See you someday, Downton Abbey Season 3

We don’t have cable at my house–or even local channels. For whatever quirky technology reason, we pretty much only have Netflix through our Xbox. Which is fine with me most of the time.

Except for when Downton Abbey came along.

I devoured the first two seasons on DVD last summer, and now that Season 3 is here, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to watch it online either on my laptop or somehow on our regular TV, and I was delighted to find out that I could watch it directly at PBS.org. And not only that, I found an app on Xbox live that I could get to the PBS website and stream the show right onto my TV. Yay!

Yesterday, I finally couldn’t stand it any longer (apparently something REALLY BIG happens a few episodes in?!) and I decided to try to sneak in Season 3, Episode 1 during the kids’ naptime while I cooked and cleaned. About 10 minutes in, the website froze and a moment later Gabriel woke up inexplicably early and emotionally unstable from his nap. So, I had to quit my Downton Abbey endeavor for the day. 🙁

This afternoon, I decided I had to try to finish Episode 1…despite being incredibly busy with a dozen things on my I-won’t-bore-you-with-it-to-do list. Well, I got a lovely 20 minutes in before Gabriel woke up again very early because a jet roared over the house and scared the pee out of him (his diaper was soaked) and then Faith woke up soon after because she’s teething like mad right now.

And I guess I thought I could finish folding that last load of laundry and give them both an orange to eat and they’d sit quietly beside me while I watched Matthew and Mary finally get married and see if this Mrs. Bartlett lead would do anything for Bates and if Thomas could find Lord Grantham’s dress shirts in time for his mother-in-law’s birthday dinner.

But then Gabriel finished his second orange (I had already paused the show and gotten up three times between the both of them for cups and additional oranges) and he decided he was bored and started asking me over and over again in his whiniest voice to watch The Lorax and Faith was crying and drooling all over everything and then she stepped on the Xbox controller and turned off the Xbox–and Episode 1.

And you know what people? I burst into tears. Boo-hoo bawled. Then I started laugh-crying at myself for being so ridiculous. If you want your three-year-old to stop whining and asking you the same question three thousand times in a row, just burst into tears in front of him. (Why didn’t I think of this before?)


I still have 17 minutes or so of Episode 1 to watch. My mom is coming to visit this weekend, so maybe we will get to sit down and watch it together at some point…If not, I know I’ll see you someday, Downton Abbey Season 3. I may just have to wait until you come out on Netflix…and my kids are out of the house.:)