The fun stuff and the not so fun stuff

What I enjoy with the girls

1.     I love skiing with S. Yesterday we went for our first skiing of this season. A had her first lesson today and S brushed up on what she learnt last year. We went up to the top of the Hoch Y Brig mountain with the trainer and S and I skied down, and it was just amazing. Being able to ski with S, in the sun, gliding down the mountain and looking at the beautiful snow on the mountains

2.     Ice skating with S. S got very good at this last year but after she broke her leg while ice sakting i thgouth she might not watn to do it again this year. But she’s back on her skates and enjoying it. We went twice this year, and i want to try to go as much as possible. Again a lot of fun gliding through the ice with S.

3.     Reading books to the girls. Bedtime ritual is 2 books each. If daddy is in town he reads two books to them and I read two, otherwise i read all four. They chose their own books and sometimes A chooses really baby books, but we don’t mind. Its fun to be babies again

4.     S reading a book to us. S reading has really improved and with some help she can read books now (not  novels, but simpler picture books such as Gruffalo etc). She loves to read them to A and me and we love to listen.

5.     Swimming with A. A has a red crab which she around her chest with which she can float easily. She has started kicking and moving her arms around a bit and ‘swimming’ from the middle of the pool to one side (breadth wise). She is super excited to do this and S also swims along with her. A loves to play in the baby paddle pool as well and can happily crawl along the edge, slide down the baby slide and play with her rubber  toys in the paddle pool

6.     Playing board games with the girls. We used to do this a lot before I started working but nowadays there is no time during the week, and the weekends it is either housework or some activity outside. Also need to update the board games we have-seem to be playing the same games for the last year!

7.     Ok this is not the hubby’s list but the things he enjoys doing with the girls are

a.     Showing them animals – in the last 6 months he has taken them to Zurich zoo, Hyderabad zoo and Montreux zoo, all without me. They love to see the animals with Daddy and he enjoys seeing the animals with them. They have many extinct animals books which only Daddy reads to them and they see stuff about animals on the IPad together.

b.     Drawing and painting with S. The hubby is much better at drawing and painting than me and the girls have realised this quite early. He is the go to for any request to draw a uinicorn, horse, flower etc. He quite enjoys it too and the latest project has been to teach S to draw a self portrait using some technique they learnt together from Youtube.

c.     Cooking with the girls. They often make muffins and cakes together and we need to find a children’s cookbook so they can make other stuff together as well.

d.     Science talk. The hubby loves to talk about planets, stars and other science stuff. He is much more into the Youtube stuff than me and is always showing them interesting stuff on it.

What i don’t enjoy so much

1.     The stress in the mornings. I seem to be getting up earlier everyday but we are still late for school and I am late for work. Most of the morning i seem to be shouting at the girls and getting super stressed. I’m not even enjoying the car ride to school as I’m always calculating whether I’m going to catch a particular train or not. I need to find a solution for this as it does not look like the girls are in any hurry to drink their milk, eat their breakfast etc etc

2.     A’s eating habits – She leaves most of the lunch I pack for her (though i try to give her all the things she likes) so I try to make sure she has a good breakfast and a good dinner. Breakfast is super stressed as I am always trying to rush them out of the house by 8 am. Dinner is getting worse and worse. A knows I’m desperate for her to eat something so I have to feed her, and she’s gone from sitting at her table to lying down on the sofa and waiting for me to fed her. I know I have to break this routine but I am so worried about her weight and her not eating anything.

3.     A’s sleeping habits. A still sleeps with us. She goes to sleep in her own bed, but when she waked up will cry and then i have to go and bring her to our bed. She also wants me to lie down with her or sit with her while she goes off to sleep, which nowadays is getting later and later. I put her in bed at 9:15 and she doesn’t sleep before 10! The kids take a loooong nap in school and though I’ve told the teacher many times to wake her up early i don’t think that is happening. So net net by the time I’m free to read a book/watch TV/chat with the hubby its aleady 10 pm and I’m yawning!