Intermission

Sorry for the delay between posts. Jetlag hit us in a big way around here, which surprised us given that it was only a 4-hour difference. We've all been rather sluggish and tired. Luckily, we were able to enjoy some extra family time at home before the girls went back to school and Markus went back to work on Wednesday.

Ellie is now in Middle Primary, the next age group at school. Montessori schools have mixed-age classrooms, so she has moved up to the (roughly) 6-9 year olds. She is THRILLED! She asked every day of our vacation if we were going home tomorrow. When we asked why, she invariably said that when we went home, she'd go back to school and when she went back to school, she'd be in middle primary, and she couldn't wait to be in middle primary!

Stephanie is now set to attend every day in the Junior Primary classroom she used to share with Ellie. Ellie is so good at soothing her (so sweet!) that it was a wonderful gift for Stephanie to be able to start last term with Ellie in the same class. I have my reservations about her attending every day now (she still starts objecting in a big way not long after waking up in the morning), but we're going to give it a good go and reevaluate in another month or so.

The school day for 3 year olds at our school is from 8:30 to 1:30 five days a week, but I think that's a big ask for a new 3. We started Stephanie out for two hours, three days a week. We decided to up that to four days a week by the end of last term. Now, I upped it again to three hours, and her teacher wants all five days. As much as Stephanie objects at home (and I'm talking about tears and fuss from 6am), she does beautifully when she gets into the classroom. She loves to work, she makes herself right at home, and she seems to be friends with every child in the class. On her first day back, her teacher told me she wished for the first time that she had a video camera in the class just to show me how well Stephanie does. Two of my mom friends from the same class have done observations for their own children last term, and they too have reported back that Stephanie is happy as a clam in there. Whew. She's always happy when I pick her up and she has yet to be waiting by the door for my return, so I think we're good to go.

Both girls were exhausted from their first day of routine yesterday. Ellie, thrilled though she was about middle primary, started crying as soon as we got to the car about any little thing. I had brought the wrong snack. The wind blew her hair. The sun was too bright! WAH! Poor girl! She was soooo tired. Stephanie didn't do any crying when I picked her up earlier. She was happy and chatty. We came home, played, ate lunch, danced, puzzled, dressed up, and got back into the car to fetch Ellie. I gave her some crackers to snack on and I heard enthusiastic CRUNCH CRUNCH CRrrr... She was out like a light before we'd even left the driveway (cracker dangling from her lower lip). Tee-hee.

She's in!

Today was Stephanie's first day of school! She went for two hours, and when I arrived to pick her up, she was so engrossed with the button frame--tongue out, brow furrowed in concentration--that she didn't even notice me. She wasn't even sitting with Ellie; she was happily working on her own. Lydia tells me that she didn't cry after I left (though she cried before I wriggled loose) but she did cling to Ellie for a long while. Ellie got her interested in a few things, helped her set out her own morning tea, and stayed close to her for most of her morning. Much to Lydia's surprise, Ellie informed her at one point that she had set up Stephanie with some drawing because, "I need to get back to my own work." Wow. They both did beautifully well! This mama, on the other hand, was teary when no kiddos were watching this morning, cried her way back to the car after prying Stephanie loose at the classroom door, and generally wore herself out in the first hour of separation. Mamas. Whatcha gonna do?

Milestone in progress

We are a Montessori family, which means the kids start school when they turn 3. Stephanie has been three for a couple of weeks now, so we knew the day was coming. Montessori classes are mixed age. The youngest class is 3 to (almost) 6, and the school keeps siblings together at this level, which we love. Stephanie will go into Ellie's class, and Ellie cannot wait to show her the ropes. This happens just in time, because the decision has been made to move Ellie up to the next age group a bit ahead of schedule. She will transition out over the remainder of this term and will start in her new class in term 2. For now, she is ready and waiting to welcome Stephanie into her domain.

