On Tuesday we had an extra little body in the house; Lola, Kerry's niece, who is 2½ years old & just gorgeous! :) At first she was a bit suspicious of me…she would be chattering away with Kerry then I would come into the room & she would be silent, staring at me (the strange lady!). But I managed to break ground when she realized I had Mickey Mouse on my t-shirt & she had Minnie Mouse on her backpack & we bonded over our fellow love of all things Disney ;)

Having carefully ironed a recently purchased yellow top from Zara, I was pretty much asking for it by holding Noah right after his feed. He's a bit of a spewer, & as soon as I had him in my arms I got hit, all the way down the front of my shirt. He just giggled & gurgled, thinking himself terribly clever! Lucky he's cute :P Babies are probably evolutionarily designed to be really cute so that we can forgive them all the spewing & pooing I reckon. So much for the yellow shirt…

After changing my shirt & getting myself cleaned up I sat with the two littlies in the living room to try & give Kerry a chance to get ready for the day & boy did I have my hands full. Not entirely sure how this works mathematically speaking, but for some reason (as I have previously experienced when looking after children) double the kids does not equal double to work. Oh no. It adds up to SO much more! Haha I was trying to sort out some accommodation in London but that proved to be too difficult because every time I tried to put Noah down in his rocker he screamed. And Lola was busy going through a stack of photos with me, where every photo went as follows…

Lola: And who's this?

Me: That's Kerry!
Lola: And who's this?

Me: That's Kerry!

Lola: And who's this?

Me: That's Kerry!

Lola: And who's this?

Me: I'm pretty sure you know who that is…

Lola: Kerry?

Me: Yes, that's Kerry!

Haha then Nigel called me on skype & Lola's eyes were round as saucers seeing him pop up on the screen. She thought that was seriously cool. Although she did confuse him for my father ("Your Daddy is on the puter?"); I guess the term "old man" must have confused her :P haha But then she was so insistent on seeing my actual Daddy on the "puter" that we called Dad at the office in London specially to show him Lola's crocodile snaps (very specialized hand movements imitating a crocodile). He was very impressed. She was delighted ("Your Daddy's on the puter!").

When we finally got ourselves organized we headed out to lunch at a lovely, old Scottish pub by the sea. Kerry & I both had Mac & Cheese (with chips & peas…very British), & Lola had chicken nuggets. Noah, being too young to know what he was missing out on, was very content with his milk. Unfortunately I hadn't been feeling well all morning & seem to have come down with a tummy bug so despite being delicious I didn't feel great afterwards! :(

We took the kids over the road to a games place called Pleasure Land (hmm…interesting name…pretty sure they've only kept that title because it's been around for so many years) where there are lots of indoors arcade games. Lola had a ball going on the dodgem cars & the bouncy castles; I felt progressively more nauseous watching all the spinning & flashing lights…haha On the way home we stopped by Lunan bay so Lola could have a bit of a play on the beach, but by then I was positively green (or white…as in, more white than normal) in the face so I simply had to lie down in the car. I gave Kermit to Lola to play with on the way home & she thought he was awesome. By the time we got back only the driver was still fully conscious. Noah, Lola, & I were all asleep (well, actually I was awake, but my eyes were closed & I was wishing with all my might to be asleep or at least feeling remotely better).

I crashed into bed straight away & only emerged briefly to make a poor attempt at dinner later on…