This afternoon Grace asked Donné, "How are you feeling mommy?" to which she replied, "Hmmm, I'm not feeling so well," (she's been feeling a bit nauseus and uncomfortable). So Grace says, "It's okay mommy. You stay in bed, I watch two episodes of Mickey Mouse Club." 

When Grace climbed into the car after school today she settled down into her seat, pointed out the window and said, "That's my school! It's a great school."

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Grace has always loved sand art and has recently had a fresh surge of interest in it. What is new this time is her focus and ability to do it on her own.

Grace has never really been into playing with a ball too much. She has always tended to loose interest fairly quickly, but recently it seems like her ball skills are coming in. Now she is loving throwing balloons, hitting a ball with a bat, and (this morning) throwing, kicking, pushing and rolling a beach ball. It is fun to see her exploring these more and having fun playing with them. It’s fun for me too – even if I’m not particularly good at it all.

That is how many it takes to fill Grace's sushi tummy

Everyday we ask Grace, "What did you do at school today?" and pretty much everyday she answers the same thing, "Nothing." For the first while she was answering, "Build horsey puzzle and draw circles," but now we seem to just get the, "Nothing," answer. As the day goes on the happenings at school gradually come out, either when she is swinging or while she is bathing. Today it took most of the day to figure out why everyone had a packet of chips when Donné collected Grace. We guessed it was someone's birthday, and eventually Grace confirmed and let Donné know that there was cake too.

It is just 8 weeks (or less!) to go until our little lad joins us in the world, and I'm feeling quite stressed about it. I am working pretty hard at the moment and am concerned about how life will change once he joins us. I know from experience that life does change significantly, and that it can be quite challenging at times. I am hoping (oh please Lord!) that somehow we will have learnt a bit from the last 3 years of parenting which might help us out a bit, but I do know that he is going to be an entirely different child to Grace and we also have to look after her well at the same time.

Grace and I were throwing a balloon to each other, when she says, "Dance! Dance! Dance!" until we all start dancing. The three of us dance a bit until Grace suddenly says, "Stop. Okay, that's enough of that. Throw balloon." She toddles off, fetches the balloon, we throw it a few times, then, "Stop! That's enough of that." And so the cycle goes.

There is no doubt that Grace knows her swimming lesson exercises well. In the bath she takes Tracy (one of her dolls), hold her legs out straight and kicks away with them, then Tracy does a "chooka train" along the edge of the bath, stops and does a "bouncy bouncy on the wall, bouncy bouncy till we fall" goes onto her back, turns back onto her tummy and grabs the side. Wash, rinse, repeat.

No, not really coming….not right now at least…..but there is that feeling in the air, like the change of seasons or the smell of a thunderstorm. I've been building cupboards, Donne has been tidying, we bought Grace a new car seat today (a booster, which she is very chuffed with), and we bought our first set of nappies. The baby is coming. Just 8 weeks now (officially), but I'm working on 6 for a small margin of safety.