Signs of (New) Normalcy

It felt like this week we glimpsed what life could be like soon.  We changed strategies with daytime naps and they got better, we both managed to get out for a run, our new place is pretty much together, paperwork got done, Nicole did some great cooking, and Lily did really well in her first week of kindergarten.  We're getting some help during the afternoons that enables a lot of this, but it still feels like things are getting a bit easier.

We had been holding the twins in our arms until they were nodding off for naps, but this week we changed gears to put them down much earlier.  We still wait for a drowsy sign, usually rubbing eyes or a yawn, but then put them down after singing a couple of songs, usually fairly awake.  Most of the time they've been falling asleep with only a few minutes of crying, or sometimes no crying at all.  Yes, most of the naps are still half an hour and yes, Paul bucked the trend today by crying for quite a while for all three of his naps.  But overall we're much happier to be doing a lot less holding.  Still waking up once almost every night, but we can't complain much about that.  Here are Paul and Elise in their night sleep outfits.

Lily got off to a good start at kindergarten.  It was a short week due to Easter Monday, and she hasn't stayed all the way to 2 o'clock yet, but she was well behaved and seemed to enjoy it.  Apparently it's very normal for moms to stay with first-timers nearly the whole first day, but Lily has been used to "going to school" from her playgroups over the past seven months or so.  The teachers were pretty surprised that Nicole essentially dropped her off, but Lily did fine and got picked up around 11.  The rest of the days she stayed through lunch (she's been telling us about how she washes her plate and hands after lunch) and this week she will probably start staying until 2.  Sadly we didn't get a good picture of her first day, but she wore a nice dress and looked very cute with her usual bee backpack.

Lily also went back to the ear doctor for a re-check.  It seemed like her hearing was pretty much, if not all better over the past week or so.  According to the doc, it's now all better in one ear, and up to 90% back to normal in the other ear.  She did really well at the doctor, no fear at all.  It probably helped that there were some fun toys there and she got a couple of gummy bears as a reward, but I'm almost as glad that she was good as I am that her ears are almost back to normal.