Vengeance is Sweet

Hi all,
Today wasn't a very interesting day. I got up a little later than yesterday, and came up to find that E. the new housekeeper, had covered breakfast stuff for me. Well, this won't do at all - I don't want her feeling resentful, especially if I decide to just have bread with butter and honey like this morning. I spent a good part of the day in my room reading up on various things, and whenever I attempted to come upstairs something prevented me: strangers ringing the doorbell (which it makes no sense for me to answer!) or a freshly wet landing. About an hour before the boys came home though, I managed to get upstairs!

Let the Games Begin
HM wants me to spend at least a half an hour speaking with G in English. However, he's 11 (almost 12) and doesn't consider me to be the coolest person. So this forced attempt is hard to do. To make matters worse, K needs an eye on him if he's not parked in front of the TV. So after about 20 minutes I went to take K outside for some much needed exercise. Basketball, a made up game and a game of tag later (well over an hour) and we were both tuckered out. I took him inside for a bit to recover (it was starting to get dark, around 7) and he switched the TV on. I thought, ok, let him watch a cartoon or two and I'll draw him into UNO. However, E. ran into the room and started talking to K, and I could make out "No" and "Television" in her diatribe. Now, I know that kids shouldn't have a lot of TV time, but 30 minutes isn't going to kill the kid.

So, I went up to talk to G, (to doublecheck that their mother hadn't said anything to E that she forgot to tell me...) and assured me that I was correct. He went and talked to E. and came back and said that K could watch one show and then had to color. Now, I agree that this is a better plan (especially now that I know they have art supplies at home and know where they are now!) but I slightly resented this intrusion. We have very clearly delineated jobs, as HM has made sure to tell me, and I hope she will respect me enough not to do that again. Sigh. I need to learn Turkish.

Tambala
The kids have a game that they like to play called Tambala. It's kind of like Bingo, but there's 3 winners (the first to get one row across the long card, then two rows then a blackout) and always a "prize". Last time we played with smallish chocolate bars, and so K and I did for the game today. However, there weren't any smaller ones left for the second game that K wanted to play, so I brought up some of the smaller Wonka candy that I'd brought with me. K got bored pretty quickly and proceeded to start flicking his markers under the couch. When I said "No." he promptly took the first prize, a banana laffy taffy. I smiled. Those small ones are pretty tough to open. So I cracked open the mini box of nerds and watched him struggle with it while I cleaned up. 5 minutes later, I poured out some Nerds and said "Mmmmm". We made eye contact and both immediately cracked up. I let him struggle for another minute and then offered to help. Relieved, K carried it over to me, and his eyes grew wide as it took me less than 5 seconds to open it. I think he got the picture.

Anyhow, like I said, a not very exciting day. Tomorrow is the weekend, and hopefully I can introduce and play Apples to Apples Jr with G, HM and HD. We will see...
Hope all is well,
Steph