A is for accents. I miss not having one. If I had a dime for every time someone says ‘I LOVE your accent! Where are you from?’ I would feel less guilty about how much I spend in Wholefoods. It was sweet and flattering the first 50 times but now it’s just a reminder that I’m not from here. And that makes me miss home.

B is for baked beans. Not just because they are a British staple but because it’s an easy lunch or dinner for the kids that I can fool myself into believing is healthy.

C is for cake. You can get pretty much every type of cake here apart from proper English cakes. That’s possibly got something to do with the fact that you can get pretty much every type of sugar here apart from caster sugar. I tried grinding granulated sugar in my Nutribullet but the resulting cake just wasn’t the same.  What I would give for a slice of a proper lemon drizzle cake or a Victoria sandwich or any cake from The Puddin Club….

D is for driving. I need to pass my driving test by the end of September so I am resorting to immersion therapy in an attempt to conquer my fear of driving our American sized (read gigantic) car on the wrong side of road. I woke up the other night with the worst headache of my life and eventually figured out I’d been clenching my jaw the entire hour and half I spent driving earlier in the day. I miss driving a reasonably sized car in a country that actually pays for decent road maintenance. Every time I drive over a pot hole I panic as I assume I’ve driven off the side of the road (less ridiculous than it sounds due to the width of the car). I am also terrified of running over a deer (this one is ridiculous as I’m fairly certain there are no deer in central Chicago).

E is for the Embankment in Bedford. The trees that line it were special to me as I saw them every day and watching their leaves bud, grow, change colour and fall was one of the main ways I marked the passing of the seasons. Obviously there are trees here and I am beyond excited for ‘fall’ but there’s something special about trees you have lived with and so many of my memories of Bedford are entwined with those trees.

F is for fish and chips. Apparently Americans only refer to chips as chips when they accompany battered fish. I am still to locate anywhere that has ‘fish and chips’ on the menu but I’m fairly certain the chips won’t be chip shop greasy.

H is for house. Living in an apartment has its perks (the lack of stairs is definitely a bonus when you a have a one year old who loves to climb) but I miss the feeling I used to get when I put the kids to bed and then walked down the stairs, often while doing my happy ‘Woop! Woop! The kids are asleep!’ dance.

I is for Indian food. It’s not great here.

J is for jelly and jam and all the other things that Americans use the ‘wrong’ word for. I’m currently in linguistic limbo, unsure whether I should try to remain true to my Britishness and refuse to use the American names for things or whether I should learn to speak the language properly, like I would if I were living in any other country. At the moment I’m compromising and call the pushchair a ‘stroller’ but jam is still ‘jam’. Henry also appears to be reaching his own compromise and currently calls cheese toasties ‘grilled cheese’ but chips are still ‘chips’.

K is for Kingsley Road because that is where we lived in Bedford and I miss our house, on our street, in our town. I also miss our neighbours (especially having our best friends next door but one), having Russell Park at the end of the road and the Puddin Club round the corner (did I mention I like cake?)

L is for lemon drizzle cake. I told you I like cake. I really, really miss English cake.

M is for milk because in the UK I never worried if my milk had hormones or antibiotics in it.

N is for the NHS. I’ve always felt privileged to be from a country that provides free health care for all irrespective of age or status but our current difficulties negotiating the privatised American healthcare system has given me a heightened appreciation for the NHS. Arguably patients in the US benefit from greater choice and shorter waiting times but the bills are astronomical, the paperwork endless and the insurance companies unsympathetic at best, morally bankrupt at worst.

O is for online food shopping. It takes at least three trips to different shops to get what we need for the week and there is no major supermarket that offers home deliveries.  Food shopping on the sofa with a glass of wine is so much more fun than walking or driving between three different shops on a Sunday afternoon.

P is for plugs. This is embarrassing but I miss three pin plugs. On a good day I think the American two pin plugs look weird but on a bad day I find them mildly sinister.

R is for roundabouts. I never thought I’d miss them but they are definitely preferable to four way stops where it seems no one is sure who has right of way (it’s the car that stops first, by the way).

