Damn. Just hit some key, no idea what, and everything I'd typed just vanished. I thought it was just the caps lock (to turn it off after accidentally turning it on) but apparently not.

Anyway, just complaining about being tired out from Sarah's party, so no great loss... Actually, it went well. No one got hurt or threw up (at least not while they were still in my house). Nothing was broken, and no one (except Olivia who was a bit tired & grumpy to start with) ended up in tears, so that's all right. A lot of the mums here don't serve the cake at the party itself - for one thing, less mess. I did that this year, and it worked well - brought it out last thing before the parents were due to collect the kids, they sang, then we cut it up, wrapped it in napkins & added it to the party bags. And if you are serving lunch anyway, they don't really need to eat it there. We got lucky this year with the weather. It wasn't as good as today, which was one of those beautiful Indian summer days, but it was fairly sunny, quite warm, and no rain. So they could eat outside as well as play a bit and get rid of some of that energy.

We've also stopped opening presents actually at the party, which I think is a good idea. Let's face it, most kids, especially the boys, just don't have the patience to sit around and watch someone else open gifts. They're bad enough playing pass the parcel, where they know they are all going to get a chance to unwrap a layer! The treasure hunt was a big success, though, and despite hoards of kids running up and down my steps & in and out of rooms, nothing was damaged and everyone got a chance to find a clue. You never saw such an excited bunch of kids, except maybe Christmas. :) But that's good. Better than my friend Teresa who had a party last year which was the same day as another party (after it, not at conflicting times) and the first party was a disco so half the kids kept telling Teresa how much better the other party was. Of course, those were 6 year old boys, and we know what kind of mouths they have on them!

Sarah's got two birthday parties next weekend, one a girl from her old school, one a boy from her new school. Luckily, they aren't on the same day, which should be better for tempers and tiredness. Friends of mine with school aged kids have said that it's a never ending stream of birthday parties, and I'm beginning to think they are right. But that's ok - it's important for Sarah to make friends and have fun, so I don't mind (too much) being a chauffeur. Or however you spell that.

Spent most of the day today doing preparation stuff for Sarah's birthday party next Saturday. We made bookmarks for the party favour bags, assembled the bags, made a treasure box for the treasure hunt & possibly some other stuff I've forgotten by this point in the evening. Fun, but tiring. My task for the coming week is to create the clues for the treasure hunt. Luckily, these kids are only 3-6, so we don't have to be too clever. A good thing,as I think being clever is way beyond my powers this week. I guess I can be thankful that I don't waddle yet, which would be worse, but I keep forgetting how much being pregnant affects your ability to remember stuff - which is probably ironic or something, if only I could remember :)

Looking forward to yoga tomorrow - the first class was good, actually. Not only was it quite relaxing & destressing, but I was by no means the most unfit person in the class - more supple than several of the other women, which I didn't expect. I'm probably the person there who is earliest along in pregnancy (about 20 weeks now) but even allowing for that. I don't mind not being at the top of these things, but sometimes it's a real relief just not to be at the bottom. Actually, Wednesday night I went to dinner with some of the other mums from Sarah's class (and the other Reception class) and we were talking about pregnancy (as happens when you have a room full of women with small children, especially when said women are drinking wine...). Several of them couldn't believe I was 20 weeks pregnant and kept asking where the bump was. Which was very flattering. I always wanted to be one of those women who had a distinct bump when pregnant, rather than looking like a fat whale, and perhaps this time I shall actually achieve that! Not that I'm starving myself, by any means, but I am trying not to pig out too much. And it does help, having lost 3 stone before getting pregnant...

So, today is Sarah's first day of full time school. Which means she's out of the house around 8.30 and I don't have to collect her until 3.20. I still have Olivia, of course, which is more than enough, but at least they won't be beating up on each other all day long. :) First day of my yoga classes today, as well, which should be fun. Olivia gets to spend the time in the creche while I'm in class, so she'll enjoy that - like another playgroup session, really. We've not got a lot planned for this week, but I'm sure that will change and we'll promptly get incredibly busy - it always seems to happen that way. But that's ok. Compared to work, it's still fun. Even when they are both home and beating up on each other all day long...

