Grace has started to develop more and more tactics to avoid going to sleep, both during the day and the evening. Mostly she asks to go to the toilet, have something to drink, or have something to eat, so we try to make sure that we have eliminated those options before we even start trying to put her to sleep. She was taking some time to go to sleep after Donné put her down for her afternoon nap today, and I went to check on her. Our discussion went something like this:

Today we celebrated Grace's 2nd birthday…again, this time with our Cape Town friends.It was an absolutely stunning day and perfect for being outside in the garden and playing on the jungle gym. Grace was spoiled yet again (thank you friends).

I got to spend today with special friends and have two and a half hours of pampering – what bliss! Thank you to my special friends and to the men in our lives for looking after the children.

Grace decided that if Coco the cat could hide in the box, so could she. 

Firstly you cross your legs and make sure that you are neatly squished inside the box

Then you close yourself in

And then you go boo

Although the spots on Grace's tummy, back, arms and legs seem to be fading her face looked rather spotty today

Grace has possibly been exposed to the chicken pox virus twice in the last couple of weeks, so when she broke out in a rash yesterday we assumed that it was going to be chicken pox.

On closer inspection this morning it was obvious that it wasn’t the pox so off we went to the doctor. He wasn’t 100% certain but thought it might be measles, but Grace had “measles” at 9 months so how is that possible?

Who knows, but I thought at 9 months (and now again at 2) that she doesn’t have any typical signs of measles except for a rash, fever and swollen glands and well that could be most viral infections. So for now I’m calling it a rash and doing the responsible mommy thing of keeping her away from other children just incase she has measles or something else contagious 🙂

Donné bought Grace a jungle gym for her birthday and it arrived today, to Grace's absolute delight. Waiting while they put it up seemed to be torture for Grace, but I think the cruel part was when the guy said that she can't play on it for two days until it dries….how to teach a two year old delayed gratification. We did let her test out the slide, swing and monkey bars though.

Although Grace is generally a quiet child she has an adventurous spirit and will definitely try most things at least once. Friday when our friends were visiting Caleb asked Duncan to see our worms in our compost heap so Duncan took one out so that Jack, Caleb and Grace could have a look. The boys weren’t all that interested in picking up a worm but Grace was there hand open and willing to let the worm crawl on her. This afternoon we were talking about something which reminded her of the worms and so when Duncan finished working they were back in the garden watching worms wriggle and squirm over her hand.  

Grace really loves all animals (big and small) and does not show fear when it comes to touching or holding them. When we were in Jeffreys Bay she got to touch a monkey at the pet store and she was so delighted to tell me all about it when she came home, telling me she wanted more.

Grace and the worms

Watching them wriggle and squirm on her hand

Yesterday my cousin Leslie and her lovely family came to visit. She has two beautiful girls, Chloë & Robyn, who adore Grace and during their playing Grace managed to spill the last of her bubble mix. Yesterday morning we were going to get some more bubble mix and Grace saw some bubbles with a picture of a dog on them which she wanted, but we had decided to get them some other time. When she spilled the mix I said, "Don't worry Grace, we'll get you some more bubbles tomorrow," to which she answered, "Gog!" (meaning the dog bubbles).

It has been really exciting for us to see Grace’s progress with her speech. It is wonderful to see how much joy she gets from a new word, and also a relief to see her making progress.

Yesterday she started saying, “beep, beep, beep” for the horn on the bus (which sometimes comes out as “meep”). She was also trying to say more words, even though it was often just her mouth moving without any sound.

Today she started meouw-ing while reading a cat book, and she had me in hysterics standing in the bath wee-ing like a boy, laughing and saying, “mee, mee!”