So Many Diapers!!

So I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I'm pregnant. Pretty pregnant. I probably could qualify as 'heavily pregnant' at this point. Though I'm not sure, Matt and I had a long discussion last night over when a woman becomes 'heavily pregnant' versus just regularly pregnant.

Anyway, babies require lots of stuff. Apparently to be a good parent you have to do things like clothe them, feed them and for society's sake, provide some sort of poop and pee catcher around their bums.

Well Matt and I are very responsible. And yeah, we thought we'd try to be good parents first, before we go the route of being just mediocre parents. And knowing that babies like diapers, we thought we'd be smart and spread out buying them. So we have been. Every time we go shopping and see deals on diapers, we buy them. We thought we were doing pretty well. Sure our grocery bills are now almost double than what they used to be, but hey, we're good parents.

At least that was our intention. Until we found how many diapers babies actually go through a week. Apparently, it's lots. And with all our buying on deals, we realized that we maybe have enough for a month.

Yikes, already this kid is costing us more than we thought it would. We looked into doing a return on the baby, but apparently it's a no refund/no return type of situation. So we did the next best thing, we've decided to think of ways to keep our diaper bills down. Here's what we came up with.

*We purchase a large tarp that we spread all over the living room floor. Baby is free to crawl/run/walk on it and does so with a bare bum. When nature calls, she is free to go wherever she's at. At the end of the day, we take the tarp outside, wash it off and leave it to dry for tomorrow.

*We train the baby to go in a litter box. We can even use litter like for a cat (we'd make sure it's the finest brand though), that way we can just scoop the poop/pee clumps out and save lots of money. Plus, if we get a cat, they can share.

*When we go out in public, we're going to take a page from the Chinese way of doing things, see in China the kids wear open bum pants and just go wherever they're at. At the time I thought it was nasty, but now I see the wisdom. Plus, she'll be half Chinese, so we can totally get away with it without too many dirty looks.

*We teach baby to inform us when she needs to go, then we just hold her over the toilet and she lets loose. Kids are doing some amazing things really early on, so we're confident our smarter than average kid will be able to handle it.

So there you have it. Some fool proof ways of cutting down the cost of diapers as well as instilling a sense of freedom in your child. You'll thank me, I promise.

Plus being good parents is way overrated. Our kid isn't going to get on American Idol or Survivor with a story about being raised by 'good parents'. Not enough sob factor.

You Are What You Eat!

Despite living in the UK for two years, Matt and I are pretty pleased how how un-British we are. We feel comfortable in our objective point of view on all things relating to British pop culture. Every time we watch a 'The 50 most funny moments in TV' we weep for the British sense of humor. Granted, the Brits have given us some very, very funny things like the original The Office, Extras, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and many others. But trust me when I say that there are so many 'funny' moments that aren't really that funny. And there is an obsession here with certain celebrities which make even this pop culture American scratch her head. For example, Kylie Minogue would be voted queen if it worked that way. We can't figure out how this British press, known for its scathing reports on celebrities, sees no wrong with this woman. I mean, she's not really all that great and talented. It is funny how they call her things like a 'national treasure' and very conveniently forget that she's actually from Australia! Americans will best remember her as the woman who sang the 'Locomotion' song from the 80's.

Despite our staunch efforts in maintaining true to our respective countries, it has occurred to me that in some ways, we are becoming entrenched in the UK lifestyle. For example, we know who Lulu is. We know who Mylene Klass is (and hate her). When the papers talk about Jade Goody, we know exactly who it is and lately we've been humming the hit single "Promise" by Girls Aloud, despite the fact we never listen to the radio.

We look at loud tourists and shake our heads. We walk very fast, like any good Londoner does. We're starting to know all the political players and what party they represent, and even what that party stands for.

And heaven help me, but I can't stop calling diapers 'nappies' and pre-natal things 'antenatal'. You can't help but get caught up in the things around you I guess.

Lately it's become apparent in some of our meal choices. Before getting married, I was not a good cook. Well, I don't think I was, I never actually cooked enough to see whether I was good or not. But since being married, I would now say I've progressed to a mediocre cook. I'm doing better and have actually put together some semi-decent meals. Matt is a fantastic cook. He can just whip anything up and it'll taste pretty good (with only one exception...which wasn't very good, but the concept was there). In fact, we had company over last night and Matt made his famous lasagna and everyone could not stop raving about it. Myself included. It was even his first time making it vegetarian, since one of our guests doesn't do the meat thing.

Lately we've worked in two meals that have quickly become our favorites. We've started incorporating sausages into our meat rotations, we found a brand that is cheap and very yummy. So of course, that leads us to making Bangers and Mash (bangers are sausages, mash is mashed potatoes). And let me tell you, yummy! Now you have to know that our bangers are not like the link sausages in the States, nor are they the brats kind that you can get either. They're just regular yummy bangers.

I even made the mash from real potatoes and unlike our Christmas dinner when I tried to make it then, they turned out fantastic. Very creamy and very yummy, I have to admit I was proud of myself.

We've also started doing what we call 'Breakfast for Dinner' which might sound complicated to some of you, but basically it's where we cook breakfast foods and eat them for dinner. See? It's pretty self explanatory when you hear it that way, don't you feel silly?

