Well, we are only a little over a week into February and this month already feels really long. But I also have so much to say and update!
I guess it helps that during these couple of months, I was already somewhat mentally prepared to feel cooped up and not have many places to go, given the arrival of the twins. Having been through this once before, I had braced myself to be ready to feed, feed, and feed in a non-ending 3-hour cycle for the first couple of months or so. And we certainly didn't have any travel plans, so in many ways our lives haven't really changed as a result of this coronavirus epidemic. But in other ways, it has impacted our lives quite a bit, most notably in how all of Lola's activities have been suspended and everyone is paranoid about virus particles, obtaining masks and supplies.
The latest craze is that all shops are out of toilet paper. Apparently there was a rumor that factories that made toilet paper were being repurposed to make masks in order to meet the overwhelming demand - leading to people here purchasing tissues and toilet paper in a frenzy. Rice is also continually out of stock. People are queuing up overnight in desperate attempts to get their hands on masks, and often the prices for these masks have quadrupled. It makes me wonder if the panic buying and frenzy will cause more problems than the virus itself, at least in the short term. I read some pretty discouraging news articles about how the elderly and poor are steaming and reusing their masks and alternating sides because they don't have enough, never mind that it completely defeats the point of a face mask.
Speaking of toilet paper though, we have a very exciting development on the toilet training front! Lola has pretty consistently been peeing on the potty these past two weeks - after months and months of cajoling and unabashed bribery, when it finally happened, it happened pretty quickly. She has graduated to big girl underwear and we could not be more proud! She now ventures out without a diaper and only wears one overnight. Her mishaps are very few and far in between. During one of her afternoon naps this past week, she woke up and cried out, "Oh! I dreamt I was swimming! I'm all wet!" Which we thought was the cutest thing ever but if she reads this one day she will probably not be so happy about my posting this.
I continue to stress about Lola's lack of structured school and extracurricular activities, but I'm also trying to remember that a slower and more open ended approach to play is not necessarily a bad thing for Lola. I don't want to structure her activities in such a hyper vigilant way that she does not know how to be comfortable with her imagination. I've noticed in the past two or three months that she loves to play with her dolls and have conversations, and she can while away hours doing that. So while I loathe that I've dumped thousands of dollars into activities that are currently not functioning, I'm also trying to encourage her uninterrupted play and not rush her.
Lola continues to pick up all kinds of phrases and deploy them at just the most opportune times, leaving us reeling in laughter or succumbing to her charming wiles. We try to give her time warnings when she's playing so she knows she only has "five minutes" or "two minutes" or "one minute," which inevitably ends up being longer than that in actuality. She negotiates with us now, so that if we say one minute she will say two minutes, or if we say two minutes she will say four or five.
Because we constantly advise her to "be patient," when she was at the club with Michael and he tried to follow her onto the rope bridge, she turned around and admonished him, "Be patient daddy!" When Michael tries to do ballet with her and he turns improperly or isn't flexible enough to "smell your feet" or "touch your toes" she will say, "It's like thiiiis, daddy!" or when I try to sing a song and my lyrics are wrong or it's not the song she wants she will say, "No, no, it's like thiiiiis, mommy!" If we do something wrong or deliberately try to avoid doing something that she wants, she will say "You forget!" and correct us.
We continue to struggle with the one challenge we never quite managed to conquer - Lola's sleep. It still takes her up to an hour to fall asleep sometimes, and sometimes longer, for her afternoon nap and for her bedtime. We are trying to get her to fall asleep by herself, because with two little babies it's impossible to spare an hour and a half sitting in her bedroom trying to coax her to sleep. On one of the first nights when we were trying to train her to sleep by herself, Lola was throwing such a temper tantrum that Michael warned that Jovie would go away if Lola kept this up. He said she was furious and turned on him angrily and said, "No, YOU go away Daddy!"
This afternoon Lola was playing with her doll and in the cutest imitation ever, insisted that she would get onto my rocking chair so that she could "feed the baby."
Al and Teo are growing every day. They are six weeks old today!
Al and Teo:
I also managed to get some cute pictures of Lola and Teo hanging out on my bed. How sweet is this!
