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

So there we were in an average, over-priced hotel room while buckets and buckets of rain dumped down on the outside world.  We were just about to put on our bathing suits and head down to the unexceptional hotel swimming pool when my oldest daughter blurted, without thinking, "I don't even mind having a baby sister if I still get to go swimming with my Mom!" I wondered how long she had been waiting to say something like that.  Earlier that afternoon the two of us had climbed into the car and driven less than an hour away where we checked into a hotel and headed out to do some shopping.  She had hardly stopped talking since we left the house.  At one point she paused to take a big breath and then carried on telling me about everything important that happened in fourth grade, things I had never even imagined.   There weren't any toddlers to chase or sighing eight year olds to console.  All of my attention was focused...

Today was Day Two of our Spring Snow Spectacle.  School was canceled again.  My choir's Lenten concert at church was also canceled.  I could have been annoyed or depressed, but instead I chose to take the "Whee-Monster" out on the sled and pull her around the neighborhood.  She did not disappoint and cried out "Whee!  Whee!  Whee!!" all the way home. Her glee was so contagious that we all had to take turns running with her en tow. That was the only sane thing I did today since shortly after our jog through the snow, I thought I should take all three girls bathing suit and shoe shopping.  Lord help me!  Bathing suit shopping after you've had three children is depressing enough WITHOUT having those three children in the dressing room with you as you attempt to squeeze your stretch marks into some horrible piece of floral lycra.  Lili dumped goldfish crackers all over the floor, pulled everything out of my wallet and made several great esca...

  We made it through the church Christmas pageant on Sunday evening.  It was really lovely.  Emma played a wonder-filled, humble shepherd while Sophie sparkled as a cherubic angel.  The pageant really was fantastic, but the most awe-inspiring part of it to me was the fact that it happened at all.  I mean there were five inches of snow on the ground.  There were howling winds and even more snow was on the way, and all of these crazy Michiganders trundled off to church (in frilly dresses even) as if it were no big deal.  The North Carolinian in me cried out, "This is so wrong!!  We should all be at home, in our pajamas watching the weather channel... in other words, being sensible... after we clear the super marker shelves of bread and milk, of course."  But that is not what happens here. After the Christmas pageant, we all piled into the big family vehicle and headed for our local Meijer.  With all of the snow, we obviously needed...

America is seeping into my veins.  It is starting to feel like home again.  I vacillate between excitement over all of the American-ness that is around me and the desire to hold a lot of that American-ness at arms length and ponder it with a bit of skepticism.  While in the UK, I thought I missed all of the cheerful, sparkly American goodies and doo-dahs.  Now that I'm back, I examine said goodies with a very critical eye and ask ridiculously serious questions like: "How many calories/ artificial ingredients/ saturated, partially hydrogenated fats are in this thing?"  "Was this cute-as-can-be dingleberry painted in a horrible third world sweatshop with toxic led paint?"   "Is there anything in this store that was not made in China?"  "Is this packaging recyclable?" or "Is this entire thing going to end up in a landfill when I'm finished with it?" These questions tend to take the fun out of a shopping experience.  Ignorance ...

... and there's no school, girls just need to go to the mall and find some entertainment.  Today was one of those days.  We browsed in the bookstore and looked at all of the Halloween stuff that is already all over the shelves in the gift shops.  Sophie and Emma squashed any doubts that they are true girly girls by squealing with delight at all of the autumn-themed-fragranced lotions in Bath and Body Works.  They also had their first ever Dairy Queen Blizzard and had their picture drawn in one of those automated photo booths... Pretty cute, actually. I feel like such an American spending the afternoon at the mall.  It is funny to see the kinds of things my kids are excited about since they have been USA-deprived for the last five years.  Sophie, for example, is dying to go to Taco Bell since she has never been there.  Both girls are totally impressed with the fact that one can buy a ready-made pie crust in an American grocery store (which I did toda...

Last night I noticed that my wee bonny lass had busted two toe-sized holes right through the ends of her favorite star-covered, 3-6 month sized babygro. (That's a pair of footie-pajamas if you're a redneck from North Carolina like my good friend, Shay.) Sometimes I just look at little Thunder-thighs and think that I can actually see her growing right before my eyes.  Since she refuses to stop doing this, the only sensible thing for us to do was have a girls' morning out at the shops. Here are a few tips on how to recognize me if you are out at the shops as well.  I am the one who is being confrontational in the car park with that single, 30-something-year-old bloke in a sports car who has decided to park next to me in a designated "baby and child" parking bay.  Oh yes, I will call it out, and you know he will act like he didn't realise it was a special parking area even though the spaces are 50% larger and there are neon flashing signs ever...