Ben has recently taken to not being able to get to sleep because he’s convinced monsters and witches and baddies are going to get him. So I have taken a leaf out of my dads book tonight and helped him mix a bunch of disgusting things in the kitchen together to make Baddie Poison, so the monsters come in, get distracted by the drink, drink it, and die before they get to him. Boom, he’s asleep. 

I’m on the 2 week countdown. 

14 days to remove any trace of myself from the house, to be replaced by a 22 year old Canadian girl called Nora.  

14 days left with my boys and my puppy and my adoptive english family. 

14 days left in Ely working as an au pair. 

14 days left. 

George asked me to read to him tonight, but he chose a really boring book, so I tried to spice it up for myself by reading it in silly voices so I didn’t fall asleep. He looked at me and said ‘If you’re not going to take this book seriously then I would like you to leave’ so I tried to read it normally but I started laughing at something about bat noses and he pointed to the door and said ‘I am so disappointed in you, Kimberley.’ 

Sometimes I think he and I confuse who the au pair is and who the kid is. 

Janine got round to uploading some pictures of Ben and I today. The first one is from when I had my sympathy sling on for the day. The second one is from when we went to the zoo and were feeding the giraffes. 

Ben’s party is all set up and the boys are going to start arriving in the next few minutes. I’m dying of flu-like symptoms and am not looking forward to it. 

I made some chocolate chip cookies with ‘8’ iced onto them

And some of these 

Which I forgot to take a photo of but I found that one on the internet 

And then I also made some of these 

Except fancier and with more worms 

And a bunch of other stuff 

I can hear children screaming outside…here we go 

Had a very strange day yesterday. 

Started with Louise and I meeting a woman who wanted to present us with an “opportunity”, which sounded a bit dodgy the entire way through, and when she finished and I mentioned I wasn’t comfortable with pyramid selling or pyramid schemes, she baulked and avoided really addressing it and then eventually started saying it was more of a spider web…which works exactly the same as a pyramid except it’s flat. Anyway so we’re not doing that. but we did get a bunch of free face creams and stuff. So. 

We wandered down to the train station and discovered that the train from Ely to Cambridge wasn’t running and had to catch a BUS. I MEAN, A BUS. REALLY? 

Anyway then we went and met a new french au pair in Cambridge, who complained about the family she worked for for around 4 and a half out of the 5 hours we were together, and then judged us for eating McDonalds. She was nice enough when she wasn’t complaining, but everything seemed to go back to her and her problems. It took 3 hours for her to ask Louise anything. We ended up wandering onto the Trinity University campus and sat by the river watching the punters go past and enjoying the sun for a while and then walked back to city centre and said goodbye.  

After that we went to the movies, saw the new Scary Movie against my will, and when it ended Louise was like ‘That wasn’t as good as I expected” and I was like “REALLY LOUSIE? WAS THAT NOT A GOOD MOVIE? IF ONLY YOU HAD SOMEONE TO TELL YOU THAT BEFORE YOU SAW IT. OH, WAIT, YOU DID.” so she’s never living that one down. 

Then we caught a bus back to Ely around 9 and I came home and watched Doctor Who and went to sleepies. And that was my Saturday!

Also we groomed Tommy this week and now he’s all tiny and fragile looking 

Ben’s been getting really annoyed at everyone asking him what happened to his arm, and having to tell the same story over and over, so we created some alternative stories for him to tell 

• I built a set of wings and tried to jump off the roof of the house, but they didn’t work. 
• I was walking down the street when a stampede of rhinoceros came out of nowhere, and they broke my arm whilst I was saving a group of puppies and babies. 
• A travelling circus saw me in the stands and thought it looked like I had the potential to be an acrobat. But whilst I was training, the wires broke, and I fell all the way from the top of a trapeze to the floor.  

Or, alternatively,

• The real question is not what’s wrong with my arm, but what’s wrong with my leg. 

Because of Ben’s arm and my lack of knowledge about how to tie ties, George had to do it for him this morning. But he’s never tied someone else’s  he’s only done his own. So he had to stand behind and do it like it was on him. George thought it was hilarious, Ben was perplexed.

Ben is having a camping party, and I was put in charge of invites. I’ve made little sleeping bag invites, where you have to pull out the person and he’s going to have all the information.

Leaving Ben to decorate them with his one good arm. 

We’re going to fid pictures of his friends faces and print them and stick them on the head of the person!

I’d also like to point out that he chose to have the Joker font. I do not approve of it. 

So, here we go, Wednesday-Sunday update 

Wednesday: The day Ben broke his arm 

Before the injury, the boys and I spent the morning watching movies, and then the afternoon at the park. 

When they misbehaved, I sent them to time out either next to the dog poo bin or the trash can, depending on the level of naughtiness.  

They did not take this is as seriously as I would have liked. 

“Look Kimba, I’m having a baby!” 

Then Ben fell off the bars, broke his arm, and we had a chaotic few hours where Ben went to hospital, I got George ready to go to a friends, I went to the hospital to distract and cheer up Ben, spent a few hours there, then caught a bus and train back home to Ely. 

Thursday: The day in limbo 

Spent most of the day waiting to hear if Ben’s operation was a success (yes) if I had George over the weekend (almost) and what the plan was for the next few days. 

Had a 2 hour bath. 

George came back, we had dinner, then Ben and Janine arrived home from the hospital. 

Friday: I have next to no recollection of Friday  

I feel like I slept a lot  

Saturday: WEEKEND! 

Woke up at an ungodly hour to watch George play football. Spent most of the game cuddling the dog because the princess doesn’t like getting his paws wet.  

Came back to Ely, had lunch with Amanda, enjoying the sun in Ely.  

Ben and Janine went to one of Ben’s friends birthday parties, so I babysat George, then went to Amanda’s for the night. 

We ordered in Indian food, watched Twilight (for some unknown reason…God it’s just so bad?????) drank wine to make Twilight more bearable and giggled a lot. 

Went to sleep early because we’re old now. Amanda’s hip was cracking all night and every time it happened we were like uUUUUGH WE’RE SO OOOOLLLLD. 

Sunday: today 

Came home from Amanda’s to look after Ben whilst Janine and George spent some time together. Ben was sad because he’s sick of not being able to do what everyone else can do, so I adopted a Sympathy Sling, which really cheered him up. 

Got my butt kicked at Monopoly (damn Free Parking!!!!! I was winning until Ben got almost £2500 from Free Parking)

Trained Tommy a little bit, sat outside with Ben playing silly games in our slings, and am now just resting up.   

School starts again tomorrow. Ben and I get to work out how to get him dressed into his uniform over his cast (joy of all joys) and then I’m back in routine for the last 1 month, 3 weeks of my time with the family. 

I can’t believe I’ve been here almost a year.