Autumn holiday

This is a long overdue post. I've been trying to post it for three days already so it is a bit outdated, but since it is finally done I'll post it anyway.

We've had a veeery loong weekend. Andrei was at home on holiday on Thursday and Friday, so I decided to keep Ana at home too. I was envisioning all kinds of instructive, creative and fun activities for the three of us. I was going to be a stay at home mom for those four days with a big plan for playing, learning and cooking with kids. But all these good intentions went out the window when I decided I could also tackle the laundry, here and there, in the mean time. I guess you could say in the end that I have chosen the laundry over the kids. How lame am I? And it is a battle I keep losing. No, not just a battle, a war. The laundry always wins.

But we killed the boredom of four days at home with some good ol' jumping on the sofa cushions,

some cooking,



and some secret messages decoding as part of an imaginary game Andrei and I are playing. It is a little bit of story telling, a little bit of dreaming while learning on the way. In the game I am Donald Duck and he is a little hamster (his idea) living in my pocket. Together, we are on an epic journey with lots of challenges and obstacles that can be overcome by solving different math problems or deciphering messages encoded with the Bionicle alphabet or a simple Cesar code.

We have now completed the first level of the game and go to level two although Andrei seems to lose interest. I have to come up with some new stuff. Any suggestion?

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Last night I went to bed at 1 a.m. and today I had to travel to work (two hours commute), so woke up at 5:30. But around 4 a.m. Ana woke-up crying so we set together in the Poang and rocked until she went back to sleep. This is something very dear to me. Ever since I was pregnant with her I've wanted a rocking chair for the two of us. We didn't get one, but Poang does a decent job. Ana and I have spent many hours in it rocking. And last night as I was holding her, tired, knowing I woud have to get-up for real in less than an hour, I thought: she is almost three, she can dress herself, eat by herself, knows exactly what she wants and gets it, but she is still my baby.