Family Update – January 2016 

Our holidays were lovely and blissful. I love Christmas. Everything stops and you can just relax, sleep, eat, play board games, read novels and watch rubbish TV. All of the above is all we have done in the past month or so… this will be a short update!

Wriggly (1 year 7 months)

• As I was having coffee one morning, I realised your hair (mullet!) was long enough for small pigtails: it makes you look so grown up!
• You are more and more confident when walking around, but I love the fact you still have that slightly unsteady, cowboy-like manner when you walk.
• You were quite unwell just before we went to France and your temperature shot up to 40.3 degrees. Teething can be tough.
• You treat me as a human dummy.
• You pick my nose whenever you are feeding. Classy!
• As we were driving past Heathrow on our way to France, you kept pointing at airplanes and shouting, “pane, pane!”
• New words:

“gain!” (again)
“Winwin!” is your brother’s penguin.
“Chair”
“Yay!”
“No”
“Momo” (more)
“Minyun” (Minions)
“Tetchup!” (ketchup)
“Tonton”

Jumpy (3 years 2 months)

• “Mummy I’m hungi!” Is the sentence you’ve been saying the most recently. You say it about 50 times a day (no exaggeration), and it usually starts straight after eating… Before I have even managed to clear up after breakfast, you are asking for more food. I thought I was bad with grazing but you are worse!
• As we were watching TV and it was bugging and pausing every couple of minutes or so, you declared, “oh non, ça marche pas!” I love it when unprompted French come out of your mouth!
• One day during our holidays, your cousin did not come for a play, and you kept asking when he was coming.
• One afternoon, you said to your dad: “I’m gonna get you a moon on a spoon.” You came back from the kitchen with a spoon and told us the moon was just outside. OK, so you just got a spoon and instructed your dad to go and grab the moon. Clever girl, you will go far in life!
• You are having epic meltdowns at the moment.
• You give people ‘the stare’ when you are not impressed with what they want you to do, or when I ask you to say “hello” when we arrive somewhere.

Beanie (5 years 3 months)

• You are determined to get long hair. I love you with your cute bob!
• You spoke very little French during our holidays.
• Last night, as I was going to bed, I heard you giggling in your sleep. It was the sweetest sound.

Crevette (7 years 5 months)

• Your best friend has just left your school and it made us really sad (I cried a lot!). We will still see her lots and you will have to form new friendships at school.
• Your French impresses me every day. I love the fact you are embracing both of your languages so much.
• You went karting with your tontons (uncles) and Daddy. Stop growing up so quickly, little man!
• You are very sensitive at the moment. The smallest thing makes you really upset. I wish I could help you toughen up.

Us

• We just relaxed and I tried to get a decent sot of all 4 kids. Here is the best I could come up with. Fail!

• We went to a farm in France just before Christmas and the children gave bottles to the sheep. I made friends with the piglets!

• Our loft conversion started over 4 months ago. There are still a few things to be done, but in the next couple of weeks, we should be able to start moving stuff upstairs (wishful thinking?).