Snips and Snails and Puppy Dogs’ Tails
Eleven years ago I became a parent for the first time. My husband and I were so excited, blissfully happy and so UNprepared. When I was pregnant the first time, I had that ‘glow’ – I could feel it glowing off me (after the horrendous sickness went, that is). It felt good to be pregnant […]
Everybody Poos
The kids and I had a giggling fit last night during story time. I was annoyed at first because it was down-time and I was attempting to get my youngest asleep at a decent hour, but my older daughter’s laugh is so infectious that we just ended up giggling and giggling. This of course resulted […]
American history Fenn style
An update to my post about American history: We have done two weeks of American history lessons and so far so good. I take my hat off to parents who homeschool their children on a full-time basis. I always thought it would be challenging but I highly underestimated the amount of patience that is required […]
Calling all expats in London
It seemed I was the most excited of our family to see the Queen last Tuesday in London. My British husband found it mildly humorous, my 10 year old just wanted to eat stuff, my daughter became obsessed with the damage done to her flag and our toddler Jonah cried and tantrumed for 90% of […]
It’s nice to be friendly, but I don’t know you
On the first really sunny and warm day this May, I overheard a brief conversation when I was in the post office. Two strangers were talking about how nice the weather was that day, they made comments about the warmth and how everyone seemed happier when the sun came out, spirits were lifted by the […]
All-American Now, guest post by blogger Alexandra Roark
I moved to the US in 2006 to marry my college sweetheart. I planned to stay for two years but six years later we’re still here – I’m a U.S. citizen, and we have a son who is a dual citizen. Despite my recent naturalization we’re planning to move back to the UK next year […]
Do I have too many children?
A design client of mine who has one child recently commented on how three children is alot of children. He said he couldn’t imagine having that many. It got me thinking….. if we were in the States, I would probably want to have more (ssshhhh don’t tell my husband!) simply because it would be easier […]
I met my British husband on the Internet
Anna-Liisa’s story I’ve lived in England for nearly 3 years now. I am originally from Salt Lake City, Utah and my husband is from the Bromley area of South East London. I randomly met my husband in an internet chat room 10 years ago. Neither one of us was looking for a relationship, but our […]
A somewhat bitter start to 2012
Has anyone else in Britain lost their child benefit? As of January 2012, ours stopped. Of course I knew this was going to happen but I never really gave it much thought. I always considered it (and still do) to be something too good to be true – a bonus that I didn’t deserve and […]
Are you a Chinese Tiger Mother?
Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, is the story of how Amy brought up her children in the USA under the ‘Tiger Mother’ parenting style. Very strict discipline, a packed study schedule, lots of extra curricular studying and learning and practicing the violin and piano. Even at a very young age such […]
La Dolce Vita – When in Rome…..
This past weekend was spent NOT celebrating my 40th birthday on a surprise weekend break to Rome, organised, planned and paid for by my amazing British husband! He knew I’d wanted to re-visit Italy after having studied and lived there 18 years ago. It was truly a wonderful surprise and a fantastic weekend. It was […]
Don Key. Who’s Don Key? No, Don-key – the animal like a horse. OH! Donkey! %!%!
Something very funny happened today when we were at the Vet having our kitten jabbed. All 3 kids were with me and while I was trying to stop Jonah from breaking the cat toys and my older son (who should know better) from causing bodily harm to his younger brother, I noticed a flyer for […]
I have a fag burn on my jacket
I was shocked, horrified and offended by this casual remark from my British boyfriend 17 years ago. I thought – “What?? How can he say that!” Well, I have come a long long way since then and am no longer shocked, horrified or offended by sentences like this. I would still never say something like […]
American driver in Britain
A reader commented recently on how I didn’t put anything in Bringing Up Brits about driving in Britain. I think perhaps by the time I wrote my book, I felt I had mastered the art of driving on the other side of the road and parking in unimaginably tight spaces. But looking back, it was […]
Jennifer’s story
Jennifer came to my Worthing Mumpreneurs Networking Club event, joined up and then eventually became the Shoreham Mumpreneurs Networking Club manager. She is a Canadian expat and this is her story: “I have recently moved to England (July 2010) from Canada. As Canada is a commonwealth country and we still have in place a lot […]