fidean.net

Uh, we’re all getting sick again. It’s been an endless string of colds through the house this winter, with maybe 2-3 weeks in between. Mostly just the same congestion, body aches, drippy head, etc. etc. as always, except for the nasty sinus infection and earache that Autumn had last month. Needless to say, we’re all anxiously awaiting spring.

In non-sick news, Fiona continues her seemingly exponential growth in vocabulary, talking all the time now. She loves to read books to herself and join in on our conversations, making more and more sense all the time. She has also been very busy dressing herself and playing dress-up with her big sister now that she can get most clothes on by herself. Ella is very good at helping too, only occasionally going too far for Fiona’s taste. Fiona is also becoming quite a counter, wanting to count everything. Reading books, she’ll stop to count whatever’s on the page, and now can get up to 4 on her own. Just a couple of weeks ago, she’d count things by pointing to them and saying, “eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine, eight, nine!”

Ella has continued to improve in her reading, and seems to be having a lot of fun with it. Just tonight i had been getting some bedtime things ready, and found Ella sitting at her little table already most of the way through reading Dr. Suess’ ABCs to herself. She’s excited that Fiona is counting, and now wants to start teaching her little sister the ABCs too. They’re having a lot of good play time together now, and it’s amazing to watch them have conversations about this and that.

Autumn did her first triathlon of the year, the indoor Tri-U-Mah race, and did really well. Her swim has been fast this year, but the bike leg has evolved to be her strongest, partly due to the time and miles she’s put in on the basement trainer. Despite the periodic head cold delays, she was able to finish the race 3rd in her age group, and 8th overall for the women. That’s a fantastic job, and a great way to start her race year.

I’ve been helping out a guy in Minneapolis get a web site set up for his new bike shop, Hiawatha Cyclery. I didn’t do the logo (which i like), but designed the website layout and got everything set up. The store blog is online now, and the online catalog should be live in a week or two.

tonight we all headed to oxford pool for some swimming. oxford is the only indoor public pool in st. paul and has a great ‘kiddie’ pool that is only a few feet deep. usually bill will swim with the girls while i do laps, and then we all swim together for a while.

bill had been playing with ella and fi. ella got nearly dunked a couple of times playing with bill, but she still she asked for more of the same. when i was done with laps, we did some dolphin races, with fi riding on bill’s back, and ella riding on mine. after that, ella wanted to search for things on the bottom of the pool. she would put her mask in the water, but not her face. a little later, we played a game where i would go under the water, and ella would put her mask in the water to see if she could see me. after a couple times, she started putting more and more of her face in, then her head, and before we knew it, she was going completely under the water to see me make silly faces, sign ‘i love you’, or just smile at each other. after she realized that it was FUN to go under the water, she wanted to do it again and again and again! even after she got a good dose of water up her nose, she STILL wanted to do it again.

she was so proud, and we were too! when ella was in swimming lessons, going under really freaked her out. we decided to stop lessons because we felt she was getting pushed into doing things she really wasn’t ready to do. getting to the pool a few times a month seems to have broken through her fear - just playing with her parents and sister with no one else around (during the evening lap swim, we’re usually the only people in the kiddie pool, which is nice). ella shared her accomplishment with anyone at the pool who would listen. she’s ready to go back and swim some more!

oxford will be closing in april, but they are closing in order to build a huge new aqua center complete with a zero depth kids play pool w/ slides and fountains. i have the feeling we’ll be spending a lot of time there when it opens. as for this summer, i see lots of trips to como pool and the beach.