S is for (caster) sugar. Because you need it to make English cakes and as I may have mentioned, I miss English cake.

T is for The Today Programme because listening to it in the morning made me feel informed and kept my two remaining brain cells in working order.

U is for umbrella. I don’t miss the English weather but I miss the fact that in the UK an umbrella is generally sufficient to shelter you from a rainstorm. If you get caught in a rainstorm here you will be soaked to skin within minutes, regardless of whether you have an umbrella or not. The other day I got drenched running the five yards between my Uber and the main entrance to our building.

V is for vegetables because they have weird names here (eggplant anyone?)

W is for Waitrose because it seems cheap compared to Wholefoods.

Y is for yoghurt. It’s hard to find good yoghurt here unless you go to Wholefoods where it costs you a fortune.

Z is for Zed because here they call it Zee.

Ah Blighty, I miss you. Especially your cakes.

Dismantling life in one country and rebuilding it in another is not for the faint-hearted.  In the past six months we have made more decisions, encountered more pitfalls and spent more money than we ever predicted and lurking in the background has been the ever-present spectre of uncertainty. We packed up our home with no tenants lined up to pay the mortgage and no home to go to in the US, we booked flights and signed leases on an apartment and a car before our visas arrived (they only arrived 3 days before our flights departed), we said goodbye to family and friends without knowing when we’d return and we moved into our apartment not knowing when our things would arrive.

To begin with I tried to resist the uncertainty using my usual coping strategies. Mainly this involved making lists. I made lists everywhere – lists on scraps of paper, lists in notebooks, lists in memos on my phone. I made lists of lists and sent them to Tom via WhatsApp so he could add them to his lists. To some extent the lists helped. Stuff got done and it was satisfying to tick things off. But ultimately the big things I was worried about couldn’t be added to a list. Things like, would the kids adjust? Would I be lonely? Would I regret giving up work? How would I cope if the children or I got sick while Tom was away with work? Had we done our sums right, would we be ok financially? I tried to manage it by being a vigilant worrier, attempting to prepare myself for every possible eventuality by thinking it through in advance. But as any worrier knows, worry breeds worry and the more hypothetical scenarios I resolved, the more I felt obligated to look for more scenarios so I could worry about those too. It was exhausting. I had days when I eased up and was able to enjoy the anticipation and adventure but a lot of the time I felt tense, afraid and paranoid.

 When we arrived in the US I felt relieved. Now the worst bit is over, I thought. But day one of moving into our new apartment Phoebe had a seizure and was rushed to hospital. I hadn’t even thought to worry about that one! And then things that I had worried about started happening, but in ways that I hadn’t predicted or prepared for. Our container was delayed, and delayed again and delayed again. After 10 days of living like squatters in a totally empty apartment, it finally arrived while Tom was at work and I was left to manage the delivery alone, while also trying to keep a fussing baby happy and an energetic threenager on the right side of a meltdown. Tom then had a three day work trip which coincided with Phoebe catching hand, foot and mouth and crying almost continuously for 48 hours. And when Tom finally received his first US pay check (after 6 weeks of working in the US) we found out we’d got our calculations pretty drastically wrong.

It wasn’t all bad, of course. We were in the honeymoon phase of our new lives and were excited by all the new possibilities of living in a vibrant city, next to a lake, during the summer, which is actually hot and sunny. But I did start to wonder whether our apartment was cursed. And although I’d like to tell you that Tom and I were a team and kept each other smiling that would be a lie. We were both overwhelmed and exhausted and, most of the time, did a pretty bad job of perking each other up.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened but after about 6 weeks I gradually realised that all the worrying I’d done before we left the UK had done precisely nothing to help me prepare and that things were never going to get easy. I was fed up with wasting my energy trying to manage the uncertainty. I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to come to this pretty obvious conclusion but worrying is a tough habit to break and, after at least 20 years of thinking of myself as a worrier, I had convinced myself that was just the way I am.

