This'n'That

May already.  We leave for France in a few weeks.  Both B and I are looking forward to a vacation and E is really excited as well.

What have we been up to?  Well - E got accepted to the local school, so that's sorted.  He'll be starting Reception (Kindergarten) in September.  He'll only be 4!  They start really early here... and he'll be the youngest in his class.  I'm going to ask them about half days, at least at the beginning.  I also need to ask them about how they treat gifted children because folks... he's definitely reading.  Fluently.  I don't say this lightly, but yeah, when your 3 year old is reading YOUR emails out loud to you, the whole reading thing gets pretty real.  He's so funny because he stumbles over some words and yet reads longer ones.  Still, he's learning at a rapid rate.  And nobody's even teaching him - we do sound out words with him but mostly we just read to him (or, as of lately, let HIM read to us, because he asks to).

Recently we went to the Royal Festival Hall to see a theater production aimed at 2-5 year olds.  It was an interpretive dance with an interactive backdrop.  At 30 minutes long it was about perfect for his attention span.  Here he is all excited to leave and catch the train to Waterloo ('scuse the messy living room):

C has been getting up to mischief as usual.  She's also been sleeping better (most of the time) so it's not unusual for her to go through from 8-5, then back into her cot until 5:45-6.  Still not perfect, and I still definitely don't want to talk to those people who have children who sleep from 7-7 and nap 2 hours, like clockwork.  I pretend they don't exist, or I try to, at least.

Found C wrist deep in the peanut butter jar a few days back. Fortunately it was 95% empty.  She ate that other 5% though, for sure.  With a plastic fork she fished out of the cutlery drawer herself.

Keeping up with them is hard.

Sometimes this happens.

But mostly not.  (That's E asleep in full school uniform, sans shoes.  He was so tired.)

Mostly it's keeping up with a slightly-too-precocious toddler....

...and trying (and sometimes remembering) to savor the moment.

In and around all this I've finished my latest novel.  Historical paranormal romance (ain't that a mouthful?), it's come in at just under 68k.  Revised, it should run around 75k.  I'm taking a few weeks off to write a short story and then I'll, *gulp*, edit, expand, write a synopsis and a query letter, and start fishing for agents.  My other novel's still in a slush pile of some editor's and I've got a short still out as well that I'm going to nudge on tomorrow, since it's been a few months since I've heard from them.

And that's all for now.  Blogger's thrown a curveball at me and changed the layout so this post has taken a bit longer than usual to write... now to find the publish button....