Families - who'd have 'em?

We're up in London again, doing Xmas with my family. We were due here for lunchtime yesterday, but by the time we'd struggled out of bed after the Crazie party, tidied up, realised how really far behind with the washing I actually was, found enough clothes for everyone to pack, found a bag to pack everything in, re-arranged the car so that the kids could watch a dvd all together during the journey and actually got all three kids in the car it was 11.30, so we finally madew it here mid-afternoon.

They were all brats during the journey too - argued so much over the dvd that I turned it off after 10 mins, fought over the food, dropped drinks, complained of feeling sick, needed a wee, changed places, argued over who had more pillow, (but not actually slept at all) and generally tested our patience trhe whole way.

Once here, they were mostly OK. Cousin G (and sister S) came over for the afternoon, and they played nicely - and noisily! They ate supper well, then G went home and we tried to put them to bed. LMB was fairly annoying about it, but not loads more than normal, but LMD was having none of it. She screamed until I went and sat with her, then refused to go to sleep at all. After an hour I gave up, and made her a camp bed in our room, so the other two could get to sleep, and tried the normal tactic of shutting the door and letting her cry for 5 mins. 2 hours later she was still screaming! she quieted down if I stayed with her, but refused to close her eyes!

At 9pm, I totally gave up and let her play downstairs until we went to bed:-(

Even then, it wasn't very sucessful. She finally went off to sleep in her camp bed at 11.30, only to wake up half an hour later because her eczema was itchy. It is really bad at the moment poor thing:-( But she woke every 20-30mins throughout the night - which meaqnt I woke every 20-30mins throughout the night.

Then, at 6.20am, Mstr A decided he was awake, so kindly woke up LMB too - who immediately started crying & woke up the rest of the household!

The whole family (almost) is coming over to se us today, and will get treated to whiney, miserable, tired brats. Oh Goody!