Anyway, I finally did it – I accepted the futility of worrying and stopped fighting the uncertainty. I only knew I was doing it because some pretty cool things started to happen. I started sleeping better, I felt less afraid about the future and more excited about the possibilities and I was more able to stay present in the moment. Basically, I started to enjoy things more. I wish I’d done it sooner but I’m not going to replace worrying about the future with feeling regretful about the past.

I still make lists, I still think about the future and I still feel the masochistic pull of worry but, as much as I can, I remind myself it’s not my responsibility to worry about uncertainty and that it’s much kinder (to everyone), and productive, to focus on being grateful.

In the modern, Western world we are used to thinking of the self as fixed and tell ourselves that we should be true to who we are and that people don’t ever really change. The problem with this is that it puts a limit of personal growth. In the East there’s a different way of imagining who we are as individuals that places no such limit. In his fascinating and thought provoking book on Chinese philosophy The Path: A New Way to Think About Everything, Harvard professor Michael Puett advocates thinking about ourselves as complex, fluid and malleable:

“Instead of thinking of ourselves as single, unified selves who we are trying to discover through self-reflection, we could think of ourselves as complex arrays of emotions, dispositions, desires and traits that often pull us in different and contradictory ways. When we do so, we become malleable. We avoid the danger of defining ourselves as frozen in a moment in time”

Puett repeatedly contrasts Chinese philosophy with Christian theology and there are definitely strands of the Christian tradition that understand the belief in a soul to imply a fixed, true self but actually I think Puett’s vision is completely compatible with Christian theology. After all, only God is unchanging and transformation is central to the Christian narrative. I could go on but I won’t. My point is that this understanding of the self has broad appeal and value: we are more than who we are now; we can become different.

So to all worriers out there: I feel you. But it doesn’t have to be this way. If I can learn to embrace uncertainty, so can you. And life is so much better on the other side of worry.

As your Mummy, it’s part of my job to try to teach you what you need to know about life. But, three hundred and sixty five days into your time on earth, you already know so much about life and how to live it well. Here are some things you know now, that I hope you will never forget:

Your body is an instrument not an ornament.

Your body amazes you and every day you are discovering new ways to explore the world through it. Your fingers can point, your hands clap. Your arms wave, your legs kick. Your feet keep you anchored to the ground. Your face expresses your feelings and communicates your needs. You delight in being embodied.

 As you grow older, try not to berate your body for what it can’t do or compare it to others. Avoid placing its visibility before everything else: it is not an ornament. Appreciate it, enjoy it and be thankful for all it enables you to experience and learn.

Food is delicious and eating is fun

Please never feel guilty about eating or enjoying food. Savour it, as you do now. Take time to explore the textures and flavours. Enjoy the feeling of a full tummy.

The moment is everything

You have no fear for the future or regret for the past. You live every moment fully and know, innately, that only the present exists. This is a difficult lesson to relearn and I’m not sure how to prevent you from forgetting it but you teach me not to worry but to delight with you, in this moment.

Learning is an adventure and failure is just part of the ride

You sometimes get frustrated but, mostly, you love to learn. Every day is an adventure with something new to discover about yourself and your world. I hope you never forget that learning is not simply a means to an end. Or that failure is necessary for success. Avoid being a perfectionist and carry on having fun with the journey.

You can do (or try to do) anything your brother (or any other boy) can do.

You don’t see gender or that it could ever limit or contain you.  Your brother is bigger and stronger than you and can do many things that you haven’t yet mastered. But this doesn’t threaten you; it inspires you. And you, in turn, inspire him. As you get older, I hope you continue to challenge and inspire each other and to recognise that you are different, above all, because you are unique individuals and not because of your gender.

 You are loved

I know from your smiles, giggles and cuddles that you know you are loved. Being loved is a gift but it is one you have in abundance.  And while my prayer is that you know all these things for the rest of your life, my dearest hope is that the past 365 days have forever imprinted my love on your heart. Let’s work together to share this love with others.

Happy birthday, wondrous girl.

