Short video of Eleanor and Sofia playing

Jam Session

Daddy feeding S rice

Daddy feeding S rice, originally uploaded by trayflow.

We have decided to start giving Sofia some rice cereal. She loves it! She gets really excited and tries to put the spoon in her mouth. She smiles and laughs and opens her mouth for food. Yesterday I made her two bowls 2 hours apart. I am using 1 tablespoon milk (formula or breast milk when I can get some out) to one teaspoon rice. Tom fed her last night so they can have some bonding time and she had such a good time.

Holiday Plans

I was trying to upload a video of Sofia but the last few we have taken don't seem to be working properly. The video and the sound don't line up so it looks really funny when trying to watch it. I will have to try again later to see what is wrong. She is doing an awful lot of squeaking and jabbering these days!

We have returned from the US and Portugal and have been trying to get ourselves a little bit settled. I think I finally have all of the laundry done and everything put away...and we are leaving Friday for France. So, I have been busy trying to get everything sorted for our trip. I have loads to do! US Taxes are complete and sent to Ernst and Young (always a horrible thing to have to do, taxes) so now I just need to pack.

Friday evening we will take the ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge, Belgium. Our plan is to stay in the Dordogne region. It will take two days to get down there so we will stop near Orléans the first night and then Puy de Dome volcanic region the second night. From there we stay five nights in a gite not far from Bergerac in a town called St. Germain du Salembre near Neuvic. On the way back to the ferry we have two nights again but don't really know where we are going to stay yet. There are so many things to see and do around where we are staying so I hope the weather cooperates so we can be out and about every day!

This will be Sofia's first ferry trip and road trip. Tom and I are hoping we are ok with seasickness! It will be a long night if we are sick.

We should have internet access while we are in France so we will try to get some photos online while we are there.

Little Girl with a Curl

When I was in the US people kept quoting the first verse of this poem to me and I had never heard it before. I looked online and found three verses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The first verse is commonly incorrect as it is here. It should read:

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

I kept this one below intact because I found it this way. Sadly, she is losing her little curl/swirl in the middle of her forehead. I guess she doesn't want to grow up with a curl right there.

There was a little girl

And she had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead,

When she was good,

She was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

She went up-stairs,

And he parents unawares,

Was a-looking out of the window;

She stood on her head,

In her little trundle-bed,

And nobody near to hinder.

Her mother heard the noise,

And she thought it was the boys,

A playing in the empty attic;

But she ran up-stairs,

And caught her unawares,

And spanked her most emphatic

I also found this version for the second and third verse:

She screamed and she squalled

and she yelled and she bawled

And she drummed her little heels against the window.

Her Mother heard the noise

and thought it was the boys,

Playing in the empty attic....

So she went upstairs

and caught her unaware,

and spanked her most emphatic!