Bottles gone, dummies not so much

Ciara
As previously mentioned Ciara no longer gets a bottle and I'm overjoyed the time of bottle washing is nearly over*.

Unfortunately Ciara still gets her dummy when she goes to bed. We had completely weaned her off the dummy after our holiday in Turkey last year but while I was away in Houston at the end of the year she was ill and not sleeping well so got her dummy to comfort her. Since then she won't go to sleep unless she has AT LEAST 2 dummies (one in her mouth and one in her hand). She is really good about giving them to us as soon as we come in to the room to take her out the cot when her sleep is over, but is also very insistent on having her dummies as soon as she is in her cot. We even leave them in easy reach of the kids during the day and they both know where they are, however they leave them mostly alone until it's " 'leeping time".

*Thankfully both Ciara and Enya like giving and receiving cuddles so giving up bottles doesn't mean I have to give up cuddling with them in my lap, otherwise they may still have been bottlefed when they went to school!

Re the no shouting challenge

Oops forgot to update about this....

I didn't quite make it for 30 days with absolutely no shouting, but it has dramatically reduced. One thing that has become crystal clear to me in this time is that when I don't get at least 8 hours sleep at night I become very irritable and it's harder to rein the shouting back. So I'm now trying to do early nights.

THe girls on the other hand still need 12 hours overnight and are down to one nap during the day (usually around 2 hours long when the blasted neighbours don't go stamping up the stairs that goes right outside their window). I'm dreading them giving up this nap as it is right now my only chance to catch up on blogs, housework and reading.

Last but not least does anyone have a good recipe for getting kids to eat veggies- it is incredibly (and unfortunately increasingly) difficult to get Ciara to eat any veg at all and I'd love a few new ideas to play around with.

Progress

What we won't be seeing again (I hope).
Yup, Ciara has not had a bottle in 3 days and I'm going to do my utmost to ensure she doesn't get one again!! She is drinking like a champion from a cup, so long as we supervise her closely so that she doesn't get a chance to knock it across the table. Unfortunately Enya doesn't drink enough from a cup for us to get rid of her morning bottle. The 300ml of milk she drinks from her bottle is pretty much all she drinks at all, she will only take one or two sips, if at all, when a cup is offered. I can't wait to be rid of these blasted bottles forever!!

My darling oldest daughter thought she would give me a hand this morning while I was in the shower and very kindly loaded the washing machine for me.
No your eyes are not deceiving you, it is full of clean fresh disposable nappies. She then very nicely helped me by unloading the nappies again, although I had to put them away;0).

Snow chaos

From about Wedensday last week we were being warned about the low pressure system Daisy and the havoc she was going to wreak last Saturday. People were advised to stock up essentials and not to leave their houses, they even had an hour special report on TV about what was expected. Needless to say the expected snow chaos did not arrive for most of us (it did hit a few parts of northern Germany), although we did get a light dusting of snow.

The fresh snow was however very appealing, so much so that on Sunday we went for a lovely walk in the forest with friends. Our friends had a sled for their daughter that was big enough that all 3 girls could fit on so off we wandered pulling the girls behind us. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera as it was really cute (which reminds me I have to recharge the batteries), not least when the girls (one or all) fell off the sled. Enya again refused to keep her mitts on and then kept crying everytime her hands got snow on. Ciara, kept walking in the opposite direction from that we were going, if she wasn't on the sled and both girls had a meltdown at the Forest coffee house when we stopped for a bite to eat and a cup of something hot. Despite all this and the final meltdown when we got to the car and frozen fingers and feet started thawing, the day was fun and may even be repeated (someday). The final meltdown even ended quickly when I covered Enya with my coat to warm her up, and tickled her head (she's her mothers child-she loves her hair being stroked). It was really cute as both girls kept saying "tickle" everytime I attempted to stop during the drive home, so I landed up tickling both girls all the way home after our walk. Numb arms to match their numb fingers!

And the crowning moment....

was when I opened a demand for over 1200 euros in tax (pay up front tax for a consulting contract that had been cancelled- we won't need to pay it but the adrenaline hit nonetheless).

I'm going to bed now!!

one of those days...

... where you just want to go back to bed!

It started at 4:30am when I got up to take my sister to the airport (normally an hour drive away) and looked outside to see it had snowed again overnight. That in itself is not too bad but that the snowploughs hadn't been out yet was. The Autobahn (motorway) was at least ploughed (a single lane) and people were all being sensible, driving at 80-90km/h compared to the usual 140-160km/h so that was a positive.

The drive home was better as by then the ploughs had been out in force although it was still a slow drive (one and a half hours), this meant I was late getting home and due to the snow I still had to take Z into work- our second car doesn't have winter tyres. We got a call shortly after I arrived to say that my sister is sitting fast in the airport as her flight had been cancelled, she was hoping to get out on a later flight by another airline. Thankfully she had booked her flight out of London to the States for tomorrow so she still has a bit of leeway but still. I couldn't even go and take her into Cologne for the rest of the time as C and E had an appointment this morning and after it's too late. Therapy went well with C and E but after I thought I'd just pop into the shops to see if I could find winter boots for Enya. While reversing into a parking space I nudged the car behind me- no damage but I left my info with the other driver (I've also taken pictures of the other car showing there is no damage). In the stress after the accident I forgot to put the parking ticket onto the dashboard so when I returned to the car after a unsuccessful shoe shopping expedition I had a parking ticket.

On the way home the girls then fell asleep in the car despite my best efforts. As usual, as soon as I tried to get them out the car after we got home, they woke up. Enya settled right down back to sleep when I got her into bed but Ciara screamed for about an hour before finally settling down. Before anyone thinks I'm mean she was exhausted but just couldn't settle.

Z is going to have to work late tonight because he started so late this morning, but for the last few days the girls have been impossible from about 4pm as they are hungry and tired- we've been putting them down around 6pm. This means I'm going to have to drag them dressed in their PJ's and very cranky to fetch Z as we have no babysitter.

And I'm also feeling very weary after my early morning so YES I want to go back to bed!

Onward in 2010

Does everyone else have the feeling that time speeds up as you get older! I can't believe the girls are already over 2 years old and 2009 seems to have come and gone in a blink of an eye.

My sister (the american one) is here for a brief visit after visiting my folks for Christmas. She last saw C and E when they just turned one so she can't believe how mch they've grown. These first 2 years are magic as the babies change so quickly. We were looking at photos from the beginning of 2009 and Ciara in particular has changed so much. She is no longer a baby or even a toddler, she has metamorphosised (is that even a word?) into a little girl.

Enya still has a look of a toddler about her, the terminal cuteness of a toddler I mean. When we were up in Muenster the 2 boys (3 and 5 years old) kept fighting over who could sit next to Enya and who was Enya's friend- Ciara they couldn't care less about. Unfortunately they kept wanting to touch Enya or to give her a hug and so she kept running to me to get away from them (she is very cuddily with Z and I but needs time to warm up to strangers, even other kids).

Oh well, onward into 2010. May it treat us all well!!