Brrrr its cold

It's minus 15 degrees celsius as I write this. Helps that it's night time and i can snuggle in my bed. But it's not that better during the day. Today morning when i stepped out to drop the kids to school it was minus 11 degrees. I couldn't feel my nose when i was walking. And if you take your gloves off for even 5 seconds, you're hands get frozen immediately and turn red.

S loves the cold and the snow. She's ever eager to make snowballs, run around in the snow, do sledding etc. A finds it too cold. She gets irritated with her gloves and then finds it too cold to be outside. I've taught her to put her hands in her jacket pocket to avoid the cold, and I think she's internalised this pretty well. Today afternoon when i woke her up from her afternoon nap, she was trying to put her hands inside her shirt in her sleep, saying 'hands in pocket'.

The morning drop off to school is tiring. The car is parked outside and gets covered in snow. It takes me ten minutes to bundle the kids up, carry A to the car (it's slippery in the ice), put them in, scrape the snow off the car, and run the heater for 5 mins before the windscreen is clear enough for me to drive. Tuesdays and Thursdays are especially bad as I have to drop S to the main school where the car park is a 350 m walk from the school building and A finds it really cold to be out and about so early in the morning. Still there are younger kids braving it out so I should not complain.

The city is beautiful in the snow. Everything is covered in white and looks so serene and pretty. On the days the sun comes out is radiates off the snow and everything looks spectacular. I can't say I'm enjoying the cold, but its not as bad as I'd expected. We're planning to go tomorrow and buy a sled for S so that she can enjoy the snow more while it lasts.

Till then, back to my yummy hot chocolate..

Jan update on New Years resolutions

So here's the January update on my resolutions

1. Spend at least 1 hour quality time with the kids daily : This is going well. I try to do at least 1/2 hour to 45 mins activity with S daily, and play in the toyroom for another 15 mins. I include the Thursday playgroup, and Friday swimming in this, and from tomorrow S starts ballet on Saturdays so that will also be included. It helped that the hubby was away for 2 weeks- i didn't spend much time cooking or on the dishes, so got more time to spend with the kids. For the last few days I've also stopped TV at night- i realised it was getting a bit too much- 45 mins in the afternoon and another 1/2 hour at night, and S was taking longer and longer to eat just watchignt eh idiot box. So at night i read a book to A and feed her and S eats by herself, usually while looking at a book. 2. Exercise at least 4 times a week. Sigh, this is not going so well. Combination of things. With the hubby away, I've not been able to

take time off in the weekends to exercise, and last few weeks have

been busier than usual what with trying to organise S birthday party, do a coffee morning for parents at school. take full advantage of the winter sale in the shops. It's down to 3 times a week. The only positive is that I'm upto 5 km in 36 mins .

3. Read at least 1 book a month. This is going well. This month I've managed to read (ok i have another 50 pages left but it's a 600+ page book) "The Corrections" by Jonathon Franzen for the book club. Good idea to join the book club, at least there is some pressure to finish a book, so when i have 1/2 hour at night i take up the book instead of watching TV or surfing the net. The book is interesting, the first 50 pages were tedious, but the rest has been well paced and well written. 4. Try to sleep by 11:30 every night, and get the kids to bed by a reasonable time. This is going TERRIBLY. The last two weeks I've been taking the kids out a lot during the day to make up for not having their daddy home in the evenings. We've been visiting S' friend who lives close to us and going sledding with her, going to the zooligical musuem at the university, going to the Zoo, going to a friend's place for dinner, and their schedule has gone haywire. They are taking their afternoon nap as late as 4 in the afternoon and not able to sleep before 11 at night. This means they are awfully tired for school the next day and again have to take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon. Have to change this quickly. Also if they sleep only at 11, then after finishing the household work, if i read/surf the net for an hour i end up sleeping only at 1. Yawn yawn. I also end up napping the afternoon now. 5. Cook one new dish a week. This is going well. So far I made three new dishes this month. Carrot kosambri- grated carrot sabzi basically. And dhoodhi and channa dal sanzi, and soya bean curry. I also managed to bake a half decent set of brownies (with a mix though). So that's the update this month.