3 YEARS - 11 July 2013

3 is so much better than 2!! It is amazing how much has happened with Liva and Laia over the past months. I assume it also has a lot to do with having moved from "vuggestue" to "børnehave", now they're suddenly the smallest kids among 3-5 year-olds - a lot to live up to when you want to be big girls.
They play really well together, especially with their little kitchen, and the babies and strollers they were given for their birthday. They can spend hours pretending their baby has pooped and wiping her bum, putting them in the stroller and going pretend-shopping or on pretend-vacation. When they go on vacation they give us hugs and kisses goodbye, walk slowly out of the living room while waving all the way, then come running back into the living room after 3 seconds wanting hugs and kisses; they've just come home after a long vacation, we should be happy to see them. Albert and I love this game, hugs and kisses are always great! (And we get to sit on the couch and do nothing except get and give hugs and kisses - perfect!).
They are also much better behaved, and much easier to reason with. They are starting to understand why they shouldn't do things, or why we get angry, annoyed, sad, irritated or whatever in certain situations. Of course they still throw tantrums and tease each other, and of course we are still about to explode at times, but it is getting better, and we can feel it. Every day a bit more.
I just wish Liva and Laia would learn to sleep in the mornings... They wake up somewhere between 5:30 - 6:00. It makes no difference if they don't nap, are put to bed later, the room is dark, whatever. If they don't nap they get cranky and impossible by 17:00, and the evening gets really long. If they are put to bed later they are just cranky all morning the following day, until they finally get to take their nap. We know it's not a 1-day thing, so we have tried for weeks to put them to bed later, hoping they'd sleep a bit longer in the morning. All we got were 2 cranky girls. So they still go to bed around 19:00, and are up and ready for the day before 6:00. Every day.... But at least they are usually rested and in a good mood, and Albert and I have the evenings to rest. We do sometimes feel like chicken when we collapse in bed by 22:00, but hey, that's been a long day for us... We'll probably miss it when they're teenagers, refusing to get out of bed in the mornings! :)