18 weeks and Jane's in school

Jane has been pretty consistent about wanting a brother. We'll find out next week either way. I am feeling plenty of kicks. Andy has felt one (though I warned him that could have just been the ice cream I'd just eaten).

Some days I feel like I look visibly pregnant. Usually when I'm wearing maternity jeans. But these are my regular jeans and I'll let you be the judge.

 Authentic Italian pasta, or Rachael Ray knockoff?

 I took this picture because we had to get rid of this wall hanging. It was particularly disappointing because we brought so few decorations with us, but it got infested with moths. It was made in Peru, though I didn't get it there. I grabbed it at a tag sale when I lived in Madison, WI. I'll miss it! But maybe now the moths will go away...

 We made a variation of chicken cordon bleu. Since Jane can't have traditional bread crumbs, we used gluten-free crisped rice cereal. I swear we crushed it first, but it looks as cereal-y as can be here.

Not pictured: the cheese sticks and onion pieces we fried in the leftover egg/cereal batter.

 What's that? How did Jane's first day of school go? Ask my poppyseed muffin with lemon curd and espresso.

 Jane getting her backpack on and stomping before leaving for her first day of school. Here, she is in Year 1, because she is five. We'll see where they'd like her to go when we're back in the States. Right now is she just five and is in the equivalent of first grade.

Walking in on the first day with Dad and Mom

 No kidding, we were right outside the school, and Jane asked, "Dad, how did the whole Earth form?" so we had to stop and answer that real quick.

 This will be her first full week of school. She is happy enough once we get moving but she is clearly tired because it's hard to get her up in the mornings. I can relate to that. (I have a lot of trouble finding a good sleeping position.) There have been no tears and she likes her teacher. She isn't always forthcoming with details of her day, so we have to take the snippets as she reveals them.

But we're all glad she's there!

There are often hot-air balloons in the sky here. We just saw another two this morning.

 We went out the other day in search of an armchair. Gloucester Road has a bunch of shops and we ended up getting quite a few things. And Jane spotted this friendly Lego police officer. We didn't buy it!