Tuesday - Thinking we won't last the week

Things like sleeping, washing and providing safe activities for kids of different ages was so much easier in that other campsite we've been able to use previously.

This afternoon, Mr de Elba went off to his elective (Video Games at TimeZone!) while I stayed behind at the campsite for my elective (Trying to get three children asleep when one needs stories read, another needs me to keep finding new and different videos on Youtube and the third (who will be renamed Gaseous von Fahrrt) has wind, bad bad wind, and needs to scream a lot. No really, that's what my elective is actually called. This morning I did the 'Washing' elective. It was great.)

The saving grace is that we have internet connection here. This means that instead of our list of activities being (1) reading library books, it is (1) reading library books, and (2) watching clips of Pingu and Peppa Pig on Youtube.

In fact, Nat spent a strangely long amount of time watching Peppa Pig in Italian on Youtube. And when your kid is watching Pingu (no dialogue) and Peppa Pig in Italian (no understandable dialogue) you tend to get a little more frustrated than usual when they complain about the baby's crying because they can't hear their program.

Surfing around kids' shows on Youtube can give you a few laughs. I found this and it was so funny that I was rolling around paralytic with laughter. Call me rough round the edges, but I like that kind of humour. I had to stop it and listen to it later when the kids were asleep. You can't embed this particular clip from Youtube, so if you want to see what had me in stitches, you'll have to follow this link instead.

I had a funny moment earlier, playing on Anna-Lucia's irrational fear of small and harmless animals. This was based on her fear of tiny harmless black ants, which I discovered one day when she came racing out of the kitchen screaming, "An ANT is coming, and ANT is coming!!" and I scoured the floor to find a tiny tiny tiny black ant slowly meandering in the same general direction that Anna herself had been herded away from.

Me: Anna-Lucia, here's your toothbrush on the floor! Please put it back in the bathroom.
Anna, continuing the whiny voice she's been using for the last day and a half: I don't want tooo ...
Me, thinking quickly: ... or the ANTS will get it!
Anna, with a look of horror on her face: Okay... (hurriedly took the toothbrush back to the bathroom.)

Bad Mummy.

But what do I care? I had four non-consecutive hours of sleep last night, and the only reason why I didn't take my crazy crew home today is that I was worried I wasn't safe to drive.

I'm a Mummy On The Edge....