Their teacher, Lydia, came for the home visit this past Friday. We chatted about Stephanie's readiness. Markus and I had decided to start Stephanie in slowly. While the school wants kids to go every day from 8:30am to 1:30pm at age 3, we feel this is a bit much and certainly too much from the start. We've decided to start Stephanie with 8:30 to 11am on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and build from there. Stephanie has never been to daycare. She hasn't really ever had sitters. She is always with me. This will be a huge change for us both! I have my reservations, but I'm trying to be sure they are my reservations and not Stephanie's. In many respects, I think she's ready to go. While she hates the actual moment of separation from me almost every time (even when separating to be with Markus), I know she is over it the moment I am out of sight. I am thankful that Ellie will still be in the class to help her transition. They are such good sisters and Ellie is such a loving nurturer that I'm sure Stephanie will be in good hands (of course, her teachers are great too!). My lingering concerns are about her personal learning style and ways of doing things (so out of the box and so different from Ellie, whose obsession with order made her take to Montessori like a duck to water). We'll see how she goes and take it slowly. Of course, I realize I'm going to need intervention in the carpark if/when she cries at the door. I will hold it together until then, but that's the best I'll be able to do. It's a milestone in progress, for both of us.

School concert

This video will be a bit too lengthy for most viewers, but true Ellie fans will love it. Last Thursday night, Ellie's school presented their end of the year concert. The theme was "peace." Children in the 3-5 year old classes were asked to dress in "national costumes." The variety was fantastic. There are a number of families from different countries, and a lot of those families had extra costumes to share. One African boy was shirtless with traditional paint on his chest and face. Two Greek children in Ellie's class looked amazing. I didn't film the whole concert (there are 4 younger classes and a few more older classes than I captured), but I included the duration of Ellie's class song and the final song with all the classes, as well as brief selections from some middle classes so you can get an idea. The adolescent program included hip-hop dancing in their physical education this term (along with fencing and surfing...I wish I'd gone to this school!), so you get to see a bit of their efforts too. You'll see Stephanie trying to mimic their motions a time or two. Ellie is in the first and last song. She is wearing a long pink dress (which belonged to her Tante Ulla when she was a girl). She is standing six children in from the left in the first song, next to the boy in brown. During the final song, she is standing over toward the right in the front row.


The whole concert was absolutely wonderful. It was a bit too late for the little ones, but they held up really well and everyone had a special time. Here, I'm happy to share it with you.

Ellie's first class photo

I think elementary class pictures are very special (and often hysterical), and this is Ellie's very first one.

School carnival

Two Fridays ago, Ellie's school had a carnival. It's a small school so the carnival was small too, but it was pretty fun. There was a big bouncy castle, a fun surfboard set-up that was similar to a bucking bronco ride (surf until it throws you off into the bouncy-castle-like perimeter), a velcro-ninja wall, bouncy sumo, a band, a baby animal farm, a clown...oh, the clown. Yes, the clown. Why oh why did there have to be a clown? The trauma. If you heard piteous 3-year-old wailing on Friday the 13th, it was probably Ellie's reaction to that darned clown. He was nowhere near her, but his existence was enough to do it. Well, if there's anything that can possibly undo serious clown trauma, it would be the baby animals. A traveling farm set up a pen with a calf, several small lambs and goats, chickens, ducks, bunnies, and (randomly) a huge brown dog with fur like a sheep. Ellie was none too crazy about the huge brown dog, but she loved the rest and baby Stephanie loved it all! Please excuse the cheesy music in the little movie I made. My song of choice refused to play. I have no idea why.



For some reason, the movie upload is so pixelated that it looks like we are in a witness protection program. The girls' expressions are the reason for the sharing, so I will try to fix this problem soon.

Sunny report

This morning, I met with Ellie's teacher for a two week progress report on how Ellie is settling in to school. She could not have had more glowing things to say! Although Markus reminds me that flowery language is to be expected with Nigerians (Ellie's lovely teacher is Nigerian), the underlying message could not be missed: Ellie is doing beautifully! She has taken to the Montessori classroom like a duck to water, as we knew she would! She never gets tired of learning new things, is so determined that she keeps trying even when things don't go her way, has an astounding vocabulary, and generally knocks her teachers' socks off. We are not at all surprised to get such a great report, but of course we are so proud to hear what a joy she is to have in the class!

