Well, summer arrived briefly (27C in the middle of last week, which encouraged a rather pleasant picnic dinner in the park one evening), then abruptly departed (a damp and chilly 9C on Sunday), and today spring seems to be trying to make a belated entry. The weather yoyo has seemingly mirrored other aspects of life over the last week or so. Potty training briefly gained momentum, but has since taken a back seat (so to speak) for a while. First success two weeks ago was followed by further encouragement when la petite coquinette was suddenly amenable to wearing 'big girl's knickers'. However, she was still only informing us about 'pipi' either when it was an event either in progress or already over. Which naturally led to four or five changes of underwear a day and, when it came to going to crèche, it seemed easier and kinder to put her back in nappies. And with a 6 hour cross-Channel train journey coming up this weekend, in nappies she'll stay for a while…
And after several weeks free of the wretched winter illness, last week le rhume struck the youngest member of the family once more, though fortunately a fairly benign strain which did little to put her off her stride. Meanwhile, the move to to a normal bed has been an almost unqualified success. Recently she's even been sleeping (or at least staying quiet) until eight and beyond. Only minor blip came one morning last week when we were roused by a rather plaintive whimpering rather than the more strident demands for attention that are more the norm. La bienheureuse went into la petite chambre to find the little dear curled up under the chair next to the bed. How long she'd been there or how she'd ended up there, only she knows. Our grasp of the syntax, vocabulary and grammar of toddler Franglais isn't yet sufficiently strong to decipher what she may have tried to tell us…
