Chocolat Chaud.

You like how I’m working some of my French skillz into my post titles? With Fiona in a French immersion kindergarten class, I’ve really got to up my game. She brings home a surprising number of new words. Also, she brings home library books en français that are hopelessly out of my league. Like this week’s pick-

J’apprends à lire? More like je n’apprend pas de lire. This shit is full of words I do NOT know how to pronounce, and when I struggle, Fiona looks at me and says “Mum, it’s no problem. Just sound them out!”

Dumb Clochette and her dumb amis de fées playing cache-cache.

But I digress.

This week has been quite lovely, if you discount the nearly hurricane level winds (ok, not really, but it was damn blustery) and the fact that I was unable to move my car for 3 days on account of the back lane being filled with one big slushie (most of the time I love my little car but it is not made for driving in snow). But the temperatures have been warm, and that has been wonderful. Today we even managed to get outside for some backyard skating.

True confession: we haven’t used that rink since my last (only) post about it back in November. Once the thrill of a new idea wore off, I sort of never got around to fully finishing it and smoothing it out nicely, and then it was Christmas, and then it was so cold… so we just kind of ignored it. I shoveled it occasionally, but that’s abouuuuuuuuuut it. But the other day I cleared it, and threw down a few more layers of ice, and while it’s still really bumpy, it’s usable enough for the kiddos to continue learning to stay upright. So we slipped and crawled around out there for a bit, made a bench out of snow on one side, and just generally enjoyed the ability to get fresh air without the danger of frostbite.

And then we returned to the warmth of the kitchen for the après-skate hot cocoa I had to promise in order to get them excited to go outside in the first place. Everyone’s snowpants were drenched, mittens sopping, boots drippy- but they really seemed to enjoy it. Here’s hoping we can do lots more of this.

I think they like the Keurig as much as I do.