Already at home, we've observed some changes in her behavior that definitely come from her time at school. She has assumed full independence for getting dressed in the morning: going into her room on her own, choosing her clothes out of the drawers, putting away her pjs, and getting dressed as independently as possible. She offers to share food as she brings it to the table. The other day, she carried a bowl of blueberries to the table, but she walked around and offered some to baby Stephanie and to Papa before setting it down and getting into her seat. In the past two days, she has started emptying the dishwasher, particularly the utensils. Outside the home, her sociability has increased dramatically. When we are out and about, it has been her norm to shy away from strangers, even other children. Since she started school, she asks other children their names, how they are doing, etc. When we parted from friends after ballet class yesterday, she waved good-bye and shouted, "Have a good week! We'll see you next time!"

The best was yesterday afternoon when I picked her up from school. I always arrive a bit early, when the kids are out on the playground. She always sees me coming and runs over to give me a huge warm hug. Kids cannot be dismissed early, so she typically waits with me and baby Stephanie, snuggling both of us over and over in raptures that we came back. Yesterday afternoon, she came running as soon as she saw us walking through the gate, as usual. She threw herself at my legs, wrapping me in a huge hug and giving me a wonderful loving smile. I told her I was going to sit down and wait for the bell, and she said she would be over there playing with her friends under the tree...and off she went!

This is only week 3, but we know this school is the right choice and the best place for her. We are so proud of our smart, strong, growing girl, and we can hardly wait to see what she will do next!

First Day!

To alleviate any suspense...Princess Ellie's first day of school went extraordinarily well!

After I posted last night, I went into the living room where Markus was working, and I started to cry. The typical Mom thing: my girl would be starting school, a first sure sign that she is growing up...and will grow away from me. Although I have been ready for her to go to Montessori for ages, although I know she will thrive there, although although although...I didn't want her to go! I became oh-so-distressed. Thankfully, it happened at a time when she couldn't see me. I worked it out of my system last night, so this morning was smooth sailing. She did try a stealthy get-out-of-it move in the car on the way to school when she announced matter-of-factly that she was very tired, so we must turn the car around and go straight home where Ellie can take a nap. It was an admirable attempt, given that she hasn't napped in days and knows I crave her naptime...but I didn't buy it. On we went.

For our first day, we were asked to arrive an hour later than the usual time so the teacher could have settled the others well before Ellie arrived so she could focus more on helping the new child adjust. We checked in at the office and made our way to her class. We passed lots of children her age doing a variety of fun activities, but she didn't notice because she was trying to become permanently imbedded in the back of my skirt. She hadn't peeked out at all even by the time I stopped at her class and began talking to her teacher. We had been asked to bring photos of Ellie for a timeline, one photo for each year of her life. As I passed those to her teacher, Ellie's interest was piqued. She came out from hiding to look at the photos, and that allowed her to see that many of the children in her class were snacking. SNACKS! Why didn't I say so? Well, she was fine after that. She got right to the business of taking out her lunchbox and trying to get at the contents. I took the opportunity to run away, and she didn't notice me leave. After snacking heartily, she spent a long time cutting paper with scissors, a much beloved activity which is too rarely facilitated at home. I think these two starter activities were enough to cement a good first impression: Ellie likes school.

I returned early to pick her up so I could chat with her teacher while the kids were on the playground. This first day was called a "readiness visit" to assess if Ellie would be ready to start on a daily basis. Her teacher emphatically informed me that "she is ready. She is so very very ready!" Ellie apparently did very well. As expected, the structure of the Montessori classroom appeals to her greatly, and she fit right into the mold. She even made friends with an older girl (the class is mixed ages 3-6), who taught her a few new materials. The only point that was hard was mid-way through the morning when they read a story as a class. After that, Ellie looked around and became distressed that I wasn't there. In Holland, school was done for the day after the story, so I guess that old programming kicked in and she expected me to come get her. There were many tears when she realized that wouldn't happen, but then she bounced back and did fine.

