Thank god that days like yesterday are few and far between.

The kids were doing their best to out-dreadful each other.

Robyn came home from school determined to find fault with everything and everyone at school and at home.

Lauren was treating her upcoming birthday (tomorrow) as a shopping experience and placing orders left right and centre. And also being completely unreasonable with her homework - getting hysterical at battling with the occasional spelling word. I suppose this is the result of hardly ever making a single mistake in her school work. Formal spelling, with spelling tests, which they started this term, is proving more challenging than anything she has dealt with thus far. She is not used to making mistakes. She battles to hear and pronounce (hence spell) the distinction between sees and seeds, between sleep and seep, etc.

Daniel didn't want to eat lunch and as a result was absolutely unbearable all afternoon. While Lauren was at gym I took the other two shopping to choose her some small gifts from themselves and I actually had to leave the shop he was being so difficult.

They were all snapping at each other the entire afternoon.

At 5pm I put supper together for them, gave up and shut myself into the bedroom. At which point they all began to be completely delightful with each other, and this continued for the next 3 hours. United in adversity against Scary Mother. I dropped off to sleep about 7.30 while Peter was putting them to bed. As a result of going to sleep too early I woke up this morning at 3.30, and was unable to get back to sleep, until, naturally, a few minutes before the alarm went off at 5.30.

Maybe the kids are all as on edge as I am about the soon-expected baby.

I am curious to see how things turn out. It doesn't seem doable to have a baby at this point.

Monday, on the other hand, was a wonderful day. We went to choose birthday presents for Grandpa Pat, came home, enjoyed tea and hot chocolate together, and invented an ingenious, laugh-till-you-drop, home-made game involving the trampoline, three children, me, a chair and a couple of soccer balls. And a dog.

The weekend was good too. We spend Saturday at friends and on Sunday afternoon had friends come to us for tea. Sunday morning the girls made huge posters with photographs - Robyn was making a poster of her life (friends, family, interests, etc) for school as this week she is Star of the Week, and Lauren made an enormous collage of her birthday party - including clues, photos, flags and balloons.

Have just looked back in my blog for the last Awful Day and it was 1 July. I guess six weeks of Good Days between successive Awful Days isn't too bad.