So Far So Good. Marvelous.

Saturday morning. Actually 24 minutes until Saturday noon. Julie had a rough night - lots of boo-hooing. I think it's because I didn't feed her as much baby food yesterday as I have been. Just nursed her. Lesson learned. Audrey wet the bed. This doesn't happen often. She woke us up by saying, "I can't get my panties on." She had already changed pjs and was preparing to get back in bed, but was struggling with her skivvies.

Steve and Caleb have gone on a couple of errands. They're walking to the library to return some books, then to the post office to get a "postal order" for £5.99 to include with our 10 little coupons from a newspaper for a 12-DVD set of BBC kids shows. Lot of work for a bunch of DVDs that will annoy the heck outta me when the kids watch them.

Audrey is upset that Steve only took Caleb. He told her it was just the boys going and this was a great insult to her. How dare she be left out!

We could have skinned them both alive last night. They were truly being brats. We picked Steve up a little early so that we could go by the mall, get a quick pasty dinner, then go by the bookstore to get the last newspaper that had the DVD coupons and pick up some books on CDs for the kids. The reason we had to pick Steve up early is because the mall and all the shopping around it CLOSES AT 6 P.M. How irritating! Anyway, we got there, got parked, got pasties and discovered that Steve doesn't care for them. Oh well. He tried a bite of his own (lamb & mint), a bite of mine (steak & Guiness), and a bite of the kids' (cheese & bacon) and didn't really care for any of them. Oh well.

After pasties, we headed to the bookstore. We got the newspaper on the ground floor, then headed up to the first floor (which is what they call the 2nd floor here) to look for the audio books for the kids. We found this particular series last week when the kids and I were there. It's the Rainbow Faries and each story is about 30 minutes long. We have "Ruby the Red Fairy" and "Amber the Orange Fairy." The stories are nice and benign but keep the kids entertained. So we were looking for the other 5 so that we can hear the whole saga. They didn't have the CDs for Saffron (yellow) or Heather (purple), but they did have Fern, Sky, and Izzy. Guess what color those are! The kids have no clue we got these, which is good because what happened next made me want to return not only the CDs but the children, too.

We then went over to the travel section to pick up some books and maps for our trip this weekend. We realized a couple of days ago that our map book has Scotland, but not Ireland and our guide books only have England and neither Ireland nor Scotland. So we had some specific things to get. While we were looking, Caleb starts jumping around making annoying noises and Audrey announces in a loud voice, "I have to poop!" We had just gone to the bathroom 15 minutes earlier. So she and I went over to wait for the bathroom and Caleb, Julie and Steve kept looking at travel stuff. Actually Steve looked and Caleb started rolling around on the floor. When Audrey and I rejoined them, she started rolling around on the floor. So we're trying to quickly pick out books so we can get out of there, and the kids are just being obnoxious and contrary. They want to stand up when we tell them to sit down. They want to sit down when we tell them to stand up. They keep talking in loud voices and, in Caleb's case, making the most obnoxious noises. I swear that child has autistic tendencies. He will repeat the same sound, word, or phrase for hours on end. It annoys me to no end. Especially when he decides to hoot like an owl.

So basically by the time we left the bookstore, Steve and I were both in a murderous mood. I'm not comfortable disciplining the kids in public here. I really need to, though, because they are both pushing and testing their limits. It's so hard to be consistent and when I'm not I feel like a total failure.

When we got home around 6:30, we sent both kids to bed. It took 30 minutes to get them in their jammies, but when I went upstairs a little after 7, I saw that Caleb was asleep. Hmmm. Audrey took longer because she had napped in the car.

I'm going to change the subject now.

Audrey is a total magpie. This is the nice polite British way of saying she's a packrat. I think I've mentioned before that she hauls a bag around with her everywhere. Have I mentioned what she puts in the bag? Everything within arm's reach when she's packing it up. I had to hide it yesterday before we went out because she has to drag it along everywhere with here and it's almost too heavy. Before I hid it, I had to dig out her tennis shoes. While I was digging, I found her rain boots, her jacket, one of Julie's binkies, some of my papers, and a few of Caleb's toys. I also found one plastic glass slipper. She knew the bag was missing a few moments after I stashed it because she had specifically put it on the stairs the night before to have in the morning. I let her believe she had lost it. I can deal with the drama that comes with losing something much easier than I can the drama that comes from an argument. It is truly amazing what that girl can stuff into her bag without a second thought.

Change of subject again.

You know those things the cops have that shows you your speed? They have those over here, too. But instead of flashing at you like the ones at home when you're going too fast, this one shows you a frowny face. Made us laugh when I was doing in a 30 mph zone doing 35 (frowny face) 34 (frowny face) 33 (frowny face). Then we passed it. It made speeding fun!

Another change of subject.

Herrod's already has their Christmas stuff out. Had it out since August 1. Is that some serious marketing or what?

Last change of subject.

It's raining here again. It's amazing how quickly things green up even though they're in a drought. We heard predictions at the end of July about how hot August was going to be. So far I don't think it's gotten above 25 (77). We were going to go to Blenheim Palace today and do the hedge maze, but it's supposed to rain all day. Not fun to do an outdoor maze with preschoolers in the rain.

Steve and Caleb are home. They didn't get caught in the rain, surprisingly enough.