When the kids returned from the playground and she saw me, her eyes welled up with tears and so did mine. She was so overwhelmed...but she was happy. I felt the same way.
My girl is growing up.
I am so proud of her.

Big news

I have been wanting to post about our doings over the past weekend, and I have some wonderful pictures to share...but first I must interrupt for an important news bulletin: Ellie starts school tomorrow! You may or may not remember the saga we had with schools when we arrived here six months ago. Every school and preschool and daycare and even playgroup has a waiting list, as the population has recently boomed out of proportion here around Perth. I have wanted Ellie to go to a Montessori preschool since before she was born, but it was looking quite unlikely when we started making inquiries. I applied to four Montessori schools and was put on four waiting lists. Then, magically, four spots were offered to us! Her mama's Montessori background opened all doors! We could take our pick, and we chose the Montessori school closest to our home. It's also the most philosophically grounded in the Montessori method (almost obsessively so). We were told she could start the next week...and that was in November. Then that got pushed back until after summer break. Remember, we are Down Under, so summer break like we have in the US happens over Christmas holidays here. School was out from mid-December until late January. Classes resumed a few weeks ago, but new students are brought in after the returning students settle back into routine. On Tuesday, I went in alone to observe Ellie's new class and her teacher. The school requires the observations to acquaint parents with the Montessori system, but I was happy to acquaint myself with the faces Ellie will be seeing daily from here on out. Her teacher is a lovely, soft-spoken, friendly woman from (just to show how interlinked life gets once you start living abroad) Nigeria. I am so happy Ellie will have a wonderful role model of a different race, because the Western Suburbs of Perth are some kind of white people Twilight Zone the likes of which I haven't experienced since living in New England. Ellie will go to school five half-days a week until she's old enough and ready to stay for full days. This is a Montessori school (not just preschool), so it carries on until middle school. Once she's in, she's in.
There have been too many administrative debacles (that I won't whine about here) for us to feel confident about staying with the school at the moment, but we're hopeful these issues will melt away once Ellie gets going in the system. After my observation on Tuesday, I was so excited for her to get started! She wants to learn! She wants to be around other children. She wants to try and do new things, every day. She wants to be challenged and engaged. This school will give her those opportunities at a time when baby Stephanie is demanding more and more of my time and attention as well. We expect the next few weeks to be tough as we go through the transition (she'll be exhausted every day!), but we are happy to get going with this new phase of her life! Ellie will be starting school! Amazing.

Frustrating

Ellie is a smart, inquisitive, interested child. She wants to know. She wants to do. She wants to work. She wants to learn. I would like to place her in a Montessori school, as I am a huge fan of that philosophy for children under 6. Unfortunately, so is every other new arrival in Perth, not to mention the people already living here. Every school I contact has a waiting list a mile long, and some have told me flat out not to bother (and yes, two of them have been quite rude about it). So I've looked at some alternative educational models (not really wanting a standard public school and definitely not standard day care), and I've had no better luck. I want the best for her, and I just can't seem to get it or even get close to it because of the timing of our arrival (about a month too late for next year's intake lists). This is very frustrating! Please keep your fingers crossed that something good will work out. Massive waiting lists for preschools! This is madness.

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

This poem summed up my week last week far better than I could have. I meant to post it last Thursday, the toughest day of all. Last Thursday was day four of incessant cold nasty drizzle. Our spirits were low. None of us had been sleeping well (or much at all, given frequent night wakings of both resident munchkins). And then on the way to school, we had not one but two near-miss accidents with some very aggressive and inattentive drivers, leaving Jennifer shaky and completely frazzled. Home again, I worked all evening to prepare homemade teacher gifts for Ellie's last day of school...only to throw out all of the results as completely unsatisfactory. I even had to toss a chocolate cake I made to console myself because it was way too sugary. I was overworked, overtired, and over-stressed. Millay's "First Fig" seemed rather fitting that day.

