After breakfast this morning Spice decided that my legs looked like a good place to put his head down. Grace was inspired by Spice and joined him to read a story while lying there.

This year a friend and I have been having dinner with each other once a month – a time to catch up, to chat and enjoy each other's company. I have really enjoyed the time to connect and now it is coming to a close, as he is about to embark on a stint in the USA. It has been a pleasure to grow the relationship.

So I went with Duncan and Grace to a swimming lesson today.  It was lovely to watch Grace enjoying the water and really engaging in the various swimming exercises.  She is very comfortable in the water and is basically ready to start individual swimming lessons, where she will learn to swim versus the groups where the focus is more on water safety.  

Grace has been waiting for Keren to arrive and hide the easter eggs/chocolate bunnies away for her to find and today was the big day we had been building up to….except, she did not arrive, at least not until it was too late. So I decided that we could have a mini-hunt as a consolation prize. Grace and I closed the bedroom door and counted to 20 while Donné hid a box of smarties away. Once found the smarties were devoured and we went on waiting for Keren to arrive.

We were walking past a toy shop today and noticed some nice wooden puzzles in the window, and seen as Grace is having a puzzle phase at the moment we decided to get one for her. We walked in and I asked a shop assistant where the puzzles were and she took me to them. I picked up a 50 piece puzzle box.

To get away from the hustle and bustle of shops and people this morning, we took a drive to Zevenwacht Wine Estate.  It had been raining, but when we arrived it stopped and we went for a beautiful walk around the grounds.  Grace has lots of fun walking up the embankment and then “running” down it, watching the ducks and doing a monkey swing / walk holding onto Duncan’s hands.  It really was lovely to enjoy the tranquility and the freshness in the air.      

We have quite a few books which came from my gran and were a part of my childhood. One of those books is "Little Black Sambo," the slightly politically incorrect story of a boy who goes walking through the jungle and meets some tigers on the way. At one point in the story the tigers are fighting and going "grrrr" and Grace has now started doing a kind of throat gurgling "grrrr" whenever the tigers growl. It is very sweet and brings a smile to our faces.

I have a story to share following on Donné's post about sleep. On Tuesday Grace was hassling to go to sleep, even though she was quite tired, and Donné needed to take a break and get out of the house a bit. We have been rocking her (after 30 minutes) but when I took over I just started talking to her to calm her down, something like this,

I love Grace with all my heart and for the most part of the day I think she is extremely cute and adorable.  She makes me laugh and I definitely have many aaahhhh moments, but at around nap time everyday I seem to lose that sweet child.   Grace is an angel at night, we say goodnight to her, she grabs onto monkey and teddy and provided she isn't hot / cold / or need the toilet she puts herself to sleep and sleeps until morning.  

Day naps on the other hand are an entirely different story, we go through our little nap time routine, book, toilet, check to see if we can see any neighbours out the window, neighbours washing on the line or birds. I then usually tell her that all her friends are sleeping, so I list a few kids names and then she tells me its her nap time. So I put her in her cot, put on some music (which she requests), set a timer for 15 minutes and tell her I will be back in to check on in 15 minutes if she needs me and exit the room.  

We have been following this routine since the 16 April.  Before that she would go to sleep nursing, but since the milk factory has now shutdown that isn't an option.  The first 3 days were VERY bad, lots of unhappy Grace, mommy and daddy, but then it got better.  She started putting herself to sleep some days, but it always kind of feels like the planets have to align for it to happen.  So on every other day she usually lies there for about a half an hour (little bit of crying – nothing serious though -, talking to teddy, throwing teddy and monkey out the cot and my all time favourite unzipping her sleep sack, taking it off and then proceeding to take off her pants and panties – one sure way to get my blood pressure up).  During this time we would have gone in at least twice, sometimes more depending on how unhappy she is and then usually after the 30 minutes she gets rocked for 5 minutes and goes to sleep.  

This process makes me GRUMPY and I certainly don't look forward to it.  I know I could just leave the nap and she would fine, she's that kind of a child that has never needed much sleep in the day, but the reality is I still need / want that time to put my feet up or run around getting things done and she definitely functions better in the afternoon having had a nap.  

So if any of you reading this think you may have the answer to, how to get Grace to sleep in the day, please share.

I think the thing that always stands out for me is that when Grace drifts off to sleep in my arms I look down at her and all I see is my beautiful little girl and I'm filled with love and warm fuzzy's 🙂