January

The weather has been back and forth here—cold and damp for several weeks, then beautiful for days, and now cold and raining. At first we thought Sam would be rained out of a fieldtrip, but then he was able to go after all. The trip is to a local nature park. He’s been there before, but I hope it’s a good time for him even with the rain.

Everyone is speaking a little more. Linda reads to the kids some in the mornings which is nice, mostly just working on things like animal names.

Emily flies to the US next Wednesday. Her initial plan is to visit Paul and Joan and Reina for a few days, then go to the conference, and then she’ll have six or seven days at the end. It doesn’t look like she’ll go to her school. Logistics always take a while to figure out.

Sam was tired this morning (we thought he’d gone to sleep last night, but he was till up pretty late—sometimes he waits for one of us to go to bed). This morning he was super grumpy. We’re still working on discipline. We do a mix of time-outs, “talking-to’s” (usually very calm), giving toys time outs, and a counting thing I do. Most of the time, even if two are flipping out, one will quickly calm down to be the good one. They’re pretty good but the three of them really can compete. It’s common for Sam to discover that Eli is playing with a toy that was Samuel’s, but which Samuel hasn’t looked at in forever, and to demand it back. Not sure what to do here? Maybe we should create a sequestered drawer where any off-limits toys for Sam have to go. Still thinking about this.

I don’t have any great plans for this month’s daddy fun weeks. I’ll have two weekends and two holiday days plus assorted evenings. I think it could be fun. I’m going to do local museums as possible, which they enjoy, and am also thinking of doing something like inviting people for the Thursday holiday for a potluck. This is, however, probably overly ambitious.