This week, we're bouncing back (we always do!). Ellie's last day of school was actually somewhat of a blessing. Though we were very happy with her school, the commute was rather tiresome. Out of the 2.5 hours she spent there, I spent over an hour in the car to and fro, leaving little productive time in between. Frequent talk of school ending for summer holidays made Ellie stressed. She started having trouble parting in the morning, would cry and cling as she had never done before, and she would wake up in the night with bad dreams (unrelated to school in content, but I think related to the changes and worry). The last day was the hardest. Both classes joined up for a party, and she didn't seem to know how to handle the big change of so many kids and teachers in one room. Fortunately, she adored two of her teachers, and they saw her through. Marie, the head teacher for her class, was a great blessing, and we are so thankful Ellie was in her class. She understood Ellie quite well and encouraged her in all the right ways. We know Ellie will miss her.


The other teacher Ellie adored is Sara. Luckily for us, we may be seeing Sara sometime soon. She gave us her email address on the last day with the offer to come play with Ellie anytime. She "loves her too much not to see her anymore", so hooray for us! We are going on a little holiday ourselves this week, but I'm sure we'll be urging Sara for a visit when we return next week!

Although she doesn't really understand that school is done for the summer, Ellie does seem content in the home routine again. Today we were raw-ther fabulous and went out to a cafe for a morning treat. Ellie decided she must wear her princess dress this morning (thank you, Mimi!). After an errand on the bakfiets, we stopped at our favorite local cafe for a croissant and a drink. At first, Ellie ordered a glass of milk (yes, dah-lings, she orders for herself!), but then she decided to take it to the next level and go for the kinder-chino (frothy milk in an espresso cup). Don't you know she even drank with her pinkie in the air. We were feeling rather posh and fabulous, let me tell you! I must have taken 20 pictures of her in that cafe. I was too tickled. She was very proper. I think she's taking "Fancy Nancy" (another fabulous Mimi treat!) to heart.


Stephanie snoozed the whole time. One must have priorities.



This evening, we will be packing our bags for a few days away in Berlin! I am so excited! It has taken years to wear Markus down enough for a holiday in Germany. Just because he's seen it doesn't mean I can't! I am really looking forward to all Berlin has to offer. Even if we have to keep it quite real for the kiddos, I'm even excited to visit the famous Berlin Zoo. I think the time away will do us all some good! This ridiculous move limbo is driving us crazy. It will be nice to take a holiday and forget about it for a while. We'll be back on Sunday, so look for some vacation information (and of course, numerous photos) then!

School days

I've been meaning to do an update about Ellie's school, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Thank you, Azure, for reminding me!

Ellie LOVES her school! We couldn't be happier with it. I was very apprehensive about sending her because we found out about its availability pretty much at the same time she started, so I hadn't prepared her or myself for the change in routine. However, as I wrote in the first post about it, I had an great impression from the start and I'm thrilled to say that impression has held. The school is excellently run. The teachers are kind and compassionate. The order of the classroom is amazing. The theme for this session is "family", and their group talk time discussions and craft projects all center on the theme. Their classroom crafts are displayed until the end of the session, and then the teachers gather them into binders which get sent home after the school year. They also work on phonics, colors, counting, shapes...(actually, all stuff Ellie knows, but she does have a teacher mama). They have a lovely routine (which is fabulous for Ellie because she really likes knowing what to expect) which allows for a lot of freedom of choice for the children (again fabulous for Miss Strong-Willed, Independent Wonder). Ellie really likes her teachers, especially Miss Marie, the head teacher in her class. Ellie paints a picture every day, and we have quite an extensive collection of her artwork already. Initially I had hoped to display her artwork as she created it, but since we have a daily painting, I may just have to take photos of each and display them in weekly or even monthly units. She is very matter-of-fact about her art. How so? On the first day, when she completed her painting, Sarah (one of the assistants) was taking it off the easel and asked Ellie to tell her what she painted. Ellie looked at her long and hard, took a deep breath and said, "Blue. Green. Red."
Well, obviously.

