Monthly Archives: August 2011

Dad-tervention

It was a bit of a rough day for my girls today. Grace was clearly feeling pretty terrible (still not better), and Donné has come down with a cold and is feeling pretty muck (fortunately I seem to have managed to have only a couple of off-ish days over the weekend, but am feeling mostly better).

Grace was super-touchy and crying at just about anything…and crying about nothing…and just feeling really sorry for herself. Donné was pretty touchy seen as she was not feeling too good, which meant the two of them kept bumping heads. Grace was also feeling daddy needy, so there was a lot of "dada, dada" (with the right amount of heart wrenching red, teary eyes, and quivering lip). I had my head buried in work I need to get through. And things appeared to be going in a bad direction.

Okay, time for some dad-tervention. Send Donné off to bed to rest and feel better. Plonk Grace in front of Dora with some food (not ideal, but it it worked). Get some things done (I can now measure work in terms of Dora episodes) and then put Grace to bed. Phew, girls sleeping…all is peaceful. I am glad I could be here when they needed me.

I took Grace to the doctor this afternoon and she has a ear/nose/throat infection. She chirped up this evening, and hopefully she will get better quickly with some medication.

Nut crushing

Grace helping to crush the nuts for breakfast muesli

Counting

Although Grace's speech is coming along nicely and she is saying new words daily, which makes my heart very happy, I often wonder what she is really thinking.  We know that Grace's comprehension is amazing and that she is a serious eavesdropper, evident by her little comments. I suppose that is why I often wonder what is going on in her head, what does she really know about the world that she lives in.  So when Grace counted her little people this morning – all 6 of them – and then counted Dora and her 7 friends this afternoon it made both Duncan and I super happy. (You can definitely make out 1,2,3,4,6 and 8. 5 and 7 were a little nondescript). It's things like this which I assume she knows but because of her speech difficulties can't know for sure, and that makes these moments extra special for me.      

Measuring out birdseed.  Grace is just loving measuring out various liquids, grains etc and transferring it into various containers.

Bird_seed

Swinging 

Swing

Rainy day with friends

I really do feel blessed that even when Grace has "a grumpy, I'm still not feeling great day" I can hang out with friends who love me and love my little girl – thank you Karen.  

Grace inventing a game of soft toy fishing (I really like this photo!)

Fishing

and rounding them up in the tent

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Helping hands

Grace was feeling much better today after a few days of feeling muck with a cold, and a good way to celebrate is with baking – especially if it involves chocolate. She is getting more and more helpful in the kitchen. In the mornings she is now helping me make breakfast by crushing the nuts for the muesli with the motor & pestle. I was surprised by how well she handles the heavy pestle, and she really enjoys helping.

Little Miss Chocolate Face 2011

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Welcome to the family

Grace loves her little people…she really loves her little people. They have a little bag that they travel around in and they get involved in most of her activities. Yesterday the family of little people grew as we welcomed Jess & Jake into the family (along with their slide, seesaw and merry-go-round).

Kitty trying out the new slide. The family even seems to have gotten a dust bunny for a pet.

Wee

There is also a nightly ritual of putting the little people to sleep. Duncan lines them all up and Grace puts the "blankets" (nappy extenders) over them. Just before she goes to bed they are all given an excited good night wave.

The "pee-pee" under their blankets 

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Tearing, scrunching, sticking, drawing!

With Grace still not feeling well, we spent most of today inside, even though it really was a lovely sunny day outside. We did however venture out for a cappuccino to enjoy the sun and a day would not be complete without swinging.  Grace has decided that sticking pieces of paper with glue is lots of fun, so we did an activity that really took me back to my 4th year at university. We tore pieces of paper, scrunched them up and glued the scrunched up pieces of paper,  We then did some decorating with koki pens!  Grace seemed to enjoy it!  

Although the activity had some OT elements I definitely would have failed for structuring / ergonomics of the activity – just look how poorly Grace is sitting 🙂 

Scrunching Paper!  

Scrunch

Gluing 

Stick_it

Decorating

Draw

We did it!

So it turns out that I quite like Dora the Explorer. Maybe it was just growing up with and loving cartoons, but it has grown on me and I enjoying interacting with Grace while we watch together. Oh, and Grace likes it too, particularly the episode about waking up the sun. And her favourite characters? Bennie the Bull ("moo") and Swiper the Fox ("tay," for tail, and then after he is gone, "more"). She likes the songs the most, particularly the "We did it!" song at the end of the episodes, which she asks for by saying, "did, did." She always dances with monkey or kitty during the song.

The downside is having the music stuck in my head all day, but I just make the most of that and sing along.

Quiet Sunday

Being a silly banana (yesterday) while waiting for her parents to decide what they wanted

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I'm not feeling so well, I think I'll have a lie down under my new duvet

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Rainy Saturday play

I really enjoy playing with Grace. Before we became parents I always used to feel a bit awkward around children and not really sure how to interact with them, but now I really love it when I get a chance to just spend time playing with Grace. We had some time this afternoon, playing hide-and-go-seek, pushing Grace around on one of the couch cushions, diving onto the cushions and just generally having some fun. There are certainly many times that I don't make full use of the opportunity to play, but some days it just works and is loads of fun and laughter.

Grace sandwich

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Some of the bird seed cakes fell down in the rain – it looks more like a cat feeder now…not that Spice is a threat to any bird.

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