One week down!

One full week in!  Yay!!  I've had a few emails from Hubby since he's left, they are doing well, everything is on schedule as far as I know.  And they are keeping really, really busy, so that's good.

For us, it's been up and down.  Girlie has been having a rough go of it, adjusting to Daddy being gone.  A lot more tantrums, even more volatile emotions, but I can see progress being made.  All the kids have been ending up in my room with me by 6am every day so far, and I've noticed a correlation between the amount of time the girls spend in my bed and their grumpiness during the day.  I'm working even harder to get them to stay in their own room as much as possible during the night.  The boys (Smarty in particular) likes to bring his pillow and blanket and stay on the floor beside the bed to keep me company so I don't get lonely.  Sergeant will do that too if the bed is occupied by the girls.  This morning he came in before Girlie, so got to snuggle with me.  Everyone misses Daddy, but we're doing well, I think.  Overall better adjusted than the last time he was away this long.  It helps that we get to see him for a day or two in the middle before he heads off to Borden for courses.  Another benefit this time is that we've started making more connections with the people here, and so are getting more and more support.

Yesterday, while we were driving, Girlie started talking about dinosaurs.  Not that uncommon a topic in our family, but she was saying how the largest dinosaur was/is the Nautilus and it has super long sharp teeth!  "Do you know how big they are, Mommy?  100 meteors!  Almost as big as my pinky!"  Now for those who know what a Nautilus is, you know that they are not huge, they are a cephalopod that has been around since the dinosaurs (at least that's what I remember.  You can read about them here).  She is such a funny girl!

Girlie and Monkey have been playing puppy a lot this week, with Monkey being the puppy.  I keep hearing "Come on, Jemimia!  You're such a cutie!" (we have friends who's dog is named Jemima) So Monkey goes around on her hands and knees, licking everything!  I really wish she would understand when I tell her that her tongue shouldn't be licking what she's licking!  Building her immune system, right?

I am so excited about the boys' reading!  Sergeant has been starting to pick up chapter books, and I love watching them sit, learn, and explore other worlds, other realities.  We've done painting (kept Girlie's attention better than anyone else's!) and posters have been drawn and coloured.

I've been getting the boys to do more around the house too.  Dishes, sweeping, putting laundry away, giving them a task and just letting them do it is so satisfying, especially when they do a great job at it!  We had a super lazy week last week, I couldn't seem to get my nose out of a book or three, so we had to catch up on Saturday.  When I let them know what was going to happen and the time frame it needed to happen in, they were more than competent at getting it all done.  With minimal fighting too!

We have another rain fall warning on for tomorrow, so today we're going to prepare.  New boots for some, new splash pants for others, another umbrella or two.  Our stereo died Saturday so I'll be finding a replacement for it today too.  I'm so old fashioned, I'm still using CD's and I know it's going to be more and more difficult to find one that plays them.  I'm up for the challenge, though!