Breaking things on ski trips

So.  Five days to go, not including the travel day home.

I am very worried about the remaining time, not least because Four and One have already broken several items in the exchange family’s house including:

• A bed
  (by jumping violently on it repeatedly despite being told not to and then threatened with bodily harm)
   
• A window blind
   
• Several cutesy cowboy style wall hangings from their baby’s room
  (‘Buckaroo!’ “Lil’ Cowboy!”)
   
• A 4’ tall glass vase that had been carefully put away but they still managed to find and shatter.

This house is a brand new build so everything is gleaming, amazingly tidy – or at least was until we arrived – and full of artfully placed matching decorative items and tasteful black and white photographs arranged in clumps (I’m sure that’s not the right interior design word, but I’m not a Martha Stewart Living reader).
The owners are devout Christians so there are a lot of crucifixes and bibles everywhere and all the children’s books are on the religious side.
It’s a bit like staying in Jesus’ Pottery Barn.
Four loves it. If she had her druthers we would be living in a house where everything matched, all was brand spanking new and would come from the Touch of Class catalogue.
This place makes me feel slightly anxious and guilty, though, like a sinner with dirty shoes in a show home with white carpet.
I read one of their books to One today about a caterpillar called Hermie the Wormie who felt bad about himself because he was an ordinary caterpillar but God kept reassuring him that he had a plan for him, it would all be okay. And then he turned into a butterfly! It was very sweet. But you know, God has not done that for me yet. In fact I feel like I was a butterfly before and I’m growing steadily into a worm. Was that part of His plan for me? I’m not enjoying this journey. I’m hoping there will be a better ending.
Clearly I need to investigate the bookshelves further. 

It is also full of the noisy kind of electronic toys that speak and sing in loud American accents which thrill the children. We don’t have any of these at home as I consider them the aural equivalent of water boarding so my two are making up for all the deprivation by hitting as many loud buttons as often as they can before we go home again.

I wonder how the other family are getting on at our house? Apparently, according to my neighbour they are incredibly nice. I hope they are not disturbed by the copies in both English and German of  Das Kapital on the shelves..

I am hugely relieved that I decided to clean out the kitchen cupboards before they came because I discovered a boll weevil infestation in all of our flour packets and had to chuck them out – quite disgusting! I am so glad that the other family did not find it before me – the shame of it! Although perhaps I could have asked them to do an exorcism..

We had planned a family outing to go sledding this afternoon, but due to the gross destructive nature of my children, I shall be spending the time with a bottle of superglue and a screwdriver mending the damage they have caused thus far.

Ah, family holidays!