changing venues

Howdy folks! It's a cloudy morning here in Hackney, the London borough where we live, and the days are definitely getting shorter. My alarm clock (AKA Rowan who, by the way, doesn't have a snooze button) starts chatting each morning between seven and seven thirty. The past few mornings I've heard him talking and thought "No, it can't be after seven. It's still dark out." But, of course, it was indeed time to get up and do some parenting. The first order of business each day is Rowan's lesson on how to brew coffee.

Brenda's rehearsals are progressing and soon will be changing locations. Most of her rehearsals up until now have been at 3 Mills Studios, but this week they're moving over to their performance venue, the London Coliseum.

 I snapped this picture of 3 Mills Studios one day when we went to visit Brenda at work.

This weekend Brenda and I saw a couple of friends. Rowan experienced his first pub when we met up with our friend Tim, although Rowan ignored the beer and focused instead on playing with Tim's hat and beard. On Sunday we went for a stroll in the park with a friend of Brenda's who is also currently working at English National Opera. She's been here with her thirteen-month-old daughter since early August. It was fun seeing her daughter crawling all over the park and imagining that Rowan will be doing the same thing before too long.

As Harry Potter fans I feel obligated to tell you that Brenda passed by the Palace Theatre yesterday, which is currently home to the new Harry Potter play. I definitely want to see it.

So that's what we've been up to. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

very absent(ee)

Hello once again from jolly old England. Brenda's parents headed back home on Saturday after spending a wonderful week and a half with us. We always have a great time with them, but this visit had the added benefit of making my stay-at-home dad duties much easier. Rowan had an absolute blast with his grandparents. They taught him a lot of songs, introduced him to some new toys, and spent a lot of time playing with him. I'm sure he's already looking forward to seeing them again when we're back in the U.S. next month.

On Sunday Brenda and I changed apartments. (We just can't stand being in one place for more than a couple of weeks.) Much like the old place, our new flat is in a residential area, close to a park, and very comfortable. When I imagined us being in London, for some reason I thought we'd be eating scones everyday while staring out the window at Big Ben. My semester in London during law school was actually kind of like that. Our classes were held smack dab in the middle of the city, just a block away from the British Museum, so I had a daily reminder of where I was. This time, however, we're living in a residential area that isn't very close to the city center so it feels like we could be anywhere. Today I even went grocery shopping at the nearby Lidl, which is a German grocery store chain. I could take Rowan to the heart of London one day so we could do some sightseeing, but he sleeps and eats quite often and gets rather cranky when either of those things doesn't happen. I'd better stick around this neighborhood and see if I can find a place that sells good scones.

I don't know if you've heard, but there's an election coming up in the U.S. and since Brenda and I are tax-paying, freedom-loving Americans (I just fired off a couple shots from my gun for effect. Wait, is that legal here?) we want to vote in it. We've voted absentee before, but that was from our apartment in Germany. This time we're attempting to get our ballots sent to an Airbnb apartment in London. Living a nomadic lifestyle is complicated.

Our new flat doesn't have a dishwasher so I've got work to do before bed. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

Lulu by day, supermom by night

Hey all! I'm writing you again this week from beautiful London. Fall has definitely arrived (or are the temps always in the 50s here?), and I've been bundling Rowan up whenever we go on outings. Brenda's parents are in town, which has been wonderful, and they've been encouraging me to take Rowan out and about. We went to the public library last week and took part in story time. Most of the kids were a little older, but we met a couple of nice moms with kids around Rowan's age (I was the only dad there and Jim was the only grandpa). Today we visited Brenda at work (much to the delight of her castmates), and tomorrow we're going to a play group for 0-2 year olds. Rowan handles the outings very well. As long as he's fed and gets his naps, he's up for pretty much anything.

It was really nice meeting Brenda's castmates today. She's working with a friendly bunch of people, which I'm sure makes the difficult task of rehearsing Berg's Lulu more pleasant. (A smiling baby helps them forget about all the characters that get killed off during the show.) Since she began rehearsals last week, Brenda has been working all day and, with the exception of dinner, all evening so she can prepare for the next day. On top of that, she provides all of Rowan's food (except for the occasional pureed carrot that he likes to wipe all over everything he can reach), and she hasn't gotten an uninterrupted night's sleep in close to seven months. The point is that Brenda is amazing and so are all of you other working moms.

It is definitely bed time over here. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

London

Greetings from London! Brenda, Rowan, and I arrived in the UK on Friday after a rather stressful morning. The flight itself was quite pleasant but making it to the plane on time was the tense part. When it comes to packing (and most other things) we tend to procrastinate, so our trips to the airport are usually more rushed than we'd like. This time we were finishing our packing and preparing our apartment for a friend who will be staying there while we're gone. Add to that a six month old baby who, frankly, can't pack or clean very well yet, and you end up not getting to the airport on time. Luck was on our side, however, and we made our flight.

