They made it (and so did we) - Happy 1st Birthday

Charlotte and Claire celebrated their first birthday with a small party at home. Our neighbours Judy, John, and Natasha came over. Louise and Mummy made and decorated cupcakes for the occasion - Charlotte & Claire were not terribly impressed.

Louise has finally hit the terrible threes with a vengeance. She enjoys testing boundaries - "okay, Daddy said not to do x...let's see what happens when I do x!!" And after three years of being willing to eat anything, she has become rather reluctant to eat most dinner foods.

But Louise continues to surprise and delight, when she isn't pushing Mummy and Daddy's buttons. Louise studied her sisters' diaper box carefully. She counted "two babies holding sign, two babies not holding sign...one, two, three, four-five". She then noticed that the four babies were wearing only diapers, and there was a bus in the background. To the delight of the grocery checkout operator, she observed seriously, "all kids need put on clothes before they go on candy bus. That's the rule."

Busy week

What a busy week. Claire has learned to clap AND climb stairs in just one week. Charlotte is a little behind but we are happy to have just one novice stair climber to watch at a time! Louise has been busy being "lunch helper" at daycare where she makes sure all the chairs and cutlery are set out ready for lunch each day. Louise believes she is permanently "line leader" at home.

Below are a bumper lot of videos taken today with the girls showing off their new abilities and interacting with each other. Enjoy!

Three girls in a box

It has been a good week and sleeping has largely returned to normal after daylight savings last weekend. Charlotte and Claire are sporting new sun protective outfits bought for them by Granny and Pop. Yesterday was hot and sunny and they were ready for it.

Louise enjoys sitting in empty boxes and made room for her sisters to join her. They both eagerly wanted to go in and were happy for a few seconds!



















Both Charlotte and Claire are doing well standing and Claire can stand for a few seconds without any support.

Amazing

Line Leader Louise is very proud of her "big girl" abilities. After some exertion one evening, she summoned Daddy and Mummy to the potty. She pointed and said "that's SO AMAZING."

Less amazing is the hard time all three girls are having with daylight saving time. Charlotte & Claire quickly finish their pre-bed snack, either bite Mummy or start giggling, and communicate clearly in their inimitable wide-eyed and non-verbal way: "whatevs, Mummy...we're ready to play now!" Louise enjoys demonstrating what can happen when two stubborn people reproduce. From 7:20 until 8:50pm last night, she loudly, frequently, and forcefully expressed her concern that she was on the verge of expiring from hunger, and that if she didn't die, her heart was going to break if Daddy did not respond to her screams RIGHT NOW.

On Saturday morning, Mummy & Daddy will be attending a parenting class at the music factory's daycare. We're hoping that they hand out magic wands, which are guaranteed to address time change problems.

Spring fever

Last week we had beautiful Spring weather. Louise announced to her preschool class one day that she was "hot", and she spent much of the rest of the day in some state of undress. When we took our family walk in the evening, Daddy did not object to Louise being shirtless, but he DID object to her low-slung (too big) trousers and the builder chic she was sporting.

This weekend, we all went to a "Mothers of Multiples" playdate at the Museum of Life and Science. Everyone had a great time. Claire found stairs that were low enough for her to crawl up. Louise enjoyed showing her sisters off to new friends.

We also went to look at the new house (http://chezathertonv2.blogspot.com/) and met some of our future neighbours whilst playing at the local playground.

Ambitions

Louise has had a great week in her new Pre-School class (P-3) at daycare. Each week the children get a new job which is their responsibility for the week. Louise's was "door holder" and she took it very seriously, holding the door open for all the children to enter/exit their room. Next week Louise aspires to be "line leader" or "calendar helper"! Who says ambition is dead.

Charlotte was diagnosed with yet another ear infection making this the third in about 5 weeks. We will be seeing the Doctor again this coming week and will see what, if anything, can be done.

Claire is really progressing with her crawling and standing.

The video below has both Charlotte and Claire standing with Louise entertaining them. They continue to all get on well (for the most part!).