Hibernating

Haven't heard much from me lately? I've been hibernating for winter. It is SOOOO cold.

Apart from freezing we're doing well. Kathleen is now going to daycare two days a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Victoria goes on a Tuesday too, so I have the day to myself and usually spend it working on the farm. They both seem to enjoy it there. It is in the country, near where they will go to school, so I hope a lot of the kids there will eventually go to the same school with them.

As well as daycare we have also joined the local Playcentre and will be going there one day a week as well. Most of the kids there are Victoria's age, so it is more for her benefit than Kathleen's. Vicky loves copying the big kids at daycare, but I want her to have socialisation with kids her own age too. Besides, Playcentre offers such a big range of activities and opportunities for both the kids and for me too.

We also regularly go to playgroups and music groups and the library. I have to get out of the house most days for my sanity. Plus it's warmer to go out than stay home!

I realise I haven't blogged in a long time. The girls have grown heaps. Victoria is one and a half now. She's talking heaps and learning new words every day. Kathleen still just loves to play and watch TV. Kathleen's favourite sayings at the moment: "I'm such a girly-girl" and "pink is my favourite colour". Groan

The girls are starting to play together sometimes (with help from me) but mostly Victoria likes to play with toys on her own and Kathleen likes to play pretend with me. Kathleen has also started enjoying board games and card games, so we will sometimes sit down and play a few games together. We especially enjoyed Candyland when we had it out from the toy library. Victoria has been watching with interest and actually played a game of memory with us yesterday (with lots of help).

I've been a little surprised how much both girls have learnt at daycare. Mostly songs. In the beginning Kathleen would come home and sing new songs for us every week. After a while Victoria would stand up with her and do the actions to the songs as well. Kathleen has learnt all her Maori colours and Maori numbers up to 10. She can now count to 100 (in English).

One thing we've been struggling a lot with lately, over the last several months, is sleep, or lack of it. First it was Kathleen. She'd have trouble going to bed at night, complaining she didn't want to be alone, then waking up in the middle of the night wanting to come to bed with us (which would be fine if she didn't then keep us awake for the rest of the night or hog the bed). After about a month of that we started a star chart, where she got a star every night she stayed in her own bed and once she had 20 stars she'd get a reward. That worked amazingly better than I could have ever imagined and I think she only got up once or twice since then. Her first reward was a trip to Lollipops, and she still hasn't collected her second reward, which will be a trip to the movies.

We had a month or two of good sleep after that, and now it is Victoria's turn. She is going through a major Separation Anxiety phase, where she cries if I leave her sight even for a second. So she'll wake up in the middle of the night and scream for Mummy. She'll usually re-settle for Peter but if I'm the one to wake up and go to her, I end up being there for a couple of hours because she'll just scream the house down if I try and leave the room again.

Things are going well on the farm. Our neighbours are grazing their stock in our fields now, so that is one less thing we have to worry about at the moment. For a really funny story on farm life, read my farm blog.

-Megz