A quiet week

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, there hasn't been much exciting to note! Paul worked all week (except for a half-day Tuesday, see below), and Charlotte and I didn't get out much due to cold, wind, hail (!), & snow. In fact, we woke up this morning to a solid inch of snow outside... not quite the same as Blizzard 2015 that hit the East Coast of the US this week, but it was a wintry wonderland nonetheless.

View out the door of the Old Dairy (Paul had already left, leaving the non-snowy space & tracks!)

We did find out that our applications were approved for renting "House #3." Hooray! We went to the housing office at Alconbury on Tuesday (Paul took a half-day so we could run these errands). Since the government pays for our housing here, they have to do an inspection and review the lease before we sign anything. They called the letting agency and arranged to do the inspection on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday, I missed a call from the housing office guy (seems like people call when I'm putting Charlotte down for a nap, doesn't fail!) then couldn't get a hold of him. Paul did speak with him later in the day, and found out there are a few repairs that need to be made before we sign the lease -- no smoke detectors in the house (!!!), window blinds not up to code (there is a certain level of child safety feature required, which these do not have), and some exposed wiring on a couple of light fixtures. It sounds like the landlord was going to work to fix these issues over the weekend, so the housing office can re-inspect on Monday. We are hoping things are all fixed up, so we can set a date to sign the lease and move in later in the week.

Charlotte and I had a battle of the wills yesterday, in that she wanted to wake up at 5:15 am (ummm nope) and I was Mean Mama and didn't get her out of her crib. She cried on and off till 5:50 am, with a few reassurances from me. When she fell back asleep, I was (of course) awake until she woke up again at 7 am, then we snoozed together in my bed until 8:30. This apparently threw her sleep schedule off enough that she REFUSED to nap at all until 2:15 pm... skipped her morning nap entirely. My attempts to have her take said morning nap were met with banshee screams for almost an hour. My nerves = fried. But she slept in until 7:15 this morning without a peep (yay!) and took 2 solid naps. Hoping Thursday was just an anomaly. Maybe she's teething, I can always blame teething, right?

Other than that, she's been showing off her language comprehension skills with pointing out her body parts, her zipper, various items of clothing, getting books/balls/diapers when we ask her where they are. She has enjoyed playing with a dustpan/broom and carrying around our shoes a lot. I made her a "fort" with our suitcases and she has showed occasional interest when we point it out to her, but not as big a hit as I thought it might be.

Supervised banana eating

Here's my awesome dust pan

Let me sweep your leg, mom.

Suitcase fort! Reading my library book

Trying to find my belly button under my clothes

We don't have any big plans for the weekend, except hitting up the base library at some point (since last Sunday I already finished The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, which I enjoyed) and maybe meeting baby Gus, our friends' little guy who finally decided to join us!