But do our breakfasts include items such as pancakes, waffles, cereal or hash browns? Not on your life. We've become too British for that! Instead we have what is called a 'full English' which includes eggs, bacon, sausage, and beans on toast (okay, I don't eat the beans, but I have toast). It's also often served with mushrooms and tomatoes, but we don't do that. It's not the healthiest meal, which is why it's a treat, but trust me, it's a yummy meal.

So that's it. Slowly but surely, we're becoming British-ised. Though no matter how long we live here, I'm pretty sure we'll always be the "Aussie and American" living in London. And I'm pretty sure we'll never, ever fall under the spell of Kylie Minogue. Or Kate Moss for that matter.

Where you poo matters.

This commercial is one we see all the time. It's a testament of how sophisticated our lives are in London.

It's actually one of our favorites, and we quote it all the time. I think after watching it, you'll see why.



We just hope that the little boy grows up to be a major movie star and then this can be played on one of those 'before they were stars' shows. It's just that good.

It's snowing!

Greetings from snowy London!


How good can this get, listening to Take That and drinking hot chocolate while it snows outside!


Famous Abbey Road....


Long may it snow!

A Face Only a Mother Could Love?

For those of you who just assume our baby will be cute because of her mixed heritage, I thought I'd see if your optimism was justified. So after extensive studies of our faces, features and backgrounds a company (that only cost us 10,000 GBP to do) came up with this rendition of our soon-to-be member of our family.

And all I can say is...yikes!



What do you think about my little new baby Baby Ngai?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?


While I dig the curly hair, I'm not sure how much I like the fact that my daughter has a five o'clock shadow in that picture. Nor the uneven skin tone...hmmm...

What do you think? Is there any hope for our spawn?

I Have A Vision...And It's In Euro!

Last night, Matt and I had the opportunity to go to a live television extravaganza at the BBC studios. Our friends had two extra tickets to this live extravaganza and we couldn't resist the pull of the bright lights and glamor of show business. It's always fun to see how things work on tv, and yes, we do sound very cool when we casually mention our night out at the Beeb. But there was another reason we were excited. Well, at least why Matt was excited. See, the live televised extravaganza wasn't just any ordinary show...oh no...it was to narrow down with act would represent the UK in the Eurovision competition.

Eurovision? You're thinking to yourself. That sounds like a 3D show you'd see at Disneyland or something! Trust me, I know. Before moving here, I'd never heard of it either. And since moving here, I'd heard of it, but kind of thought it was cheesy and a really weird waste of time and money. Let me give you a little history, Eurovision has been going on for years, like since 1956 and is one of the longest running programs in the world. It's also one of the highest watched non sporting events in the world (thank you wikipedia). Traditionally, the acts are kind of cheesy and usually the winner might do okay in their country and in some areas around Europe, but rarely do they make it really 'big'. the most notable Eurovision winners who have won are Abba, and Celine Dion (who interestingly enough was representing Switzerland, not sure why since she's French Canadian). And that's it. Like I said, in recent years, the Eurovision contestants have been kind of cheesy and laughable (in my opinion, Matt completely disagrees).

The UK hasn't won a Eurovision contest since 1976...at least that's the impression they gave us last night at the live extravaganza, but according to wikipedia and the official Eurovision website, the UK actually took first in 1981 and 1997...so I'm not sure what's up with the lies we were led to believe.

Anyway, no matter when the UK last won, they are determined to win it again (which made much more sense if they hadn't won for 30 years, not so much now). Andrew Lloyd Webber the musical genius who wrote Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and a whole bunch of other musicals, is writing the song that the winning act will perform at Eurovision. He's teamed up with a really talented (American) lyricist who's name I can't remember, but has written a bunch of songs we've all heard of (Rhythm of the night, Nothing's going to stop us now etc).

The live extravaganza is called "Your Country Needs You" and consists of six acts total, one is eliminated each week. The public votes for who they like and the lowest two are in the 'danger zone' and ALW gets to save one of the acts. So yeah, it's like American Idol or X factor...except the voting lines are only open for about 20 minutes and you know that same night who will get sent home. Last night narrowed the acts down from five to four.

So yeah, that's how we spent our Saturday night. It was fun to see all the behind the scenes moments of a live broadcast. We didn't realize that our tickets were just for standing room. We'd already been standing in line and whatnot for about 2 hours and to stand for another 2 hours and dance or whatever (right by the stage) was not ideal for an almost 6 month pregnant woman. Matt flagged an official person and asked if there was a spare chair available (which were reserved for friends and family and people who know important people) and they were able find an empty seat for just me. So I sat with the cool kids, while Matt and our friends hung out down below and danced the night away. It suited all of us just fine!

So because of last night we can add to our list of celebrities we've actually seen with our own eyes and in Matt's case, he was literally two or three feet from them (since he was right between the stage and the judges area).

We have Andrew Lloyd Webber:

Graham Norton (he hosted):

Duncan (from the defunct group Blue, he's a UK celeb):

And of course, one of the potential Eurovision winners. Maybe they'll make it huge and we can say we knew them when...

Jealous? It's okay...you can live vicariously through us.

Overheard...

Matt is playing FIFA '08 right now and apparently in a very tough match. A referee made a call he didn't agree with and this is what I heard exclaim loudly from the living room (in all seriousness):

"Man! That is unfair to the max!"

I love that he's stuck in the 80's. To the max.