Watched that documentary about 9/11 made by 2 French brothers last night - very good & tasteful and of course achingly sad & poignant, too. Although we were actually on holiday in Washington DC on the day itself last year, I think I'm quite glad to be here this year, where things aren't quite so focused on the tragedy. And of course, we don't have to put up with Georgie quite so much as over there, though still way too much for my liking.

On a more prosaic note, one more day of collecting Sarah from school at noon, and then we get to go until 3.20, hurrah! It will be much easier to get stuff done if I don't have to worry about that. I still have to collect Olivia from playgroup at 12 on Tuesdays and Fridays, but somehow that's not quite the same. At least I will have a few days where I can do longer, uninterrupted errands, if necessary. As I figured beforehand, I'm a lot busier now than before, but at least it's more enjoyable, mostly. Granted, there's a lot of that whole taking the car in to be serviced kind of errand running, but there's also a lot of playing at the playground and short shopping trips and other enjoyable things.

Well, today is our last day of sleeping in without setting the alarm - Sarah starts "big school" tomorrow, though they will only being going for half a day for the first week. We had a visit from her teachers today, and she just hid behind me, of course. Olivia played with everyone and talked, but she's a brazen hussy, whereas Sarah is shy. I'm sure she'll get over it. It will be interesting to see how long she takes to make a few friends, though. In nursery it took several months before she really started playing with other kids rather than simply near them. But she's a lot less shy than she was then, so perhaps it won't take quite as long. We'll see.

Although it hasn't reached extremes yet, I am beginning to truly understand the elation felt by so many mums when the summer holidays roll to a close and school starts again. I can't begin to image what it would be like in the US, where they are out for even longer. At least it's only 6 weeks here. Which is plenty long enough for them to get bored. And boredom of course brings on whining, which is really tedious. Sarah starts on Tuesday, and though it's only half days for the first week, I'm sure it will still be a big improvement in her attitude, having something scheduled to do every day. Not to mention, my attitude. And Olivia begins playgroup Tuesday as well (Tuesday and Friday mornings). I shall have several hours to myself - I shan't know what to do!

Did something last night I haven't done for ages - slept for almost 12 hours. Amazing. I was up really early yesterday & couldn't get back to sleep, plus I spend a number of hours being dragged around a children's farm by the little one (Sarah was at a birthday party there) - most of Olivia's enjoyment seemed to come from frequent trips to the toilets - there were special small ones for little kids, and some of them had red seats. This made a big impression. But when they've only been using actual toilets for a month, you have to take them every time, because it really might be an emergency. And although there are toilets at several points on the farm, we of course had to use the small ones, which were right by the entrance... The other thing she loved was the hand washing facilities. That's one of her favourite activities anyway, and a place that exhorts you to wash your hands every time you touch some animals, well, probably that's Olivia heaven. But she enjoyed it, which is the important thing. Wore me out, though - I ended up going to bed at 8.30. Pregnancy doesn't help, of course, but I had hoped to be able to finish quilting a baby quilt I'm making which I need done for Friday. It's almost done, so I'm not too worried, but it would have been nice to have enough energy to finish it off, then sit & watch Notting Hill, which was on telly - the perfect mindless evening. However, I have taped Notting Hill so will have my mindless evening another time.

We've had guests for the weekend - Cathi & Dave from Ireland - and the girls spent most of their time making Cathi lie down on the sofa and show them her bump (she's pregnant - due in November) so they could watch and see if the baby moved. I'm hoping this means they'll be receptive to having a new baby themselves - not that they have much choice in the matter, but one can hope they'll be enthusiastic rather than merely tolerant. We'll see, I guess. I'm sure they'll get used to it in time. They both really enjoy other people's babies, although Sarah claims she doesn't want another sister (or a brother). I'm sure Olivia does want one - we were watching a friend's baby the other day (about 10 months old) and Olivia wouldn't leave her alone - kept bringing toys to play with and so on, until she had to be distracted with the paddling pool. (Always works - it's that water thing again.)