The school is concerned with legal issues of parents taking clear photos with other children in them and circulating such photos, so I haven't been able to capture school days as I would like to. I did get this one shot of her classroom through the window when I picked her up a few weeks ago, just so we could share the basic layout of the class (it's so nice they have so much space and light!), and of course, there's a shot of the super-happy critter at the end of her busy morning being dismissed by her favorite teacher, Marie.




School is only 2.5 hours three times a week, but we're so happy she enjoys it so much!

It was to be expected

Now that Ellie has happily settled into her new playgroup, she brought home new friends on Friday: germs. Like it or not, little kids are little disease mongers, and she's brought home a cold that someone thoughtfully shared at school this week. She was quite teary during the car ride home Friday, which gave me my suspicions. 24 hours later, she looks miserable and can't breathe through her nose. Of course, she wants the pacifier for comfort, which really makes breathing a challenge. This leads her to "snarking" (my word, because that's the noise she makes when she tries to suck up air through her nose and gets snot instead). I've said "poor little girl" so many times today that it has become her pity mantra (usually every time she snarks). Darn it if we don't think she's crazy adorable despite her germy state.

Whew!

In the recent past when I've lapsed between posts, it's been largely because there hasn't been much going on. Not so these past two weeks! We have been busy busy busy (and tired tired tired), so the blog has fallen to the wayside. I thought I'd grab this opportunity to catch you up on the latest goings-on.

The biggest change we've seen in the past two weeks is Ellie has started playgroup. In Holland, it's common for children of preschool age to attend playgroup, which is a sort-of preschool program that only lasts 2.5 hours each day. I have been looking into playgroups for Ellie in The Hague, and she was/is on waiting lists for three. The waiting lists are atrocious here, and I wasn't expecting much to come of it, which didn't bother me much because I'm excessively picky about where she would go and wasn't overly excited about anything I'd seen. An added struggle is that playgroups in The Hague require children to be at least two and a half years old, which happens for Ellie in March...but playgroups follow the school year and start in September. It made placement awkward. Still, we felt it was important to try. We wanted Ellie to have playgroup three days a week in the morning, especially after the baby comes so she'll have opportunities to play with other children that she can look forward to and I don't have to arrange.
Last Monday, I decided to contact a highly recommended British model playgroup in Voorburg, the next town over. I sent an inquiry email and received a call-back that afternoon with an invite to visit the following day. On Tuesday morning we went for a visit, and Ellie joined right in! After learning about the curriculum design and daily routine and seeing the environment for myself, I felt this would be a great spot for her. As it turns out, they just resumed after the holiday break and had openings immediately, only requiring children to be age 2 (smaller towns don't seem to sweat that extra 6 months). Ellie started on Thursday, and she will attend every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning.
This has been a big adjustment for both Jennifer and Ellie. I had initial big Mama guilt about sending her straight off, since I've always planned on that happening in March or April. I wasn't ready! But she was, and that's what cinched it. This was the first school (I call it that instead of playgroup) that fit all my picky picky criteria, but even better was that it seemed to fit Ellie's. She was happy there during the visit, and we decided to keep the momentum. We're happy too that this can be an established routine before the baby comes, so it's not going to be one more change for her to accept.
The adjustment for Ellie has been a bit touchy. She has never expressed unwillingness to go or claimed to be unhappy there, but she has expressed unwillingness for me to leave. I have waited until she was distracted each day and literally run away back to the car before she notices. She has been teary through smiles each day when I've picked her up, partly because it's all so new and partly because it just wears her out! This morning, though, that all changed. As soon as I'd taken off her coat, she walked off into her classroom and didn't even look back to wave good-bye. Routine established; Mama is old news.

