Give me the news

Day 3 arrived very quickly after a sleepless night for me and (this time he really seemed more like a) Baby J. He went to bed at his usual time, woke up at 10:30 pm hungry, got a bottle, and then wouldn't go back to sleep. I walked and sang and rocked (in a not so cooperative office chair) with him for an hour and a half until I caved and gave him some Benadryl. Some 45 minutes later, I put him down on my parents' king sized bed just for a break and he fell asleep...about a foot from the edge. So I put pillows on the other side and crawled in next to him to keep him from falling and slept uncomfortably and fitfully while he tossed and turned restlessly until morning. At that point, I woke up the husband and said I had to get some real sleep. The husband jumped up and took over and eventually decided to go on a mammoth two hour walk around Kensington Park while I napped. Thank goodness! Baby J also napped after an exciting encounter with multiple dogs and some swans by the pond. That's his kind of vacation!

By the time they returned, I was feeling human again, and we decided to head to the V&A and Natural History in afternoon. We spent just a short time in the V&A because J's second nap was truncated by all the squealing school girls and he wasn't really impressed with the rest of the collection there. We did see some of the Fashion and Sculpture galleries, but shortly after arriving we went to the Natural History Museum, which seemed much more J's speed. We were right: there were displays with touchable rocks, a recreation of the Kobe earthquake on a shaking platform, lots of jewels and some skeletons, and some space exhibits. We felt quite proud of ourselves for completely covering at least one museum...until we read later that we'd missed two thirds of it, all in another building we'd never seen. Shoot!

We came home and met Grandeur, J's grandmother, returning home from her trip to Wales and had pasta with ingredients we'd bought earlier in the day. After all that excitement, J slept long and soundly, which allowed us to do the same. Huzzah!

We began day 4 with high sight seeing hopes, now that we were getting in the swing of things. Unfortunately, while putting away some dishes in the morning, I jostled a glass, which fell off a shelf, hitting another shelf on the way down and breaking into large chunks, one of which sliced my arm open as it fell. I took one look at realized I was seriously injured (I could see many layers that shouldn't be exposed to the light of day). The husband clapped a washcloth on the wound, I applied pressure until he tied the washcloth on with first his belt and then strips of my mother's extra pillowcase, and my mother went about the, as it turned out, difficult task of finding out where I should go to get the stitches I was pretty sure I needed.

Eventually, we headed by taxi to Victoria Station to a pay clinic, where we waited for 35 minutes only to have the young man who worked there (doctor? nurse practitioner??) take one look at the wound and say "No, you don't want us to do this because we're not sterile." (WHAT??!! Not sterile? What kind of medical clinic are you?) He did manage to redress my wound, which had finally stopped bleeding...until he took off the also not sterile makeshift washcloth and replaced it with gauze and a wrap. Then he told us there was no charge (because you didn't DO anything!) and directed us to the nearest National Health System office, to which we walked and at which we waited even longer, once they ascertained that they could, indeed, handle stitches. (Again--??) However, once I was seen, I was taken very good care of. I got 4 stitches and orders to keep the wound, which had started to gush while the being stiched, clean and dry (oh, fun) and have the stitches removed
in a week at the minor injury clinic, to which we apparently should have gone in the first place. Who knew??

After all the excitement, we finally returned and later, while Grandeur watched Baby J, the husband and I went to see the Tate Modern in the afternoon. Anyone who knows me knows that modern art is not really my thing, but I did find several pieces I quite liked, though lots I didn't, especially the video installations, which always make me a bit queasy, even if they aren't eating raw chicken on film (which some were). I particularly liked a Brazilian artist's three dimensional pieces, all the architectural exhibits, and a dramatic installation called "30 Pieces of Silver." We then walked over the Millennium Bridge over to St. Paul's and made our way to a tube stop and home. That night, we had a typical fish and chips dinner and introduced J to mushy peas, which he quite liked, surprisingly, given his earlier unsuccessful encounters with smashed peas. I'm pretending there was nothing in the peas but peas, by the way, just to make myself feel like a more responsible mother.