Mayday, May Day, Matey

What's with that title, Suz?

That's how I feel when the UK springs a bank holiday, ie, my child can't go to his favorite place (preschool!) on me and dubs it a long week. Who actually celebrates May Day?

Not this kid and his mother. Nope. 

England, that's who.

Today a dad at Landon's school told me that Brits deal with the weather by wishing they lived some place else. I laughed because it's May and the endless winter seems to have mostly ended.

On to to the important updates.

I drove on--what we would call the freeway--road the wrong way. And by wrong way, I mean that I entered a one lane exit ramp because I miscounted my roundabout exits.

This is the Do Not Enter Because You Might Die sign.

And this is the Do Not Stop/Wait/Try Not to Break Down sign. 

No, they don't really look similar. Yes, I still got them confused. No, we did not die. Yes, I swore and prayed and almost cried. 

We survived. 

Landon has added a new line to Wheels on the Bus, and it goes "Listen to the phone lady/Listen to the phone lady," which is his not so subtle way of telling me to pay attention to my GPS. 

When we weren't traumatizing left hand drivers, we were meeting parrots and crocodiles at a local farm. 

Landon wanted to know why the parrots couldn't talk. 

Unlike most places in England, this place has free parking and no admission free, which is my holy grail around here. Landon, however, insists that it is disappointing that he can't feed the cows and that there are no bears in the bear cave. (The bear cave is a dungeon-like thing that I tried to steer him away from by telling him was a bear cave. I was entirely unsuccessful.) 

One rare sunny day, we found ourselves at a St. George's Day festival, which was delightfully historic and European feeling. 

There, Landon was knighted and proceeded to challenge any kid within a five year age gap to a duel. If you've never been attacked by a squealing American child with a foam sword and a mohawk, then you truly haven't lived. In true good parent fashion, we promised our preschooler dragons and failed to deliver the fire-breathing beasts. The creature of the day only showed up twice during the day long event, and we left too early. Our child managed to survive his disappointment. 

Standard breathtaking and commonplace historical site (Wrest Park).

70 degrees and I so swollen and sweaty. I also picked up my first English sunburn that day. 

As evidenced by the picture above, I am very much pregnant. I'm 35 weeks exactly today, and cheerfully staring down the next 5-6 week slog or waddle to the delivery room. The husband was out of the country for the week between 33w and 34w, and I managed to scare myself into think I had early onset pre-eclampsia for a few frightening moments. It turns out, I was simply dehydrated. I remedied that by consuming liters of water...and more water. I was still working at this point with Landon, and naturally don't feel quite as sore as I did when I worked on my feel all the time. Even still, I'm at the phase of pregnancy where I'm more of a heffalump than human female. ;) 

We're expecting our first house guests in just two weeks time, and to say that I'm excited would be an understatement. Get here, sister!