It’s been almost a month since we boarded a plane and it’s been a rollercoaster ride. The highlight has been discovering that our apartment is a 10 minute walk from a beautiful, sandy beach. The low point was rushing our precious baby girl, Phoebe, to the emergency room after she had a seizure on the afternoon of day one in our apartment. Literally the most terrifying experience of my life, it has taken a couple of weeks for me to stop seeing her limp body, blue lips and glazed expression every time I close my eyes. Thankfully she is back to her happy, smiley self and we are hopeful that it was triggered by a one off breath holding spell. And, although we would never have wished for it to happen, something really great came out of the experience. We made some friends. Not just acquaintances but proper friends. Friends you instantly feel at home with and know you can trust.

We’ve made several friends through this experience, all of whom are awesome and will feature more in future posts but, for now, I want to talk mainly about one: Georgann.

When I met Georgann the first time I was holding my daughter’s limp, unconscious body in my arms and screaming. When I picked up Phoebe and saw her face, I thought I’d lost her. I didn’t know what to do. Something told me to find help so I ran across the hall and banged on the door. I didn’t know who would answer or even if anyone would answer. But Georgann did. Thank God Georgann did. It turns out that not only is Georgann an amazingly kind, generous, fun person but she is also a doctor. What are the chances? She knew exactly what to do and kept me calm. Our upstairs neighbour – the fantastic Chrissy – heard the commotion and phoned for an ambulance. Chrissy also gave me her shoes when I realised I didn’t have any on and didn’t want to leave Phoebe to go back to the apartment to get some. Seriously, based on these neighbours alone, we have chosen a great apartment building. Georgann and Chrissy then looked after Henry until my sister could come and pick him up.

Of all the ways I could have pictured meeting our neighbours, this was not one. It was terrifying, shocking and brutal. But it was also honest, raw and genuine. And because that is how we met, I think we will always have an honest, raw and genuine friendship.

This experience, as well as missing home, has made me think a lot about my friendships and how grateful I am to be surrounded by so many supportive people who I love and feel I can be myself around. These days, most of my closest friends are also mums. It’s not deliberate but it’s happened all the same. Some of them have been in my life forever (or what feels like it) and some of them have been in my life since Henry was a bump (which also feels like forever ago). Others have blessed my life since then. These women are all wonderful in unique ways and our friendships are all subtly different. But I’ve realised they all share one thing.

Working with teenagers, I have been reminded of how bitchy, competitive and mean girls can be. Even lovely, kind, thoughtful, conscientious girls. Insecurity can turn anyone bitchy, competitive and mean; it poisons self-esteem, friendships and relationships. In the past I’ve been poisoned and, if I’m honest, have probably been the poison in my friendships. But, aside from the occasional snarky comment, I’ve never experienced this in my mum friendships. And here’s why I think that is: honesty. When you’re a mum and you have another mum friend you have to be honest with each other. Life becomes exhausting and intense the very moment you become a mum and there’s no time to waste pretending to be perfect, together, in control or anything else you might have tried to be in the past. This isn’t to deny all the wonderful, soul gladdening aspects of being a mum. And I don’t mean to suggest that you stop being yourself when you become a parent. But being a mum is hard work of the most physical, fleshy type and eventually the sleep deprivation, crying, tantrums, sick, poo and drool bring you to a point where it’s too much effort to be anything but honest. You have to make a choice: be honest with your friends or don’t see your friends. And choosing to be honest is SO the right decision. Being honest with my friends has saved me from mental anguish (and, probably, mental illness) so many times over the past three and half years. I do not regret a single time I shared, or over-shared, with my friends. It made our friendships strong and although I miss them terribly, it’s created a bond I know won’t be broken no matter the distance between us or time that passes between each meeting. Together we are a tribe.

None of this is to say that you need to be a mum to be, or have, a real, honest friendship. Because you definitely don’t. But I wish I’d known more friendships like this before I had children. I wish I’d been more honest and I will definitely be teaching my children that, above all, friendship is based on honesty.

I was worried that I would struggle to be honest in my friendships now I’m starting again on this side of the pond. I needn’t have. My first meeting with my neighbours wasn’t glamorous or glossy or even happy. But it was honest. And that’s a great start to a friendship.