This winter has been pretty stagnant. We've shared colds and coughs (Luc had an ear infection; Frederic and I got bronchitis), and spent many days and weekends inside.

Aria willingly laying on the couch in the afternoon...because she's sick.

And while Luc and Aria now play together and create their own games, it also means they fight even more. Aria gets bossy, Luc thinks he knows better than her and tries to control her, Aria will not have anyone controlling what she does or thinks, and so they fight, kick, hit, and scream...then someone ends up crying.

We finally got a warm 65 degree day yesterday, but since it was raining, we still couldn't enjoy it much. But since we weren't in an arctic freeze, we decided to use our pool membership and visit the indoor pool for the afternoon. What a brilliant idea! Except Aria has turned into our accident-prone child.
First, why does a kiddie pool area have tables and chairs for people to use up 2 concrete stairs that are slippery and barely have a traction strip at the ends of them? Nevertheless, they do. And Aria was going back and forth to find different toys. I went up to the table with her and caught her from falling down the stairs one time. The second time, my reflexes weren't fast enough. And the kids wonder why I tell them to be careful and be aware of their surroundings! Aria grabbed a toy, was turning around to head toward the pool, forgot there were 2 concrete stairs, and fell face forward, landing on her hand (the top side of her hand, not palms). sigh.
With her crying (for 30 seconds because she has some weird super power in regards to pain), I picked her up and thought only her knees were messed up. Nope, she started saying her hand hurt and as I looked at the top of her hand, I see a big cut and it instantly turned blue/purple. I took her to front desk for ice and a band aid. The woman was testing to see whether Aria would hold something in that hand since she was holding it strangely and close to her body, like people do when it's broken. She recommended I take her for an x-ray at an urgent care to be sure it's not broken. Of course it was swollen as well. So I put some ice on it, and she and I got dressed.
Aria fell asleep on the car ride home. So we let her sleep while we showered and I bathed Luc. Since she had started to use her hand and bend her wrist before we left, we decided to see how she used it in the bath to determine whether to take her to the urgent care. I took the band aid off and it didn't look as bad. She was using her hand like normal, so we decided not to take her. We did use some left over gauze wrap from her burns to keep a bandage on and kind of immobilize her wrist. But by the next day at Grandma's, she was asking to take it off.
Seems we lucked out on this one and it's only cut and badly bruised. Whew!

Other Updates:

-Aria is 100% diaper-free (we're using up the last Pull Ups for night time, but she wakes up dry every morning)
-Luc got a great report card for school! He also got a bonus question on a classwork and no one else in the entire class got it right except him. He informed me, "It was easy."
-Luc continues to do really well playing his ukulele. He also taught himself how to play Frere Jacques on the keyboard we set up, by ear.
-Aria's new favorite things: Trolls movie, play-doh creations, pretending to be in school

-Luc's new favorite things: singing along to Trolls in the car, learning and playing around with the keyboard
-We've had many mini jam sessions in the house in the evenings:

-Making crepes with Daddy on the weekends

Aria eating the butter

-Pretending to be in school with school-teacher Daddy. He teaches the alphabet, colors, numbers, shapes in English and French! He also teaches about Belgium.

So the winter continues. Frederic impatiently waits for a big snow storm. I impatiently wait for Spring. Aria impatiently waits for next Fall when she starts school, and Luc impatiently waits for Summer when he can go to the beach, and ride his bike all evening long.