The timing of the playgroup has been great as I've entered third trimester exhaustion. Sleeping soundly just doesn't happen anymore, though thankfully insomnia has been minimal. I've been so tired most days that I nap when Ellie naps and am a useless lump on the couch after she goes to bed (a big reason why blog-posting has fallen to the wayside). Last Wednesday night I had an unscheduled trip to the midwife at 8pm to check on some vicious Braxton-Hicks contractions. They were too irregular to be labor, but boy were they strong enough! Luckily, they subsided again and haven't returned. Baby is very busy in the belly, and we are getting close! 34 weeks this week! We got a reminder at the scheduled midwife appointment that Markus has to come with me next time so they can share all the labor/birth information with him. I can't believe that's where we are! We even started a "childbirth in Holland" course last week (one more thing on the busy schedule pile).
Although it feels like this topic should be a post of its own, I'm going to keep plugging along while I'm on a roll here. A few weeks ago, we changed midwife clinics from Bronovo hospital to a small practice called Mundo. Why? The Bronovo midwives only do hospital births, and we wanted to give ourselves the option of birthing at home. Home births are still incredibly common in Holland, and we felt if we were to try it, this would be the place. It's very safe and they have very strict eligibility requirements. If they decide at any point in my labor that we need to go to the hospital, Bronovo is only 10 minutes away at most. The nice part is I can also decide right up until the last minute if I want to birth at home or in the hospital. The midwife will just come with me if I change my mind. I like the flexibility, but I really like the idea of a home birth. If we are expected to have a normal, natural birth anyway, why go to the hospital at all, especially when they typically send mom and newborn home again after only a few hours? Once labor starts, the first requirement we have to meet is being at least 37 weeks along. Even 36 weeks and 6 days is too early and they will make me go to the hospital. Of course, there's no way of knowing when this baby will decide to make an appearance, but it's amazing to me that in less than three weeks, we could have the baby here at home if it decided to come. Wow.

Last but not least on the news front is that our water baby has finally regained her confidence in the pool and started swimming on her own this week (with the help of floaties)! When we lived in Qatar, Ellie was in the pool every day and LOVED it! Unfortunately, one awful moment in a swim class here ended all that. The instructor wanted the children to swim unassisted (excepting the floaties) to the other side of the pool. Ellie was new to the group and had never done that before, so I walked right behind her with my arms outstretched so she could touch me for confidence. When the instructor saw what I was doing, she came over and told me to step back, and without any notice, she grabbed Ellie and pushed her away from me in the water. Naturally, Ellie was terrified and began to cry. The crying lasted all that visit to the pool...and has taken MONTHS to undo. Since that moment, Ellie has been timid about the water. She clung to me like velcro in the pool and has been very nervous when it was crowded with other children. I've tried taking her at least once a week to get her reacclimated at her own pace, letting her set the speed and depth we enter the water and the duration of our stay. Sometimes it was as short as 5 minutes; other times, she lasted up to 20.
This week, she spontaneously asked to "do it by self" and paddled happily next to me for a minute or two before clinging again, though the fear seemed to be gone. I was so excited that I brought her back to the pool again two days later, and she walked right in and didn't stop for nearly 25 minutes! She swam and swam and swam, only taking a few short breaks to rest at the side of the pool or on my arm. She was so happy and proud! I wish there had been some way for me to record it on video or with a photo, because her smile was incredible! She wasn't at all interested in me guiding her or holding onto her. She is a free water baby once more!

So, yes, that's it! Whew! What a full two weeks we've had! We have plans for every day this weekend as well, and then next week it all begins again. We hope to take Ellie to the pool on Saturday morning so she can show off her new skills for Papa. If we make it (it's supposed to be rainy so the pool may be too crowded for her), we will take some pictures to share. Hope all is well on your end! Please keep the comments flowing. We enjoy hearing from friends and family!