for loads of people at a time at Camp Redcloud, and voila!  Salsa.  Really good salsa.  I'm actually waffling on whether or not I should give it to you after all so that when I make it for you, you are really impressed with my blender skills.

I am very particular about my salsa.  Give me Lupe Tortilla's fajitas all day long.  Papasitos' enchiladas hit the spot too.  But warm salsa?  I don't think so. In my opinion Guadalajara's is the best.  Cold, chunky, and fresh.  Wow, maybe I should go into writing cheesy commercial jingles - geez!

Kathe's recipe fits the bill. Plus, it's really easy - no chopping required if you want to test out how good your blender is.

I did modify it a bit due to lack of some ingredients and a love for garlic:

Tex-Mex Salsa:

• 2 roma tomatoes
• 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 1/2  medium sized onion (I do actually quarter this ahead of time since I have to chop it in half anyway.  This does help so that you don't have to blend too long which makes the tomato too mushy)
• a handful of cilantro (coriander for those of you in the UK - why do they call it that?  Cilantro just sounds tastier and more exotic... Nevermind.  I answered my own question.)
• 1 jalapeno (I take out some of the seeds if guests are coming to dinner.  If it's just Tay and me, I leave them all in - we are big fans of food that makes our noses run.  Taylor calls it full contact eating.)
• 1 tsp kosher or sea salt
• 1 tsp cumin
• dash of garlic salt
• a couple of shakes of tabasco

Blend it in your blender or food processor till desired consistency (not long!).

Salud!