Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

...the mouse will eat an entire box of chocolate Nestle Quick. George and I should know by now that we cannot sneak off to the bedroom to watch some horrible BBC television series without paying a price.  We fool ourselves into a false sense of security by assuming that the big sisters are keeping a watchful eye on Thing 3, but there is always that moment when we look at each other and know that somewhere in the house, something naughty is happening. We both really tried to keep stern, disapproving looks our our faces as we marched her into the bathroom where she would be posing for the newest photos to go into "The Naughty Book," but keeping a serious face is rather impossible when THIS is looking back at you... "CHEESE!  Put ME in the Naughty Book!"

When Sophie was a toddler/ pre-schooler, she seemed to always be getting into some sort of trouble.  She drew on her bare chest with permanent markers, cut her own hair, cut holes in her clothes, colored her furniture, scrubbed a variety of random beauty products into her hair, etc.  You get the idea.  Being the sensible parents that we were, we would scold her appropriately and then go and get the camera and take a few photos.  Let's face it, sometimes naughty toddler high jinks are completely hilarious.   As previously noted, since we were such wise parents, we would always explain that we were taking her picture for "The Naughty Book."  This proved to be highly effective until she was about three years old.  Then one afternoon she came to us with something horrible all over her face and my camera in her hand.  She presented the camera to me, grinned enormously and said, "Here you go, Mum.  I very, very naughty!!"  I expect I to...