Phoebe keeps stealing my umbrella

to "prong the birds". Which would be fine by me, except that she's in her pyjamas, it's nine o'clock at night, and it's bedtime. Quite which birds are going to get pronged under these circumstances is anyone's guess.

Drat!

Emily's got an ear infection. It's the first one this year, which is good, but we really thought we were going to make it through a full twelve months without antibiotics. Speaking of which, Emily is being extremely good and brave about taking the absolutely vile medicine (described by her as tasting like "bananas with poo"). Well done Emily!

Images from Tinos 2005

Thought I'd have a go at posting some pics. Thinking of getting a digital camera if this works! These photos come courtesy of our friend Hector. The little girl in the first one is his daughter Eleni.

Emily woke up in the middle of the night

with a distinctive barking cough.

I told her she sounded like Clifford the Big Red Dog.

I was trying to make her laugh, honest, not provoke howling, tears, and sobs of "I'm not Cliff-or-or-ord."

Oh well, another moment of failed parenting...

"Mad and bad"

is Phoebe's own assessment of her behaviour for our babysitter on Friday evening. Whether or not she's dangerous to know, time will tell.

"I'm very cross with God," said Phoebe.

Emily had apparently explained to her that everybody has to die one day, and Phoebe is planning to take this up with the Big G. From her point of view this is a great flaw in his design.

Actually, I wasn't even aware that Phoebe was aware of God's (theoretical) existence.* The Poof Fairy (Tooth Fairy), yes, Mary Christmas (Father Christmas), yes, but not the Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe. However, it seems that Eleni has been taking Phoebe to church every day, and has done a pretty good job of teaching her that God's in charge. Never mind, I'm sure she'll grow out of it.

Emily meanwhile, who has no difficulty in believing in a large man in red who squeezes down the chimney or a small fluttery creature that steals her teeth (she has the proof, you see - presents, filthy lucre), has been asking about Christ's miracles. "But *how* could he have turned the water into wine. It's very puzzling."

Puzzling.

Yup. A real stumper.

* At this point, by rights, I should disappear in a flash of lightning, leaving nothing behind but a charred and smoking keyboard.

Emily lost a tooth yesterday

Twice.

First it came out of her mouth, and then she mislaid it. You can imagine all the anxiety she went through wondering whether the Tooth Fairy would visit or not. Anyway, we wrote a note to TF explaining what had happened, and all was well.

Except that the "Very Silly Tooth Fairy" (Nevi's slightly expurgated words) forgot how much she usually leaves and had to concoct an explanation along the lines of "Half now, half when you come up with the tooth. What, you think we tooth fairies are made of money? Think yourself lucky I left you anything at all, sunshine." (Sorry, got a bit carried away there...)

Anyway, Phoebe is very excited by it all and is running around the house screaming "Poof Fairy" at the top of her lungs, which I suppose makes a kind of sense...

Yesterday was "Clean Monday",

which is the first day of Lent in Greece (rather like Shrove Tuesday, and no, I don't know why the Greek don't celebrate on a Tuesday like everyone else) an traditionally a day for flying kites. Nevi and I are not great kite-flyers (in the sense that we are rubbish at flying kites and can usually thing of better things to do with our time). But Greece expects, so we took the kids out to the park, planning to buy a kite en route.

But we couldn't find one (hurrah!) or a Spongebob Squarepants ballon (double hurrah!) and so we made do with shivering in the wind while Emily demonstrated her expertise at monkey bars. It is *so* time for that girl to get a new hobby...

Took the girls to the park today

so that they could ride their bikes. Emily is getting quite good on hers, though she still needs stabilisers, but Phoebe had a few problems with her tricycle, as her feet kept slipping off the pedals. Eventually she could contain her frustration no longer and jumped off the trike shouting "Sod it!" in ringing English tones.

I really must have a word with Eleni about the language she uses in front of the children...

It's Carnival Time in Greece...

...which means that the girls get to dress up in costumes and we get to take them to parties. Emily was originally planning to dress as a cowboy but Phoebe hijacked the idea, so she had to choose something else. We luckily have an "all seasons" store just around the corner (garden furniture in the summer, Christmas decs in the winter, fancy dress in the spring) so there was no problem finding something else. The helpful woman in the shop rather regretted coming to our assistance after she received a milk-curdling stare from Emily (for suggesting that she might like to dress up as a fairy princess) but eventually guided us in the right sort of direction, where we found a Ninja costume (black tousers, top and hood, with a sword).
Emily was ecstatic, and when we got home started practising her "ninja moves" (to the untrained eye she looked like a small girl having an epilectic fit, but she reckons she was honing her technique).
When the time came to take the girls to a party, Emily insisted on wearing her hood, which only had a narrow slit for the eyes. This meant that we had a number of close encounters of the arboreal kind, and one with a guard dog that obviously thought she was the smallest burglar he'd ever seen, and came flying at her. Luckily he was on a chain...

Obsessive Compulsive Emily

is currently insisting that all the fish attachments on her school bag have to be pointing in the same direction...

Today

(according to Phoebe) I'm Poo Daddy. I guess that would be something like Puff Daddy (P. Diddy) but with less bling and more, well, poo.

At the breakfast table this morning

Phoebe was trying to put me in my place by giving me a Paddington Bear Hard Stare. I don't know what I'd done wrong exactly, but it was clear from her expression that she was not in a Happy Place. The problem was that the PBHS was effected with widened eyes and a raised eyebrow which produced an uncanny resemblance to the astonomer Patrick Moore. I couldn't stop laughing, which of course enraged her even more...