I told her to give Teo a kiss and she very sweetly obliged:
I guess it helps that during these couple of months, I was already somewhat mentally prepared to feel cooped up and not have many places to go, given the arrival of the twins. Having been through this once before, I had braced myself to be ready to feed, feed, and feed in a non-ending 3-hour cycle for the first couple of months or so. And we certainly didn't have any travel plans, so in many ways our lives haven't really changed as a result of this coronavirus epidemic. But in other ways, it has impacted our lives quite a bit, most notably in how all of Lola's activities have been suspended and everyone is paranoid about virus particles, obtaining masks and supplies.
The latest craze is that all shops are out of toilet paper. Apparently there was a rumor that factories that made toilet paper were being repurposed to make masks in order to meet the overwhelming demand - leading to people here purchasing tissues and toilet paper in a frenzy. Rice is also continually out of stock. People are queuing up overnight in desperate attempts to get their hands on masks, and often the prices for these masks have quadrupled. It makes me wonder if the panic buying and frenzy will cause more problems than the virus itself, at least in the short term. I read some pretty discouraging news articles about how the elderly and poor are steaming and reusing their masks and alternating sides because they don't have enough, never mind that it completely defeats the point of a face mask.
Speaking of toilet paper though, we have a very exciting development on the toilet training front! Lola has pretty consistently been peeing on the potty these past two weeks - after months and months of cajoling and unabashed bribery, when it finally happened, it happened pretty quickly. She has graduated to big girl underwear and we could not be more proud! She now ventures out without a diaper and only wears one overnight. Her mishaps are very few and far in between. During one of her afternoon naps this past week, she woke up and cried out, "Oh! I dreamt I was swimming! I'm all wet!" Which we thought was the cutest thing ever but if she reads this one day she will probably not be so happy about my posting this.
I continue to stress about Lola's lack of structured school and extracurricular activities, but I'm also trying to remember that a slower and more open ended approach to play is not necessarily a bad thing for Lola. I don't want to structure her activities in such a hyper vigilant way that she does not know how to be comfortable with her imagination. I've noticed in the past two or three months that she loves to play with her dolls and have conversations, and she can while away hours doing that. So while I loathe that I've dumped thousands of dollars into activities that are currently not functioning, I'm also trying to encourage her uninterrupted play and not rush her.
Lola continues to pick up all kinds of phrases and deploy them at just the most opportune times, leaving us reeling in laughter or succumbing to her charming wiles. We try to give her time warnings when she's playing so she knows she only has "five minutes" or "two minutes" or "one minute," which inevitably ends up being longer than that in actuality. She negotiates with us now, so that if we say one minute she will say two minutes, or if we say two minutes she will say four or five.
Because we constantly advise her to "be patient," when she was at the club with Michael and he tried to follow her onto the rope bridge, she turned around and admonished him, "Be patient daddy!" When Michael tries to do ballet with her and he turns improperly or isn't flexible enough to "smell your feet" or "touch your toes" she will say, "It's like thiiiis, daddy!" or when I try to sing a song and my lyrics are wrong or it's not the song she wants she will say, "No, no, it's like thiiiiis, mommy!" If we do something wrong or deliberately try to avoid doing something that she wants, she will say "You forget!" and correct us.
We continue to struggle with the one challenge we never quite managed to conquer - Lola's sleep. It still takes her up to an hour to fall asleep sometimes, and sometimes longer, for her afternoon nap and for her bedtime. We are trying to get her to fall asleep by herself, because with two little babies it's impossible to spare an hour and a half sitting in her bedroom trying to coax her to sleep. On one of the first nights when we were trying to train her to sleep by herself, Lola was throwing such a temper tantrum that Michael warned that Jovie would go away if Lola kept this up. He said she was furious and turned on him angrily and said, "No, YOU go away Daddy!"
This afternoon Lola was playing with her doll and in the cutest imitation ever, insisted that she would get onto my rocking chair so that she could "feed the baby."
Then she proceeded to "feed" the baby by putting her mouth to the baby's mouth and "sipping". Ha ha!
Al and Teo:
I also managed to get some cute pictures of Lola and Teo hanging out on my bed. How sweet is this!
I told her to give Teo a kiss and she very sweetly obliged:
I have the opposite- twins, then singleton (now ages 5,5,3)! In my experience, free play is a great thing for kids Lola's age. Sometimes we set up toy rotations or "reading time", building time, playdoh time, coloring time, etc. to help give the day some structure, but overall, my kids have been with a nanny at our house without officially structured activities at least 3 days a week most of their lives! But, I totally understand the frustration of paying for services you didn't get. Any chance they will refund the time the schools are closed?
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