Greetings

Sophie went on her first sleepover last weekend. She is out of nappies at night. She has stopped napping in the daytime. Charlie is almost crawling, he just drags himself across the floor on his arms - pretty effective, he gets around fast. He is now finally going all night with no milk (took a while as he had lots of colds = lots of waking at night in the past couple of months). He is asleep by 7pm, Sophie by 8pm. What is it again that we used to do with our evenings??

Today was the playgroup Christmas party. Lots of bad-for-you-and-your-teeth food for the kids and Prosecco for the grown-ups. Sophie said “Santa sounds like Daddy”. After Santa said goodbye, Ryan turned up. Sophie told him Santa “was funny, just like you”. Made Ryan’s day.

A great weekend of sledding. Saturday, I went with Sophie to a hill just a short walk away. We had lots of fun. We got back and Ryan was just about to skype Josh, so we all got to see him, yay. Can’t believe he’s moving back to Fairbanks….another draw for us. By then it was already dark so we wrapped up warm and took the tram into town to see the Christmas lights and Christmas markets. Soph was great and we all enjoyed it (especially the gluhwein). Sunday, Ryan and Sophie took the Rigiblick tram up to our local Zuriberg hills with Bea and Chris, and had a fun afternoon of sledding, followed by candle-dipping at one of the local community centers.

Has been amazing. Even though he has a bit of a cold, he’s been great. He’ll lie on his playmat playing all on his own (Soph never did), will smile and giggle, and actually takes good naps in the daytime (again, Sophie never did this). The downside is that he is not so good at night as Sophie was…but things are getting better. The two nights after Ryan and Soph left were pretty bad, lots of coughing and some crying and not much sleeping - but the last couple of nights have been better. Last night he slept from 7 to 11, then after a quick feed slept again until 5, then was awake a while but slept again from 6.30 to 8am. I think coughing wakes him up, so maybe after his cold is gone he’ll do even better. He now goes off to sleep on his own instead of falling asleep while nursing or with a pacifier/dummy. No more pacifier at night, great! Sounds like Sophie is also FINALLY giving up this habit while in the US. Had a couple of fun skypes with Ryan and Sophie - she is amazing, so much energy. Ryan has jet-lag and is sick (not surprising given the lack of sleep before the trip, low-level colds that we all have, a 10 hour flight with a 3 year old and jet-lag), but Sophie just keeps going and going like a little energizer bunny. She’s having a lot of fun with Erin, which is good because that means Ryan has been able to get some sleep.

Dad helped so much. With Charlie in the mornings so I could get some work done, entertaining Sophie so I could cook dinner in peace, taking Soph to Kikri in the mornings. He looked after Charlie while I took Soph to an eye doctor on Monday - she has a wonky eye that we were a bit worried about. The doc said it’s an astigmatism in the left eye, which then mean she uses the right eye more and the left eye becomes lazy. He gave her a prescription for glasses which she will wear for a couple of months then they will re-assess. Thursday we carved turnips at Kikri ready for Rabeliechtli Umzug (see last years post). Friday was the event itself - we met in a park with our turnip lanterns, Ryan and some other Dad’s provided the music, the kids and parents sang, then back to Kikri for pumpkin soup and other goodies to eat and drink. Home very late (Soph did not want to leave), then up early the next morning to the airport to say goodbye to Soph and Ryan who were off to the US. Charlie and I had a nice (quiet without Sophie) weekend with Dad, who left Monday morning. Thank you, Dad, for all your help. Now it’s just Charlie and me.