We just put up the photos for the month.
The month of January was mostly about moving into our new house and getting settled in. Since I’m a month behind on posting pictures, most of what happened during January was described when I finally got around to posting the December pictures. Since that time, we’ve settled into the house nicely.
We’ve continued the swim lessons. The girls finished the six lessons that are seen in these photos, and last week we started them in on a new set of lessons, with a different teacher. I think their old teacher was probably better with kids than this one, but they still seem okay with it. Eleanor still largely refuses to get her face wet. Miranda will, but she’s still hesitant about dunking herself in the water.
After the swim lessons, it’s been a consistent practice to get a snack from the vending machine. This last weekend, as we were getting ready to go to the pool, Eleanor asked me, “Can you buy money for after the swimming lesson?” I brought money, but unfortunately, the machine was out of order. Eleanor was pretty upset about it, and sat right down on the floor to sulk. Miranda also wasn’t happy, but expressed herself by complaining that her hair was still too wet.
Nap time has been an issue recently. The kids don’t nap well during the week at school. I think they find it too distracting. On weekends, we put the kids down for a nap, but they end up talking or bothering each other. We’ve instituted a rule this month. They have to be quiet for an hour, and if we find them still talking at the end of that hour, we separate them into different rooms. If they don’t fall asleep in the next hour, then they don’t need to nap. What we were doing before was restricting them to their rooms until they fell asleep, but sometimes that would be a few hours later, and then they would sleep a couple more hours, and not wake up until 8pm. This schedule’s a little better, but it means that we can’t really take a nap during the kids’ nap time.
Eleanor’s been saying some unflattering things to me recently. I was lying on her bed, and she came over to sit on me. My shirt rode up and she said, “Daddy, your tummy is BIG!” Nice.
This month, Eleanor has also been somewhat fickle about her favorite color. I guess this started last month, but now it’s become a pronounced enough change that Eleanor will often go to school wearing a red shirt, like Miranda. The first day we did that, one of the teachers asked why Eleanor was wearing red. I think they find it easier if our kids are dressed differently enough that they can tell where each one is from across the room.
We’ll have more pictures for February shortly.