Catching up after a long month.

Oh wow. I just realized that this is the first time since I’ve had the blog that I’ve not posted a blog in a month! I’ve totally skipped the month of Oct! This is testimonial to how busy bad it has been at work. It’s been super long hours, sometimes up to midnight and up again early to rush to the office. I’ve barely seen the girls, let alone have time to myself. It was difficult to be so distant from the girls for so long, and in fact, I was particularly upset last week when Bibou asked me, ‘how come you weren’t here this morning?’ As she was on vacation from school the past week, she’d been sleeping in while I shoved off to work early in the morning and by the time I get home, she’s fast asleep. Bon, will make it up to her this week. Boss is off on a trip, so I should be a little less busy (though busy enough with all these updating :)).

So, in more than a month, the development in both girls has been astonishing. Bibou has just started her English classes, which she attends once a week, on Thursday after her ‘normal’ school. She started at the Roaming Schoolhouse sometime in late September and is totally enjoying it. And we’ve found that the 1½ extra hour of English really has helped, or rather has allowed the progress that she’s made over the summer to continue. She’s able to communicate more of what she wants, what she’s seen or done just a little more, though most of the time, it is still ‘I don’t know’! She’s doing well at her class, according to her teacher whom I called and spoke to. She interacts very well in class, with the teacher and other students. She’s made loads of friends and participates enthusiastically during class. And apparently, as she gets there early before class starts, she’d help her teacher out, doing little jobs like moving the chairs around, filling pencil pots etc. Social butterfly she is.

Bibou’s absolute favorite activity right now is dancing. She LOVES to dance (ditto Angel who has this completely hilarious way of dancing…more on that later)And recently I’ve discovered that she has the ‘rhythm’! There is a video of her dancing below and you will notice that she’s able to dance to the music, and interpret it very well! All this without any classes or formal instruction! We’re hoping to be able to sign her up at some dance class soon. I think she’s got some potential there, but more importantly, it’s something that she seems to really enjoy.

Angel: ah Angel Angel Angel. She is simply the cutest rascal there is! She’s sooo much trouble, but just is able to get away with it, with that oh so cute and deliciously mischievous look of hers. She is simply so expressive. She’s a real strong headed and determined. (oh yes, we’re in trouble). She’d rather go without then give in to your requests. For example, this morning we were in the bathroom doing our usual morning routine. Now generally she likes to stand on the toilet (lid closed of course! DUH), and watch me put my make-up on. She likes to play with my make-up, opening and closing the lids, using a (old) brush to ‘paint’ (I put some talc on the counter for her to play with). So she came in and demanded to go up on the toilet next to me. So I said, ok, give me a kiss first and I’ll put you on the toilet. She wouldn’t give me a kiss!! She then proceeded to try to climb on the toilet, never letting up. (she’s a BIG climber now, climbing all over the place, onto the couch, Bibou’s bed, on the table, on the chair…ARRGH, we really really have to be on the watch out now, though she really seldom fall. She’s good at it.) She couldn’t get up on it as it was too tall, nonetheless, she wouldn’t give up, and more importantly, she wouldn’t turn to me for help. She was grumbling but she wouldn’t ask me for help! (yes, I did help her up in the end, and no, I didn’t get my kiss!). She’s also a tough cookie to boot! She puts up with bumps and falls without crying most of the time, she just gets up and go. And if it does hurt, she’d cry for a while and then all is forgotten. She does a bit of crocodile tears sometimes though, to see if she can get what she wants, but doesn’t go on and on (unlike BIBOU), she just moves on!

What else: she’s a great imitator now. She repeats certain words after us, such us, ‘ood night’ (good night), ‘up stairs’, ‘ello’ and the very recently, she called out ‘Mummy’ (ooo I had tears in my eyes), and also to our surprise, ‘Bibou’!!! She can throw little temper tantrums, like stamping on her cute little feet, but it doesn’t get her anywhere (for now) as she’s so cute doing that that we all burst out in laughter. She then laughs with us, and all is forgotten. She runs very quickly now and we really have to keep a sharp lookout.

The two girls are getting closer by the minute. Angel won’t go anywhere without Bibou. She’s always searching for Bibou and imitating her (probably where the dancing comes from). Unfortunately, she also loves to bother Bibou…she’s constantly in the way, constantly going up to Bibou to see what she’s doing and if it wasn’t to play with her, she’d grab whatever Bibou is using. And finally, if she doesn’t get enough attention from Bibou, she’d pull Bibou’s hair.

Here’s a batch of movies and photos. Enjoy.

Here are the dancers:

Bibou's dance interpretation.

And this is the most hilarious dance style of Angel!

Have we got another potential ballerina?

Where's your nose?

During a rather wet dismal day, the kids took to running in the house! I had started the 'tag game', and took a break to film them! This was at the end of the day and also at the end of a long 15 minutes of running, Angel was literally out of steam!

Here's how agile Angel is becoming. This film is of her playing with the kids the first time. Daddy had just shown her how to thread the beads. She's really liking them now.

No wonder the girls climb everywhere at home! Daddy encourages them to climb trees :)

Run away....