January 2012

Hi Georgie,

I haven't taken many pictures of you guys this month - no particular reason, I guess I have felt like we all dash about so much there are very few opportunities to take a picture of a little girl who rarely sits still (even while watching tv!)

You are still developing and hoarding your skills base - your swimming has been coming on really well and you're back stroke in particular seems very strong - you steam across the pool on your back in a way that kind of takes me aback, although about two feet from the side of the pool you almost always stop and check that you aren't about to bash your head - I get it, but maybe you can learn to reach for the side with a hand?? :-D I wish I could take pictures of you at swimming but it's getting increasingly hard to take a picture at any swimming pool, and at your lessons it's explicitly forbidden (a world gone mad!)

Your reading is also impressing me - not just because you are actually reading words now but because you seem to want to read so much. I have to admit that I find this very pleasing because I remeber my own thirst to read (even when my teacher didn't want to teach me to read yet - things were a bit different then!) She held up this book to me and said 'What does that say?' I remember thinking, 'I'm asking you to teach me to read and you ask me what something says?! Do you not understand the question?!' I said, 'I don't know. But I want to know' and she said 'It says 'Red' - if you can't read the word red, you're not ready yet.' I remember thinking that was plain dumb, but I must have convinced her eventually because here I am, reading and writing. I often hear you sounding out the words on road signs, on tv, or as you try to write captions for your pictures.



Your art work has also recently become more representative of what you purport it to be - I know that sounds like I'm really unimaginative (I guess maybe I am!) but the upside of this new surge in realism is that now when you say 'Guess what it is!' I can more often oblige you with an accurate guess rather than either admit that I don't know, or say something evasive (yet hopefully encouraging) like ' Wow! I love all the wiggley lines, why don't you tell me about it!' and then hope for some clues!



We recently started using the Wii and its Just Dance game, which has caused a lot of hilarity in the house. You both love a good dance - it's just we probably need A LOT more space or someone's going to get hurt!

Your ipod stopped working a while ago, I can't rememer exactly when, but this was the result of several months of your messing with it, pouring water on or near it etc. and so we decided that you will have to get along without music at night. We may get you another one for your birthday, but we felt it was really important that you understand that if you break something expensive, something that was given to you as a privilege, that it not be immediately replaced if it is abused by you. I was braced for a lot of fuss but actually after a day or so you seemed to accept it and you haven't complained about its absence once.

We did notice however that you have been staying up really late and playing and reading (there's was a bed side table lamp on in her room because she was scared of the dark and the night light was apparently not light enough). We axed the lamp too, in an effort to get you to sleep earlier (you have been hell to get up in the mornings, have been crying all the way to and from school, seemingly purely out of fatigue), and that also went surprisingly well.

I go through periods of being totally unable to tolerate behaviour from you and your sister that is ordinarily admittedly annoying but not the end of the world - I have a few hours every day where all I feel is overwhelmingly tired, which when pushed turns into uncontainable irritation. I think it's pregnancy related - that is not an excuse. I do apologise and explain and I think you get it, but I am trying to maintain a grip on my emotions, despite the galloping hormones. Bear with me xxx

So that's January - back to school, it's cold, it's a bit dark but we're still here, and all is well! I'll try to take more pictures in February.

Love you Porgia,

from your Mama xxx



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http://minkbabydotcom.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-2012.html

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