Here's a real example of Murphy's Law (aka Sod's Law) in action. This morning, the kids slept late, letting me sleep late. "Late" being 8.30 instead of 7.30. Not that I really mind 7.30, frankly, which is a nice change from 6.30, which is when I used to get up, when I had to work. So, I had a nice leisurely lie in, got up, had a shower, came down, started breakfast & had a look at the calendar to see if there was anything happening today. Which is when i noticed that Olivia had an activity booked for 9.15. Guess what time it is? If you're thinking, oh, about 9.15, you'd be right. Sigh. So, we dashed off & got her there about 15 minutes late (as it was a whole morning - 9.15 to 12.15, this wasn't a big problem, luckily.). Annoying, though, as any other morning this week, we would have been up well before then...

So, we're off to visit Geoff's parents tomorrow, and coming back Sunday. It will be interesting to see how well I cope with that many days without internet access :) Seriously, though, we'll hope that the weather is nice, as it's hard for the girls to be away from all their stuff (and hard for their mum to keep them entertained away from their stuff), particularly if we get stuck indoors for long periods of time. If the weather is nice, or at least tolerable, there are ducks to feed, a canal to walk along, a playground or two, and other things of that ilk. Last time we visited, everyone got sick, so at least we will (I hope) avoid that one. Poor Sarah spent most of that visit curled up in a chair half sleeping, half watching videos and pausing every so often to throw up - nasty virus, which everyone got, except me. (gloat gloat) This time is bound to be better than that. (Or perhaps I'm jinxing us by even saying that...)

There is, of course, something more perverse than small children. Those of you who live in the same country as me, or who have lived here, or heck, even visited here, will of course know that I'm talking about the English weather. It's August. It's raining. Every day, practically. This is not a surprise, of course, but it's still something of a disappointment, particularly with small children at home who would really enjoy a trip to the playground pretty much every day. We did manage it briefly yesterday, in the hour long interval between rain and more rain, but it's a bit hit and miss. It also means that despite now being home during the day, I still have to hang the laundry up inside. The trials and tribulations we endure...

Toddlers, on the whole, are really lovely. They can be bad tempered, it's true, and they can be highly stubborn, but on the other hand, they are fascinating to watch, learn incredibly quickly and very sweet. It's a great age to deal with, in general. The one thing I could do without, though, is the vast quantity of time spent discussing going to the toilet. Yes, that's right, potty training - everyone's favourite. I can accept the whole discussion explaining that you need to learn to go to the potty before you make wee or poo and so on, but sitting with a toddler while she's on the potty & hearing her give you progress reports about where the poo is precisely & what progress she's having pushing it out, isn't really what I'd put at the top of my "must do" list for the day. Particularly when the incident occurs in the middle of eating lunch. And when there's really no poo anyway. Still, the advantage of waiting until they are almost three to really potty train intensively is that they are quite quick to catch on to the whole thing, and have pretty good control. Beats trying with an 18 month old, where you have to put them on the pot every 15 minutes, all day long. And hey, it's still better than work...

Maybe I should retitle the blog "The Unbelievable Perversity of Children" as I sense we've got a recurring theme going... You know, for the past who knows how long, the morning routine has been for me to stumble out of bed around 6.30, have a shower, get dressed, then spend 10-15 minutes attempting to drag the children awake & get them started. It's not just a matter of shouting "time to wake up" at them, it frequently involved physically removing them from bed and threats of sticking them under the cold shower (well, for Sarah, anyway - that girl could sleep for England, I'll tell you). And usually, we managed to get downstairs to eat breakfast by quarter past 7, so that was alright. So this morning - Sunday - I wake up to Sarah's voice in the hallway saying "Come on Olivia, let's go see Mummy & Daddy". It was 6.25. Did I mention it's Sunday?