Once we arrived in London we made our way to the baggage claim only to discover that our stroller and car seat weren't there. The baggage bloke we spoke to was very friendly and said our stuff would be delivered to us once they found it. In the meantime he offered us a stroller and a car seat as permanent loaners (apparently they don't want them back after kids use them because kids are germy). So we took our new carseat and hopped in a black cab and headed to our temporary home for the next couple of weeks.

Here I am with all of our luggage (sans our missing stroller and carseat) in Paddington Station.

After much hemming and hawing I've finally decided to rejoin Facebook. I've been wanting to share pictures of Rowan with you, dear blog readers, but I haven't yet because there is no way for me to limit who can access the blog and I don't want the entire world to be able to see pictures of him. So the solution I've come up with is a Facebook account. I plan on posting pictures of Rowan regularly (and not much else). If you'd like to see them, feel free to send me a friend request. In case you need it, my email address is chadcgraham@gmail.com.

Brenda has already had two days of rehearsal at English National Opera and by the sounds of it things are going well. I've also been working this week. In fact, I started a full-time job yesterday, and it's been a lot of fun. My title is stay-at-home Dad, although the "home" part isn't totally accurate. It's more like stay-at-Airbnb Dad. Anyway, I've got a great boss who takes three naps a day, smiles a lot, and loves to sit on my head.

It's getting late so I should call it a night. My boss is definitely a morning person. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

packing

Hey all! Sorry for the short and late post. Brenda, Rowan and I have been busy preparing for our upcoming trip to London. We'll be away from our Frankfurt home for over two months and we're trying to leave our place in good shape because we have a friend staying here while we're gone. There should be enough time to get everything done tonight as long as we don't sleep. On second thought, maybe we'll just leave the place messy. I'll try to write another post tomorrow once we're in the U.K. Until then, have a great night!

pianos in the workplace

Hey all! Summer is over (well not technically) and that's fine by me. Our sunny days and hot temps last week (around 90 fahrenheit or 32 celsius) have been replaced by clouds and cooler weather. The heat wasn't really bothering me, but it seemed to be bugging Rowan. We went in search of air conditioning one day, but the best I could do for him was the refrigerated section in a grocery store. I had fun telling him about all the different meats we weren't going to let him eat since we're raising him vegetarian. As with most of our conversations he just listened contentedly and smiled from time to time. (He's always going to react like that when I talk to him, right?) We went to Starbucks afterward, which could have been cooler. Germany has imported our overpriced coffee, but why not our air conditioning?

Brenda has still been hard at work on Lulu. It sounds like she'll be in great shape for rehearsals when they begin in a couple weeks. I think she partly wishes she'd done a role she already knew as her first role after having Rowan (instead of the hardest role I can think of), but I have no doubt that Lulu will be a great role for her and that she'll be very happy with having performed it.

Brenda at the office. 

All offices should have pianos in them.

Brenda just got back from participating in an opera lecture about mad scenes. Netflix and left over Indian food are waiting for us so I'd better get going. I hope you all have a great week and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

baby teeth imminent

Hey all! It's definitely still summer here in Frankfurt, and we've got the sunshine and heat to prove it. To enjoy the weather Brenda and I have been taking Rowan for walks in his stroller. He's almost as long as his bassinet now, so we decided to switch to the bigger kid attachment. Besides growing, we've noticed some other new developments in Rowan lately. He loves sitting up now and will only tolerate lying down for so long, and he's much stronger. It's also a lot easier to keep him happy, which makes our trips to the store much more relaxing. He'll be six months old soon, so we're going to start giving him solid food. Let the food fights begin!

Brenda is hard at work preparing Lulu for her upcoming gig in London. She's been going to the opera house almost every day to practice while Rowan and I stay home and do guy stuff, like play with stuffed animals and drool. She seems to have mixed feelings about going back to work when she's got this adorable little baby at home, but I think she's going to really enjoy it once she's back at it.

I just remembered that I haven't told you about our reentry into Germany. As you may recall, the border control agent told us in July that Rowan might have some trouble getting back into the country because he didn't have a permanent residence permit (or, in German, Niederlassungserlaubnis). Before flying back to Germany, Brenda and I made a plan just in case we had trouble getting into the country. We were going to tell the border agent that we'd be leaving in less than a month (because we're flying to London), and so Rowan should be admitted to Germany as a tourist. When the time came to reenter Germany and talk to the border agent, what happened? Nothing. He didn't even look at Rowan's passport. He looked at Brenda's and my IDs and then waved us through. We're in the process of getting Rowan the correct ID now so we can avoid any possible future problems with more scrutinizing border agents.

It's getting late over here so I should call it a night. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!