Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Good week

It has been a good week so far. We've had two days where all five Athertons sat at the table, ate dinner, and conversed for at least 5 consecutive minutes.

Louise continues to use her very best listening ears (pink) at swim lessons and seems to be picking things up well, having fun, and making friends (picture below).

Claire has come up with a new game to play with Mummy: "Sneaky Goose." It consists of sneaking up on someone (with varying levels of stealth) and kissing and tickling them. Lots of fun for all players!

Charlotte is also getting better with the idea of sharing. "Mine and Louise's," she'll say, holding one of Louise's things away from Claire. We think she's learning from Louise's example. Not even Michelle Bachmann would call Louise a Socialist, but the majority of the time when her sisters pick up one of her things, she'll say, "That's mine. But it's okay, Mummy - she can play with it."

Louise is very excited by the prospect of a Sleep Over at Katie's. On Saturday, the whole family will head south to Morrisville. We'll swim in Katie's neighborhood pool, eat pizza, and kiss Louise goodbye before four of us return home. Louise says she will sleep: "I'll pretend to be an animal so I can sleep." Pretending to be a polar bear usually works well.





Thursday, August 18, 2011

New friend

Louise confided to Mummy yesterday afternoon, "I played with Skippyjon Jones today. He's my new friend. No, he's not a cat - he's a boy. We played hide and seek - he's really good at hide-and-seek. He's better than me. He's in my class, and he's 17. Don't tell Ms. Crystal (her teacher)!" Don't tell Ms. Crystal what? "She can't see him. Only I can see him." She blushed.

Charlotte can only handle two names. A teacher at daycare calls her "Crumbs", and she'll answer to that name. This morning, she permitted us to put her hair in ponytails. With perfect objectivity, Mummy decided Charlotte was one of the cutest girls in the world. Are you spunky? Mummy asked Charlotte. "No," Charlotte replied seriously, mildly offended. "I'm Crumbs."