Sarah's gone back to sleep, but once Olivia is awake, well, that's it - and I'm a bit like that, too, so we've let Daddy have a bit more kip and we're downstairs. But at least the kids' telly is good Sunday morning. Olivia will be thrilled, as Barney is on at 7.30 - they don't normally get to watch it, as I can bear to be in the same room as it, but if it will keep her occupied while I have a cup of tea and do stuff, she's welcome to it, as long as she doesn't get in the habit of waking up early Sunday mornings for it. Luckily, I think she's too young to understand the concept of time, so we're probably ok there.

The up-side to being awake this early (besides a much faster net connection) is that I'll get everything I needed to get done for the day done by about 10am - not normally compensation for sleeping "in" to at least 8, of course. But you can't have everything - as the man says, Where would you put it?

Well, the news of the day is that Motorcat has died. Yeah, I can see the reaction there - a huge "eh?" going across your faces. Well, for those of you who never lived in the DC area, and in particular, in Takoma Park, you probably won't know Motorcat, who is this cat that used to ride around on a motorcycle with the Catman. She had her own helmet. Lots of Washingtonians probably knew about her, but only a few of us have actually seen her. And having spent several years in Takoma Park, I can proudly say, I'm one of the privileged few. (obituary article at the Washington Post - don't know how long they keep up their archives, but this was Tuesday's paper, so I'd guess at least a month or so.) The irony is that she didn't die in a bike accident, she died of cancer. She was never in a crash, so far as I know. There's a better picture at this site. Oh, and as Dave Barry is so fond of saying, I am not making this up.

Bought a new paddling pool today. What with it being really hot and all. The idea being, and perhaps I'm unreasonable here, that the kids would play in it. After spending ages blowing it up ("electric pump recommended" oops.) and filling it up (this pool holds serious amounts of water - luckily, all the pot plants (that's "potted plants to you Yanks - I am not growing dope in my back garden...) need watering anyway, so emptying it won't be a problem.) - so anyway, after all that, and inviting their friend Thalia around to paddle as well, Thalia won't go near the pool because she might get wet (ya think?) and the other two, of course, want to play inside because Thalia is playing inside. Plus Sarah, who would never let anyone put hot water in her bath because it was "too warm" says that she doesn't want to go in the pool because she only likes it when the water is warm, not when it's cold. The Unbelievable Perversity of Children.

Down to just a few days of work - today, tomorrow & four days next week. Hard to believe it's that soon until I stop working. I don't think I've spent more than a few weeks not working (except for maternity leave - and I was still employed then) since I was about 15, which is a long time. Like almost 20 years. Yikes. It's going to be a bit of a change - though as I've said to a few friends, it won't really be all that different - days filled with petty squabbles, people yelling at one another & everyone demanding I do stuff for them right this second, regardless of what I'm doing already. Just like the office.

I don't even have the luxury of sleeping late the first week I'm off (not that little kids sleep late anyway) as Sarah's got swimming lessons at 8.30 am all week that week. She's looking forward to them, but I'm not entirely sure she's aware that she'll probably be expected to get her face wet. What is it with kids and getting their faces wet, anyway? Olivia will probably throw a fit when she realises that she won't be allowed in the pool, too. But there's a playground behind the Centre, so unless it's pissing rain (in the summer in London - what are the chances...) we'll be sorted.

Everyone I know who stays at home with their kids says you're about 20 times busier than if you actually have a paid job out of the house, and I can see what they mean. I haven't even left yet, and already we have something planned for almost every day in August. Maybe only for a small part of the day, but nonetheless. Perhaps by September I'll be longing for that whole get up/work/go to bed routine. Or not.